tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61118222834763907412024-03-15T08:01:08.523-07:00Splashing RocksG. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-30907965797498251052021-10-06T09:34:00.002-07:002021-10-06T17:16:06.575-07:00GARLAND'S LAWLESS TOTALITARIAN TACTICS TO SUPPRESS AN ANGRY PARENT UPRISING<p> <span style="font-size: large;"> Parents nationwide are belatedly waking up and vigorously resisting the poisonous programs being inflicted on their children in our public schools. But Biden's ruthless Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has begun to employ totalitarian measures worthy of Stalin and Mao to suppress this righteous democratic movement. Garland is now labeling justifiably restive parents as "domestic terrorists" and marshalling the collective resources of the FBI and the nation's U.S. Attorneys in an unprecedented governmental assault on the right of parents to protect their children from educational abuse. The aroused parents, however, have no plans to submit to such blatant fascist oppression.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm23qJys-V1ST8ECJb6HMf1vM7LTVxlFKxCfvtk-t5k0vQr_q3gF0xnNSi5G1YY3jLmQq7nx1MqfDS_S7VCYtvkTom92l5MjexGj74DHBtfx7Uudeg-7mhhjz2Y2Et7Lt3-oL3vxvvcqA/s760/scolbd.moms.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="760" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm23qJys-V1ST8ECJb6HMf1vM7LTVxlFKxCfvtk-t5k0vQr_q3gF0xnNSi5G1YY3jLmQq7nx1MqfDS_S7VCYtvkTom92l5MjexGj74DHBtfx7Uudeg-7mhhjz2Y2Et7Lt3-oL3vxvvcqA/s320/scolbd.moms.webp" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Garland sets DOJ's sights on soccer mom "domestic terrorists"</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> * * *</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Probably the most serious and pernicious problem now infecting the schools is the deliberate oppression of white children in the name of leftist canards such as "white privilege," "white supremacy," so-called Critical Race Theory (CRT), and the fraudulent "1619 Project" (designed to portray our Founding Fathers as racist villains). These programs, adopted and enforced by leftist school boards and allied teachers unions, inflict an enormous emotional and psychological toll on white children by shaming and bullying them for the crime of being white. It is remarkable that these programs have not yet been successfully challenged in court on the grounds that <i>they create a racially oppressive educational environment in violation of Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act and other antidiscrimination laws</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> This phenomenon is poisonous and widespread and must be stopped. Fortunately, however, thousands of parents throughout the country are beginning to recognize this menace and raise their voices (often in public school board meetings) to protect their children.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Elsewhere, many school systems are requiring young K-through 12 school children to wear uncomfortable and confining masks all day in school, purportedly to prevent further spread of Covid-19. These requirements are mindless, unscientific, ineffective, and gravely harmful to the children, and are opposed by many parents for that reason. Governments and boards imposing these ludicrous policies refuse to undertake, let alone to follow, the cost-benefit analysis which would expose them for the follies that they are. Young school children are not vulnerable to Covid like the elderly (let alone to serious consequences from it), but they <i>are</i> vulnerable to the psychological, sociological, and educational harms caused by covering their young faces with creepy, germ-laden, and dehumanizing masks throughout the school day. But the school systems that enforce these mask mandates simply don't care; they prefer to wallow in the empty virtue-signaling of Covid fanatacism.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> A further educational atrocity embraced by various state and local governments and school boards is the assault on merit and superior attainment by some categories of students, particularly in the science, math, and STEM subjects. It is hard fact that Asian-American students, and to a lesser extent white students, vastly outperform black and Hispanic students in these fields. As one result of this, the former cohorts far surpass the latter in admissions to selective magnet schools emphasizing STEM curricula (such as Fairfax County, Virginia's, illustrious Thomas Jefferson High School). Similarly, young Asian-Americans' superior academic performance has enabled them to gain a disproportionate share (relative to their percentage of the overall student population) of admissions to elite universities -- although the adoption of extreme racial preferences for blacks and other minorities by many such universities is now artificially (but intentionally) suppressing and reducing their Asian-American admissions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In response to these circumstances, various state and local governments are taking outrageous measures to narrow the so-called "gap," or level the academic playing field, as between primarily Asian-Americans, on the one hand, and primarily blacks, on the other. On a broader level, they are actually eliminating advanced math and science courses in many schools because blacks and Hispanics do not pursue or qualify for such programs to the same extent as Asian-American or white students. Additionally, the necessarily demanding standards for admission to elite magnet and STEM schools like Thomas Jefferson are being eliminated or diluted for the sole purpose of increasing the admission of black and/or Hispanic students who otherwise could not meet those standards, and reducing the admission of Asian-Americans who <i>do</i> meet those standards. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In short, <i>excellence in public education is being deliberately abandoned </i>in order to appease the political demands of the race-obsessed left. And this comes at a time when our education standards urgently need to be <i>strengthened</i> in the face of global surveys consistently demonstrating that the students of East Asian nations (including China) are vastly outperforming American students, especially in STEM fields.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> * * *</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Rightfully aroused parents are now (if belatedly) rising up to oppose these pernicious policies and programs in school board hearings, legislative settings, and other public forums. In the face of arrogant disregard for their concerns by many school boards and other educational agencies, justifiably irate parents have actually raised their voices, and maybe even occasionally shook their fists, in the time-honored (and constitutionally protected) tradition of "robust and wide-open debate" repeatedly enshrined in the Supreme Court's First Amendment decisions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Lamentably, however, the Biden Administration and many state and local governments have little sympathy for parental concerns regarding the educational welfare and well-being of their children. So far from lending any support to such parental concerns -- some of which are based on <i>legal and constitutional violations of their children's rights</i> -- the Biden totalitarians and many state and local governments have turned against the nation's concerned parents and actually threatened them with <i>investigation and prosecution for the crime of rising in defense of their children</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The most egregious and disgusting example of this outrage is the recent announcement by Biden's Stasi-like Attorney General, the odious Merrick Garland, that the federal government will investigate and pursue these aroused parents as though they were "domestic terrorists."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Characterizing legitimate parental complaints as "harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members," Garland issued a deeply menacing totalitarian decree on October 4. Garland's decree announced nationwide deployment of the FBI and the Justice Department's Criminal, Civil, and National Security Divisions, as well as all the Department's U.S. Attorneys, in a totalitarian investigation and persecution of parents who vigorously defend their children's educational safety against the dangerous abuses of the radical educational policies described above. Relatedly, a telephone hotline is to be established facilitating the reporting of allegedly excessive protests and similar parental misbehavior (undoubtedly by leftist "citizen snitches").</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> A more outrageous and oppressive abuse of governmental authority would be difficult to imagine. When issued by the man who is responsible for the enforcement of the nation's constitution and laws, this complete subversion of law, truth, and justice is doubly distressing. Garland's decision and directive reflect a complete corruption and distortion of the actual facts at hand.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In fact, if any offenses requiring DOJ investigation are occurring in this context, it is not the vigorous exercise of First Amendment rights by rightfully angry parents. Rather, it is <i>the cultivation of a racially hostile education environment</i> through the shaming and oppression of white children by accusing them of collective "white privilege;" declaring them guilty of bogus "white supremacy;" and in some cases even forcing them to confess their racial guilt in exercises of self-criticism reminiscent of Maoist China's Cultural Revolution. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The creation of these conditions in various public school systems violates the anti-discrimination prohibitions of Titles VI and IX of the federal civil rights acts. These are the kind of blatant illegalities that the Justice Department should be investigating and prosecuting. Instead, Merrick Garland and his DOJ and FBI jackboots are marshaling their enforcement resources against the concerned and frustrated parents whose children are the victims of these race-based educational abuses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Moreover, Garland's claim that it is the frustrated parents' protests against school system abuses that may violate federal law is a complete perversion of the actual truth. On the contrary, Garland and his DOJ/FBI minions have studiously ignored <i>actual conspiracies to suppress civil rights</i> engaged in by the <i>proponents</i> of the above-described educational abuses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> A prime example occurred in March of this year in Loudoun County, Virginia. When various parents expressed concern about the dangers and fallacies of the so-called "equity" and diversity programs (including CRT propaganda) being inflicted on their children, the leftist proponents of these programs quickly conspired to suppress the incipient protests. A group of current and former teaches, officials (apparently including the county prosecutor), and other activists, employing a 624-member Facebook group, compiled a list of those parents suspected of disagreeing with the racialist programs. The evident purpose of the undertaking was to infiltrate the protesting parents, expose and shame them publicly, and even to use hackers to suppress the objecting parents' communications.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The malicious campaign by the Loudoun educational leftists presents a textbook example of the kind of criminal conspiracies to suppress the exercise of constitutional rights prohibited by18 USC sec. 241and civilly actionable under 42 USC sec. 1985. Section 241 applies when "two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person" in the exercise or enjoyment of their constitutional rights -- including the rights of free speech and assembly and to petition the government for redress of grievances. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Needless to say, the Biden/Garland Justice Department neither noticed nor responded to this patent conspiracy to suppress parental protests. On the contrary, they have declared war on the parental and student victims of these systemic educational abuses and openly allied the federal government with the perpetrators of these educational outrages.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> If there were any doubt as to the lawless malice of Garland and his legal dragoons at the Justice Department and the FBI, Garland's marshaling of the full panoply of federal enforcement resources to persecute the justified protest of student parents should remove it once and for all.</span></p>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-23455752966574629122021-05-19T08:08:00.001-07:002021-05-19T08:35:55.173-07:00CONFRONTING CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN OUR SCHOOLS<p> <span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">The insidious and divisive doctrine of Critical Race Theory ("CRT") has been rapidly imposed on the classrooms of schools throughout America, with little or no input or approval from the parents of victimized schoolchildren. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Originated by radical leftists and afro-racists, the doctrine is premised on the canard that American is a racist nation and that white persons (including entirely innocent children) are racists who must continuously make amends for the "white privilege" that exists only in the fictional America lurking in the twisted minds of the left. Young schoolchildren throughout America are the victims of this ideological distortion of school curricula, including the shaming and bullying of bewildered white children who are forced to acknowledge the fictitious white privilege that have never experienced in fact.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Better late than never, American parents and many state and local governments have finally started to push back against this toxic and demoralizing academic fraud. Some states and counties have passed laws or regulations to ban CRT or comparably racist programs from the public schools, recognizing that they are harmful for children of all races and present a false and subversive portrayal of American History.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZoSWlyrz8QDQ4aPl0nAt6svqB9zLS8G9QjUb1R6RWD045WMsuqT2PmS59RV_YDvtox_NaMQ1ksro_Ti5yvBg6ILKzGQZ5PBKKgiMf078A7aoqRYepV1-fry0_dOdjHcd4tUNsxooL1z8/s595/TJ.WILLIAMSBURG+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="573" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZoSWlyrz8QDQ4aPl0nAt6svqB9zLS8G9QjUb1R6RWD045WMsuqT2PmS59RV_YDvtox_NaMQ1ksro_Ti5yvBg6ILKzGQZ5PBKKgiMf078A7aoqRYepV1-fry0_dOdjHcd4tUNsxooL1z8/s320/TJ.WILLIAMSBURG+-+Copy.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Under CRT, Jefferson and his fellow Founders would be benched as accused racists</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Meantime, however, the Biden Administration is not only embracing CRT, but seeking to use federal educational grant authority to enforce its adoption by federal schools nationwide. The Department of Education (DOE) is currently considering a rule for "Proposed Priorities: American History and Civics Education." Under the cover of seemingly innocuous objectives such as "culturally responsive teaching," DOE is actually seeking to impose both CRT and the equally false and divisive "1619 Project" (desribed below) on public school curricula using the coercive power of federal grantmaking authority.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Embedded below are the written comments submitted by SR editor G. C. Smith, opposing this radical and divisive proposal and explaining some of its dangers and fallacies. Hopefully, many other concerned citizens, parents, and groups will take a similar stand against CRT, both in this rulemaking and in other legislative and regulatory forums. Whether such opposition will be successfully in the current DOE rulemaking remains to be seen, but we expect that growing citizen opposition to CRT indoctrination will ultimately halt and reverse its infestation of our nation's classrooms.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Comments on Docket (ED-2021-OESE-0033), Dept. of
Education<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Proposed Priorities:
American History and Civics Education<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These comments are
submitted by George C. Smith, a retired attorney who has served in both the
Department of Justice/Office of Legal Counsel and the Senate Judiciary
Committee. I am also the grandfather of
nine youngsters who would be affected by this unsound and divisive proposal.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My comments are mainly addressed to Proposed Priority
1.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I emphatically reject the false
premises of the Proposal and strongly oppose their content, promulgation, and
adoption.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If adopted by our schools, the proposed priorities and
strategies (which aim to impose the doctrine of Critical Race Theory and the
so-called “1619 Project” under various euphemisms) would not only expose
children to a false and racially biased portrayal of U.S. history, civics, and
government; but would entail the ideological and cultural shaming, and
resultant bullying, of entirely innocent white children (and other affected
children as well, such as East Asians) by school authorities and teachers.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This kind of in-class humiliation of white
children, comparable to the kind of ideological self-criticism demanded by the
Red Guards in Maoist China, is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">already</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
being perpetrated under the doctrine of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its
variants in various public schools.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This divisive approach will also injure the
interests of children of all races, including blacks, by poisoning the
educational atmosphere with falsified and racially divisive programs and
policies.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Priorities proposed under this
Proposed Rule would expand and reinforce such wrongful and divisive practices
using the compulsion of federal grant making and funding authority, and codify
them as official federal education policy.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">They should be abandoned in their
entirety.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Although the Proposed Priority is couched in deceptively
innocuous language (there is nothing objectionable in encouraging diverse
viewpoints in curricula, for example), this bureaucratic jargon obscures the
true object of imposing the distorted and racially divisive CRT theory, along
with the fabricated and misleading historical approach of the so-called “1619
Project.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When the true object and
effects of the Proposed Priorities are identified, it becomes evident that they
are not only harmful and divisive as a matter of policy, but could easily
entail unconstitutional (e.g., coerced student and teacher speech violating the
First Amendment and racially discriminatory educational practices violating the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clauses) and unlawful (e.g.,
creation of a racially oppressive educational environment in violation of
federal civil rights statutes) effects.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Priorities’ “Background” section exposes its radical
and racialist ideological foundations and purposes.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">First, the PP sets out, and is grounded upon, the false
premise that the United States is a racist nation immersed in “systemic racism”
which can only be rectified by what it refers to as a government imposed
“racial equity” agenda, “including in our education system.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This premise is false and conclusory.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It is nothing more than an ideological
canard.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Even President Biden and Vice
President Harris recently and expressly agreed with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
that America is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">not,</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> in fact, a
“racist country.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The fact, for example,
that the federal and state governments have adopted and imposed racially </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">preferential</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> programs for blacks (and
other minorities) in education, employment, housing, agriculture, and other
areas since the late 1960’s and onward in itself negates the premise of
“systemic racism.”</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Secondly, the Priority invokes the so-called “1619 Project”
as the kind of material that should be used “in the teaching and learning of
our country’s history.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In short, the
distorted, misleading, historically inaccurate, and ideologically motivated
writing of a radical NY Times reporter is proposed to supplant the
distinguished and scholarly historical writings that have long and rightly recognized
the world-changing greatness of the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution
(e.g., James T. Flexner’s “Washington:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
Indispensable Man”).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The 1619 Project
falsely denigrates the American Revolution itself, and the greatness of the
ideas, ideals, and courage of the heroes who founded the Nation that introduced
and refined the principles of liberty, rule of law, and equality before the law
that ultimately resulted in the defeat of slavery in the Civil War and the
subsequent enactment of laws establishing the great principles of equal
protection under the law and nondiscrimination.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Adoption of the 1619 Project (or its equivalent) as the model for
history education in our schools, as implicitly advocated by the Priority,
would result in an insidious and misleading distortion of American History
indicting our Founding Fathers and their successors as nothing more than racist
oppressors.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Our schools would be induced
to supplant history lessons with ideological indoctrination.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thirdly, the Priority favorably invokes the views of the
radical racialist extremist Ibram X. Kendi in advocating the incorporation of
misnamed “anti-racist practices into teaching and learning.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Unfortunately, the code-word “anti-racist”
does not comport with its seemingly neutral and unobjectionable phrasing.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Under Kendi’s approach, any policy or
practice that does not produce so-called “racial equity” violates the
anti-racist principle.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But the “racial
equity” advocated by Kendi and other radical CRT advocates does </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">not</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> mean the equal protection enshrined
in the Constitution (which Kendi considers racist) or the equal opportunity
enforced by our civil rights statutes.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Rather, it demands government-enforced equal outcomes and the
elimination of all inter-racial gaps in educational, professional, or economic
areas of activity, regardless of actual merit or aptitude.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Relatedly, Kendi asserts that all performance
and achievement discrepancies between racial groups are the result of “racist
policies.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is demonstrably false,
and flatly inconsistent with the equal protection and equal opportunity
standards of our Constitution and laws, which are premised on equal opportunity
rather than equal results.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Such flawed
and invalid views should not be embraced as a premise of the Proposed
Priorities.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Finally, it is evident that the Proposed Priority would
shift the emphasis in history and civics education in our schools from an
objective and fact-based review of our Nation’s history --including recognition
of its unmatched accomplishments in pioneering the principles of a constitutional
democratic republic -- to an ideologically driven and unbalanced obsession with
the unfortunate racial problems that have undoubtedly marred our history.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">While history courses should surely address
those problems thoroughly and critically, they should also include balanced coverage
of the extensive and far-reaching laws and programs devoted to rectifying those
problems, including the innumerable remedial federal and state civil rights
laws enacted and expanded since the 1960’s.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It is evident, however, that the Proposed Priorities tied so closely to
Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and other extreme ideological
approaches would provide instead an imbalanced, divisive, and educationally
disruptive approach.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-39966157329170541852021-02-24T09:08:00.003-08:002021-02-25T15:37:33.922-08:00Virginia Bans Death Penalty but Leaves Prison Workers to Face the Consequences<p> <span style="font-size: large;"> The Virginia legislature has just abolished the state's death penalty, which had been in place for the entire history of the commonwealth. Once the governor signs the abolition legislation, as he surely will, Virginia will become the first southern state to ban capital punishment.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Virginia's abolition of capital punishment did not respond to any strong public demand for such action, with the latest Gallup poll showing that 55% of Americans still support the death penalty for murderers. Releasing vicious murderers from the just punishment for their crimes would certainly rank near the bottom of Virginia citizens' concerns in these times of economic and social despondency.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> But <i>Virginia is now a one-party, left-wing state</i>; Democrats now control both houses of the state legislature, all three of the state's executive positions, its federal congressional delegation, and both of its U.S. senate seats. Consequently, the "progressive" automatons in the Virginia legislature can pass any extreme leftist bill they want, regardless of popular preferences; conservatives and Republicans simply have nowhere to turn in Virginia, since their Democrat "representatives" scornfully disregard whatever hapless opposition they might raise against such bills. Death penalty abolition was merely the latest exercise of the leftist tyranny that now governs Virginia.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The repeal was surrounded and "justified" by the usual fusillade of falsehood and fraudulence, including the canard that "innocent" citizens are the frequent victims of erroneous capital convictions (convictions that are obtained only after the most rigorous and demanding procedures, standards of proof, and appellate scrutiny that can be devised by the leftists who dominate the legal and judicial establishments). And, like the "usual suspects" of <i>Casablanca</i> fame, the virtue-signaling repeal advocates dragged out the persistently repeated fiction that the death penalty is discriminatorily imposed against blacks, when (as SR has <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2018/10/washington-state-court-perpetrates.html">repeatedly demonstrated</a>) the opposite is the case.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> During the last three reported years (2016-18), for example, 43 whites were executed compared to 16 blacks (<i>see</i> BJS, <i>Capital Punishment 2018</i>, Table 12) -- even though <a href="https://www.amren.com/news/2020/09/fbi-blacks-made-up-55-9-of-known-murder-offenders-in-2019/">blacks commit about 50% </a>of the murders which alone can justify the death penalty under Supreme Court precedent. Nonetheless, the Virginia democrats invoked the ACLU's demonstrably false claim that "people of color" constitute "55% of those currently on death row across the country." Had the legislators seen fit to devote two minutes to on-line research to verify such claims, they could have learned that, on the contrary, <i>whites</i> constitute 55.9% of those on death row, with blacks constituting only 41.6% (<i>Id.</i>, Table 5). Needless to say, however, the Virginia democrats had no interest in learning such inconvenient truths.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1dP60ZklMgB3A_gwBFKQnhTk0Gk3HeWa0OPHdE9za63ZdFgDjOQfP9DqbPx160v7Uta2-o8LDgYyzIbilAdlIQJFcUKrNQ5jAavSdQmP-fTCEmEuWt8Wh1Iu_to-fPVhAIU-ZGbE4fs/s350/Lecter.blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="350" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1dP60ZklMgB3A_gwBFKQnhTk0Gk3HeWa0OPHdE9za63ZdFgDjOQfP9DqbPx160v7Uta2-o8LDgYyzIbilAdlIQJFcUKrNQ5jAavSdQmP-fTCEmEuWt8Wh1Iu_to-fPVhAIU-ZGbE4fs/w320-h210/Lecter.blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <b>Virginia dropping death penalty leaves prison guards to deal with the charming inmates so mercifully spared</b><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Nor did they consider what may be the most cogent, but least publicized, argument for retaining the death penalty, especially in the case of the most brutal and violent murderers. This is the principle of specific deterrence -- i.e., the indisputable fact that brutal killers who are executed can never again murder or brutalize anyone. Period. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The significance of this factor was ironically underscored in a seemingly unrelated report published on the same day as the Virginia death penalty story. That report concerned the murder of an Indiana prison official by an inmate who had been spared the death penalty for prior murders -- to the extreme cost of the prison personnel charged with his supervision and maintenance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Death penalty abolitionists blithely discount the significance of this issue, apparently believing that life imprisonment is a sufficient punishment and deterrent for even the most heinous and menacing murderers -- think of the fictional Hannibal Lecter or, more seriously, his numerous real-life counterparts. They also seem to believe that incarceration for life or its equivalent in a high security prison disposes of any argument that the unexecuted killer will no longer pose a fatal threat. They are very wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In the recent Indiana case, the inmate was serving a 130-year sentence at a so-called "maximum security" prison for a triple murder in 2002. Such prison security apparently proved inadequate, however, when the prisoner fatally stabbed one corrections officer and seriously injured another. Had this inmate been sentenced to death and executed, the prison officials charged with his confinement health and maintenance would have been spared their own murder or maiming. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The Virginia legislators and governor who abolish the death penalty can pat themselves on the back and smugly walk safely away from the consequences of their virtue-signaling. Not so, however, the corrections personnel who are left with the guarding, supervision, maintenance, feeding, and health care of the often dangerous and menacing monsters whose lives are spared by abolitionists. It bears emphasis, moreover, to note that there is no remaining legal deterrent for inmates serving a life sentence in a state that has abolished the death penalty, other than possible solitary confinement (which some of such freaks might prefer). The recent murder of prison officials in Indiana is merely the latest demonstration of this grim reality.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The risk of harm or death to prison personnel is not the only reason why the specific deterrence of capital punishment was wrongfully overlooked by the Virginia legislature and governor. As SR has demonstrated in a <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2015/06/cuomo-is-morally-complicit-in-new-york.html">prior post</a>, murderers spared the death penalty can and do escape from prison and expand the danger they present from prison personnel to the general populace. The notorious 2015 escape of two convicted murderers in anti-death penalty New York, which endangered countless citizens and necessitated an enormous expenditure of state and federal personnel and financial resources, provides further emphatic proof that death penalty abolition entails costs and risks that legislatures like Virginia's cavalierly ignore, with potentially fatal consequences to the innocent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Thus, after the Virginia legislators and governor finish congratulating themselves for their "compassionate" abolition of the death penalty, prison guards, health care and food service personnel, and other corrections officials will be left to face the grave risks posed by the continuing care and feeding of society's most menacing murderers. Perhaps exposing the legislators to the serious daily risks faced by the forgotten prison personnel would give them the perspective they lacked when they extended their misguided compassion to the Hannibal Lecters of Virginia.</span></p>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-40794452345706691442021-02-23T08:53:00.001-08:002021-02-23T09:34:12.857-08:00U.S. Racial Obsessions Preclude Global Parity in Math and Science<p><span style="font-size: large;"> In an article posted in 2018 ("<a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2018/11/east-asia-defies-diversity-delusion.html">East Asia Defies Diversity Delusion</a>"), SR reported how East Asian youngsters were trouncing their global peers (including the U.S.) in math and science performance measures. The article further explored how countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were excelling in these and other measures of civilizational progress despite, or perhaps because of, their extraordinary ethnic homogeneity and corresponding lack of the diversity so highly valued in the U.S.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The latest surveys by the Program for International Studies Association (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) again confirm that the East Asian STEM juggernauts -- Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and 4 China Provinces -- continue to vastly outperform other nations in math and science student performance, including the U.S.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In the 2019 PISA Survey, for example, the East Asian nations took the top seven slots, with the U.S. ranked a lowly <i>37th</i>. In science, the U.S. ranked 18th, again badly trailing the East Asian nations as well as such western nations as Estonia, Finland, and Canada.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In the face of these dismal global rankings, one would expect the U.S. would adopt stringent measures to bolster its youngsters' math and science performance. On the contrary, however, U.S. education policy makers and governments seem determined to <i>lower or eliminate</i> standards of educational performance excellence in the interests of race-based affirmative action and proportional representation goals. Global competitors such as China may be excused if they collapse in hysterical laughter at America's ludicrous, self-defeating educational priorities.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> As a prime example, U.S. school districts are in the process of subverting one of the few great successes in American secondary STEM education, the science and technology magnet school. And they are doing so as an abject concession to bald racial politics, rather than for reasons of educational excellence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology ("TJ") in Fairfax County, Virginia, has been repeatedly rated <i>the</i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_High_School_for_Science_and_Technology">Number One high school </a>in the United States, public or private. It is a public magnet school which, until this year, based admission on a rigorous series of competitive tests. TJ is exactly the kind of school the U.S. needs to become more competitive with the East Asian and other educational paragons in the STEM fields. Moreover, its student body has been about 79% minority, which one would think would favorably impress the educational bureaucrats and bean-counters. Alas, however, TJ's minority students are predominantly Asian (i.e., about 70% of its students), which is apparently the "wrong" minority for Fairfax County's race-obsessed educational establishment.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6QM8JjrMhiyeKklFPFA58RCUys63yEsv96Vx1GjXdHi7DmuXGIxBHKvjbWQyutqRukxR27Z6gx_kVAHS-iS6gnVMFRzChyphenhyphenCtpXv5T7SEdM5-Af4owEhhmG4HQOlO6fD8Ctpj9t-bx-s/s450/TJHS.PC2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6QM8JjrMhiyeKklFPFA58RCUys63yEsv96Vx1GjXdHi7DmuXGIxBHKvjbWQyutqRukxR27Z6gx_kVAHS-iS6gnVMFRzChyphenhyphenCtpXv5T7SEdM5-Af4owEhhmG4HQOlO6fD8Ctpj9t-bx-s/s320/TJHS.PC2.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Model STEM School that Fairfax County Would Perversely Subvert</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span>One would think that the Fairfax County government and education officials would be extremely proud of a school that has been such a success as to be ranked number one nationally, and leave it</span> well enough alone. On the contrary, the inept, race-obsessed Fairfax County school authorities are instead calling for "agressive change" and insisting that TJ's admissions policies be "dramatically altered" in order to assure greater representation of blacks and Latinos, regardless of their ability to meet TJ's rigorous standards of admission. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Indeed, Fairfax County has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/thomas-jefferson-high-admissions-change/2020/10/07/0a1f8faa-08a7-11eb-9be6-cf25fb429f1a_story.html">forced TJ</a> to eliminate its longstanding and deliberately demanding admissions test. The same or similar dilution of admissions standards has been ordered for Virginia's 18 other magnet STEM schools. Further, a similar race-based deconstruction of heretofore demanding magnet schools is occurring elsewhere in the nation, such as at New York City's Stuyvesant magnet high school. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In the case of TJ, at least, a group of stalwart parents is suing to prevent the fatal deterioration of the model school their children worked so hard to enter and experience. They recognize that diluting TJ's admission standards will ultimately weaken the school's educational quality. As one exasperated parent explained, "You cannot lower the standards of admission without lowering the standards of the curriculum."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Sadly, the Fairfax parents are unlikely to prevail in their lawsuit and the exasperated parent's prediction is likely to prove true at TJ and other magnet schools similarly compromised: the lowering of standards to assure enhanced representation of favored minorities will necessarily subvert the rigorous math and science curriculum. And the U.S. will continue to lag ignominiously behind nations that would never compromise their educational standards for such misplaced priorities.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Unfortunately, the movement to undercut the excellence of our leading magnet schools is not the only example of a disturbing trend towards sacrificing excellence in order to reduce or eliminate the so-called racial or ethnic gap in the educational attainments of American students. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> An ultra-radical movement attacking the very concept of objective and accurate answers to math and science questions has surfaced in "progressive" educational circles, based on the ludicrous notion that such an objective focus is an outgrowth of the canard of "white supremacy." It is difficult to imagine an educational approach more perfectly designed to exacerbate the performance gap that now exists between U.S. and East Asian students in math and science.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> This movement has been most prominently manifested in something called "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction." This Equitable Math concept is being <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/gates-funded-initiative-to-math-teachers-stop-being-racist-and-leave-those-kids-alone">promoted by</a> an educational organization, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. </span></p><p><span><span style="font-size: large;"> The Pathway approach seeks to eliminate such concepts as classroom discipline and "paternalism," requiring students to show their work, and, perhaps most outlandishly, the value and importance of correct or objective answers to math problems. It ascribes these evils of the educational system to the leftist's bogus shibboleth of "white supremacy." As the Pathway document states: "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when: The focus is on getting the ‘right’ answer. The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Ominously, the outlandish Pathway approach has not been confined to the abstract precincts of educational think tanks and journals. The <a href="https://redstate.com/alexparker/2021/02/14/oregon-department-of-education-pathway-equitable-math-dismantling-racism-mathematics-instruction-n326967">Oregon Department of Education</a>, for example, has promoted a variant of the Pathway to Equitable Math in order to "dismantle racism in math." Unsurprisingly, left-wing Seattle has followed suit, with a similar movement to integrate ethnic studies into its math programs.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> It is difficult to exaggerate the utter stupidity, venality, and sheer educational destructiveness of these programs and policies. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Perhaps the most telltale indication of their profound confusion is ascribing the focus on correct answers and rigorous objectivity in mathematics to "white supremacy." The ethnically homogenous East Asian nations that so consistently and emphatically outperform predominantly "white" nations (not to mention nations of all other races) in producing correct answers to math and science questions would no doubt beg to differ with this peculiar notion. If reaching such correct answers is an outgrowth of "white supremacy," how explain the fact that youngsters of the East Asian races reign supreme in these fields?</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The answer, of course, is that the rigorous pursuit of accurate and correct answers to objective math and science questions is not a function of race or ethnicity but rather of mental discipline, study, hard work, and determination. If American educators seek to obscure this reality in their obsession with achieving delusional ideals of racial and ethnic parity they will not only undercut overall educational excellence in the U.S., but subvert genuine efforts to enhance the education of the very groups they seek to assist.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: Montserrat, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-54915177697918753242020-11-05T13:34:00.001-08:002020-11-05T14:23:06.124-08:00A BIDEN-HARRIS "WIN" WOULD BE THE ILLEGITIMATE PRODUCT OF A CORRUPT MEDIA/CULTURAL/POLITICAL CABAL<p> <span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Even as we write, the Democrat-controlled partisan election machinery in urban strongholds is busily seeking to nullify the astounding victory that President Trump and his determined supporters justifiably earned on November 3.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Fraudulently post-marked and otherwise manufactured post-election mail-in votes; ineligible alien voters who vote anyway; votes cast in the name of deceased and otherwise ineligible "voters" by Democrat poseurs; voters registered and rounded-up by illegal and otherwise improper means; and boxes and batches of "votes" inexplicably discovered by Democrat election "officials" after the vote (and particularly as long as the Republican retains a close lead) are only some of the nefarious devices the Democrats will employ to offset the lead President Trump earned on the actual election day.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Whether this chicanery will be sufficient to give the Biden-Harris ticket an ill-gotten election "victory" yet remains to be seen. If it is, the nation will be saddled with a demonstrably corrupt, dementia-incipient, left-wing puppet president who is likely to be replaced in the middle of his term by an even further left-wing, racialist radical who will divide the country even more profoundly than the bitter split that presently prevails (if that is possible).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJUtYfYNYc-tKpBrL_ENOH6dcSx9Fu1STJ68-5-l3PyXAdUwvQdavX_mpaWZEAQ_6h2dpX4-KxiyHhxHR9cLcG8KKVFIXqljKpmGy-GrY7SJlinPwZQLM7dYXhFcQxV02p7ggtIH1ZJO0/s1200/bidenfam.blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJUtYfYNYc-tKpBrL_ENOH6dcSx9Fu1STJ68-5-l3PyXAdUwvQdavX_mpaWZEAQ_6h2dpX4-KxiyHhxHR9cLcG8KKVFIXqljKpmGy-GrY7SJlinPwZQLM7dYXhFcQxV02p7ggtIH1ZJO0/s320/bidenfam.blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Biden Family Corruption: The MSM Dare Not Speak Its Name</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Even aside from the depressing spectacle of corrupt vote-counting manipulation, however, an ultimate victory for the Biden-Harris ticket would be delegitimized by the grotesque, anti-democratic confederacy of powerful media, communications, digital, bureaucratic, and cultural forces that consciously combined to enable that victory.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> From the outset of his presidency, Mr. Trump faced the ruthless and relentless opposition of the mainstream media outlets (MSM), the omnivorous social media monsters (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the like), the entertainment and professional sports culture, the professional polling industry, and even the very search engines and browsers (mainly Google and its Chrome browser) that too many people increasingly rely upon to inform themselves. (Note: even as we type this, a quick detour to check a fact on the Free Republic conservative website finds the Chrome browser bogusly warning that the longstanding and reliable Free Republic web site is "not secure"!).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> As the 2020 election approached, the general anti-Trump opposition of these forces evolved into a more specific and purposeful campaign to support and assist the Democratic Party in its efforts to win that election, at the Presidential, congressional, and state levels. As much as the election and vote count manipulation presently in progress, the unholy cabal of TV news, social media, pollsters, medical institutions, and other left-dominated institutions have corrupted and distorted the 2020 election to a degree that will render a potential Biden-Harris "victory" blatantly illegitimate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> In reality, for example, the major television news outlets (CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC) became nothing less than propaganda and press agents for (and allies of) the Democratic Party. Day after depressing day, these fraudulent news programs reported or fabricated stories exclusively critical of President Trump, while perversely suppressing all stories adverse to the Biden-Harris ticket or other Democrat/Leftist interests or their allies. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Every remotely ill-advised tweet or statement by the President was distorted for the worst and blown out of all proportion. At the same time, factual stories that would be harmful to Biden-Harris or other Democrat/Left interests were simply ignored or relentlessly suppressed. For example, the media ruthlessly suppressed, minimized, or outright distorted the Democrats' (notably Kamala Harris's) approval and encouragement of the violent anti-police and anti-white riots that plagued city after American city over the past several months.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Perhaps most notoriously, as the election approached, all MSM outlets, major newspapers, and other dominant news/information outlets deliberately and corruptly suppressed the appalling Biden Family corruption epitomized by the foreign financial mis-dealings of Biden's son, Hunter, and Biden's own apparent receipt of improper financial benefits from those wrongdoings. Had that grotesque scandal been reported by the MSM, the newspapers, and on social media with anything approaching their zeal in reporting even fabricated wrongdoings by Republicans, a significant number of voters would have been shocked into either withholding their vote for Biden or even switching to Trump. In an election as close as this one, even a moderate impact on voters (the minimum effect that honest reporting of the Hunter/Biden Family scandal would have caused) would have been sufficient to tip the outcome decisively in Mr. Trump's favor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Other instances of the Democrat/Left institutional cabal's unified anti-Trump campaign are legion. The TV, digital, and newspaper media remorselessly manipulated the Covid-19 crisis in a manner that was deliberately and effectively adverse to President Trump's political standing and re-election chances. When defenders of the Democrat/Left's grotesque obsession with inflating the impact of the Covid epidemic were charged with exaggerating both the Covid death rate and its actual harm to normal persons (as distinct from infirm elderly people already in morbidly ill health), they would reply, "What possible motive could there be for doing that?" The accurate answer was both simple and obvious: The creation, amplification, dramatization, and obsession with a purported national Covid-19 catastrophe would be devastatingly injurious to what had, pre-covid, been one of the most astonishingly successful economies in U.S. history; and consequently would severely undermine President Trump's popularity by deliberately and falsely placing the blame on him for the Covid crisis. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> There can be no doubt that the television media, the social media giants, and major newspapers, and their Democratic/Leftist confederates acted in unison in an effort to destroy the Trump presidency by fraudulently making Trump a convenient scapegoat for the Covid-19 woes -- problems which were predominantly stoked by those cabalistic elements <i>themselves</i> rather than by anything done or not done by Trump or the GOP. It was Democratic governors, mayors, and secretly Democrat bureaucrats who acted together to devastate the U.S. economy, education system (at all levels), normal social activity, recreation, and virtually all positive aspects of U.S. life in a grotesquely exaggerated and utterly unreasonable lockdown of the Nation in order to minimize the risk to a very small, and already medically compromised, segment of the population. Yet they collectively placed the blame on the President for devastating economic and social consequences that he was fighting a lonely battle (together with a few admirable Republican governors, like Kristi Noem of South Dakota) to forestall!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The media/Democrat/cultural cabal that combined to subvert the Trump presidency from day one also corruptly manipulated racial divisions in order to inflict further political damage on the President. They deliberately distorted the various incidents where arrest-resisting black perpetrators were shot by harried police officers to create the false canard of so-called "systemic racism" and a fabricated "epidemic" of racist police forces; and then perpetrated a coordinated fallacy that Mr. Trump was somehow to blame for this manufactured crisis due to his insufficient submission to the outrageous demands and false charges of afro-racist agitators.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> These are only a few egregious examples of how the media/political/cultural cabal, <i>exercising near totalitarian ' power and control over the flow of political information in America</i>, were able to distort and manipulate the political environment to a degree that rendered Mr. Trump's re-election almost impossible. But I stress "almost." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Despite this cabal's effort to depress and discourage Trump-inclined voters from voting by, inter alia, presenting a grossly false impression that Trump's re-election prospects were hopeless, the vast majority of those voters scoffed at this media fallacy and rallied to the President's support -- both in amazingly crowded rallies and with a remarkable turnout on election day. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Even more importantly and admirably, the President himself never wavered in the face of this totalitarian media/cultural/political confederacy. His amazing demonstration of grit, energy, fortitude, and remarkable political courage in his closing barnstorm of multi-state rallies inspired his supporters to carry him to what, in an honest and unmanipulated election environment, would have resulted in a clean and clear-cut victory.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Alas, however, the election environment was <i>not</i>, and is not, honest and unmanipulated, let alone uncorrupt. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The manipulation of information, the suppression of significant truth, and the deliberate blockage of the free flow of information by the TV, social media, newspaper, and cultural cabal of anti-Trump elements was "worthy" of the most egregious totalitarian excesses of Soviet Russia and Maoist China. Pravda, Izvestia, Xinhua, and the People's Daily would all be proud of the political atrocities and manipulation perpetrated by CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, Facebook, Twitter and the other anti-democratic elements joined in this totalitarian cabal to nullify President Trump's re-election effort.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Let us hope, notwithstanding the ongoing post-election manipulation and fraud, that they will fail. If not, however, they will have produced a grotesquely compromised Democrat administration that lacks fundamental legitimacy.</span></p>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-88821723623891069732020-10-21T08:33:00.001-07:002020-10-21T08:54:18.544-07:00THE STAGGERING STUPIDITY OF WHITE SUBURBAN BIDEN VOTERS<span style="font-size: medium;"> The proliferation of blue-white Biden-Harris signs on the prim lawns of $750,000 Fairfax County homes proclaims the staggering stupidity of their affluent white owners. Some of these suburban sycophants, moreover, are determined to remove all doubt as to their self-destructive derangement by posting additional signs declaring their fawning solidarity with the so-called "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) movement -- which emphatically condemns as racism any ameliorating concession that White Lives (such as the lives of the feckless sign-posters' <i>own white children</i>) also matter.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> In this Northern Virginia suburb and in similar coastal American suburbs, millions of currently comfortable white suburbanites, and especially those of the notorious liberal "soccer mom" variety, are determined to engage in the equivalent of class and ethnic suicide by voting for a Democratic ticket that is openly and emphatically hostile to their interests and, more particularly, the interests of their own children.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj540B7pfpltfx47oage1BcfyZv9jbrzRodegG8Fo5S6X_HH97R_b7Kf0uwT2LNu7AG59QvWOS5PFNcBEw8fPskE58awandIEMcIIc47FsFvR8wFpwno9uPEIiGmLTtW2KXmLn2vzd4zMA/s656/CLUELESS.GIRLS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="656" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj540B7pfpltfx47oage1BcfyZv9jbrzRodegG8Fo5S6X_HH97R_b7Kf0uwT2LNu7AG59QvWOS5PFNcBEw8fPskE58awandIEMcIIc47FsFvR8wFpwno9uPEIiGmLTtW2KXmLn2vzd4zMA/s320/CLUELESS.GIRLS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> </span><span><b>Suburban Biden Voters: "Clueless" as the Valley Girls</b></span><span> <span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> Although there are many issues on which the Biden-Harris ticket has staked out positions hostile to middle-class suburbanites -- like higher taxes and abolition of private health insurance options -- the 2020 Democrats have been especially radical in their advocacy of policies on race and law enforcement that are harmful to all Americans, but especially to white suburbanites. Yet millions of these electoral sheep seem prepared to empower the very forces that are determined to shatter the quality of their own families' lives.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> An especially striking proof of the Democrats' abject subordination to the primacy of prejudicial racial preference in their policies and programs came at the very outset of Joe Biden's presidential campaign. He openly and proudly declared that his choice of a vice-presidential candidate would be <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/30/biden-black-female-supreme-court-nominees-345622">limited to black females</a>. The deliberate limitation of the prospects for a party's vice-presidential candidate (a person who could easily become President, especially in the case of a doddering geriatric Presidential candidate like Biden) to members of a specified race is outrageously ill-considered and -- well, racist. Yet such a limitation surprised no one, because the Democrats' and Mr. Biden's subordination to the pressures of racialist radicals was so well known that it was taken for granted.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> Biden's selection of the ultra-radical Kamala Harris (see SR's post on Harris's radical racialism <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-racial-radicalism-of-kamala-harris.html">here</a>) as his vice-presidential candidate left no doubt where the Democrats were headed on race and law enforcement issues: complete subordination to the destructive agenda of the BLM movement and other radical racialist and anti-law enforcement elements. Harris, after all, has openly encouraged and endorsed the incendiary BLM/Antifa riots that she and her party are pleased to portray as "peaceful demonstrations." To note that such a surrender to the interests of rioting radicals is inimical to the well-being of law-abiding suburbanites, of all races, is to merely state the obvious.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> The Democrats' divisive and destructive racial agenda begins with their unqualified embrace of the spurious canard of so-called "white privilege." This is the very center piece of their radical racial policies. The Democratic Party, including the Biden-Harris ticket, believes that all white Americans are the beneficiaries of this fictitious "white privilege" and are therefore obligated to accept the burdens of purported "remedial" policies in everything from employment to education to housing to entertainment and more. The multi-millions of poor, lower-, and middle-class whites who have struggled for a decent living, often unsuccessfully, throughout the nation's history will be surprised to discover that their difficult and sometimes miserable lots are now portrayed as a "privileged" existence owing to their being white.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> One part of the Democrats' program to rectify "white privilege" is to obliterate prosperous and peaceful suburban neighborhoods as we know them. That is why President Obama <a href="https://www.heritage.org/housing/commentary/poison-policy-unfair-housing-regulation-leftover-the-obama-era-creates">weaponized federal housing policy</a> to impose race-based federal zoning preferences on suburban neighborhoods deemed insufficiently "diverse" by race-obsessed bureaucrats. One aspect of these policies would be to force the construction of anomalous multi-family housing projects in the midst of green single-family neighborhoods. President Trump has acted to nullify this destructive and unwarranted housing policy. The Biden-Harris ticket, however, would not only maintain it, but intensify it on ideological steroids. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> So suburban supporters of the Democrat ticket are effectively inviting the regulatory degradation of the very neighborhoods they have chosen to live in. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> Another neighborhood issue for clueless suburban Biden voters to consider is related to the epidemic of BLM-Antifa riots in the past year, triggered by the misrepresentation of police measures that sometimes result in the injury or death of black (and white) criminal suspects and perpetrators. Although most of these riots were focused on cities like Portland and Seattle, other violent riots spread to more suburban locales, like Kenosha, Wisconsin. Further, riot leaders have <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/08/14/seattle-blm-protesters-demand-white-people-give-up-their-homes/">overtly threatened </a>to bring more of their violent actions into suburban neighborhoods. Yet these are the very activists that Kamala Harris has warmly endorsed and encouraged. How white, or black, suburban voters can reconcile voting for Biden-Harris with their own family interests is beyond rational comprehension.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">White suburbanites supporting the Biden-Harris ticket are also endorsing their obligation to pay so-called "reparations" for the Southern States' practice of slavery that was forcibly terminated through a Civil War in which hundreds of "privileged" white Union infantry soldiers gave their lives. The reparations that Kamala Harris and the Democrats propose would, inter alia, transfer payments from entirely innocent lower- and middle-class whites to middle- and upper-class blacks who suffered nothing from slavery, but who have benefitted greatly from what is now over 50 years of affirmative action and other racial preferences.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> When asked back in 2019 whether she was for or against reparations, Harris initially responded that her feelings on the question were "complicated." Anyone who interpreted that as a suggestion that Harris might have qualms about reparations, however, would be promptly disillusioned by the radical senator's explanation that the "complications" she referenced were based on her view that<i> "mere" monetary reparations would not be sufficient</i>, let alone unwarranted. Rather, the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate said that "[F]rankly, I don't believe that writing a check is gonna be enough." Instead, Harris envisions an open-ended program encompassing reparations for blacks in the fields of education, home ownership, health outcomes, and presumably any other area in which a government controlled by Democrat reparationists can act.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> How or why white suburbanites -- or, indeed, any reasonable American citizen -- would seek to elect a candidate who espouses such destructive, divisive, and grossly unjust policies lies beyond the realm of rational explanation.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> Suburban supporters of the Biden-Harris ticket are also endorsing the continued corruption of their children's education in what remains of their neighborhood public schools. As part of their determination to "rectify" the shiboleth of white privilege, Democrats nationwide have sought to interject grossly distorted courses on "systemic racism" and the supposed flaws of our Founding Fathers into the required curriculum of our elementary, secondary, and college level schools. Outrageously, this process has already begun, but the election of the Biden-Harris ticket would emphatically accelerate and intensify this distortion of our education system. Instead of receiving a sound fundamental education in math, science, and genuine American history, children and young people will be relentlessly indoctrinated with the false notion that our nation's greatest founders and leaders, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were nothing more than incorrigible racists.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> One could continue indefinitely with the catalogue of Democrat policies that are patently inimical to the interests of suburban families and their children -- not to mention the Nation as a whole -- but time and space are limited. But the catalogue would be remiss without noting the Democrats' continued and relentless commitment to racial and ethnic preferences, under the guise of affirmative action, in critical areas such as education, college admissions, employment, and promotion. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> Although America's Constitution, laws, and general public opinion are all firmly committed to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination in all of these areas, the Democrats and their presidential ticket emphatically reject that sound and fair standard. Instead, they demand the <i>perpetual </i>imposition of strict racial preferences without regard to whether those measures are needed to redress any actual discrimination. That is why, as a prime example, universities throughout the nation continue to discriminate against white, and especially East Asian, applicants in their admissions policies, in complete disregard of the constitutional requirement for equal protection explained in authoritative Supreme Court decisions. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> Significantly, Harvard University's egregious discrimination in favor of Blacks and Latinos, and against Asians and Whites, is presently being challenged in court by Asian students with the backing of the Trump Justice Department. If elected, a Biden-Harris administration would not only withdraw support for this meritorious lawsuit, but undoubtedly encourage Harvard and all other colleges to continue discriminating against Asians and whites in the guise of affirmative action and "diversity" policies. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> In short, suburban Biden supporters are voting for policies that will sacrifice their children's right to equal opportunity in seeking the college of their choice on the altars of white privilege reform and racial preference.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> Considering all the above and more, the motivation of white suburban voters in supporting the Biden-Harris ticket remains a profound mystery. The election of that radical ticket would consign the children of these misguided voters to a dismal and disturbing future of subordinate status in the nation's policies and programs.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-41639798927357874602020-09-29T07:10:00.006-07:002020-09-30T07:59:43.801-07:00THE PARTY OF MALICE AND MADNESS: TODAY'S INDEFENSIBLE DEMOCRATS <span style="font-size: large;">Almost four years ago, SR posted <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2017/01/toxic-democrats-party-of-butyric-acid.html">an article</a> outlining what were <i>then</i> the most obscenely offensive positions and practices of the left-wing hate machine otherwise known as the Democratic Party.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> As but one example of the Democrats' toxic partisan venom, I described their vicious and mean-spirited attacks on Jackie Evancho, a charming and prodigiously talented16-year-old soprano. The nasty vituperation against the apolitical and utterly inoffensive Ms. Evancho was motivated by nothing more than her acceptance of an invitation to sing at President Trump's forthcoming Inaugural Celebration, even though she had previously performed at President Obama's inauguration as well.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> The people and party who gratuitously denigrated an innocent teenage singer solely because she agreed to perform at a President's inaugural ceremony have not mellowed in the least in the ensuing three years. Incredibly, the program of vicious partisan venom embraced by the Democrats in 2017 has since been exceeded in malice and madness by the Biden/Harris Democrats of today, who are inseparable from the Antifa and Black Lives Matters (BLM) terrorists who even now riot and pillage at will in many of America's cities <i>with the encouragement and approval of the Democrat establishment</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1CT4OxmKV2izndp8VYT-OcO4DytT-QtWgOKKUbAQaHO0UvLkgeqa0ePUTZTjIBryYPcLlYdJjAvwElwP2oO3Dmg5YM8AxC-YeezrrMYN1JRjrD3wLvYj8G41y8zdohCRuNiYfYFkPGwc/s1920/riot.flag.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1438" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1CT4OxmKV2izndp8VYT-OcO4DytT-QtWgOKKUbAQaHO0UvLkgeqa0ePUTZTjIBryYPcLlYdJjAvwElwP2oO3Dmg5YM8AxC-YeezrrMYN1JRjrD3wLvYj8G41y8zdohCRuNiYfYFkPGwc/s320/riot.flag.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>America's Prospects under the Riot-loving Democrat Left</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">A harsh but inescapable truth needs to be brought home with unambiguous insistence as America faces an election of existential importance this November: </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> The Democratic Party has moved far beyond all bounds of basic reason, decency, and sanity in its unashamed embrace of political violence, anti-white racism, criminal immunity, judicial lawlessness, systematic media falsification, and governmental abrogation of the most basic individual liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> Taking into account the elements of political malice and madness pursued by the Democrat Left outlined below, <i>it has simply become indefensible for any decent, reasonable, and self-respecting American to support and embrace today's Democrat Party, </i>which has descended to the status of the mere political wing of the violent and extremist American Left. This contention is incontestably demonstrated by the list of appalling practices, atrocities, and policies of the Democratic Left outlined below.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>The Hate-Whites Party</b>. The Democrats are fully and enthusiastically invested in the pernicious and racist canards of so-called "white privilege" and the so-called "systemic racism" attributed to all white Americans. But the main race-based "privilege" bestowed on whites for the past 50 years has been that of being the victims of reverse discrimination in employment, education, and other fields under official governmental policies of affirmative action, diversity, and outright preference <i>in place since roughly 1968</i>. Yet the Democrats propose piling on still more unjust anti-white discrimination through such outrageous policies as so-called reparations for the slavery that hundreds of thousands of white soldiers fought and died to abolish. No one is more committed to this monstrous and divisive falsehood that the Democrat Vice-Presidential candidate, the deeply racist Kamala Harris, who has been an enthusiastic supporter of not only the most radical racial reparations programs but the resurrection of such pernicious race-based policies as destructive neighborhood busing programs.<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>The Pro-Riot Party.</b> The Democrats have enthusiastically encouraged and supported the epidemic of vicious and sometimes deadly riots that have plagued American cities under the pretext of protest against allegedly wrongful killing of black criminal suspects by police. The Democrats (including VP candidate Harris, a vociferous cheerleader and defender of the destructive riots) both falsely insist that the riots are "largely peaceful protests," even while the flames set by the rioters burn behind them in plain sight; and, pleading inconsistently in the alternative, that the violent rioting is justified anyway by what they falsely describe as systemic racism against blacks by the police. In fact, the very premise for both the violent "demonstrations" and outright rioting is demonstrably false: the allegedly wrongful killings have invariably been provoked by the violent resistance to lawful arrests or investigations; and, in any event, the number of whites killed in confrontations with police is <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/">roughly double</a> the number of blacks so killed. Regardless, the Democrats have unambiguously demonstrated their support of the epidemic of riots by successfully <a href="https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/democrats-block-resolution-condemning-violent-protests/">opposing a Republican resolution</a> condemning such riots in the U.S. Senate.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>The Defund Police/No Bail Party</b>. As part of their attack on police triggered by the misportrayed police killings, Democrats have proposed and pursued a variety of utterly reckless and dangerous "criminal justice reforms," which would effectively abandon law enforcement in cities and even states where the Democrats control the government. These radical Democrat proposals include the following:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span><span> 1. Defunding police forces, whose resources are already strained to the breaking point by the endemic criminal violence and rioting that prevails in many Democrat-controlled cities.</span><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span> </span><span> 2. Abolishing any requirement for posting bail by violent criminals as a condition for pretrial release. The result is a vicious cycle of repeat offenses by violent criminals who should have been incarcerated pending their trials. Instead, Democrats would promptly release those arrested for violent crime, thus enabling them to perpetrate more violence pending trials which they may avoid in any case by absconding with no fear of bail forfeiture.</span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span><span> </span><span> 3. Reducing criminal penalties for assaults on police and other law enforcement personnel from serious felonies to lenient misdemeanors.</span><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span> <b>The Resisting Arrest Party. </b>In their rabid attacks on police attempting to enforce the law, the Democrats would effectively <i>immunize violent resistance</i> to arrest by criminal suspects, at least when the suspects are minorities. In nearly every case where the Democrats and their Antifa/BLM allies have incited riots based on alleged police misconduct, the purported victims of the police actions were engaged in active resistance to arrest. The Democrats have even gone so far as to deny police the right to shoot a felony suspect who murderously charges them with a knife. Democrat bills to "de-felonize" assaults on police (one such bill was recently passed by the Democrat-controlled Virginia senate) are one part of their program to immunize resistance to arrest.<br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74Bw2_oIFElvA6APUaumWcN2LQ9GGvdW0tfVb7ASq5jum4BnOKknICnwybGzKbOP_mhfwGwAIdYdc6SgZ6Odq-QTqwjjaA_sGStIIIkB6ujCBiE_rusAYakfV39Nes20LbiJh8tWArIE/s1024/mt.rushmore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74Bw2_oIFElvA6APUaumWcN2LQ9GGvdW0tfVb7ASq5jum4BnOKknICnwybGzKbOP_mhfwGwAIdYdc6SgZ6Odq-QTqwjjaA_sGStIIIkB6ujCBiE_rusAYakfV39Nes20LbiJh8tWArIE/s320/mt.rushmore.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Democrats' Attacks on the Founders Could even reach Mt. Rushmore</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>The "Hate the Founders" Party</b>. The Democrats have openly sought to inflame racial tensions and division by obsessively harping on the evils of the American South's pre-Civil War system of slavery. That system was abolished over 150 years ago through a civil war, in which hundreds of thousands of white Americans died on battlefields in support of the abolitionist cause. Since then, literally thousands of remedial laws, policies, regulations, and court decisions have provided extensive remedies for the wrongful effects of slavery and discrimination -- even though most beneficiaries of these remedies were born more than a century after the end of slavery. After all this, the Democratic Party has suddenly endorsed the most malicious attacks on the character and integrity of the most revered figures in American history because they happened to own slaves, including </span><span style="font-size: large;">George Washington, the Father</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">of our Country; </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Thomas Jefferson, our third President and author of the Declaration of Independence; and James Madison, our fourth President and "Father of the Constitution." None of these great men approved or instigated slavery, which was party of the society into which they were born, and each spoke strongly against the institution. Whatever their culpability for inheriting or owning slaves in an established southern way of life, it is far outweighed by their monumental contributions to the American Revolution and the establishment of history's first democratic republic. Yet the Democrats have all but declared historical war on our greatest Founding Fathers. </span><span>In the nation's capital itself, a Democrat-controlled commission has proposed to <a href="https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/washington-dc-task-force-recommends-renaming-removal-contextualizing-of-national-monuments/">"remove, relocate, or contextualize"</a> monuments and memorials to any slave-tainted patriots, <i>including, unbelievably, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.</i> These Democrats are not merely nasty; they are flat nuts. We can only be grateful that we have staunch patriotic governors like Kristi Noem of South Dakota to prevent them from destroying Mt. Rushmore.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>The Hate-the-South Party</b>. Democrats nationwide have embarked on a violent and radical campaign of physically destroying any and all monuments to generals and other heroes of the Confederacy -- monuments that have stood for over 100 years. A telling illustration of malicious Democrat extremism on this issue concerns the huge bas relief sculpture of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson on the face of Stone Mountain, near Decatur, Georgia. Stacey Abrams, an unsuccessful Democrat candidate for Governor of Georgia and later for the party's vice-presidential nomination, <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/ballot/governor-2018-williams-blasts-abrams-over-stone-mountain-carving-removal/85-464816139">famously proposed </a>to entirely obliterate or explode the Stone Mountain Monument. The Democrats' fanatical campaign to obliterate all monuments to Confederate heroes, including genuinely great Americans like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, is a malicious insult to millions of traditional Southerners.<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span> <b>The Trans-Sexuals over Girls Party</b>. The Democrat-Left's obsession with accommodating the prerogatives of the minuscule cohort of trans-sexual Americans has placed them in conflict with the indisputable right of ordinary young girls to be free from the intrusion of biological males into the girls' most private spaces, like restrooms and locker rooms. Not to mention the females-only sports competitions that have been the delight of both participants and fans throughout the country. </span><span>In both legislation and litigation, Democrats have sided with the "right" of biological males who claim to be transexual to adopt the gender of their choice and to act accordingly. In short, the Democrats have actively supported the right of hairy and muscular biological males to intrude on the privacy and modesty of young girls in their changing rooms, showers, and bathrooms. And they endorse the right of ripped biological males to compete with genuine girls in female sports competition under the guise of so-called trans-gender equality. This is the actual position of Democrats as proposed in proposed federal legislation. What motivates this indecent and twisted policy position defies rational understanding.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span> <b>The Illegal Aliens Come First Party</b>. Again and again, the leaders and supporters of the Democrat Party have made it clear that they favor the interests and claims of illegal aliens over those of law-abiding American citizens. Perhaps the most stunning example and proof of this point came when <i>every candidate</i> in the Democrat presidential debate <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/06/27/all_dem_candidates_raise_hand_when_asked_if_illegal_immigrants_should_get_health_care_coverage_at_debate.html#!">firmly raised their hand</a> in the affirmative when asked to indicate whether or not they supported government-funded health care for illegal aliens. Even more appalling is the Democrats' widespread support for the creation of so-called "sanctuary cities," and even sanctuary states, wherein city and state law enforcement agencies not only refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agencies in apprehending criminal illegal aliens, but sometimes actively assist the illegal aliens in escaping the federal authorities.<br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span> <b>The No Self-Defense/No Gun Rights Party</b>. A <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2020/07/23/democrats-are-legalizing-lawlessness-n2572928">recent episode in Missouri </a>perfectly illustrates the Democratic party's determination to deprive law-abiding Americans of their right to defend their very homes from attack with firearms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. When a rabid mob of BLM/Antifa-style "protesters" trespassed on their property and threatened them in their home, Mark and Patricia McCloskey bravely confronted the mob with their firearms in a classic and admirable exercise of the Castle Doctrine of legitimate armed self-defense. But rather than prosecuting the mob for its violent criminal activity and threatening trespass, George Soros-backed and financed Democrat Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner actually <i>charged the embattled homeowners</i> with felony use of a weapon! Although Missouri's Republican Attorney General and Governor have both assured that they will protect the McCloskeys from this outrageous partisan prosecution, many states lack any such Republican check against the Democrats' all-out assault on Americans' fundamental right of self-defense, including armed self-defense. If the Democrats prevail in the forthcoming elections, those rights will be decimated and people like the McCloskeys will be hapless in the face of mob assaults from the Left.<br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span> <b>The Foul-mouthed Party.</b> The 2020 Democrats are not only deranged in their policies and programs, but they are utterly lacking in basic class and common decency. This is keenly demonstrated by the propensity of Democrat officials, leaders, and media allies to constantly spew out verbal obscenities in public speech, most notably the so-called "f-word." Although leaders of both parties have resorted to crude language in the past, it has generally been confined to private conversations. But leading democrats like Beto O'Rourke, Kirsten Gillibrand and media degenerate Bill Maher, among many other leftists, routinely resort to <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/24/politicians-cursing-tom-perez-democrats-215068">gross and scatological language in their <i>public</i> discourse</a>, with no regard to the age or sensibilities of listeners. While this is among the least of the Democrats' innumerable political and moral offenses, it is perfectly illustrative of this nasty party's inherent lack of civility and decency.<br /></span></span></div>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-67513945456018381042020-08-16T13:11:00.001-07:002020-08-19T07:17:24.850-07:00MEDIA SUPPRESSION OF THE CANNON HINNANT MURDER AND KAMALA CONFUSION<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Splashing Rocks has repeatedly exposed and excoriated the grotesque distortion of America's racial issue by the left, the media, and the democrats in numerous articles in the past five years. See <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2017/01/msm-blackwashing-fails-to-prevent-hate.html">Here</a>, <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2016/07/obamas-incendiary-lies-on-race-and-law.html">here</a>, <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2016/07/wake-up-petition-challenging-black.html">here</a>, <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2016/07/dallas-obama-and-false-foundation-of.html">here,</a> <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2015/07/american-cultural-revolution-ii-where.html">here</a>, and <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2015/04/democrats-now-protect-right-to-riot.html">here</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> In a nutshell, there is a relentless barrage of falsehoods concerning the chimera of white privilege and allegedly systemic white racism, when the reality is one of widespread <i>anti-white</i> racism and institutionalized preference for blacks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Alas, however, due to SR's incorrigible refusal to expand its readership through linkage to vile social media outlets like <i>Facebook</i>, <i>Twitter</i>, and the like, our acute and incisive message has gone largely unheeded. The high intellectual quality of our readership (which is widely international in character) is inversely related to the quantity of our domestic readership. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Consequently, SR has refrained from posting on the incendiary racial radicalism inspired by the notorious George Floyd incident on the grounds that (1) we have already exposed and demolished the underlying fallacies of this movement, but with minimal notice; and (2) one does not want to waste effort in the form of a "voice crying in the wilderness."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> But the obscene murder of a five-year-old white lad by an angry, possibly BLM-inspired black man, however -- studiously and corruptly ignored by the entire mainstream TV and newspaper media -- demands every sane and civilized American to rise in furious protest. This is mine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Little White Boys' Lives Don't Matter to the Media and the Left</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Cannon Hinnant, a lively little North Carolina lad, was shot point-blank near his home by a violent miscreant, reportedly named Darius Sessoms, for no known reason. Sessoms, a repeat felon, has since been charged with first degree murder.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Reports suggest that the inter-racial killing was in retaliation for Cannon riding his bike onto Sessoms' yard, but that seems uncertain and improbable. Not even the most deranged neighborhood crank would plausibly resort to such disproportionate retaliation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> This appalling inter-racial murder cries out for attention, public exposure, and remorseless law enforcement prosecution. Yet, as in countless other cases of black-on-white crime (see links above), the mainstream media has <i>deliberately</i> and <i>maliciously</i> ignored and suppressed the story. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> The most infuriating aspect of the media and political culture's deliberate disregard of Cannon Hinnant's murder is its enormous disparity compared to the absolute orgy of national coverage and social reaction regarding the killing of repeat felon George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> As we all know by now, Floyd's killing -- in connection with his lawful arrest for counterfeiting -- triggered saturation media coverage for weeks, which in turn triggered violent street riots in cities throughout the country. It also resulted in an onslaught of pro-black/anti-white/anti-police political and policy reaction -- like the "defund police" movement -- while exacerbating and inflaming racial resentment against whites. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Yet to any observer with a brain and a civilized soul, the murder of Cannon Hinnant was far more shocking and insidious than Floyd's killing. Hinnant was an entirely innocent five-year child playing in his family's yard. Floyd, in contrast, was a six-foot-six repeat violent felon who was being arrested for yet another crime to be added to his rap sheet. Although Floyd's killing was unjustified and reprehensible, it was far more understandable in context than the absolutely malicious murder of an innocent and defenseless little boy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Yet the democrats and the media deliberately cover-up the little white boys' murder, while producing weeks of saturation and inflammatory coverage to the killing of the violent black felon. To the democrats and the media -- and their mindless supporters in the electorate -- little white lives don't matter; publicizing such murders would undercut their obsession with the BLM mantra.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Why do the media and the democrat left engage in this obscene evil? Because the MSM is in close collaboration and cooperation with the Democratic Party and the political left to foster the fraudulent narrative that anti-black racism pervades America, resulting in the continued oppression and official violence against blacks. Relentlessly repeated episodes of black-on-white violence undermine this narrative, and are therefore systematically suppressed by the left and relegated to the contemporary equivalent of the memory holes depicted in George Orwell's <i>1984</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> The endlessly repeated and pervasive canard that white racism pervades American society is patently and demonstrably false. If any form of racism pervades this country, it is the insidiously cultivated anti-white hatred stoked on a nightly basis by the TV news shows, Democrat propaganda, crime programs, music shows, and, yes, even advertisements. While crime shows persistently depict violent criminals as overwhelmingly white, blacks consistently constitute 50% and more of such perpetrators. These shows create a deliberately misleading portrayal of America's crime profile. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> As demonstrated in SR's above-cited posts and countless other articles and statistical reports, black-on-white violent crime far exceeds white-on-black violent crime, including murder. And has, consistently, for decades. Government-enforced discrimination runs exclusively in favor of blacks and hispanics and against whites and the one minority the left either ignores or scorns, the East Asian-Americans. The dominant media, educational, and athletic culture openly perpetuate the myth of pervasive anti-black law enforcement, especially with their slavish and mindless embrace of the incendiary Black Lives Matter movement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Having given their endorsement to BLM's savage and murderous violence in cities throughout American, these quislings have cultivated the environment that allows a violent black ex-con to murder an innocent five-year old white child at point-blank range near his home -- without even a murmur of outrage in the national media.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Meanwhile, Democrat nominee Joe Biden's selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate is merely the latest reflection of the profoundly distorted racial notions that pervade American politics and culture. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Needless to say, Splashing Rocks has already identified and demonstrated Sen. Harris's extreme afro-racism in a post published early in the Democrat nomination battle. See </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Racial Radicalism of Kamala Harris<a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-racial-radicalism-of-kamala-harris.html">https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-racial-radicalism-of-kamala-harris.html</a></i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> (July 26, 2019). We then thought that Harris was the likely Democrat choice for president and, naturally, wanted to expose her dangerously radical views and policies on American's critical racial issues. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Although Harris proved a woeful political failure even in the left-dominated democrat primaries, she nonetheless will find herself a mere aneurysm or dementia breakdown away from the presidency in the event Biden wins in November. In that event, the relegation of non-leftist White Americans to the humiliating status of subordinate, and politically hapless scapegoats will be assured.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> As yet further evidence of the prevalence of institutionalized black preference in our culture and politics, Sen. Harris was selected for the Democrats' Vice Presidential nomination on the basis of race from a cohort limited to prospects who were both female and minority. Indeed, Biden and the democrats were open and explicit about this discriminatory limitation, and proud of it. (Ironically, Kamala Harris is not really an African-American; she is 50% Asiatic-Indian on her mother's side, and 50% Jamaican-African on the father's side). Why the Democrats' other loyal ethnic minority, the Hispanics, do not seem to resent their ultimate exclusion from the VP selection process is puzzling.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> While the media laughably propagates the fraud that Harris is a moderate -- even Obama acolytes have mocked this sham -- the hard record demonstrates that she is not only a hard leftist, but <i>the</i> most far-left member of the Democrat's senate caucus. But, as we have already demonstrated, it is her racial radicalism that makes Harris such a deeply dangerous candidate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Apart from her support of such radical racial policies as reparations for slavery, return to forced racial busing, and fraudulent race-based abolition of the death penalty and other anti-law enforcement initiatives, Harris's response to two notorious race-related episodes should remove any doubt concerning her ingrained racial biases.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> The alleged attack in Chicago on black actor Jussie Smollett by purported white men wearing MAGA hats is one of the most outrageous and insidious racial and political frauds of recent times. Despite entrenched resistance to the truth by liberal media and race-baiters, it was soon authoritatively established that the episode was a deliberate ruse. Smollett had, in fact, hired two black males to stage an attack on him so he could claim he had been attacked by Trump-supporting whites and thus strike a blow against Trump and his white supporters. After extensive waste of resources by the Chicago pol</span><span style="font-size: x-large;">ice, the scam blew up in Smollett's face. He was subsequently indicted by a grand jury on 16 felony counts in connection with his false report of an alleged "hate crime." </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Kamala Harris, however, was one of the most outspoken advocates and supporters of the Smollett hoax. When anyone with a functioning brain began to see through this insidious ploy, Harris was lending her unqualified support to Smollett and his racial fraud with this posting on her Twitter account:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Jussie Smollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery,” the senator wrote. "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Harris not only endorsed Smollett's fraudulent claims, but conveniently exploited then in support of an incendiary anti-lynching bill she was pushing (genuine lynching is of course first degree murder, fully punishable as such by existing law).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> In complete contrast to her prompt and enthusiastic support of fraudulent non-victim Jussie Smollett, Harris has had nothing to say about the truly outrageous, and indisputably genuine, murder of Cannon Hinnant. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> In short, when the purported victim of violent crime is black, and the (falsely) alleged perps are white, Sen. Harris virtually leaps at the opportunity to issue an unqualified endorsement of even patently dubious allegations and unqualified sympathy and support for the dubious victim. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> But in the face of unambiguous evidence of the brutal and unprovoked murder of an innocent five-year old white boy in front of his family, Harris is simply silent (SR's internet search for any reaction on Harris' part found nothing) and unconcerned.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> To vice-presidential candidate Harris, black lives definitely matter, but the murderous loss of a young white life is evidently inconsequential. This is what we can expect from Harris should she ever ascend to the presidency.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> <b>Addendum:</b> </span><span style="font-size: large;">No sooner is the "ink dry" on our post about the ignored murder of Cannon Hinnant, than another vicious murder of a young white person by black hoodlums is overlooked by the national media. On Saturday night, August 15, 17-year old Veronica Baker was murdered outside a Bojangles restaurant in Raleigh, NC. Devin Cordell Jones, 17, has been charged in the murder. Three other black teens, ages 18-19, were also arrested and charged as felony accessories. Simply more evidence of the obscenely disproportionate outrage incited by the mainstream national media with their obsessive focus on occasional offensive incidents of police violence against blacks (usually accompanying a legitimate arrest), while deliberately ignoring the overwhelming prevalence of black-on-white inter-racial violent crime. Indeed, it is demonstrably the case that msm outlets devote more attention to, for example, cases of alleged <i>verbal</i> harassment of blacks by whites than they devote to actual unprovoked murders of whites by blacks, like the two noted here. There can be absolutely no doubt that the msm outlets would have headlined and repeated reports of this incident had the races of the participants been reverse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-31936676481428238232020-04-26T12:42:00.001-07:002020-12-02T07:50:17.286-08:00KRISTI NOEM OR LARRY HOGAN: ON THE WHOLE I'D RATHER BE IN SOUTH DAKOTA -- COVID POLICE STATE VI<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></span></span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is a governor that the leftist
media like -- at least as long as he follows the left's bidding on the coercive Coronavirus lockdown. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Maryland's Covid-obsessed Governor Hogan: Jabba without the charm</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> He is Larry Hogan, a porcine, left-leaning RINO Republican,
with all the constitutional sensibilities of Jabba the Hut. Nonetheless, he passes the only
test the political and media left consider really important at this moment of history: He has imposed, maintained, and expanded a crude,
totalitarian lockdown on the liberty of his state’s citizens in the name of copycat Corona Conformity.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> (As this post is drafted, Gov. Hogan has announced a blueprint for gradually "re-opening" Maryland in three stages -- if, but only if, the rate of Covid hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units both trend downward for at least 14 days. Putting aside that Maryland's extremely harsh restrictions should not have been imposed in the first place, it very much remains to be seen whether, and to what extent, Hogan will actually authorize the "liberation"of Maryland from its Covid containment -- the proof will only be in the actual pudding.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is a governor that the leftist
media loathe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>South Dakota's intrepid and sensible Governor Kristi Noem</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> She is Kristi Noem, a slim, lovely,
intelligent female who would be the media's very model of a modern, independent, and assertive woman -- if
she did not fail the above-noted Corona Conformity test (and if, of course, she were not a conservative Republican).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only has she refused to retain or extend
the soul-crushing personal and commercial lockdowns that most other governors
have slavishly imposed, but she simply declined to impose any lockdown on South Dakota in the first
place. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Instead, she has placed her trust in the people of South Dakota to act responsibly in protecting themselves and each other against the Covid-19 contagion, rather than imposing the totalitarian stay-at-home orders imposed elsewhere.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> As Governor Noem explained in an interview with Laura Ingraham: "I believe in our freedoms and liberties. . . . What I've seen across the country is so many people give up their liberties for just a little bit of security, and they don't have to do that. . . . If a leader will take too much power in a time of crisis, that is how we lose our country." </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Completely crushing her critics' charges that her refusal to lock down her state is irresponsible and unsafe, Noem's <i>South Dakota has actually resisted Covid-19 more successfully than all but three other states</i>. As of this writing, there have been only eleven total Covid-caused deaths in South Dakota; only Alaska and Wyoming have less. And South Dakota has experienced lower per capita deaths from Covid-19 than all but three states (Alaska, Wyoming, and insular Hawaii).</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In comparison, Hogan's strict lockdown state of Maryland has experienced a reported 910 Covid-caused deaths, with a per capita rate of 150.5 such deaths per million population. Compared to South Dakota's 11 total Covid deaths at a rate of only 11.3 per million population! Even taking into account Maryland's obviously greater population density and proximity to other Covid-19 centers, the enormity of South Dakota's superior resistance to the Covid contagion gives the lie to the left's spurious attacks on Governor Noem's sound and sensible policy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> To paraphrase comedian W.C. Fields' notorious putdown of Philadelphia in the Covid context, "On the whole, I'd rather be in South Dakota." </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Not only has Governor Noem's steady leadership protected her citizens' constitutional freedoms, it has done so even while establishing an astonishingly effective record of avoiding the Covid ravages experienced by lockdown states like Maryland, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: large;">* * *</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The presidential election campaign
has already gone too far for either party to change horses at this stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The democrats are stuck with the
dementia-addled Joseph Biden, and the Republicans are irrevocably committed to
the re-election of Donald Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Like
Obiwan Kenobi, Trump is presently “our only hope” to defeat the utterly disastrous
prospect of prolonged totalitarian democrat rule in this country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a Democrat wins in 2020, along with a
Democrat congress, there can be no doubt that they will so distort and corrupt the
nation’s election process to make a Republican return to power
flatly impossible in the foreseeable future. Under these dire circumstances, Republicans have no feasible alternative to strongly, even ferociously, supporting Mr Trump's re-election.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Were it not for the clear
impracticability of a viable Republican alternative, however, events of the past
week would give even longstanding, die-hard Trump supporters a degree of cause for concern.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Trump’s continued commitment to the
oppressive Covid policies and pronouncements of Dr. Fauci and Scarf-Lady Birx have been deeply concerning to
Covid Lockdown skeptics like me. Nonetheless, political and practical realities force
one to concede that the President has little room to maneouver away from
those tunnel-visioned Corona conformists. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Removing or severely censuring either of them would surely result in another harsh media and political firestorm that the President simply does not need right now.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Far less excusable, however, was
Trump’s recent gratuitous condemnation of Georgia
Governor<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Brian </span>Kemp’s admirable
decision to re-open Georgia to some degree of commercial and
social freedom from oppressive Covid-19 constraints. Trump, after all, had effectively encouraged actions like Governor Kemp's with a series of tweets urging the "liberation" of various states chafing under the constraints of Covid-19 lockdowns.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the cynical French diplomat Talleyrand would have put it, Trump’s attack on Kemp was "worse than a crime;
it was a blunder."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
gained him absolutely no credit with his implacable democrat and media opponents; indeed, odious vice-presidential aspirant Stacey Abrams immediately bellowed that Trump deserved "zero credit" for his rebuke of Governor Kemp (who, incidentally, defeated Abrams in the Ga. governor's race). Meanwhile,Trump's repudiation of Kemp's entirely reasonable action has infuriated, or at least severely disappointed, many of his strongest
supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Were it not for the obvious impracticability of opening up the GOP presidential selection process at this late stage -- let alone doing so when there is an incumbent Republican President with a seemingly unshakeable base -- at least some disappointed Trump loyalists might start contemplating the heretofore unthinkable: An appealing, attractive political alternative to Mr. Trump. And the conservative Republican leader who most readily fills that bill right now is none other than Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: large;">Addendum:</span> </b><span style="font-size: large;">Further corroborating the wisdom and popularity of Governor Kristi Noem's freedom-respecting management of the Covid-19 crisis, the article and video at the <a href="https://www.wnd.com/2020/04/south-dakota-residents-throw-parade-governor-refused-issue-stay-home-order/">link</a> show the people of South Dakota expressing their support and affection for their attractive governor in a tribute caravan at the capital. The nation sorely needs more sensible and constitutionally sensitive leaders like Gov. Noem in this troublesome time.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Addendum 2:</b> The following excerpt from a <i>Powerline</i> article of May 7 ("Coronavirus in Five States") confirms the great effectiveness of Governor Kristi Noem's measured and constitutionally sensitive handling of the Covid-19 crisis; she managed to maintain South Dakota's lowest-in-the-nation unemployment rate, even while keeping Covid cases and deaths to a minimum:</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span> "</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;">So, as Isaac pointed out, Governor Tim Walz has achieved the exacta of misery: Minnesota has both the highest unemployment rate and the highest COVID death rate in its region. <i>South Dakota, on the other hand, has both the lowest unemployment and the lowest death rate. </i>Minnesota’s per capita COVID death rate is 2 1/2 times that of South Dakota.<b> An observer afflicted with common sense might infer that shutdown orders are a poor idea, and compliment Governor Noem on her successful policy</b>. Rest assured, though, that no member of the national or local press corps will succumb to such logical thinking, even for a moment." [emphasis added]</span></div>
G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-66133766507510199872020-04-22T18:13:00.000-07:002020-04-22T18:50:36.810-07:00RIGHTEOUS RALLY IN RICHMOND -- COVID POLICE STATE V<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>SR</i> joined a large caravan of spirited, freedom-loving Virginians today to protest the unconstitutional COVID-19 lockdown orders imposed by the Commonwealth's utterly undistinguished gerbil of a governor (Northam by name) in a "drive-around" rally at the Capitol Square in Richmond. As Jumping Jack Flash might say, it was a "gas, gas, gas."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The mainstream media (i.e., the propaganda arm of the democrat party) will downplay the size and intensity of this energetic rally, but the excellent photos of the event captured by the <i>Richmond Times Dispatch </i>(at the <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/protesters-circle-capitol-square-in-honking-vehicles-calling-on-northam-to-ease-coronavirus-shutdown/article_a434ce58-a56f-5406-828f-8c999c6cb791.html#25">link</a>) provide colorful graphic evidence of the rally's extent and quality. Since this was mostly a "drive-around" rally, predominantly confined to people in their cars, only an overhead helicopter photo would capture its full extent. But <i>SR</i> can personally attest it was enough to tie downtown Richmond into knots, and the sound of rebellious horn-honking reverberated throughout the Capitol Square. </span><br />
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<b>Legions of motorized protesters descend on Richmond to Reject COVID tyranny</b><br />
Alexa Welch Edlund, <i>Richmond Times Dispatch</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In short, the rally reflected a powerful surge of resistance to the disproportionate Covid-containment restrictions imposed on the people of Virginia by its feckless governor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> It should be stressed here that it is the draconian scope of the state lockdown orders themselves that relegate Covid Coercion protesters to their cars, rather than assembling on foot in parks, malls, or capitol grounds. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Parking lots are largely closed (also by decree), so that it is almost impossible for large numbers of out-of-town protesters to leave their cars to walk to a central protest site. Even if they did, they would then be subject to arrest for violating the 6-foot-separation social distancing rules, which Northam has purported to establish as a legal requirement by fiat. Not to mention the fact that asserting First Amendment rights is not considered an "essential activity" that is exempted from the governor's obscene "stay at home" (or, worse, "shelter-in-place") rules.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> A more fiendish scheme for suppressing the First Amendment right of assembly to petition for redress of grievances would be difficult to imagine. But here we are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Notwithstanding the feisty and enthusiastic protests in Richmond today, and elsewhere, the grim reality seems to be that the majority of Americans -- at least Americans who do not reside in our great Heartland, such as in South Dakota -- remain sheepishly submissive to the grotesquely coercive <i>diktats</i> imposed by thuggish governors in the majority of states. Various polls indicate that only a small minority of principled Americans believe that the coercive, unconstitutional restrictions imposed in most states have gone too far. Even if one discounts the specific accuracy of such polls -- and <i>SR</i> certainly does -- the silent and uncomplaining submission to these unprecedented impositions by apparently most Americans is utterly depressing and ominous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Patrick Henry would not understand surrendering liberty to reduce a virus risk.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> A populace prepared to meekly and sheepishly accept (1) a ban on leaving their homes to visit friends, sweethearts, or even non-immediate family members; (2) a forced closure of all businesses save those deemed "essential" by feckless governors who lack all competence to make such a determination; (3) an arbitrary prohibition against going to the beach, swimming in a lake or ocean, or playing basketball, baseball, or any other sport; or (4) a ban on any gatherings of more than ten people, whether for a wedding, funeral, baptism, or graduation ceremony -- such a populace shamefully profanes the heritage of hard-earned liberty left to them by their historical betters. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and Washington himself could only shake their heads in profound dismay at the readiness of so many of today's Americans to sell their birthright of freedom. They have surrendered the precious constitutional liberties purchased with the risk and blood of patriots and warriors solely to reduce the risk that a novel virus will claim a moderately greater number of fatalities than are claimed annually by seasonal flu.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Fortunately, more of these moribund Americans are awakening each day to the realization that the loss of liberty and livelihood demanded by the government in exchange for an uncertain reduction of an equally uncertain health risk is a very bad bargain. In the weeks to come, we can hope that millions of aroused and angry citizens will join the vanguard of protesters who have surfaced in Richmond, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to demand the restoration of their constitutional and economic freedoms.</span>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-4467715161100607302020-04-20T15:32:00.000-07:002020-04-21T09:07:33.398-07:00"When I Was Seventeen" It Was a Very Bad Year -- COVID Police State IV<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>When I was Seventeen<br />
It was a very good year<br />
It was a very good year for small town girls<br />
And soft summer nights<br />
We'd hide from the lights.<br />
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Ervin Drake, "It Was a Very Good Year"<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Frank Sinatra's soulful rendition of this timeless classic reminds anyone with a pulse of what it was like to experience the special moments of young romance "when we were seventeen." Dates, sports events, parties, proms, and just socializing after school (or <i>during</i> school for that matter) were all part of those vibrant, exhilarating teenage years that can never be duplicated. Once it's passed, you can never fully recapture it, "like time in a bottle."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> But sadly, 2020 has <i>not</i> been "a very good year" for today's 17-year-olds -- or for any of our young people for that matter. Instead, it has been utterly awful. And they will <i>never</i> get it back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>17 was a "very good year" back then -- but not so much now</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Thanks, grown-ups. Thanks, governors. Creeps.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Overnight, and by the arbitrary decree of insipid, soulless governors who cannot see beyond a distorted corona virus projection chart, the Springtime of their young lives has been simply cancelled.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Whether in high school or college, today's gals and guys have been summarily -- and irrevocably -- deprived of that special spring semester of the year, and all the irreplaceable experiences that come with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Instead of throwing frisbees or holding hands on the quad, they are crouching in front of a computer screen, at home alone, trying gamely to stay awake as they absorb the tedium of sterile on-line education. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> As for holding hands: What only yesterday was a timeless rite of springtime romance is now a <i>criminal misdemeanor</i> under the "social distancing" rules imposed by the pretentious governors. The mind boggles at what punishments these same governors would like to inflict upon those wayward youths with the audacity to engage in more adventurous sexual contact, like latter-day Woodstock Aquarians. The rack comes to mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Social Distance Violators in the Orwellian Age of Covid-19</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Instead of dressing up to join their best gal or guy for the Senior or Junior Prom, today's youngsters are drowning in the insufferable boredom of day-to-day domestic confinement with their equally bored parents and siblings. Even a small dancing party with friends is now <i>verboten</i>, on at least three counts. It would violate (1) social-distancing rules; (2) the ban against any gatherings of over 10 people; and (3) the grimly Draconian stay-at-home rules against merely visiting friends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>Courtship has been effectively declared illegal </i>under the stay-at-home and social distancing rules. These rules adamantly prohibit visiting anyone other than family or someone in need of special help or support. That does not include a romantic partner, or even a fiance. It was easier for Romeo to reach Juliet by fighting off the Capulets and climbing over her balcony than for a suitor of the Covid Age even to get near his sweetheart.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Young love and romance have thus been relegated to the barren wasteland of "non-essential activities" that remain prohibited unless and until the governors decide that the risk of COVID-19 has been nullified to their complete satisfaction. Which could be next year, or beyond. Until then, lads and lassies must keep their dismal distance and romance remains on a hard hold.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> If this sounds like some dystopian nightmare out of Orwell or Huxley, it should. Because it is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The Covid-19 virus has not been demonstrated to inflict harms exceeding those of a bad seasonal flu by any orders of magnitude. Although it appears likely to equal or modestly exceed the 61,000 U.S. deaths attributed to the 2017-18 seasonal flu, there was essentially <b>no</b> political, governmental, media, or societal reaction or mass response to that flu or its spread. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Yet the comparable Covid-19 has generated a degree of mass, lunatic hysteria and irrational overreaction that is utterly unprecedented in American history. Not even the fleetingly crazed response to Orson Welle</span><span style="font-size: large;">s' radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" in 1938 approximates the insanely disproportionate societal and governmental reaction to the corona virus threat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> As Jefferson Airplane foretold in the oddly prophetic <i>White Rabbit</i>, we have reached the point "when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Should an entire generation of millions of young people be deprived of the most precious, irretrievable experiences of their lives so that clueless political poltroons can claim they went "all out" to minimize the risk (<i>not the probability!</i>) that aged, infirm retirees, already "playing with house money" (including yours truly, except for the "infirm" part) might contract Covid-19 and possibly succumb?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The answer is plainly "No!" Any reasonable elderly person with a grain of decency and proportion will recognize that an entire generation of youngsters should not be deprived of the best years of their lives so that the oldsters can stretch a few more months out of the worst of theirs. After all, we are "playing with house money." The kids aren't.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-70072508749169645082020-04-04T10:17:00.000-07:002020-04-05T14:57:22.990-07:00COVID POLICE STATE III: "THE SILENCE OF THE LAWYERS" AMID CONSTITUTIONAL COLLAPSE<span style="font-size: large;"> Throughout America, an undistinguished lot of Babbitt-like governors have exploited the COVID-19 panic to impose unprecedented police-state restrictions upon a largely docile and groveling populace (excluding you and I, dear rebellious reader). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Never has such enormous power been exercised over so many by such small and mediocre men and women. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The Draconian "rules" recently imposed by the feckless Governor Northam of Virginia -- who only months ago narrowly escaped ignominious removal from office for posing in creepy black-face photos -- are typical of these pullulating coercive atrocities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The edicts come under the obnoxious rubric of "stay-at-home" orders (hereafter "SAH's"). By mere executive fiat, Northam has decreed that Virginia citizens <i>cannot leave their homes</i> except to purchase food or supplies; go to those designated places of work that are still "allowed" to remain open; or to exercise in permitted areas (e.g., running or bike paths, but not, e.g., soccer fields or basketball courts). The callow mediocrities who pass as governors in most of our states have done essentially the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> These SAH rules follow other decrees which, among other things, mandate "social distancing" and prohibit gatherings of more than ten (10) people. They at least "permit" families of more than ten to remain together, for now. Mormons must be uttering deep sighs of relief.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Is it necessary for SR to explain that these imperious COVID-based decrees violate precious constitutional rights that our Founding Fathers risked all to establish, and which generations of brave servicemen have risked their lives to preserve?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6a7rL2gR1gmA4vgqeqHgWUAZSBfLBUxiAXHug23drAIuVxKkHTF4nGvk9rxTdeOzX1mbh6n3LWVUvEQ2vP-Q3VRl3tHmFL9-MRbF5NV74Oa4jbu0Tv2_PP4LWcTb78fhjPUzmWUifSo/s1600/the-silence-of-the-lambs-810x506.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="810" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6a7rL2gR1gmA4vgqeqHgWUAZSBfLBUxiAXHug23drAIuVxKkHTF4nGvk9rxTdeOzX1mbh6n3LWVUvEQ2vP-Q3VRl3tHmFL9-MRbF5NV74Oa4jbu0Tv2_PP4LWcTb78fhjPUzmWUifSo/s320/the-silence-of-the-lambs-810x506.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>America's Lawyers: Silent as Lambs in the face of constitutional collapse</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Most notably and clearly, the governors' orders violate the First Amendment guarantees of Free Exercise of Religion and Freedom of Peaceable Assembly; the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protections against the deprivation of liberty or property without due process of law; and the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the taking of private property without just compensation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> These state and local edicts violate the Free Exercise Clause, for example, through their ban against gatherings of more than ten people, as well as by other provisions that effectively force churches to close. For example, a simple Catholic mass on Sunday, with one priest, two altar boys, a few attendant nuns, and a tiny congregation of, say, six parishioners would plainly violate the Virginia order and those of many other states, counties, and cities. These innocent religious congregants could be prosecuted and imprisoned for up to a year in prison, simply for attending a mass in compliance with Catholic doctrine and liturgy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> There is no doubt that this result violates the Free Exercise Clause on its face. The only question, discussed below, is whether the violation can be justified under the constitutional standards governing the fairly extensive (<i>but not limitless</i>) leeway given governments to take necessary measures to protect the public health.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> (Parenthetically, the fact that many or most religious authorities have slavishly endorsed these government restrictions as fully justified tells us more about the weakness of their own religious convictions than it does about the validity of the restrictions. There was a time when religious ministers and adherents actually considered the observation of their religious tenets more important than merely minimizing the risk of catching a virus or flu. Not so now.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> There is also the prospect that these orders violate Due Process, as recently illustrated by a reported incident in Connecticut. Under various SAH orders, people cannot go out to visit others unless the visitees are family members. In the case of an elderly woman confined to her old age home, with no living relatives to visit her, this is the functional equivalent of state-imposed solitary confinement, without due process. When it was pointed out that the applicable SAH order would prevent the woman's only close friend from visiting her, the governor apparently relented in the face of the friend's argument that the lady's due process rights had been violated by what amounted to de facto solitary confinement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The comprehensive closures of many thousands of businesses as "non-essential" also present serious due process and takings concerns. Countless companies have been designated for arbitrary closure without the slightest demonstration of the underlying rationale, let alone a due process hearing. Any third-rate official who happens to be a governor can now shut down your business by fiat, and deprive you of your living and the use of your property, without so much as a pretense of rational justification. If this does not raise a genuine constitutional claim, warranting at least a judicial or administrative hearing, we are all in serious trouble.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> But Virginia's and other states' rules most explicitly and <i>literally</i> violate the First Amendment right of assembly, which forbids both the federal and state governments (the latter via the 14th Amendment's "incorporation" effect) from "abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for redress of grievances."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> There is, again, no question that a government edict broadly forbidding assemblies of more than ten people <i>on its face</i> violates the Assembly Clause. As <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2020/03/americas-dystopian-covid-police-state.html">previously noted</a> by SR, these edicts would have prohibited the gathering of the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia to declare independence. The only question is whether the judicial precedents upholding broad government authority to impose quarantines and similar restrictions to protect the public health are sufficient to sustain the Draconian SAH edicts imposed by governors on the basis of the COVID-19 crisis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> As with other First Amendment rights, restrictions on freedom of assembly can only be justified if they are "narrowly tailored" to further a "compelling government interest" (this principle is so well established by so many cases that citation is unnecessary).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> SR will stipulate <i>arguendo</i> that the compelling interest standard is satisfied here, although automatically conceding this point could create dangerous precedent. While the need to combat the troubling expansion of COVID-19 cases and deaths seems obviously compelling -- at least in heavily infected states like New York, if not in low-impact states like Wyoming -- the same can be said with regard to the annual seasonal virus, such as the one that claimed about <i>61,000</i> lives in the 2017-18 season. In other words, the fact that there will <i>always</i> be a contagious and dangerous flu or virus for the government to contain means that the government will <i>always</i> be able to invoke a compelling government interest, without more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> But the really critical issue for the sweeping SAH edicts' constitutionality is whether they are narrowly tailored to further the object of containing and defeating the COVID contagion. This is a difficult issue on which reasonable medical, policy, and legal minds can differ.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> To SR's thinking, a blanket ban on gatherings (indoors or outside) above ten people is overly broad; regardless, it hardly seems "narrowly tailored." For example, a gathering of 15 healthy high school youngsters to discuss and organize their concerns and opposition regarding the termination of their senior academic year and their last chance to participate in their chosen sports would be banned by the Virginia rules -- even if held in the open air, under social distancing guidelines. Any public health danger posed by such an assembly would be minimal at worse, yet it would constitute a core exercise of First Amendment rights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Further, the constitutional vulnerability of the 10-person gathering limit and other oppressive SAH restrictions is even more evident in those states that have adopted them <i>on the basis of the more severe problems in <b>other</b> states rather than their own experience.</i> States like Hawaii (3 deaths), Montana (6 deaths), and Idaho (9) have imposed totalitarian SAH's and gathering limits that can only be based on the panic caused by higher death totals in states like New York (2,935) rather than on the magnitude of COVID's impact in their own states. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The death tolls in the named states and others are miniscule in comparison to the routine annual death tolls resulting from the seasonal flu, yet neither those states nor any others found the latter to be a compelling interest justifying Draconian public health restrictions on constitutional rights. The less the magnitude of the COVID-19 impact, the more narrowly the government restrictions should be tailored. The mindless governors' reflexive adoption of "one-size-fits-all" SAH edicts, regardless of extreme variations in the severity of the threat between states, seems patently incompatible with a contention that they are "narrowly tailored."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> It cannot be stressed too forcibly: comparison of the virtually <i>non-existent</i> government response to the seasonal flu in, e.g., 2017-18 (61,00 deaths, averaging over 450/day) to the insanely excessive, economically suicidal over-reaction to COVID-19 (7,000 deaths so far, with Summer around the corner) strongly indicates that the state-ordered SAH's and other restrictions in response to COVID-19 are not narrowly tailored to respond to a public health threat that has not yet been shown to be decisively greater than seasonal flu.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Despite the obvious constitutional concerns posed by the Draconian SAH's and similar decrees, America's legal establishment and so-called civil liberties bar have been conspicuously silent in the face of this unprecedented assault on liberty. SR has diligently searched internet web sites for articles or reports reflecting the concerns and questions of the American Bar regarding the coercive COVID-19 regime, but has largely come up dry. Only a few libertarian gadflys, like FOX News legal commentator Andrew Napolitano, appear to raise the constitutional concerns outlined above.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The paucity of outrage or objection from the legal and civil liberties establishments tells us more about their utter hypocrisy and political corruption than it does about the constitutional concerns that are so obviously presented here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> America's lawyers have had little difficulty in finding or inventing novel or "creative" constitutional arguments to protect the interests of nefarious criminals and terrorists, even when those arguments have no foundation in the constitutional text and little support in judicial precedent. They fiercely defend the most malicious murders against the death penalty with "inventive" arguments that fly in the face of the Eighth Amendments' text and previously settled precedents. They have fashioned radical arguments that fly in the face of constitutional and military history to defend the murderous terrorists of the September 11 attacks, with the result that some of the worst of them, like Kalid Sheikh Mohammed, have yet to even face trial for their epochal crimes (KSM's trial is now set for Jan. 11, 2021 -- 20 years after his terrorist crimes).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Yet when it comes to the enforced confinement of at least two-thirds of America's population, without so much as predicate deliberations or findings, let alone a due process hearing, the American legal and civil rights establishments are nowhere to be found. Perhaps if the confined populations were more heavily populated with suspected murderers or terrorists the American bar would engage the case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In the face of American history's most wide-ranging restriction of personal liberty by unfettered government fiat, the Silence of the Lawyers is deafening. Histories tyrants, from Caligula to Henry VIII to Stalin, would be proud of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-13697432900520529982020-03-28T18:41:00.000-07:002020-03-28T18:41:13.356-07:00COVID POLICE STATE -- PART II<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> SR's previous post outlined our initial resistance <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to the patently disproportionate and
unreasoned government response to the COVID virus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With so many atrocities and misjudgments
littering the landscape with economic and social disaster, it is impractical to
encapsulate all objections and rebuttals to this governmental, political, and
media malfeasance in a single blog-post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Consequently, we will attempt to address this multiplicity of COVID
issues seriatim, highlighting those items that seem most critical as we descend
into what we hope is a temporary totalitarian nightmare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Heroes of World War II Weren't into Social Distancing</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dr. Fauci's Concession that COVID is like
Seasonal Flu</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>COVID skeptics like SR
have heretofore regarded the President's COVID adviser and resident expert Dr.
Anthony Fauci as rather alarmist and pessimistic, at least in comparison to the
President's sound emphasis that "the cure may be worse than the
disease."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, however, Dr. Fauci
has apparently joined those of us who have stressed that the coronavirus is
similar in severity to the seasonal flu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In an article published in the respected <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New England Journal of Medicine</i> on March 26, Dr. Fauci and two
reputable co-authors state as follows (emphasis added):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>"[T]he currently reported
case fatality rate [for COVID-19] is approximately 2%. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another
article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099
patients with <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">l</span>aboratory-confirmed
Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of symptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the case fatality rate may be considerably
less than 1%. This suggests that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the overall clinical consequences of
Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those
of a severe seasonal influenza</b> (which has a case fatality rate of
approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic
influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to
SARS or MERS, which have had case
fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.</i>"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fauci et al, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New
England Journal of Medicine</i>, March 26, 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
strengthens the view that the most extreme government measures employed against
COVID-19 are based upon hysteria rather than reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the seasonal flu has never generated
anything resembling the coercive measures presently employed against COVID-19,
the government's wildly extreme reaction to the latter appears to be patently
disproportionate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ZERO</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">COVID deaths in Japan on March 26, 2020 (despite rejecting extreme
measures).</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Japan was originally
identified as a prime candidate for very severe COVID-19 impact, owing in part
to the arrival of large numbers of infected passengers from the heavily
infected cruise ship, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Diamond Princess</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Notwithstanding this concern, Japan has not
heretofore resorted to the type of extreme coercive restraints on freedom that
have been followed in the U.S. and elsewhere (Japan did close its schools, but
is preparing to re-open them now).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite its more temperate approach to quarantine and social distancing
mandates, Japan has experienced only a modest number of COVID cases and, in several
recent days, apparently zero deaths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>According to the most recently posted data, Japan has experienced 1,693
total COVID cases, and 52 total deaths (compared to, e.g., about 17,000 cases
and 1028 deaths in the smaller-populated UK).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Japan has managed this relatively successful containment even though it
is among the most densely populated nations in the world, and population density
is a primary factor for COVID contagion and mortality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Japan's experience indicates that the harsh
police state measures adapted in many U.S. states and cities are not necessary
for a reasonable COVID containment policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cuomo and the Fraudulent Death Card</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The COVID-Control extremists flatly reject
the application of cost-benefit analysis to the coercive, totalitarian measures
they impose (like closing schools and businesses and imposing obscene "shelter
in place" dictates) to purportedly control the spread of the
coronavirus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are fully prepared to
ruin the nation's economy and quality of life if the ruination will prevent the
death of a single 80-year-old dotard from COVID-19 (even though he is apt to
die from something else next year).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lest
any reader consider this insensitive, SR is himself 75-years old, and fully
prepared to waive any claim to the government's solicitous
"protection."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>New
York's obnoxious hereditary governor, Andrew Cuomo, expressed that irrational viewpoint
as follows in his brainless dismissal of any economic objections to oppressive
COVID coercion (from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reason</i>, March
24, 2020):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>"We're
not going to put a dollar figure on human life," said Cuomo (D), who last
Friday announced that "we're all in quarantine now" while ordering
all "nonessential" businesses to close. The goal, he explained, is to
"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">save lives, period, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">whatever it costs</b></i>."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, Cuomo declares that
cost/benefit analysis is inapplicable to the adoption of any policy that
purports to minimize loss of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Continuing
his maudlin, melodramatic demagogy, Cuomo intoned:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"My mother is not expendable, and your
mother is not expendable, and our brothers and sisters are not
expendable," Cuomo said when asked about "conservatives" who
have noted the heavy burdens imposed by sweeping restrictions on movement,
business operations, and work. "And we're not going to accept a premise
that human life is disposable."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With
rhetorical violins droning in the background, Cuomo portrayed rational cost
considerations in the following melodramatic vein:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"We'll just sacrifice old people;
they're old people anyway. And the old get left behind….We're going to move on,
and if you can't keep up, well, you just fall by the wayside of life." He
described the consideration of the economic and social costs of extreme COVID
containment measures <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as "some
modern, Darwinian theory of natural selection."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cuomo
is, plainly put, a mawkish, melodramatic jackass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are lucky he was nowhere near the controls
when Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower made the decisions which won World War
II, but at the known cost of untold legions of lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cuomo would have cancelled D-Day, in order to
"save lives, period, whatever it costs."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As one
of the "old people" who Cuomo purported to protect, my response to
him is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Shove it, you irrational jackass,
and speak for yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elderly people
with any brains and any guts do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
expect the younger generation to forfeit their claim to economic, social,
educational, and recreational opportunities merely to reduce our risk of
catching, and possibly succumbing to, the COVID virus."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are many times when some unspecified loss of life, or more accurately the risk
of such, is an inescapable cost of achieving the greater good, and this is one
of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the long run, millions of
lives will be ruined and even lost due to the obvious adverse consequences of
COVID coercion and quarantine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further,
millions of youngsters have now forfeited the most momentous experiences of
their young lives due to the shortsighted stupidity of their elders in cancelling
the concluding months of an academic year – high school or college.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
shutdown of businesses, commerce, travel, athletics, and ordinary economic
activity in the name of COVID Containment has already reduced to ruin an
economy that was booming on all fronts and obliterated the investments of
millions of ordinary Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Equally,
the shutting of schools and the attendant confinement of millions of healthy,
energetic youngsters to their homes is a social, recreational, educational, and
morale disaster of immeasurable dimensions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Already,
literally millions of American youngsters have been deprived of that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">once in a lifetime</i> opportunity to compete
as a senior in the basketball, lacrosse, track, swimming, or baseball
championships or playoffs for which they have spent years in preparation. They
will never recover this golden opportunity of their youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all because of the government's, the
media's, and the politicians' hysterical overreaction to a so-called virus
epidemic that, with each day, resembles ever more closely the seasonal flu that
is noticed by no one but the vaccination makers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Media and the Left Root for the Virus
and Resist a Cure.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The media and
political left's furious resistance to the prospect of a readily available cure
for COVID-19 removes any doubt that they view this crisis as their supreme
opportunity to defeat President Trump and seize power in a leftist coup.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
President has properly called attention to the prospect that chloroquine, or
hydroxychloroquine, may prove an effective cure to COVID-19.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the President's duly qualified
statements, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>physicians and scientists in
China, Norway, Australia, France, Italy and elsewhere have confirmed tests and
treatments demonstrating the efficacy of chloroquine (especially in combination
with the well-known anti-cold Z-pac).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> With each day, <a href="https://techstartups.com/2020/03/28/breaking-italy-france-now-prescribing-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-coronavirus-patients/">the evidence</a> that chloroquine is a good cure for COVID-19
becomes more persuasive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the media
and political left's adamant and steadfast rejection of this stunningly
positive development conclusively confirms what SR and others have recognized
all along – the political left, the democrats, and their media allies
resolutely reject the prospect that the COVID crisis will be reduced, contained,
or resolved<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>before the presidential
election in November.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The media and political left are <i>actively rooting against the success of the chloroquine cure</i> because they want the COVID crisis to persist, undermine the economy, and assure the defeat of President Trump next November. On this issue in particular, they have conclusively proven themselves to be the enemies of the people.</span></div>
<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-33666661176315431252020-03-26T20:17:00.000-07:002020-03-26T20:17:30.651-07:00AMERICA'S DYSTOPIAN COVID POLICE STATE: PART I<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">SR has heretofore refrained from posting on the
ubiquitous coronavirus or COVID-19 (hereafter CV19) crisis, and the utterly
unprecedented police state excesses imposed in its name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our reticence was not rooted in lack of
interest or ideas on the subject, but rather on the reverse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The moment one appalling idiocy of the CV19
gestapo drove us to the keyboard in furious outrage, it would immediately be
superseded by a still more incredible totalitarian atrocity that rendered the
previous topic of subordinate urgency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
much COVID Lunacy, and so little time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b>Assembly for Declaration of Independence: Illegal Gathering under COVID Rules</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
example, yesterday's news was that the crass and clueless Governor of Virginia had
extended the temporary closure of the State's public schools to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">at least</i> a complete closure for the entire academic year. He imposed this ruthless totalitarian <i>dictat</i> even though there was not the least justification for such
a premature announcement at this time, other than to engage in the crude one-upsmanship of COVID extremism that the nation's governors are currently playing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The reported <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">14 </i>CV19-caused deaths in Virginia barely approaches the annual toll of the ordinary seasonal flu (or <i>one month's</i> murders in Baltimore), yet the notion of closing the schools based on
the seasonal flu would surely have been met with unanimous and well-deserved popular derision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet relegating Virginia's youngsters
to long months of educational, recreational, athletic, and social deprivation
in order to reduce the <i>potential</i> CVD risks for aged retirees (like me) – who are
already "playing with house money" anyway -- <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is accepted by today's feckless sheeple without
a murmur of dissent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The concept of
cost-benefit analysis<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is apparently
beyond the ken of today's nanny-state tyrants, let alone their cowering
constituents. The crude COVID-based closure of the schools now sets the precedent for similar draconian measures in the future, justified by similar threats, like the recurring seasonal flu itself. When it is pointed out next year that the seasonal flu is apt to cause illness and deaths comparable to this years corona virus, how will the government justify avoiding the kind of extreme measures it has adopted against COVID-19?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
today we learned of a bizarre new expansion of the COVID Police State that not even George
Orwell, in his wildest and darkest imaginings, would have contemplated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Mayor of Chicago (one Lori Lightfoot) -- who lacks the cognitive powers to manage a neighborhood garage sale let alone
the welfare of the nation's third largest city -- has darkly declared that
<i>lengthy walks, runs, or bike rides are now criminal acts under the COVID
Regime,</i> and perpetrators are subject to citations, fines, and even arrest by
the Stassi that once passed for the Chicago Police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since this dangerous mayor's crude declarations do not require embellishment to portray their grotesque excess, let them speak for
themselves (foxnews.com, March 26, 2020; emphasis added):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Be
smart,” Lightfoot said Wednesday, according to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>CBS Chicago. “Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these
orders, we will be forced to shut down
the parks and lakefront.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lightfoot
went on to announce that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spending long
periods of time outside or in playgrounds is <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>not
allowed</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You cannot go on long bike rides.
Playgrounds are shut down</i>,” she said. “You must abide by the order. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Outside is for a brief respite</b>, not for 5Ks</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
added: “I can’t emphasize enough that we abide [by] the rules.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>"This
is an order that’s enforceable by law," she reportedly said. "We’re
going to give you an admonition. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And if you don’t turn right away and head
home then you’re going to get a citation. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b>And
if worse, yeah, we will take you into custody</b></i><b>."<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
added: "I hope that it doesn’t come to that, I hope that I don’t have to
shut down the lake front,
shut down all the parks, but I will."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">If
this police state madness does not drive the reader to furious resistance to
the COVID madness, it is hard to imagine what will.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">A crude, uncultured, power-mad mayor of a
dysfunctional American city dictates to American citizens that they may not take a
hike, run, or bike ride unless they restrict it to an approved brevity that is
not specified – in short, the police have full leeway to arrest any walker,
runner, or cyclist at their unfettered discretion. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Welcome to the totalitarian dystopia of COVID America. Where venturing outside your home is limited to the "brief respite" allowed by the government.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
the same civil libertarians who howl in outrage at the slightest government interference
with the violent protests of Antifa anarchists are now grotesquely silent in the
face of the most comprehensive police state restraints on the rights of
ordinary citizens since the founding of the Republic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Merely for starters</i>, the widely adopted
and spreading state COVID-based prohibitions of gatherings in excess of <i>ten
people</i> blatantly and indisputably violate the Constitution's prohibition of any
infringement of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>U.S. Const., Amend I. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In COVID America, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest could not legally have gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the opening salvo in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Splashing Rocks'</i> protest against the extreme Police State measures that have been adopted by
federal, state, and local governments in grotesque overreaction to the COVID-19
virus -- a passing disease that is little more than a variant of the seasonal flu in terms of its
threat to the public health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to
"get the ball rolling," SR will end this post here, but will
enumerate in subsequent posts the totalitarian atrocities and stupidities that have been
imposed – and, worse yet, docilely accepted by a cowed and emasculated
citizenry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-26265664983437953622020-03-01T14:00:00.000-08:002020-03-02T04:09:11.352-08:00ROGER MARIS, 1961, AND THE GAPING HOLE IN THE HALL OF FAME<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> The summer of 1961 was arguably
the most riveting and exciting season in baseball history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That was the year when the incomparable New York Yankee
outfield duo of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris staged a season-long duel in
pursuit of baseball's most illustrious and sacrosanct record:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Babe Ruth's legendary 60 home run standard,
set in 1927.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I well remember rushing to the newsstand each morning that
summer to get the daily paper and check the sports page to see whether Maris, Mantle,
or both had homered the day before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Needless to say, there were no sports websites in 1961, and during the
summers back then active teenage boys like me (I was 16 at the time) had little
time or inclination to find what little TV sports news there might have
been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I bought more newspapers that summer
than I ever did in my life – just to keep track of Mantle and Maris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Millions of American youngsters (and adults) did likewise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a special and unique season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the season progressed, and the two Yankee superstars
drew nearer and nearer to Ruth's record, reports of their home run progress
even moved from the sports page to the front page in some papers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As they say about the Masters golf tournament
today, it was "a season like no other."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even inveterate Yankee-haters followed the
daily heroics of the M&M Boys as they pursued the Immortal Babe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><b>Maris and Mantle: The Home Run Heroes of 1961</b></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But there was also something of a dark element to the
Great Race for Ruth's record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
unfathomable reasons, much of the sports media, and many fans as well, somehow
resented Roger Maris's role in this heroic home run derby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a relative newcomer to the Yankees (he had only joined them from Kansas City A's in 1960) and was viewed by many Yank fans as something
of an interloper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mickey Mantle, on the
other hand, was already a well-established and well-beloved pin-stripe icon, with an appealing,
"aw shucks" personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mantle was the decided favorite of
most fans and reporters to break Ruth's record – if anyone did, that is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Maris, on the other hand, was a painfully shy and quiet North
Dakotan who went about his baseball business with dedication and determination,
but little charm or charisma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In today's
media environment, he would be the star who somehow never gets the
endorsements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had won the American
League MVP award just the year before (he won it again in 1961), but that somehow
seemed to be quickly forgotten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If any
star ever needed a shrewd PR agent, it was Roger Maris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he was not the type to care about such
frivolity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1961, the MLB season had been expanded from 154 games
(as it had been in Ruth's era) to 162.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Consequently, baseball traditionalists and other crank sportswriters objected that if Ruth's record were not broken before the 155<sup>th</sup>
game of the season, it would be somehow illegitimate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, many traditionalists resented both
Mantle's and Maris's challenge to Ruth's record no matter how it was done. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of course, the advantage of the slightly longer season was
probably offset by the more daunting challenge of modern pitching, especially
the factor of facing well-rested relievers, rather than arm-tired starters, in
the late innings of a game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another
challenge to the modern sluggers was the added visual difficulty of hitting in night
games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But taking everything into
account, it is fair to say that neither Ruth's era nor Maris and Mantle's
enjoyed a decided advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short,
the challenge to Ruth's great record in 1961 was a fair one (unlike the later steroid-enhanced home-run records of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the season drew to a close, Maris gradually drew away
from Mantle in the home run race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mantle's
pursuit of the record had been handicapped by a late season hip infection,
leaving Maris effectively in sole pursuit of the Babe (Mantle ended up with a
still remarkable 54 homers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As Maris came closer and closer to the record with each
pressure-packed homer – 55, then 56, then 57, and so on -- the relentless daily
focus on his progress expanded from sports reporters to the general media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reporters continually surrounded him,
demanding interviews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The daily stress
became so intense that Maris reportedly started to shed hair in clumps – which the
closely crewcut North Dakotan could ill afford.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Notwithstanding the pressure, Maris continued to pile up
the homers and the RBI's (he led the American League in both categories that year) and led
the Yankees to another AL Championship and subsequent World Series
victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even aside from this home run
record, it was an extraordinary season by any standard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacH3eGFGy_uisT5ZlWZF40z15cGMRbjZ3doE8j8KgnMISmhWCTZPcVFPBKQSi-ThjOqesayu5hIlMpa0VJ2qrirhX-NHRA7n3UygKM1SQj6CQ8sAtA1SV13-hrX0J2y_1V_1pdmqzcjo/s1600/MARIS.JFK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="625" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacH3eGFGy_uisT5ZlWZF40z15cGMRbjZ3doE8j8KgnMISmhWCTZPcVFPBKQSi-ThjOqesayu5hIlMpa0VJ2qrirhX-NHRA7n3UygKM1SQj6CQ8sAtA1SV13-hrX0J2y_1V_1pdmqzcjo/s320/MARIS.JFK.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><b>Even the President shared in the season's excitement: Maris signing a baseball for JFK at the White House.</b></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b><br /></b></span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the last day of the season, October 1, 1961, under
unimaginable pressure and hostile scrutiny, Maris cracked his 61<sup>st</sup>
homer of the season -- a trademark rocket to the right field stands against the
Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had broken
baseball's most illustrious and revered record – and many embittered die-hard
reporters and myopic bystanders would never forgive him for his fabulous achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But millions of kids like me (and grown up kids as well)
broke out into euphoric cheers as we listened to the announcer's call of No. 61
on our scratchy radios.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Against all odds
and opposition, Roger Maris had broken baseball's most illustrious record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a truly iconic moment in American
sports history, as captured on the front page of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Mirror</i>'s Souvenir "Home-Run Edition" (reproduced below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ntbTbe-ACctl0lMiYA9GFd_KaKCoOs-J6omniLKjeoSUoI6s36Ao3G6GBgvgtPoDrXp4DTz1u2yJokf3zhyliIp8LDMQvPVXQEgmrRnA6bXbbA7aMo_RQhV3AtGpcCTq6Ni_sKOHqdA/s1600/61.specialed.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ntbTbe-ACctl0lMiYA9GFd_KaKCoOs-J6omniLKjeoSUoI6s36Ao3G6GBgvgtPoDrXp4DTz1u2yJokf3zhyliIp8LDMQvPVXQEgmrRnA6bXbbA7aMo_RQhV3AtGpcCTq6Ni_sKOHqdA/s320/61.specialed.jpeg" width="251" /></a></div>
<b>How many Hall-of-Famers made a moment like this?</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite the media naysayers, Maris was duly recognized in
1961 not only for his immortal record but for an extraordinary overall season
by any standard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was awarded his
second consecutive American League MVP award and, beyond that, he was honored
with the Hickock Belt as the top professional athlete of the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For that one great season, no one towered
over the American sports scene like Roger Maris.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The remainder of Maris's relatively short career was
somewhat anti-climactic, at least for the great slugger who had broken
baseball's greatest record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Nonetheless, h</span>e earned
World Series rings with the Yankees in 1961 and 1962, and again with the St.
Louis Cardinals in 1967.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His star
performance for the Cards in their '67 Series victory (where he hit .385 and
had 7 RBI's) is rarely remembered, mainly because it was so starkly
overshadowed by his exploits as a Yankee Slugger. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite what could fairly be considered the greatest
single-season exploit in baseball history – achieved without the aid of artificial
stimulants and in the face of relentless
media hostility – Roger Maris remains excluded from MLB's Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a gross travesty,
and should be rectified by the HOF's Era Committee by proposing Maris's
well-deserved, if belated, admission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The only plausible justification for Roger Maris's continued
exclusion from the HOF is the relative brevity of his career and, particularly,
his career as a top-flight star.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
that lame objection is forcefully overwhelmed not only by the singular and
historical nature of his remarkable 1961 season, but also by the extremely
great overall achievements of his peak years:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Two MVP awards; three World Series Championship Rings; seven times
selected for the All-Star game; two-time AL RBI leader; and Gold Glove award
for 1960.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Roger Maris, simply speaking,
was a great all-around player – and a winner to boot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Moreover, t</span>he singularity of Roger Maris's home run record in 1961 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is that it still stands today as the
American League home run record</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Think of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Babe Ruth's
immortal record had stood for an impressive 34 years when Maris broke it; yet
Maris's AL record <i>still stands</i> today, after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">59 years!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Career longevity and career statistical landmarks (like
400 homers, 2,500 hits, or a lifetime .300 batting average) are surely
legitimate criteria for the Hall of Fame, but they are not the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sine qua non</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An iconic, illustrious feat such as Maris's
home run record, coupled with the genuine greatness of his peak seasons and his Three-Ring record as an indisputable winner, more
than offset the fact that this great player's career was only about 11 years
long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The continued exclusion of Roger Maris from the Hall of
Fame is an inexcusable embarrassment to that otherwise admirable
institution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is based on myopic,
unreasonable, and biased mindsets that have long since outlived any justification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The saturnine North Dakotan, who generated
what was probably the most riveting and fascinating season in baseball history,
should be admitted to Cooperstown at the next opportunity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-40105375960747426452019-08-15T10:28:00.003-07:002019-08-17T09:45:45.724-07:00HONG KONG RIOTERS ARE NOT LES MISERABLES<span style="font-size: large;"> A mob of self-indulgent, selfie-taking Han millennials have traumatized the heretofore superior city of Hong Kong (known as the "SAR", or Special Administrative Region) with some two months of non-stop rioting and wreckage. Almost instantly, clueless members of both U.S. parties in Congress finally found a cause they could join hands on: glorifying and supporting these marauding Hong Kong hordes as though they were revolutionary heroes. Naturally, it is a misguided, ill-informed cause.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Whether out of sheer ignorance or a diffuse animosity towards China, the West's political and media elites have reflexively embraced Hong Kong's rioters as though they were the heroic, revolutionary waifs of <i>Les Miserables</i>. Indeed, the Hong Kong herd has even gone so far as to sing -- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb5wDf-fw2w">laughably out of key</a> -- that show's popular anthem, <i>Can You Hear the People Sing</i>, as though they were kindred spirits with Eponene and Marius. As though.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-7gN581wX81H65Ch4YCbLV0h_lUlMsCrR1Sc2tvOO_EKXaWBIYYD8JsFnwjH5w7uuNlN-xTPbdN4cJkw25Xfq0NTO02z7al_cJuzA3pvDfM73U3zJNxWnRSeB7UuFhEs2fLN_jri7ro/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-7gN581wX81H65Ch4YCbLV0h_lUlMsCrR1Sc2tvOO_EKXaWBIYYD8JsFnwjH5w7uuNlN-xTPbdN4cJkw25Xfq0NTO02z7al_cJuzA3pvDfM73U3zJNxWnRSeB7UuFhEs2fLN_jri7ro/s320/th.jpg" width="208" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Eponene was not among the Hong Kong millennial heroes</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Alas, the Hong Kong rioters' Western cheering section has overlooked or ignored a critical aspect of the now two-month long uprising -- i.e., it has all the features of an anarchist revolution. Which is especially odd, since it takes place in one of the most thriving, prosperous, and attractive cities in the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> When an organized force engages in attacks on a government's law enforcement personnel and their headquarters; smashes their way into the government's legislative headquarters to vandalize it; shuts down a city's subway and traffic systems, thus preventing the citizenry from getting to work or engaging in ordinary commercial activities; occupies the city's international airport, forcing the cancellation of flights for extended periods of time and subverting the city's economy; and seizes and beats journalists and other citizens on mere suspicion of surveillance activity; then that mobilized force is engaged in a form of revolution. What color it takes is anyone's guess.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> If the Hong Kong marauders acknowledged their revolutionary status and accepted the consequences, it would be one thing. On the contrary, however, they expect to be treated like a harmless band of frolicking youth, even while they engage in violent and grossly disruptive insurgency.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The most famous Chinese revolutionary of them all, Mao Zedong himself, aptly explained: "A revolution is not a dinner party." But Chairman Mao's admonition is entirely lost on Hong Kong's generation of snowflake revolutionaries, who would have dropped out of the Long March even before it crossed the Hunan border.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Thus, the Hong Kong insurgents whine and squeal like wounded sheep when the beleaguered police have the temerity to meet their violent operations with even minimal force. After a single demonstrator suffered a "<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/hong-kong-protests-continue-despite-airport-setback">severe eye injur</a>y" when the police fired a <b>beanbag</b> projectile -- <i>quelle horreur!</i> -- the insurgents wailed as though PLA tanks and mortars had opened indiscriminate fire on thousands. Apparently, the rioters and their Western cheerleaders insist that not even minimal means of force can be used by police in responding to marauding mobs occupying the city's airport and lifeline to the world. What do they expect, after all, canapes and cocktails?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> As this is written, there are some signs that the mass protest is losing momentum. More and more ordinary Hong Kong citizens are insisting that "enough is enough." Whether the protests will whither away any time soon, however, remains to be seen. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Although protest leaders have offered a tepid apology for the disastrous consequences of the airport seizure, they continue to insist that the City must accede to their primary demands, including: the removal of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam; the release and exoneration of all protesters arrested for criminal offenses; an investigation of the police response to the uprising (but not the uprising itself!); and a repudiation of the factual declarations that the demonstrators engaged in "riots."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Inasmuch as the Hong Kong government (not to mention Beijing) will certainly continue to reject these unrealistic demands, continued demonstrations can be expected to plague Hong Kong. The key question is whether the insurgents now recognize that they must tone down their demonstrations to a level that is tolerable to both the SAR and Beijing, not to mention ordinary Hong Kong citizens.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Heretofore, Xi Jinping has deemed it prudent to withhold direct intervention by the PLA or other mainland forces, in recognition of the howls of outrage that would issue from the U.S., UK, and other Western governments and media if such action occurs. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that Xi's patience is inexhaustible. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The severe chaos and lawlessness transpiring in Hong Kong -- which is after all part of China -- do not reflect well on Xi's image as a forceful Helmsman (and successor to Mao) in Beijing. There might well be hard-liners on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, or in the PLA, who are looking over Xi's shoulder with repressed frustration. Thus, continued extreme provocation by the insurgents in Hong Kong might yet force Xi's hand towards intervention as a matter of political self-preservation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Western governments, and U.S. congressmen, seemingly bent on provoking China with ill-considered declarations of support for continued insurgency, would do well to consider the potentially disastrous consequences of their feckless grandstanding.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Before the recent disruptions, Hong Kong has enjoyed the reputation of one of the most prosperous, efficient, and advanced cities in the world. It ranks seventh in the world, for example, in Human Development Index (HDI), compared to No. 13 for the U.S. Its economy has been ranked as t<i>he most free and competitive in the world</i>. It ranks <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2018/11/east-asia-defies-diversity-delusion.html">at or near the top</a> in such worldwide statistical indices as STEM scores, IQ averages, public safety, and life expectancy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> This is the "oppressive" environment that the heroic Hong Kong militants are recklessly subverting with their prolonged campaign of disruption and defiance. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Meanwhile, posturing U.S. politicians encourage the demonstrators in expanding their objectives from the reasonable goal of spiking the extradition legislation (which they have accomplished) to the wholesale reformation of the Hong Kong government into a Western-style democracy. However desirable that might be in theory, it is simply unfeasible under current realities. Indeed, pushing for such unrealistic demands may result in less, rather than more, freedom for the people of Hong Kong.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Hong Kong is part of China as a matter of national sovereignty. China, while no longer a genuinely communist state, retains a totalitarian political system even while it embraces a mixed economic system with a heavy dose of capitalism. Yet China has heretofore tolerated a degree of personal, economic, and cultural freedom in Hong Kong that exceeds not only that allowed in Mainland China but, indeed, in most countries in the world. The excesses of the Hong Kong millennial mobs run the risk of undermining, rather than expanding, Hong Kong's overall prosperity and personal (if not political) freedoms.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Addendum:</b> A report just <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-police/hong-kongers-rally-against-government-under-stormy-skies-idUSKCN1V703O">published by Reuters</a> demonstrates <i>by its own terms</i> that the establishment Western media is publishing fake news to create the mythology that the Hong Kong marauders have the overwhelming backing of HK citizens. The report is headlined: "Hong Kongers rally <i>against</i> government under stormy skies." [emphasis added] But if one reads to the end, the story itself confirms instead that a far larger crowd (either 476,000 (claimed) or 108,000 (police est.) gathered to show <i>support</i> for the SAR government and the police than gathered to support the millennials continuing protest against the government (either 22,000 (claimed) or 8,300 (police est.). This is merely one of countless stories demonstrating that the mainstream western media are skewing and twisting this story to portray the insurgent mobs as the virtuous voice of the Hong Kong people overall, while portraying the admirably restrained police response as though it were the Czar's dragoons crushing the innocent starving masses with sabres in a scene from <i>Dr. Zhivago</i>. It is an open question whether the PRC-controlled outlets like <i>People's Daily</i> and <i>Xinhua</i> might actually be providing more accurate coverage on this story than the Western media.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-56198635566078700062019-08-07T08:45:00.000-07:002020-04-15T08:14:41.677-07:00KAREN CARPENTER'S POSTHUMOUS CONQUEST OF CHINA<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> SR
has devoted many posts to documenting the undervalued legacy of the Carpenters,
the sibling musical duo (Karen and Richard) who were the leading American pop
recording artists of the 1970's -- and, during <a href="http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2016/02/when-carpenters-were-on-top-of-world-of.html">the period of 1973-75</a>, probably the
most successful pop/rock recording artists in the world. Apart from the </span><span style="font-size: large;">fact that the Carpenters' story
is simply a significant piece of 20</span><span style="font-size: 20px;">th</span><span style="font-size: large;"> Century cultural history, the derogatory
treatment of their music and legacy by elements of America's cultural
cognoscenti (e.g., the group's perverse exclusion from the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame) has motivated SR to refute the false assumptions and biases behind that mistreatment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An ironic aspect of this story is
the glaring contrast between the disparaging treatment of the Carpenters by critics
and hipsters in the U.S., even while the duo and their music have
enjoyed sustained popularity and great stature on the global level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Carpenters ' <a href="http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2014/02/no-room-for-nice-in-rock-and-roll-hall.html">legacy</a> remains
especially strong in Japan and the United Kingdom (the second and third largest
music markets in the world), where their albums have enjoyed strong sales well
into the 21<sup>st</sup> century and where a remarkably large number of
television documentaries (on both BBC and NHK) have been devoted to Richard and
Karen's musical history, especially the latter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As previously documented here, the Carpenters' enduring popularity is
also particularly strong in the countries of East Asia, most notably the
Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and, as we elaborate
below, the People's Republic of China (PRC).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Further evidence of the Carpenters'
sustained global impact is found in albums devoted to their music by
contemporary artists from all points of the globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dami Im, the Korean-born Australian sensation
of the 2016 Eurovision song contest, recorded an album aptly entitled
"Classic Carpenters," which reached No. 3 on the Aussie charts and
sold strongly in South Korea as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Brazil, popular songstress Isabella Taviani released a tribute album called
"Carpenters Avenue" in 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And in 2009, a cohort of top Japanese pop/rock artists recorded yet another
Carpenters' tribute album called "Yesterday Once More – Tribute to the
Carpenters."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet the most extraordinary and
significant example of the Carpenters' international impact is found in, of all
places, the People's Republic of China.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b>Deng opened the airwaves and Karen's voice came floating into China</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>SR has <a href="http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2013/01/opening-splash-east-asia-and-carpenters.html">previously explored</a> this
subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It initially drew our attention
as something of a piquant cultural anomaly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who would imagine, after all, that the pop tunes produced by a
pair of unsophisticated Southern California suburban siblings in the 1970's would
come to captivate the masses in a country and a culture literally world's away
from Downey, California?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet that is
exactly what occurred, in the midst of China's emergence from the cultural dark
ages of the Maoist Era and its soul-crushing Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Unfortunately, </span>the paucity of hard data on internal
developments in China during the immediate post-Maoist era -- let alone data on
an esoteric topic like the introduction of Western popular music -- has
made it difficult to document the impact of the Carpenters music in China with
much specificity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
SR believes that impact has genuine historical and cultural significance – after
all, reliable Chinese sources have gone so far as to assert that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"Karen Carpenter was the beginning of
the [cultural] opening of China"</i> – this post attempts to document
Karen and the Carpenters' musical conquest of the world's largest nation with
the best available information (mostly culled from Internet postings).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This extensive information
establishes that the Carpenters, and especially their global hit song,
<a href="http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-tale-of-two-songs-yesterday-once-more.html">"Yesterday Once More,"</a> were the most popular and influential sources
of Western music in China for a period of at least <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">25 years</b> – i.e., roughly 1985 to 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outlined below is a chronological
documentation of the background and progression of this remarkable
cross-cultural phenomenon, and its surprising effect on the world's largest nation.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ywB8vjMnoEw/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ywB8vjMnoEw?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<b>Karen Carpenter sings "Yesterday Once More" at Tokyo's Budokan, 1974</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1973 – Hits in Hong Kong</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By 1973, the Carpenters were firmly
established as pop superstars, and their popularity had extended
internationally to such countries as the UK, Japan, and Australia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that same year, the Carpenters achieved an
enormous breakthrough in several East Asian markets, notably Malaysia,
Singapore, and especially Hong Kong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
documented in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Billboard</i> magazine's periodic
listing of international pop charts, no less than three Carpenters' singles
reached No. 1 on the Hong Kong hit parade in 1973:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Won't
Last a Day Without You</i> (No. 1 for 6 weeks!); <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sing</i>; and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yesterday Once More</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, Hong Kong was still a British
Crown Colony and thus not part of Chinese sovereignty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless, its population was
overwhelmingly Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is fair to
say that the Carpenters' early success in Hong Kong presaged their subsequent
popularity in Mainland China years later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1976 – End of the Cultural
Revolution and Death of Mao</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Starting around 1966, China had been
immersed in the political, social, and cultural madness of Mao Zedong's Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While hordes of fanatical Red Guards ran rampant brandishing Mao's
Little Red Book, much of the nation was forcibly preoccupied with abject
subservience to the demands of the Maoists as a matter of mere survival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only forms of music or other
entertainment allowed were those which extolled Maoism and the GPCR, such as
the militant anthem, "The East is Red," or the "Communist
Internationale." <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under the iron
hand of Mao's wife and PRC cultural dictator, Jiang Qing, China was purged of
all Western cultural influences, including even classical music.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By 1976, the GPCR had run its
course, and Jiang Qing and her leading GPCR cohorts (notoriously known as
"The Gang of Four") were themselves purged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ban on Western classical music was
lifted, although it would be years (see below) before China's gates were opened
wider to accept various forms of contemporary and popular Western music.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1976 also saw the death of Chairman
Mao himself, which would clear the way for a more pragmatic and permissive group
of leaders to assume power in China.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1978-1982:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
Reforms of Deng Xiaoping.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Around 1978, the historical Chinese
pragmatist, Deng Xiaoping, began to assume de facto leadership of the PRC (he
never assumed the highest titular leadership posts, but preferred to lead from
the background).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under Deng's pragmatic
reform programs, the totalitarian control of all aspects of life imposed by Mao
was substantially reduced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
particular, communist economic doctrine was jettisoned in favor of a system
that not only permitted, but encouraged, a considerable amount of capitalism,
free enterprise, and profit-seeking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although Deng's reforms did not extend to the purely political realm
(i.e., China remained a strictly one-party state), they did abandon the
Maoist's harsh restrictions on the entry of Western culture, including popular
music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is evident,
however, that most Western music probably entered China through unofficial, irregular
back-channels, rather than through orthodox commercial transactions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1983:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Untimely Death of Karen Carpenter.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After a lengthy struggle with the
then little-known eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, Karen Carpenter died on
February 4, 1983.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the many tragic
aspects of Karen's early death was that she never lived to realize the enormous
<i>global</i> impact of the beautiful music that she and her brother, Richard, had
given the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1984:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Success
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i> Album in Hong Kong and first infiltration
into Mainland China; UK/PRC Agreement for Reversion of Hong Kong</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In October, 1984, A&M Records released a
commemorative 2-disc Carpenters album entitled "Yesterday Once More,"
after the hit single of that name that was also the lead-off song on the album. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The album was an international success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As shown on Wikipedia's entry on the album, it
was certified Platinum in the U.S., Japan, the UK, and, curiously,
"China."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The source listed for
the Platinum certification in China was BPI, the British Phonographic Industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is highly doubtful, however, that BPI
would be in any position to certify sales of the YOM album in China itself; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in 1984, it is highly doubtful that there were
regular commercial sales of Western recordings in China at all, let alone any
systematic tracking or ranking of such sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is pretty clear, therefore, that BPI's reference to the Platinum
certification of YOM for "China" really referred to Hong Kong, which
was then still a British Colony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nonetheless, it is quite probable that the popularity of
the YOM album in Hong Kong led to its infiltration into Mainland China, which
was then lowering the barriers to such foreign cultural imports.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This proposition is reinforced by the
appearance of reports (see below) that the Carpenters' music, and YOM in
particular, had achieved great popularity in Mainland China by the mid-1980's,
i.e., around 1985.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A related major event of 1984 was the Sino-UK Joint
Declaration, whereby the UK committed to the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese
sovereignty by 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inescapable
reality of Hong Kong's forthcoming reversion to China undoubtedly opened the
door to increased interchange of commerce, products, and culture (including
musical recordings) between Hong Kong and the PRC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1985/Mid-1980's:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Carpenters and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i> lead
Western songs gaining popularity in China</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An article published in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shanghai Star</i> in 2002, discussing the mid-1980's period when Western
music was just gaining increased entry into China, reported as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"<i>The first foreign voice that captivated
the Chinese audience was Karen Carpenter</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>College students recorded her songs from one
tape to another, spreading her voice further and further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A widely-used English language teaching
textbook even took one of her songs as a listening text."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pop
Rhythm Rolls On</i>, Shanghai Star (Jan 3, 2002) [emphasis added].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1988, an article posted on the LAT web archive
stated:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"[In China], John Denver
and Karen Carpenter are bigger stars than the Rolling Stones."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>P. Goldstein, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China's Age of Innocence in Rock</i> (Nov. 13, 1988).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An article published in 2004 in the Chinese Business
Newspaper <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Weekend Standard</i> contained
an especially authoritative testimonial to the origins of the Carpenters'
(especially Karen's) popularity in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The article opened with the following:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"If I were a Carpenter I'd be bigger
than the Beatles in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Way bigger.
. . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I'm on the mainland not a day
goes by that I don't hear some version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yesterday
Once More</i>, or as most Chinese seem to call it, 'Sha-la-la,' in reference to
the chorus."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The article's author was an American cynic who was
completely puzzled by the Carpenters' popularity, so he consulted a
knowledgeable Chinese-American musician and reporter named Kaiser Kuo, an
expert on (and participant in) the growth of modern Western music in
China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Kuo completely demolished the
author's anti-Carpenter assumptions, explaining as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"[The Carpenters] dwarf the Beatles in
popularity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part of it is simply that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Carpenters Greatest Hits</i> was about
all there was back then. . . . That and some old John Denver that they could
legally distribute.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yesterday
Once More</i> is the first tune on that compilation, and while Carpenters
connoisseurs might prefer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rainy Days and
Mondays</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superstar</i>, that was
the tune that really stuck with people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"That aside, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">people in China uniformly love Karen's deep, sultry voice.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It stood out then and stands out now as
something totally unlike the vocal stylings of any Chinese singer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very simple melodies are also
appealing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My very cool, very hip
friends who listen to metal, to hardcore hip-hop, to whatever, still profess a
love for the Carpenters and can't imagine that they're sort of a joke to most
Westerners."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Every sha-la-la-la Still Grinds</i>, Weekend Standard (Nov. 6-7, 2004)
[emphasis added].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A 2008 article by a UC Irvine professor named Jeffrey
Wesserstrom outlined his Top Five List of what he considered the "Weirdest
Rock Music Moments with Chinese Characteristics."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No. 2 on this list was, "The Carpenters
hit it big in China in the mid-1980's," as to which he noted, "[T]heir
music seems to have had even greater staying power than [John] Denver's." (Author's Note: John Denver is generally recognized, along with the Carpenters, as the most popular Western recording artists in China during the introductory post-Maoist years.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1998:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Newsweek's</i> Shanghai article; remarkable
testimony of Yu Lei</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1998, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Newsweek</i>
magazine published an article entitle <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Rebirth of Shanghai</i> as part of its report on "The New
China."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The article featured the
remarks of one Yu Lei, who was then a 29-year-old reporter for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shanghai Star</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Yu's recollections are worth recording at
some length:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"When he [Mr. Yu] was a kid, he recalls,
Western arts and media were still banned in China, so one of his teachers
recorded an American song off the shortwave radio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Huddling the students behind closed doors,
and warning them not to tell anyone, the teacher wrote the lyrics on the
blackboard and taught the class to sing along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was dangerously exciting, the lure of forbidden fruit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what struck Yu most was the sweetness of
the melody, the purity of the singer's voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The singer was Karen Carpenter, who shortly became one of the first Western
performers sanctioned in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years
later, as the Filipino band at the Gap shinga-linga-lings into the Carpenters' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yesterday Once More</i>, Yu can still hear
the sweet strains of revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karen
Carpenter, he declares, "was the beginning of the opening of China</i>."<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jan. 14, 1998:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
Chinese internet posting of this date lists YOM as the No. 1 all-time Western
song in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Numerous other unofficial
internet postings by Chinese bloggers similarly list YOM as the No. 1 English
language song favored by the Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>E.g., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pa Mak Recommended: the most
classic of Ten English Language Songs</i> (March 23, 2014); <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Top 10 English Songs favored by Chinese</i>
(July 7, 2009).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2003:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Karen
Carpenter "is insanely popular" in China.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An Internet blog posted in September 2003, "The Road
to China, Ch. 4, Moon Festival," included the following commentary on the
state of then contemporary music trends in China:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"[T]he airwaves here are filled with a
mix of classical and modern Chinese music, all of which, as a whole, is the
most beautiful music one can hear on any continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About the only American artists that I
encounter consistently are the Back Street Boys, N Sync, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and Karen Carpenter (who is insanely popular even now)</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[emphasis added].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2004: Chinese music-lovers "revere the Carpenters."</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Novelist Donald Gallinger noted as follows in an October,
2004, journal entry, included in his article, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memoirs of China:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Chinese
and Karen Carpenter</i> (Apr. 4, 2009):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"The Chinese people all know Western pop
music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they particularly revere the
Carpenters and it is not unusual to hear 'Yesterday Once More' booming out of
the shopping mall sound systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
cannot tell you the number of times I've heard that song swirling around
restaurants and bars. . . . [I]t is also not unusual for Chinese youth to begin
singing along with the Carpenters."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2005:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>YOM is
Embedded in Everyday Chinese Cultural References</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A report on the women's badminton competition in China's
10<sup>th</sup> National Games in the Oct. 8, 2005, edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Xinhuanet</i> (Kunshan, East China),
illustrates how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i> is so well known
in China that reporters assume that casual references to the song will be immediately
understood by Chinese readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
report included the following such references:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"If Hunan wins over Guangdong, it could only remind people of Karen
Carpenter's famous song 'Yesterday Once More.' . . . The biggest hurdle
preventing Hunan singing 'Yesterday Once More' happily would be the question of
injuries on 'old' top players."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2007:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China Drive</i> Survey; a Critical Cynic's
Astonishment</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 2007, the popular Chinese radio station <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China Drive</i> conducted a survey asking
listeners to name the first foreign song they recall hearing in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well over 50% of the listeners responded that
the Carpenters' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yesterday Once More</i>
was that song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China has a population of
about <i>1.4 billion</i> people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China Drive</i> survey was in any way
representative of the nation, the number of Chinese people who have heard and
recalled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i> is indeed enormous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That same year, an anti-Carpenter cynic<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who taught college classes in China ruefully
acknowledged the Carpenters' enormous popularity there, even while deploring
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Country That Taste Forgot</i> (Internet blog, March 30, 2007).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author reported that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i>, John Denver's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Country
Roads</i>, and the Eagles' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hotel
California</i> were the most popular songs in China; that his students loved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i>; and that the Carpenters' music was
ubiquitous in the town where he taught.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2009:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Carpenters are revered in Mainland China.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An American blogger in Beijing, A. E. Perkins, confirmed
the Carpenters' continued popularity and stature in China some 25 years after
their music's initial entry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A. E.
Perkins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China and the Carpenters</i>, <u>Beijing
Review</u> (Oct. 15, 2009).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Perkins
wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"If there is something about mainland China
which I never expected before, and absolutely amazes me now, it is the
connection its citizens have with the music of the Carpenters. . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I encounter evidence almost every day that
mainland Chinese have a special place in their minds and hearts for Richard and
Karen Carpenter."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Noting that the Carpenters originally became the
top-selling musical act in the U.S. back in the 1970s, Perkins added:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"That makes it all the more remarkable
that they are so revered in mainland China."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2010:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Carpenters Tribute Band is Hottest Ticket in Beijing and Shanghai.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsCapQWqR4MM4rZ4ICfafTWAKHQ-wEqDJFjVpu3Fjv-e2-saIIV6Oj-mMFKP_5k19viefqcWQ859FC1UEpcpD9hYhWU66RKAAkbOJFsn6GfBqz2DV1TnXo3L89_FhYwKVSCOYv7XZbocA/s1600/karps.tributeband.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsCapQWqR4MM4rZ4ICfafTWAKHQ-wEqDJFjVpu3Fjv-e2-saIIV6Oj-mMFKP_5k19viefqcWQ859FC1UEpcpD9hYhWU66RKAAkbOJFsn6GfBqz2DV1TnXo3L89_FhYwKVSCOYv7XZbocA/s1600/karps.tributeband.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Laurie Briggs of the Karpenters tribute band that drew huge crowds in China</b> <br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">So-called tribute bands, who give concerts attempting to
duplicate or approximate the sound and look of legendary rock bands of the
past, have enjoyed considerable success in the U.S., the UK, Canada, and
various countries in East Asia.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">There
have been quite a few Carpenters tribute bands in recent years, probably the
most prominent of which is a UK-based group styling themselves The
Karpenters.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">One internet blog reported
as follows on the enormous success of this group's Carpenters tribute shows in
Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, where they reportedly outdrew Whitney Houston.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tribute
Act are Big Stars in China</span></i><span style="font-size: large;"> (March 1, 2010):</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"[I]t has taken just one gig to make the
Karpenters hot property with the Chinese public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such is the clamor in the Far East for
tickets to see Laurie Briggs perform as her alter-ego Karen Carpenter, the
Pudsey-born singer is now out-selling Whitney Houston.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"Laurie, along with Jason Scott, aka
Richard Carpenter, and six other members of the act will sell out massive
venues in the country's major cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They fly out in April for a ten-date televised tour which takes them to
Beijing and Shanghai.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"Their big break comes after they played
at the Hong Kong Convention Center in November to a capacity 5,500 audience – a
feat U.S. diva Whitney Houston could not get near.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Laurie told the YEP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>'We were told that Whitney struggled to sell
half as many tickets when she performed at the same venue. . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just goes to show how much the people over
there love the Carpenters that a tribute act can attract so much attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"The Carpenters have long been revered
by people of all ages in China and the Far East."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another contemporaneous internet report confirmed the enormous
success of this same Carpenters tribute band and the Carpenters continuing
popularity in China (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gig of the Year</i>,
Froog's Blog (May 12, 2010; emphasis in original):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"Long ago, I remarked upon this
country's strange obsession with Karen Carpenter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was one of only a handful of Western
music stars to get any exposure in China in the 1970s, and is probably the one
most fondly revered to this day (it's a tossup between her and John
Denver).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence, the May Day visit to
Beijing of English cover band <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Karpenters</i> was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the most anticipated
gig of the year</i> (decade, millennium) for many local music fans, and the
tickets were therefore stratospherically expensive."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2013:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i> Still on Top.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An Internet posting of Feb. 19, 2013, by one Yansong Sun,
discussed the remarkable continued popularity in China of John Denver's
"Country Roads" and the Eagles' "Hotel California."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then clarified, however, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i> (along with "Say You, Say
Me") was even more popular and remained one of the two "most popular
English songs in China."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2015:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Carpenters and the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'An.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Author Charles Cottle provides a fitting conclusion for
this history with an article recording his 2015<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>visit to Xi'An in Central China to see the famous Terracotta Warriors
statues (some 8,000 of them!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>C.
Cottle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karen Carpenter and the
Terracotta Warriors, </i><u>Century Life</u> (Internet blog, Aug. 8,
2015).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He records his experience having
breakfast at his Xi'An hotel when the staff thoughtfully turned on some
background music they thought he would enjoy – none other than the Carpenters' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOM</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cottle recalled:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"On hearing Karen Carpenter sing these
lyrics, I sat transfixed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"Several years have passed since I sat
atop that hotel listening to Karen Carpenter sing while I gazed over the city
of Xi'An.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the passage of time has
not erased the connection between her and the terracotta warriors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I think of her, I think of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my mind they are forever linked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And whenever I see images of the cold-faced,
yet life-like, terracotta warriors, I am immediately reminded of the sweet,
sweet voice of Karen Carpenter."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>***</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> There are many more similar reports and stories documenting the story of the Carpenters musical "conquest" of China, but the reader has probably seen enough. Although much of the evidence is informal and unofficial, the diversity and broad time-range of these testimonials confirm the fact: the Carpenters' music, particularly <i>YOM</i>, was the most popular and influential pop music in the world's largest nation during a period of roughly 25 years (1985-2010) -- i.e., the period when Western music gained a foothold in China in the wake of the repressive Maoist era.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Some may consider all this merely esoteric cultural trivia, of no great significance. Others, however, may agree with SR that the impact of the Carpenters' music in China was indeed quite significant for many reasons, including the following:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> 1. It brought an infusion of refreshing musical sunshine to millions of people who had lived under the stifling cloud of Maoist repression for some 50 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> 2. It made a notable contribution to the overall liberalizing influence of Western culture that helped nudge China in the direction of a more open and permissive society (outside the strictly political realm).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> 3. It supports the proposition that music which is tuneful, melodious, and harmonic, especially when sung by an especially beautiful voice, has greater universal appeal across national, linguistic, and cultural barriers than fad or esoteric "message" music (like rap, grunge, or acid rock), the appeal of which is often "lost in translation."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> 4. It reinforces the Carpenters' status as one of the most popular and influential musical groups of the 20th Century on the global or international level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-8328362019183249252019-07-26T10:43:00.000-07:002019-07-29T07:58:36.930-07:00THE RACIAL RADICALISM OF KAMALA HARRIS<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> It
was only a matter of time before the legion of leftist lunatics seeking the
Democrat presidential nomination was divided between front-runners and laggards
by political, financial, and media realities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although
some 22 or 23 motley candidates remain in technical contention, the polls,
media coverage, and contribution data seem to have reduced the field even at
this early stage to four realistic leading candidates:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris,
and Bernie Sanders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some would add the
Rainbow Mayor of embattled South Bend, Peter Buttigieg, but he is now much
closer to the hapless 2 percenters in the polls (he's at about 5% nationally)
than he is to the four leaders (who range from three now clustered at 12-15% to
leader Biden at 29%).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such early polls
can be sharply misleading if relied upon for precise outcome projections, of
course, but here we are only talking about a gross division between the broad categories
of leaders and laggards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Beyond
this general division, however, influential elements of the Democrat-Left and
its mainstream media arm seem to have settled upon one candidate in particular
as their early favorite, despite Biden's lead in the polls:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator Kamala Harris of California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even some influential Republicans, like
ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have touted Harris as the likely Democrat
nominee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In a
sane and sensible political environment, Harris would hardly seem to have the
right stuff for a front-running presidential candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the national stage, she has little to show
in terms of experience or accomplishment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Barely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">two years</i> of utterly undistinguished
service as a U.S. Senator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No significant legislation or successful policy
initiative bears her name, and whatever senatorial prominence she had gained
before seeking the presidency derived solely from her obnoxious, ill-tempered,
and duplicitous outbursts in contentious committee hearings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5plZBYtwqT4hyphenhyphenhq8d3e9XX39YfT_gweFzrfKDBZbFwMsJcJhE9W_jDqfrPbmPeZD-8RULDn25VQRuye3QWtPAdSg5RxSZZDazs208VTLpLqq_V3VFo-fhW0THRGL_SuYcPyYEigDKoGk/s1600/harris.sharpton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5plZBYtwqT4hyphenhyphenhq8d3e9XX39YfT_gweFzrfKDBZbFwMsJcJhE9W_jDqfrPbmPeZD-8RULDn25VQRuye3QWtPAdSg5RxSZZDazs208VTLpLqq_V3VFo-fhW0THRGL_SuYcPyYEigDKoGk/s320/harris.sharpton.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
lousalvador.home.blog<br />
<b>Harris is closer to Al Sharpton than she is to reasonable positions on race.</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Similarly,
her earlier service as Attorney General of California was at best
undistinguished and at worst inept and dishonest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among other derelictions, she refused to take
any position on a package of major criminal sentencing-reform initiatives which
a strong attorney general would have pounced upon, one way or the other; she
notoriously failed to prosecute Steve Mnuchin's California bank, OneWest,
despite evidence "suggestive of widespread misconduct," while later
accepting Mnuchin's donations to her senatorial campaign; and she arrogantly refused
to defend Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure resoundingly approved by
California voters affirming that marriage is solely between a man and a woman,
leaving the measure undefended in federal court and effectively overriding a
crucially important vote of the people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But actual
accomplishments and effective leadership experience are not the qualities the
Democrat Left favors in seeking presidential candidates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they were, Barack Obama would not have
been the Democrats' nominee in 2008, when his sparse qualifications were eerily
similar to those now presented by Kamala Harris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rather,
today's Democrats are obsessed with considerations of race, gender, leftist
ideology, and rabid hostility towards President Trump and his supporters in
choosing their leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, the
Democrats have abandoned any reliance upon the ameliorating qualities of
tactful charm and conciliatory style (as opposed to substance) that enabled
Obama to conceal his leftist orientation from the clueless middle of the electorate
in 2008 and 2012.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Current candidates
like Harris, Warren, and Sanders have made it clear they are in no mood to
charm or conciliate the roughly one-half of America's populace who support
President Trump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite the contrary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
this environment, the ascendancy of Kamala Harris as the anointed favorite of
the Democrat and Media Left seems almost inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is a photogenic female who flies the
colors of black ethnicity, even though she is more Asiatic Indian than Black
American (her father descends from Jamaican Blacks and her mother from Asiatic
Indians).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This ethnic ambiguity does not
seem to trouble genuine Black Americans from considering her one of their own –
although the jury is still out on that --<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>while it enables her to extend her minority/ethnic appeal to South
Asian-Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thus,
Harris punches both the women's and minority cards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This in itself gives her near-decisive
advantages over the white male and white female candidates, not to mention over
the single significant black male candidate, Senator <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Booker of New Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, Harris fervidly endorses all the
Left's favored social and sexual issues, like unlimited abortion, homosexual
predominance, and the subordination of female privacy and modesty to the
demands of trans-sexual intruders (i.e., she supports the radical legislation
making sex or gender a matter of personal election, rather than biological
reality, for purposes of federal law).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She also advocates the legalization of prostitution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
for whatever reason, powerful elements of the Democratic establishment, its
hard-left political base, and especially the leftist mainstream media seem
determined to anoint Sen. Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee -- and
then assure her election "by all means necessary."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
this grim prospect doesn't shock and infuriate all sane and sensible Americans,
it should.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because Kamala Harris, plain
and simple, is a radical, afro-racist, anti-white, left-wing virago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She should be allowed no closer to the
presidency than earth is to the Crab Nebula.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Harris's
obsession with radical race-based programs and policies that benefit blacks and
penalize whites (and in some cases Hispanics and East Asians as well) is open,
unambiguous, and utterly unapologetic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
apparently believes that her race-focused approach will ingratiate her with the
Democrat-Left base, yet fail to offend the moderates and independents needed to
win a general election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is probably
right on the former point, but the latter is dubious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not, we are in for difficult times indeed.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Harris
was one of the first and foremost of the Democrat candidates to openly support
the spiteful, divisive, outdated, and obscenely unfair proposal of so-called
economic reparations for slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
reparations program for a slavery system that the White Americans of the Union
dismantled with their blood, sweat, and treasury over 150 years ago would be
unworkable, dysfunctional, unjust, and racially incendiary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why even liberal advocates of
race-based remedies (like President Obama) rejected reparations long ago as a
hopelessly unworkable delusion – until its recent resurrection from the policy
graveyard by afro-racist radicals and, subsequently, by pandering presidential
candidates like Kamala Harris.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Harris
doesn't care that such reparations would forcibly transfer money (via taxes)
from lower- and middle-class whites, Hispanics, and East Asians who had nothing
to do with slavery to wealthy blacks (like herself) who were born a century or
more after its abolition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Millions of
the putative black recipients of reparations have thrived and prospered in a
legal and governmental system so far removed from slavery that blacks have long
been systematically favored over
whites under affirmative action and preference programs governing employment,
education, housing, and extension of credit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Harris completely discounts over fifty years of such government
preferences and multi-billion-dollar grant and subsidy programs that have
already benefitted millions of blacks (including those descended from slaves)
without resorting to the unworkable and divisive procedures that would be
entailed by a vindictive reparations program.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
though her advocacy of reparations were not radical enough, Senator Harris has
further proposed the resurrection of the insidious school busing programs that
most Americans (blacks included) had considered rightfully dead and
buried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Harris
brought the moribund busing issue back to life with a cheap shot against Mr.
Biden in the Democratic debate, where she sanctimoniously portrayed herself as
some kind of California Rosa Parks, bravely integrating segregated schools in,
of all places, Berkeley, California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
leftist media and political establishment swooned and gave her great plaudits
for this subterfuge, when she should have been sharply condemned for her bald-faced
fraud and hypocrisy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Berkeley
schools were simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not segregated</i>,
and Ms. Harris' bus rides to a good public school had all the danger and drama
of a suburban princess riding her bus to the Montessori School. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Apart
from falsely portraying herself as a brave heroine of desegregation, Harris's
support for forcibly busing children from their natural neighborhood schools
into distant and sometimes dangerous schools represents another example of her
brazenly wrong-headed anti-white ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Until extreme racial pandering gained prominence in the current democrat
presidential campaigns, forced busing to achieve some desired level of racial
balancing had been decisively rejected (and largely forgotten) not only by
politicians, courts, and policymakers but also by both white and black
parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a measure of her racial
radicalism that Kamala Harris would advocate the resurrection of such a toxic
and divisive policy, with reckless disregard for its divisive and damaging
consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not
content with her incendiary advocacy of renewed racial busing, Harris further
upped the racial ante by proposing an enormous, budget-busting program of
race-based housing subsidies for blacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Specifically, Harris proposes to spend <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">$100 billion</b> of taxpayer funds to help black families buy the homes
of their choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/07/07/kamala-harris-bribes-black-voters-100-billion-in-taxpayer-money-for-housing-772368.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
Harris explained her plan:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"After
generations of discrimination, it’s time to give Black families a real shot at
homeownership. . . . If we eliminate racial wealth disparities in homeownership
rates, median Black wealth would grow $32,113 per household, and the wealth gap
between Black and white households would shrink 31%.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the federal government has been
discriminating <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in favor</i> of blacks in
housing policy for decades, not the other way around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was ill-conceived government programs to
eliminate minimal credit standards – e.g., through the Community Reinvestment
Act -- to facilitate black home ownership that were largely responsible for the
disastrous housing and financial bubble crisis of 2008-09.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now Harris wants to do it all again, at
catastrophic cost to taxpayers and the economcy, all in furtherance of her
egregious political pandering to black democrats and their leftist
cheerleaders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even
while this post was being written, Harris has proposed yet another
multi-billion dollar race-based program in her seemingly inexhaustible
pandering to black voters and the guilt-ridden, self-hating white
leftists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As though trillions for
reparations and $100 billion for black housing were not enough extravagance,
Harris now promises to invest <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">an
additional $60 billion</b> in historically black colleges (HBC's) – schools
that already receive an enormous amount of federal financial support even while
they often discriminate against non-blacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Harris was still not done spending your money to buy herself more
votes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before the ink was dry on her HBC
give-away plan, she announced an additional <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">$12 billion</b> for so-called "entrepeneurship" programs
devoted to the black community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Needless
to say, the expenditure of these absurdly astronomical amounts of federal funds
on handouts to the 13% black portion of the population is nothing less than
fiscal and budgetary insanity – wholly apart from the resentment and discord it
would incite among elements of the population who would pay for the very
programs that exclude them on racial grounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet the reckless and radical Senator Harris seems utterly oblivious to
the disastrous consequences inherent in her proposals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
that respect, a critical thread that runs through Harris's racialist proposals
is her utter disregard for the constitutional standards that limit such
programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Government
grants or preferences based on racial classifications are subject to the equal
protection standards of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Specifically, such programs must be narrowly
tailored to achieve a compelling government objective under settled Supreme
Court precedents, notably the 1995 case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adarand
v. Pena</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harris's race-based proposals
are unlikely to satisfy these constitutional standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Merely granting generalized benefits to
blacks, or seeking to remove generic disparities between white and black wealth
or income, do not constitute compelling government objectives under the
governing precedents; in any event, Harris's grossly overinclusive programs are
anything but "narrowly tailored."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although
Harris is an experienced lawyer and former state attorney general, she appears
wholly oblivious of the demanding constitutional standards that her race-based
programs must satisfy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a demagogue of
the left, however, Harris scorns the rule of law and the Constitution whenever
it stands in the way of her pandering political proposals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
final racial issue that Senator Harris exploits is the mindlessly repeated
falsehood that the death penalty discriminates against blacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Harris has stated, "“As a career law
enforcement official, I have opposed the death penalty because it is immoral,
discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Specifically, she claims that black and
Latino defendants are more likely to be executed than white defendants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Piling
on the demagoguery, Harris has further stated:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The symbol of our justice system is a woman with a blindfold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is supposed to treat all equally, but the
application of the death penalty — a final and irreversible punishment — has
been proven to be unequally applied.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
therefore promises, if elected, to support abolition of the federal death
penalty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
as repeatedly demonstrated on this blog and elsewhere, Harris's claim that the
death penalty is discriminatorily applied against blacks is patently and
demonstrably false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only false, but
the opposite of the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What
makes Harris's phony claim especially disturbing is that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the facts which contradict it are so emphatically clear and readily
available</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One need only click on
the easily accessible databases of the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) to confirm that for at least the last three decades the death
penalty has been imposed disproportionally against whites rather than blacks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Simply
put, for decades<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> blacks have consistently
committed slightly over 50% of U.S. murders</i> (the only crime for which the
death penalty is constitutionally permitted), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yet represent only about 33% of those executed</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recent years have emphatically reinforced
this pattern of disproportionate execution of white defendants in the U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2016, for example, out of 20 total
executions in the U.S., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">18 were white</i>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See BJS, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Captal Punishment, </i>2016, Table 2 (April 2018).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Year after year, the pattern confirmed by BJS
and FBI data is the same:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blacks commit slightly
more than half of U.S. murders, but white defendants predominate among those
executed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet racial agitators like
Kamala Harris persist in perpetrating the canard that the death penalty is
disproportionately imposed on black and minority defendants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a Big Lie of grotesque proportions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
issue after issue – reparations, forced busing, privileged federal handouts for
blacks, and race-based death penalty demagoguery – Kamala Harris pursues
radical programs and policies that expressly favor blacks at the expense of the
blameless non-black citizens who must fund or endure them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this does not constitute racist politics,
it is hard to imagine what would.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At a
time when the country is already burdened by toxic racial divisions, the
nomination or election of this deeply divisive radical would be disastrous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-30456076135823646122019-05-09T14:51:00.000-07:002019-05-11T08:29:39.992-07:00EX-DOJ FLASH-MOB'S BOGUS LEGAL PROTEST<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;">On May 6, a purported "Statement by Former Federal
Prosecutors" (FFP Statement) was released to bolster assaults on
President Trump tied to the notorious Mueller Report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The statement was organized by a
Democrat-dominated anti-Trump organization called Protect Democracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the rabid Never-Trumpers associated
with this group is the notorious Watergate felon and turncoat, John Dean, which
tells you all you need to know about the group that instigated this duplicitous
broadside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since
the media trumpeted the statement as though it were the thoughtful declaration of a latter-day Madison or Mason – rather than a partisan press release instantly endorsed
by an Internet flash mob of Justice Department pensioners – a word is in order
to place this misleading document in perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, in fact, merely the latest in a series
of similar anti-Trump productions, organized and orchestrated by Protect
Democracy – and signed by a similar cast of characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
statement purports to present the opinion of 400 or more "former federal
prosecutors" <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– meaning DOJ
attorneys who once prosecuted criminal cases in federal courts – that the facts
presented in the Mueller Report would warrant the pursuit of multiple felony
charges against President Trump for obstruction of justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The statement acknowledges, however, that
under the authoritative opinion of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (where this
writer formerly served as a Senior Counsel) a sitting President is not
indictable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the FFP Statement thus
represents nothing more than the ineffectual fulmination of these former feds
on a theoretical issue outside their purview, the question arises why they
considered it necessary to put in their two cents?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer, of course, is that the
statement's purpose is political, not legal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXe8WS4U2Py-6Jf5NnZ4NJFHvKdr00NhrOYci5yvJee4mefFmw_exBytNyGg99ygrE7oJdLsN1Hloil-DT8U0Q5-2reYG8k7HLAAdMrbtl7Hi5I7XSkC-CGSLn1HUYSoUuNXDxJkYY2sg/s1600/FLASHMOB.4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="1000" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXe8WS4U2Py-6Jf5NnZ4NJFHvKdr00NhrOYci5yvJee4mefFmw_exBytNyGg99ygrE7oJdLsN1Hloil-DT8U0Q5-2reYG8k7HLAAdMrbtl7Hi5I7XSkC-CGSLn1HUYSoUuNXDxJkYY2sg/s320/FLASHMOB.4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Protect Democracy's Legion of ex-DOJ Lawyers mobilized as quickly as a Flash Mob</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
highly experienced and credentialed Attorney General, who has ultimate
authority to determine the issue, has carefully concluded that the Mueller
Report does <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> provide the basis for
an obstruction prosecution against the President (wholly apart from his
constitutional immunity).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – hardly a Trump sympathizer -- joined him in
that conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attorney General Bill Barr
has been confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for OLC (an elite office which
is a proving ground for Supreme Court Justices), Deputy Attorney General, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">twice</i> as Attorney General.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Few attorneys in U.S. Government history, if
any, can match those credentials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
notion that this highly accomplished legal giant needs instruction from a
nondescript horde of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">functus officio</i>
DOJ careerists is risible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
any event, the origins, integrity, and authenticity of the FFP Statement are
deeply suspect for a variety of reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Initially,
t<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he very first sentence of the FFP
Statement is false</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
declares:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"We are former federal
prosecutors."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But anyone who takes
the considerable trouble to locate and decipher the statement's organic list of
signatories will find that many of the signers were merely garden variety DOJ
attorneys or bureaucrats who were <i>not</i> prosecutors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The signers include, among many other
non-prosecutors, attorneys in the following eclectic positions:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Intelligence Analyst, GS-14; Professional
Responsibilities Adviser; Assistant Director, Office of Legal Education; Health
Care Fraud Coordinator; Office of U.S. Trustee attorney; LEAA Administrator; various
generic INS lawyers and immigration judges; purely civil attorneys from the
Tax, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attorney Adviser; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Office of Pardon Attorney; and any number of
undistinguished characters who described themselves with nothing more revealing
than "Attorney," "Trial Attorney" or "Trial
Counsel."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> How or why such defunct
legal bureaucrats are deemed qualified to denigrate the determination of a
remarkably accomplished and experienced Attorney General<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and former OLC Chief is anybody's guess. In any event, it is evident that the FEP Statement's assurance that the authenticity of signers was "vetted to the best of our ability" is meaningless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
sheer duplicity of this collective legal salvo is further underscored by the
utterly unprofessional – and suspicious -- circumstances surrounding its production,
circulation, and endorsement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
mainstream media would have us believe that hundreds of former prosecutors each
closely analyzed the Mueller Report and reached a professional determination
that the President was indictable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
reality is that an eclectic digital throng of retired DOJ lawyers merely "clicked" their endorsement of the Project Democracy statement in the functional equivalent of hitting the
"Like" button on a Facebook posting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Mueller Report is an extremely complex and elaborate 448-page legal document
painstakingly compiled by a team of experienced attorneys following a lengthy
and arduous process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was released on
April 24 of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The FFP
Statement, with its hundreds of "signers" already rounded-up, was released
only twelve days later, on May 6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
unclear (and undisclosed) exactly who drafted the statement; one suspects it
was attorneys associated with Protect Democracy, inasmuch as that group
"organized" the statement and orchestrated its circulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case, a close and careful review of
the Mueller Report would have to be completed before drafting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or endorsing</i> the statement if even
minimal professional standards<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>were to
be maintained.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
are thus expected to believe that, within this tight time frame, some 300- 400
attorneys – many or most of whom are likely employed in post-government
practice – each obtained, reviewed, and analyzed the lengthy Mueller Report and
formed an independent professional conclusion that its findings warranted a
felony indictment of the President.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is absurd and simply not believable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is one thing for the Attorney General and Deputy AG -- who had the official
responsibility, resources, and staff support to do so – to review the Mueller
Report over a period of days and render their opinion that no prosecution was
warranted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had, moreover, been
officially overseeing and monitoring the matter for months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
the notion that some 400 attorneys of widely varying experience, expertise, and
resources would all have the time, capacity, and legal ability to fully review
and <i>competently</i> dissect the voluminous Mueller Report in this very tight time frame is
risible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The review and competent
analysis of this dense, multi-faceted tome is simply not a task that would
readily be undertaken outside one's professional obligations – let alone under
such a demanding time frame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rather,
it is quite evident that the signers of the FFP Statement constituted a legal
flash-mob who quickly and eagerly accepted Project Democracy's invitation to
endorse the statement, at face value, with a click of their mouse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
is important to note in this respect that Project Democracy solicited signers
with the following indiscriminate invitation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"If you are a former federal prosecutor and would <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i> to add your name below, click
here."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no requirement or
suggestion that would-be "signers" should even have read the Mueller Report, let
alone analyzed the legal questions it raised, before clicking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There can thus be little doubt that most
signers read no further than the statement itself before adding their names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, the statement was supported
by hundreds of approving "clicks" rather than by hundreds of considered
legal opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
fact, the FFP Statement was merely the latest of Project Democracy's campaign
to mobilize the support of disgruntled DOJ attorney-pensioners in support of its
anti-Trump agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just last December, a
suspiciously similar document was organized by that same group, this time
claiming that a suspiciously similar cohort of "400 Justice Department
alumni" had signed a statement declaring they were "disturbed"
by the President's appointment of Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General
to replace the hapless Jeff Sessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
anti-Whittaker protest argued that the "Constitutional process"
required the President to appoint the Senate-confirmed official next in the
line of succession – i.e., presumed anti-Trumpist Rod Rosenstein -- instead of
Whittaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Supreme Court made
short work of the ex-DOJers' objections when it summarily rejected the
constitutional challenge to the Whittaker appointment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It should
surprise no one, moreover, that there is extensive overlap between the signers
of the FFP Statement on the Mueller Report and the signers of the Whittaker
Statement (on a very quick check I confirmed that at least 1/3 of a random
sample of the FFP signers had also signed the Whittaker Statement).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could it be that Project Democracy has a
computerized master list of reliable anti-Trump "DOJ Alumni" whom it
can count upon to quickly endorse whatever partisan screed it wishes to
release?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You be the judge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Far
from a considered legal review of the Mueller Report by hundreds of former
prosecutors, the FFP Statement embodies the opinion of a Protect Democracy
advocate or some other unknown attorney which was then hastily endorsed by much
the same horde of ex-DOJ pensioners<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that
similarly endorsed Protect Democracy's failed objection to the Whittaker
appointment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The likelihood that all the
members of this crowd actually read and legally analyzed the Mueller Report and
its prosecutorial considerations is nil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
demonstrated by legal stalwarts like Alan Dershowitz, Andrew McCarthy, and
Attorney General Barr – each of whose legal acumen dwarfs that of the anonymous
scrivener who drafted the FFP Statement and the mediocrities who signed it –
the President's executive powers under Art. II of the Constitution negate any
claim that he obstructed justice in responding to the Mueller investigation's
efforts to destroy his presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
Mr. McCarthy described Mr. Barr's sound basis for concluding that no obstruction
charge against the President was warranted (National Review.com, Apr. 18, 2019,
emphasis added):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>"That
is why Barr laid out the facts that the president could have shut down the
investigation but did not; that he could have asserted executive privilege to
withhold information from the investigation, but instead made numerous
witnesses and well over a million documents available to the special counsel;
and that – reportedly according to Mueller – the president sincerely felt
frustrated that the investigation was unfairly undermining his presidency. The
point is that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">these facts so cut against
the idea of corruptly impeding an investigation that it is inconceivable the
prosecutor could prove an obstruction case beyond a reasonable doubt</i>."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Similarly,
the distinguished Prof. Dershowitz explained that, in order for any of
President Trump's actions outlined in the Mueller Report to constitute
actionable obstruction, "The act itself has to be illegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can't be an act authorized under Article
II of the Constitution."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When asked
whether the President's firing of FBI Director Comey, for example, could amount
to obstruction of justice, Dershowitz tersely responded:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"It's not even a close case."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same goes for the other possible
obstructions fabricated by Mueller's team of Democrat and leftist
advocates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The President had every right to exercise the full range of his Art. II
powers to defend the viability of his presidency against the subversive
assaults being waged against it.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not obstruction of justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rather, to paraphrase Art. II, sec. 3 of the Constitution, it is merely
"tak[ing] care that the Laws be faithfully executed." <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: large;">Even so, he </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">refrained</i><span style="font-size: large;"> from imposing restraints on the Mueller inquisition that would have been within his constitutional authorities. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
unknown drafter(s) and motley signers of the FFP Statement either do not
understand, or do not wish to recognize, that the President's constitutional
authority under Art. II of the Constitution is flatly incompatible with the obstruction
theory they so eagerly endorsed to undermine the Trump Presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But apart
from the legal and constitutional flaws in the statement orchestrated by
Protect Democracy, the profoundly misleading characterization of its nature,
substance, and authenticity should not be allowed to pass unrefuted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than presenting the considered
professional opinion of hundreds of former federal prosecutors, the statement
embodies nothing more than the reflexive, partisan endorsement of an Internet
flash-mob of eclectic attorneys who hastily responded to Protect Democracy's
click-bait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-65672097599432987782018-11-11T10:26:00.000-08:002018-11-11T10:26:05.431-08:00EAST ASIA DEFIES DIVERSITY DELUSION<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">"<b>Seek truth from facts." -- Chinese Maxim</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> In the United States and most of the liberal West, the ill-defined concept of racial, sexual, and ethnic "diversity" has assumed the status of a sacrosanct religious dogma. No one can sensibly define its parameters, but few in "respectable" society stop to question its desirability or importance. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Governments, corporations, the armed forces, and universities all endorse and follow the precept that optimal diversity is critical to success in all areas of endeavor. The ubiquitous mantra that "diversity is our greatest strength" is recited and repeated -- although never proven --like some kind of indisputable religious dogma. Proof of efficacy is deemed irrelevant, and those who demand such proof are deemed retrogressive or racist. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Nearly all of the foregoing institutions maintain entrenched diversity officers and diversity divisions whose mission -- at enormous financial and human cost-- is to maintain and manipulate the diversity imperative towards the goal of fewer white males and more blacks, Hispanics, and women. For some odd reason, however, expanded representation of <i>East Asians</i> is deemed to <i>undermine</i> diversity, as illustrated by a lawsuit in which Harvard University is currently defending its blatant discrimination against East Asian applicants on that very basis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The ubiquitous diversity imperative has even achieved the status of a binding legal doctrine in the United States. In the 2005 case of <i>Grutter v. Bollinger</i>, the Supreme Court elevated the promotion of a university's diversity to the status of a "compelling government interest," sufficient to override the anti-discrimination principles of the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. In a conflict between a n</span><span style="font-size: large;">on-minority student's claim to equal treatment of his application and the university's promotion of undefined "diversity" objectives, diversity now trumps fairness thanks to the </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Grutter</span></i><span style="font-size: large;"> decision.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Thus, in the United States and much of the Liberal West, the diversity imperative is accepted, revered, and scrupulously followed in critical areas of national policy ranging from education to employment to immigration and refugee policy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Not so, however, in the ascendant nations of East Asia, where a trio of intelligent democracies -- Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan -- have emphatically declined to follow the West down this delusional rabbit hole. They are not alone, moreover. One look at videos and photos of China's People's Liberation Army -- particularly its visually startling Pink Militia of uniformly tall and lissome Han females -- will graphically confirm that China too is disinclined to embrace the diversity imperative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bO1DxO9BhSw/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bO1DxO9BhSw/hqdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b>China's Pink Militia is untroubled by its diversity deficiencies</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b> Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and Taiwan are each among the most homogeneous, and least diverse, nations on the face of the earth. They are also among the most intelligent, well-educated, technologically adept, safe, and civil societies in the world. The question naturally arises, therefore, whether these facts are a matter of causation or mere correlation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Japan is an industrious, technologically adept, and prosperous monocultural democracy of 128 million people. It rose from the ashes of World War II (with much U.S. help) to become the economic envy of the world by 1979, when responsible scholars were writing books with titles like Ezra Vogel's <i>Japan as Number One</i>. Its economic success has since flattened, receded, and partially recovered, but it remains one of the world's five leading economic powerhouses (it presently ranks No. 3 in nominal GDP in the IMF's official rankings) .</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> About <i>97.5%</i> of Japan's population is of the Yamato, or native Japanese, race. A predominant portion of the remaining 2.5%, moreover, are fellow East Asians, largely Korean, Chinese, or Filipino immigrants. Another significant portion of the non-native 2.5% are actually ethnic Japanese <i>Nikkei</i> who migrated back to Japan from Brazil or Peru. In brief, Japan is utterly lacking in the ethnic diversity that is so highly prized and relentlessly demanded in the U.S. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> This striking racial and ethnic homogeneity is caused and sustained by a combination of factors: Japan's physical insularity, its highly restrictive immigration policies, its extremely difficult language (mastery of which is a prerequisite to permanent immigration), and its adamant refusal to join the West in welcoming purported refugees from the Mid-East and elsewhere. In 2017, for example, Japan admitted a total of <i>twenty </i>refugees out of 19,628 refugee applicants. Another likely factor is that the Japanese people actually prize their Yamato identity and culture -- unlike guilt-ridden westerners -- and are unwilling to dilute them with an influx of non-Asian immigrants who are unlikely to assimilate or blend.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Although Japan is presently considering a modest expansion in the numbers of temporary foreign workers it may admit in future, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed such expansion will not entail permanent residence of aliens accompanied by families, but merely <i>temporary</i> worker relief for industries suffering from a current shortage of native Japanese workers. Moreover, any expansion of temporary or permanent immigration to Japan will, as with the minimal current foreign residency, likely be dominated by racially similar East Asians from Taiwan, China, Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8YyYoWN3aM-VsHBE9CJFiujq7sEpzRDdQqkzwwijCRig6BfNcjJelrlYl9EUQPJqjzise2mdRGqemwBXPamgDIXBAeMKp0hY8NbfW2vvbvkm89_Ua2NWFn0bQqQyCu_VSWNzg6ylb4E/s1600/FOREIGNWORKERS.JAPAN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="870" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8YyYoWN3aM-VsHBE9CJFiujq7sEpzRDdQqkzwwijCRig6BfNcjJelrlYl9EUQPJqjzise2mdRGqemwBXPamgDIXBAeMKp0hY8NbfW2vvbvkm89_Ua2NWFn0bQqQyCu_VSWNzg6ylb4E/s320/FOREIGNWORKERS.JAPAN.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b>The Taiwanese lady behind the desk represents typical Japanese immigration -- racially indistinguishable from Japanese natives, at least to the Western eye.</b> -- Japan Times photo<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The ROK, often called South Korea, has a total population of some 51 million. Like Japan, it is an economic and political Phoenix that rose from the ruins of war and occupation (in its case, Japanese occupation from 1905 to 1945) to achieve its current status as an economic and technological Asian Tiger of the first order. Despite its small area and comparatively modest population, it currently ranks 12th among all nations in nominal GDP (2018 IMF data). As shown below, it joins Japan and Taiwan at the very apex of world rankings in various indicia of intelligence, education, STEM scores, safety, and other measures of technological advancement.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> On top of all this, the ROK also has its own distinctive "Gangnam Style" -- as YouTube viewers worldwide are well aware.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaA4DASiolhqiW-HCB_TGoHsKdhCstxmAaBrrqpDULjYdOWAOOF3eVg-bt0euxdBVmqL_NITG40LfPp6D2wG0ugzODLruqZ-ztPNUdoZpxyU1uKNdnGZ2RRQbX8BO8f3TTft2JfVPvVMY/s1600/KPOP-GIRLS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="520" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaA4DASiolhqiW-HCB_TGoHsKdhCstxmAaBrrqpDULjYdOWAOOF3eVg-bt0euxdBVmqL_NITG40LfPp6D2wG0ugzODLruqZ-ztPNUdoZpxyU1uKNdnGZ2RRQbX8BO8f3TTft2JfVPvVMY/s320/KPOP-GIRLS.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>K-Pop Girl Groups have succeeded PSY's Gangnam Style in the ROK music explosion</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Ethnic or racial Koreans are estimated to constitute upwards of 97.5% of the total population. Moreover, a good portion of those classified as foreign residents of the ROK are actually ethnic Koreans repatriated from China. Suffice to say, the ROK's ethnic homogeneity is remarkable, near total, and closely similar to Japan's. One online encyclopedia (Encyclopedia.com) flatly states that the ROK "has no sizeable ethnic minority."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The final member of the East Asian Trio, Taiwan, is a <i>de facto</i> sovereign state that, sadly, is treated by much of the world (including the U.S.) as a non-state and diplomatic pariah due to the demands of its domineering progenitor, the People's Republic of China (PRC). Despite this severe handicap, Taiwan has survived and prospered as one of the world's most vibrant and well-educated democracies and economies.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Taiwan's total population of about 23.6 million is composed of over 95% Han Chinese (the dominant racial and ethnic group of China); when limited to actual Taiwanese citizens, its population is about 97.5% Han. Most of Taiwan's non-Han population is composed of native or aboriginal Taiwanese. As with Japan and the ROK, resident immigrants from the U.S., Europe, Africa, and the Middle East are negligible. Whatever Taiwan's "greatest strength" may be, it is certainly not diversity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b>Of course, the fact that these three Asian nations all have highly homogeneous, non-diverse populations is not in itself a matter of great moment or credit. A nation's relative diversity or homogeneity is often more a matter of geography and history than of design.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Whatever one may think of the current diversity meme, the enormous diversity in the U.S. population has been with us from the founding. We have had to accept and adjust to racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity whether we liked it or not, from the time when the successive waves of Northern European white settlers, black African slaves, Italian and Slavic immigrants, and Chinese railroad workers surrounded the appalled Native Americans with the multi-ethnic population that persists today. In short, ethnic diversity is simply an inescapable reality in the United States. Only the degree, nature, and promotion of this diversity has evolved to reach the pervasive and dogmatic stature it manifests today.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The question, however, is whether the American standard of diversity should or could be beneficially applied to profoundly distinct nations like the Asian Trio. Put another way, is artificially enhanced diversity <i>inherently</i> beneficial on the national scale? Or does national homogeneity have its own benefits? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The achievements and qualities of Japan, the ROK, and Taiwan when compared to the rest of the world's strongly indicate a negative answer to the former question and a yes to the latter. Specifically, the demonstrated superiority of these emphatically "non-diverse" countries in qualities such as education, scientific and technological ability, IQ, safety, crime prevention, and economic development strongly suggest that, in some national cases, homogeneity may have genuine benefits.</span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> In published rankings of nations by average IQ (compiled by the Statistic Brain Research Institute in 2016 at gazettereview.com), the ROK (#2), Japan (#3), and Taiwan (#4) are surpassed only by Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong (itself a non-diverse 93% Chinese/Han) is not in fact a nation but a part of China, the Asian Trio could be considered the Top 3 nations in the world in IQ. The U.S. ranked 28th.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Although one might question the validity of any single rating of national IQ's, the preeminince of the Asian Trio is reinforced by other such rankings which consistently place them at or near the top. For example, the ROK and Japan were surpassed only by the cities of Hong Kong and Singapore in another published IQ ranking, which placed Taiwan as No. 6 (all of the top six were East Asian nations or cities).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Another revealing indicator is found in the STEM (science, technology, math, and engineering) rankings of national school systems by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as reported by <u>Business Insider</u> in 2015. Similar to the IQ rankings, Singapore and Hong Kong were on top, followed by ROK and then Japan and Taiwan in a tie. Non-diverse Finland (at No. 6) was the highest ranking country outside East Asia. The U.S. was in a tie for No. 28 with Spain. Again, Japan, ROK, and Taiwan were the top three nations of significant size in STEM rankings.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Relatedly, the ROK, Finland, and Japan ranked 1-2-3 respectively in rankings of the world's best education systems (primary school through college) by the World Top 20 Project. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Similarly, in overall technological innovation, the ROK and Japan were ranked No. 1 and 3 worldwide, respectively, with the U.S. at No. 2.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> One important index area that may be closely related to ethnic homogeneity is that of public safety and crime control, which amount to the same thing by different measures. Here again, the East Asian Trio are at the very top of national rankings. Depending upon which institutional ranking one consults, either Japan or ROK is the safest country in the world, and Taiwan is not far behind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> A 2014 study by the OECD ranked Japan as "the safest country in the world," as well as maintaining the world's second lowest homicide rate (after Iceland) and the second lowest assault rate (after Canada). A 2014 survey compiled by Listovative ranked Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the ROK, in that order, as the world's safest countries.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> A 2016 ranking by Numbeo, a data aggregator, confirmed and reinforced the status of these countries as the world's safest, with only slight modifications. Numbeo ranked the ROK No. 1 on its overall safety index, followed by Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> One could continue with other areas of interest, but the foregoing representative rankings suffice to demonstrate that the Asian Trio of Japan, the ROK, and Taiwan are performing superlatively in key indicators of national achievement and well-being despite their decided lack of diversity as measured by American or western standards. Their superiority in these national indicators confirms that, whatever may be the case with the United States and its European cohorts, the value of diversity at the national level is entirely relative and in some cases dubious at best.</span><br />
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G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-34894904376232534342018-10-28T12:16:00.000-07:002018-11-01T09:22:09.807-07:00Washington State Court Perpetrates a Capital Canard<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"> On
October 11, Washington State's Supreme Court issued a decision perpetrating two
insidious canards that, like those ghastly movie goblins who return to haunt us
every Halloween season, simply refuse to die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In <i>Washington v. Gregory</i>, that court held
Washington State's death penalty unconstitutional on grounds that (1) it was discriminatorily
applied to black murderers; and (2) failed to serve any "legitimate penological
goal" because it lacked any deterrent effect. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Because
the ruling was based on state law rather than the U.S. Constitution, it cannot
be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and is the final word on the death
penalty issue in Washington State.
The decision has little practical impact on Washington's death row
inmates, moreover, because that left-oriented state does not actually carry out
executions, even though state statutes still authorized capital
punishment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> But
the court's widely-reported opinion <i>does</i> have significant and disturbing
consequences because it reiterates two false legal and penological
doctrines that are mindlessly regurgitated in the media, in politics, and in
predominant elements of the legal and policy communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> I
will not dwell here on the court's complete distortion and sophistry on the
deterrence issue. Authoritative studies
recorded elsewhere (e.g., by David Mulhausen of the Heritage Foundation), as
well as the most basic logic and common sense, establish that <i>actual and timely enforcement</i> of the
death penalty does<i> </i>have a significant
deterrent effect. Lenient or
long-delayed penalties have little chilling effect on potential perpetrators,
but, as Dr. Samuel Johnson famously said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man
knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind
wonderfully." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Studies
and arguments to the contrary merely establish that capital punishment's
general deterrent effect is <i>imperfect, </i>not
futile. There are obviously categories of crazed, hardened, or furiously impassioned
persons who are immune to abstract deterrence.
But it has been demonstrated that each actual execution deters anywhere
from 3 to 18 murders, which is surely a "legitimate penological
objective." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Further, the heedless
Washington court's deterrence analysis had another dispositive flaw: It failed to address the <i>indisputable</i> effect of <i>specific</i>
deterrence. A duly executed and dead
murderer is specifically and absolutely deterred from terrorizing or killing
fellow inmates or prison staff, or from killing innocent citizens after a
prison escape – tragic consequences that <a href="https://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2015/06/cuomo-is-morally-complicit-in-new-york.html">do in fact occur</a> when murderers are
not executed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> But
the Washington court erred even more egregiously in its haphazard
"holding" that the death penalty is discriminatorily imposed on black
murderers in Washington. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The court
rested this ruling on an ideologically-driven statistical study based upon a
small data set (there were only 9 persons under sentence of death in Washington
through 2016), substandard p-values, subjective coding of variables, and various "errors"
recognized even by the court (decision at n. 7). Further, the study established barely marginal statistical significance even if accepted as valid. Indeed, the court inadvertently acknowledged
the weakness of the decision's statistical underpinnings when it stated: "We make this determination by way of
legal analysis, not pure science. . . . [W]e decline to require indisputably
true science to prove that our death penalty is impermissibly imposed based on
race." (decis pp. 21-22). Yet the
decision rested squarely upon a highly abstruse, but patently flawed,
statistical study rather than on direct evidence of discrimination. In other words, it rested on "<i>im</i>pure science" of the most
questionable kind.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Worst of all, the decision didn't even purport to establish that any actual discrimination motivated the sentencing of the murderer Gregory in his own case. It adopted the absurd proposition that the constitutionality of a criminal defendant's sentence depends upon the statistical patterns deciphered by social scientists in past cases rather than the gruesome particulars of the defendant's individual crime.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Rather
than wrestling with the convoluted "p-values" and subjective
regression analysis that produced its improbable conclusion – i.e., that the
extremely progressive polity, government, and judiciary of Washington State
collectively discriminate against blacks in capital sentencing – the court could have
consulted objective and factual national death penalty data that are
glaringly inconsistent with its decision. <i>Those data show that the death penalty is, and
has long been, imposed disproportionately on whites, not blacks.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> In
short, the court's race-based decision was not merely wrong; it was the
opposite of the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) carefully monitors the
administration of capital punishment in all states on an annual basis. Its most recent report, <i>Capital Punishment, 2016,</i> was published in April 2018 (there is a
lag in the annual BJS reports due to the difficulties in collecting and
collating the data). The 2016 Report
found: "Of the 20 prisoners
executed [in 2016], <i>18 were white</i> (2
of Hispanic origin) <i>and 2 were black</i>
[emphasis added]." BJS further
reported: "Among prisoners under
sentence of death at year-end in 2016, a total of 55% were white and 42% were
black."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
fact that executions of whites in 2016 exceeded execution of blacks by <i>9 to 1</i> was no glaring aberration. An earlier BJS Report in 2013 tabulated executions
by race from 1977 to 2013 (<i>Capital
Punishment 2013</i>, Table 11). For the
entire 35-year period covered, there were 770 executions of whites (57%) and
464 of blacks (34%). In 2013, it was 23
whites versus 13 blacks executed. In
2012, it was 25 whites, 11 blacks. And
so on through the years. The last year
in which black executions exceeded white was 1991 – <i>27 years ago</i> – when there were 7 blacks executed versus 6 whites. During this entire 35-year period, there were
only two years (1989 and 1991) in which more blacks were executed that whites.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Advocates
of the discriminatory death penalty canard might, and do, argue that such data fails
to account for the fact that blacks constitute only 13% of the U.S. population
but account for well more than 13% of executions (i.e., 34% of executions
during the era covered by the 2013 BJS Report).
That argument is futile, however, because the relevant population for
this comparison is not the <i>general </i>population,
but <i>the population of those who alone are
eligible for the death penalty – murderers</i>.
Under U.S. constitutional law, only those who commit murder are eligible
for the death penalty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
FBI's recurring reports on Crime in the United States establish that blacks
consistently represent over 50% of murderers in the United States. During the 28-year era covered by the FBI's
<u>2011 Homicide Trends</u> report (1980 to 2008), 52.5% of U.S. homicides were
committed by blacks while 43.5% were committed by whites (NCJ 236018, Table
7). More current FBI reports confirm
this pattern. In 2016, for example, 53.5% of murder offenders in cases where
the race was known were black (<u>2016, Crime in the United States, Overview</u>). For 2017, the figure was 54.2% (6,444 black
murder offenders out of 11,883 such offenders where race was known) (2017,
<u>Crime in the United States</u>, Table 3).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> These
straightforward figures speak with a decisive clarity that exposes the
Washington court's tortured manipulation of reality for the sophistry that it
is. Objective BJS and FBI data establish
that while black perpetrators commit slightly more than 50% of U.S. murders,
they represent only about one-third (and in 2016, only 10%) of those who are
ultimately executed for their murders.
The same data establishes that white murderers are therefore about twice
as likely as blacks to be executed in the United States. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Unless sentencing decision-makers in
Washington State are driven by an element of anti-black discrimination that
is not manifest in the nationwide administration of capital punishment, the
Washington Supreme Court's decision in the <i>Gregory</i>
case is demonstrably and dangerously wrong. </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-65953715597651836422017-02-19T17:06:00.001-08:002017-02-20T06:54:31.534-08:00KARLIE KLOSS, KAREN CARPENTER, AND THE PC KIMONO LUNACY<span style="font-size: large;"> Before resuming our reporting on the rampant leftist sedition at large in the land, <i>SR</i> takes a brief detour into the alien realm of fashion media to expose the latest extreme lunacy of the political correctness that pervades today's American culture.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The always interesting <i>Breitbart</i> website recently reported on a remarkable example of the so-called "cultural appropriation" concept, which condemns any use or adoption of the fashion, customs, or arts of foreign cultures by so-called White Western Society. It is not clear whether the reverse (foreign cultures adopting <i>our</i> music, art, etc.) is equally nefarious.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> According to <i>Breitbart</i>, a prominent American fashion model named Karlie Kloss recently posed in Geisha-style Japanese kimonos for an extensive photoshoot in <i>Vogue</i> magazine's so called "diversity" issue. The spread featured the fashionably kimonoed Kloss posing in a variety of settings intended to present striking cultural images of Japan (as a knowledgeable Japan-hand of longstanding, <i>SR</i> can only say that the presentation is a bit<i> gauche</i>, as one would expect of the superficial millennials at <i>Vogue</i>, but certainly harmless, and complimentary, if anything).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxrL7zGkwm_crmW93GgfEad36PYsL5qZDm67i1dT-d_Gutz5mi6ZcRtmUx0LKdY_1bEwXnZZ_8johUMSG_ZvtPQkKByZ5mnXvd_ZDvpmT_-ppvEz5jVaDfOBAxtVgSj8JAS4rMxSSZG0g/s1600/VOGUE.GEISHA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxrL7zGkwm_crmW93GgfEad36PYsL5qZDm67i1dT-d_Gutz5mi6ZcRtmUx0LKdY_1bEwXnZZ_8johUMSG_ZvtPQkKByZ5mnXvd_ZDvpmT_-ppvEz5jVaDfOBAxtVgSj8JAS4rMxSSZG0g/s320/VOGUE.GEISHA.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<b>Vogue Magazine</b><br />
<b>Oh, the Horror! A Caucasian Model Poses in Kimono!</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Almost instantly, the lunatic legions of the <a href="http://did%20vogue%20not%20get%20the%20%22culture%20is%20not%20a%20costume%22%20memo%20that's%20been%20going%20around%20for%20the%20past%20few...decades/">social media pounced</a> on Ms. Kloss for her crime of "cultural appropriation." Typical of the clueless commentary was the following penetrating query: "Did Vogue not get the 'culture is not a costume' memo that's been going around for the past few...decades?" <i>SR</i> is surprised that such a "memo" ever existed or circulated, and expects the reader is as well; but in the twisted realm of the politically correct cognoscenti, anything is possible.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The brainless commentary also condemned Ms. Kloss and <i>Vogue</i> -- both of whom undoubtedly deserve condemnation for many <i>other</i> stupidities and venalities, but not for <i>this</i> one -- for so-called racial "whitewashing." This is an ironic and foolish charge indeed, for Japanese women place the highest aesthetic value on the whiteness of their complexions. Nothing could be "whiter" than an authentic, original Japanese beauty in geisha splendor. If anything, a Western model would be <i>less</i> white than an authentic Japanese geisha. So-called "cultural appropriation" is a purely mythical canard of the left, but this kind of cultural <i>stupidity</i> is a depressing reality, perpetrated by the PC and social justice morons on a daily basis.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Ms. Kloss's attackers also questioned why <i>Vogue</i> could not have found a Japanese model for the photoshoot. This criticism might have been valid if we were talking about the use of a non-Japanese actress <i>to portray a Japanese woman</i> in a movie about Japan -- as was actually done with the casting of a famous Chinese actress (Zhang Ziyi) to portray a Japanese Geisha in <i>Memoirs of a Geisha</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> But that's not what occurred here. Rather than usurping the part of a genuine Japanese geisha, Ms. Kloss was employed to highlight the beauty and piquancy of cross-cultural diversity by artfully posing a beautiful Western woman in the classical Japanese garment. Rather than cultural <i>appropriation</i>, the intent of the photoshoot was cultural <i>tribute</i>. But needless to say, this nuance was lost on the mindless minions of the politically correct.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> But the most depressing aspect of this absurd imbroglio was that Ms. Kloss felt compelled to issue the inevitable press-agent-drafted apology -- when she should have bridled with the justifiable fury of an outraged fashion <i>diva</i>. She abjectly posted the following illogical nonsense on her Twitter account: "These images appropriate a culture that is not my own and I am truly sorry for participating in a shoot that was not culturally sensitive. My goal is, and always will be, to empower and inspire women."<br />
<br />
No, Karlie, you silly Airhead. Neither you nor <i>Vogue</i> could "appropriate" the ancient and magnificent Japanese culture in the wildest dreams of your illusory significance. No apology was necessary, Dahlink, as Zsa Zsa might have said. If anything, Japanese viewers would only have been mildly amused at <i>Vogue</i>'s ham-handed, but gameful, attempt to capture an aesthetic that lies far beyond their superficial comprehension. But they were certainly not offended. On the contrary, as shown by <a href="http://en.rocketnews24.com/2017/02/17/japanese-twitter-seems-to-have-no-problems-with-karlie-kloss-geisha-photo-shoot/">the reaction of Japanese Twitter users</a>, the Japanese enjoyed the spread and considered it a nice tribute to their culture.<br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> <br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjog7lTxg6UHkaqQAq4f6hHvgXr3cPboRgHycI_CVM0aoW0qH5bQhuQq4_miRb-Wk3Fc40TazfyBr1sL3Om0rZjyh5-wFyN2sGKeoKGGPBDA6acZI2wRtvUcpL4MT3b9ml0ytnojFr0n8I/s1600/KC33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjog7lTxg6UHkaqQAq4f6hHvgXr3cPboRgHycI_CVM0aoW0qH5bQhuQq4_miRb-Wk3Fc40TazfyBr1sL3Om0rZjyh5-wFyN2sGKeoKGGPBDA6acZI2wRtvUcpL4MT3b9ml0ytnojFr0n8I/s320/KC33.jpg" width="225" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Karen Carpenter charming the Japanese in her gift kimono, Tokyo 1974</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"></span></b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
To place this absurd episode in sensible perspective, we need only flash back to the comparatively sane era of the 1970's.<br />
<br />
In 1974, popular music was still beautiful and harmonic, as exemplified by the gorgeous vocals of Karen Carpenter and the internationally beloved recordings of the Carpenters. Nowhere were the Carpenters more popular than in Japan, and in the summer of 1974, the talented sibling duo (Karen and her brother Richard) arrived for a record-setting concert tour in Tokyo amidst media and popular fanfare reminiscent of the Beatles' arrival in the U.S. a decade earlier.<br />
<br />
As part of the extensive publicity campaign surrounding the Carpenters' arrival, their hosts presented both Richard and Karen with beautiful and extremely valuable kimonos. Both of the sibling superstars posed happily in the outfits for the Japanese press, and the Japanese were delighted with how charming Karen looked in a gorgeous kimono especially suited to a young lady in the spring-like glow of youth. They were even more delighted when, near the conclusion of the Carpenters' concert in Tokyo's iconic Budokan, Karen sang portions of the hit song, <i>Sing</i>, in flawless Japanese, in a charming "duet" with a chorus of star-struck Japanese children.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Needless to say, the notions of "cultural appropriation" or of "whitefacing" Japanese culture never remotely occurred to the Japanese, the Carpenters, or to anyone who observed the Carpenters' congenial engagement with the Japanese people. So successful was the Carpenters' 1974 tour that their popularity in Japan reached spectacular heights that, remarkably, endure to this day.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> So all the neurotic social critics should take a deep breath; stay calm; and take a look back at how the good-natured embrace of another nation's culture, dress, and customs can be mutually enjoyable and rewarding. Far from causing insult or embarrassment, a Western woman wearing a kimono with the right attitude and elan can form a lasting bond of mutual affection and appreciation. <span style="font-size: x-large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span>That was how the Carpenters and Japan approached each other in 1974, to the enduring reward of both sides.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
</span></div>
G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-45664513037917068552017-02-03T08:28:00.000-08:002017-02-03T09:28:44.029-08:00REJECTING AN INVITATION TO IMITATE GERMANY'S SUICIDAL OPEN HOUSE TO REFUGEES<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> A trusted friend and<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>colleague referred me to the<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/01/30/trump-immigration-order-tests-nation-principles/L6jBXpFpF0iO3vjiFfeC8M"> article discussed below</a>, suggesting it was particularly worthy of refutation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> <i>See</i> "President Trump's immigration order tests the nation's principles," <i>Boston Globe</i> (Jan. 30, 2017). </span>Although
I was tempted to dismiss it as but another screed from the left attacking the
President's recent executive orders on immigration – discussed here before in a
<a href="http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2017/01/yates-latest-perfidious-face-of-lawless.html">preceding post</a> – the fallacies in the piece were so blatant and wrong-headed
that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SR</i> could not let it pass
silently.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That the arguments were made
by a former Admiral made the piece even more unsettling.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The article's author, James
Stavridis,<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>is currently Dean of the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and was reportedly considered as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When an article on the grimly serious
issue of keeping alien terrorists out of the country begins with a slobbering
reference to a maudlin Barbra Streisand movie, as this one does, one is instantly placed on alert
that melodramatic superficiality is likely to follow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And when the cinematic quote purporting to impress
the reader with its piercing insight is "People are their principles,"
any doubt on that score is quickly removed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What does such quixotic navel-gazing<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>have to do with the harsh business of
securing our borders against alien terrorist infiltration?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis continues his lecture by generously
condescending to "giv[e] the benefit of the doubt to President Trump"
and "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hoping</i>" that Mr.
Trump's "intentions are to keep us safe."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When a failed vice-presidential prospect for
a failed presidential candidate presumes to pass supercilious judgment on the most basic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bona fides</i> of the newly elected President, it is quickly apparent
that the author is confused about just who is the new Commander-in-Chief – and
why.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis then proceeds to criticize the
President's recent executive orders on immigration and refugees with a level of
incomprehension and illogic that would be amusing <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>were the subject not so serious.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS_UiEi88OEffnJf1pPcttfcOsODcp8ruHfp9oTatt2-Sh6gIIVERdP7Mpm1Pqg3tuo2UR45TM42jI4eGABCokIaU1IcYQDdwBaz689WgAaymgUioFe4YpIxZ40L_-66FHC0d-DP5cpo8/s1600/srefugees.norleans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS_UiEi88OEffnJf1pPcttfcOsODcp8ruHfp9oTatt2-Sh6gIIVERdP7Mpm1Pqg3tuo2UR45TM42jI4eGABCokIaU1IcYQDdwBaz689WgAaymgUioFe4YpIxZ40L_-66FHC0d-DP5cpo8/s320/srefugees.norleans.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">theconservativetreehouse.com</span></b></div>
<div>
<b> Some of the "creative thinkers" and budding capitalists the left would import in droves</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps the most patently ill-informed of many such
contentions in the piece is this:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"I do not understand the arbitrary selection of some
Muslim-majority nations but not others to face the consequences of this
executive order, nor the rationale for a 90-day or 120-day time period."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Had Stavridis (or his assistant) taken <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">60 seconds</i> for rudimentary internet
research, he <a href="http://therightscoop.com/so-how-exactly-did-trump-pick-those-7-countries-for-his-immigration-moratorium/">would know</a> that the seven countries in question – Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen – had been previously singled out by the
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Obama administration</i><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>as "countries of concern" (re:
terrorism) and subjected to various travel restrictions on that basis.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Far from being "arbitrary," the
selection of those seven countries was prudent, security-focused, and supported
by actions of the previous administration.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Had President Trump selected a larger or smaller number of countries,
his political and media enemies would undoubtedly have pounced on him for over-
or under-inclusiveness. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If Stavridis
really does not "understand" these basic facts, he is either
willfully uninformed or simply duplicitous.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis' purported inability to
"understand" the rationale for the 90-day time period for the
suspension is equally disingenuous, or simply fraudulent .<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even this limited suspension period has
elicited howls of horror and fraudulent indignation from the illegal alien
community, the subversive left, and their media echo chamber.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Had the President established a substantially
longer, or indefinite, period – as he is expressly authorized to do by law, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">see</i> 8 USC sec. 1182(f), authorizing
presidential suspension of entry "for such period as he shall deem
necessary" – the congressional baying and gnashing of teeth would have
been even more extravagant.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In short,
the ferocious resistance from enemies of border control has made it politically
impossible to impose the more lengthy suspension that events warrant; <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>yet when the President pragmatically adopts a
compromise shorter period, carping critics like Stavridis pounce on him for
doing so. Heads we win, tails you lose.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Other palpably erroneous or simply
insupportable assertions follow.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Oblivious
to a distinguished succession of Presidents who have banned alien entry on a
wide variety of grounds <u>including nationality</u>, Stavridis
self-righteously denounces restrictions on immigration from any "particular nation."
<span style="margin: 0px;"> The </span>Presidents who actually have to protect
the country and its borders disagree.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As but one example, President Carter
terminated immigration from Iran (a Shiite Muslim Islamic state) in 1979, in
entirely justifiable reaction to that nation's seizure of American hostages.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Far more importantly, Congress has approved and re-approved the following statute, 18 USC sec.
1182(f), which expressly and broadly authorizes the President to exclude aliens
of a particular nationality – or any particular class of aliens, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">including a class based on religion</i> – in
language which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in itself</i> conclusively
supports the legality of President Trump's suspension orders:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Whenever the President finds
that the entry of any aliens <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or of any
class of aliens</i> into the United States would be detrimental to the
interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for such period as he shall deem necessary</i>,
suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or
nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to
be appropriate."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>18 USC sec.
1182(f) [emphasis added].</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This provision, moreover, firmly negates
Stavridis' contention that the President's actions are insupportable because
they somehow violate various broad principles of international law respecting
acceptance of refugees.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even if one
accepts the dubious contention that the President's orders run afoul of such
standards, the President's constitutional and statutory authority to protect U.S.
security and sovereignty reflected in section 1182 would override such
objections.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis also attacks the suspension
orders on the purported grounds that they improperly discriminate on the basis
of religion, asserting as follows:<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>"I am deeply disturbed by the general tone and thrust of the
executive orders that, at least on initial read, seem to ban significant
classes of people because of their religion, or prioritize one religion over
another."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This assertion is so shot
through with fallacy that one hardly knows where to begin.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But we will try.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis
first resorts to the dissembler's classic fall back qualifier, "at least on
initial read."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The EO, which is not
a lengthy document, was issued on January 27 and Stavridis' article is dated
January 30.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He had ample time for a
second, third, or fourth "read" if he intended to offer responsible
commentary on the order.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He apparently
was content to plow ahead with his article without carefully reading the
readily available order.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But no matter
how many times he read it, Stavridis would not find any language employing
religion as a basis for the exclusion; rather, it was based on the nations<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"of concern" previously identified
by the Obama administration.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In short, Stavridis falsely and
irresponsibly attacked the orders for discriminating on the basis of
religion.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They did not and <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438536/immigration-religious-test-constitution-does-not-ban-vetting-immigrants-religion">do not</a>.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis should know, for example, that
Indonesia has far and away the world's largest Muslim population (with over 200
million Muslims), yet the suspension order does not apply to Indonesia.<span style="margin: 0px;"> Or to Pakistan, with its many millions of Muslims. </span>In any event, however, both the above-quoted
18 USC 1182(f) and the Constitution would permit exclusion of a class based on
religion if it otherwise met the statutory criteria.<span style="margin: 0px;"> But President Trump declined to resort to that available option.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But Stavridis' objection to the
immigration orders because they "prioritize one religion over
another" is probably the most egregious, and unconsciously ironic, of all
his bogus contentions.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps Stavridis has forgotten, or never
cared to learn, that the Obama administration's perversely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pro</i>-Islamic immigration and refugee policies have discriminated
grossly and demonstrably against Christians.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Christians fleeing religious persecution reportedly <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2015/11/discrimination-against-christian-refugees/">make up</a> about 16-23%
of the refugees, but only 2.5% of those being allowed to come into the United
States.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>More particularly, only <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/">some 0.46%</a> of over
11,000 Syrian refugees admitted by the Obama regime were Christians, while over
98% were Sunni Muslims.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So one is forced to ask:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>where was Stavridis' touching concern for
religious discrimination in immigration when it was perpetrated against Christians
by the Obama administration?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nowhere in
sight, apparently. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is therefore
evident that his professed concern that the orders "prioritize[ed] one
religion over another" is bogus.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In
fact, however, the U.S. would be quite justified in granting priority to
Christian refugees as a remedial measure to rectify the systemic discrimination
and disparate impact its immigration and refugee policies have had on oppressed
Christian refugees.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stavridis
plods on to offer the following extraordinary statement, apparently intended to
strengthen his case that the new President should let in legions <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">more</i>, not less, Islamic refugees:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>"Do we really want to be the nation that
watches Germany (with one fourth of our population) take in more than a million
refugees, in accordance with international law, while we say no and close our
borders to those in need?"</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One can only wonder if the author is
really serious in making this outlandish argument, or is he utterly
delusional?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Germany's <a href="http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/muslim-migrants-in-germany-stage-mob-riots-shouting-allahu-ackbar/">disastrous admission</a> of over a million refugees has virtually destroyed much of the German
culture, let alone the safety and security of its cities.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Who can forget the grotesque and shocking
spectacle of the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/04/revealed-1000-migrants-brawl-rape-sexually-assault-steal-one-german-train-station-new-years-eve/">New Years Eve riots</a> of rape and pillage in Cologne last
year?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even the hapless Angela Merkel has been
forced to <a href="http://truthfeed.com/merkel-finally-admits-defeat-terrorists-came-in-with-refugees/11634/">admit</a> that, "In part, the refugee flow was even used to smuggle
terrorists."<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet Stavridis argues that the United States
should somehow be shamed into <i>emulating</i> Germany's disdastrous refugee
policy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Indeed, he implies that it would be fitting if
we took in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">four million</i> refugees,
since, as he pointedly stresses, our population is four times larger than
Germany's. In short, the author's reasoning leads to consequences that prove its fallacy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Lastly, Stavridis makes the risible argument that the U.S. will greatly
benefit from admitting hordes of additional Mid-East refugees because "the
vast majority are risk-taking, determined, creative thinkers who will over time
gives us a high return on investment."<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This is out-and-out nonsense.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Stavridis cites no evidence for his absurd claim, nor could he, because
it is wildly false.<span style="margin: 0px;"> How or where he has discovered all these "creative thinkers" and budding capitalists among the belligerent refugee vagabonds remains a mystery to the rest of us. </span>There is simply no basis in fact for this delusional but dangerous fantasy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>On the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/10/more-than-90-percent-of-middle-eastern-refugees-on-food-stamps/">contrary</a>, about 90% of Mid-east
refugees entering the U.S. go on food stamps, and nearly 70% receive government
cash assistance (i.e., welfare).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>
As the hapless Europeans have learned to their great cost , the great majority of the migrating
Mid-Eastern refugees are fighting-age males with little prospect for productive
employment.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"> But enough. Stavridis' assault on the President's admirable first-step in restoring our shredded borders is long on delusional canards and short on hard realities. The hard reality is that accepting his invitation to follow Germany's and Europe's recklessly porous refugee policy would needlessly replicate the cultural disaster that has reduced too many European cities to menacing danger zones. Thankfully, President Trump's election has halted America's descent in that direction.</span></div>
<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-29768432760961964182017-01-31T13:56:00.000-08:002017-01-31T14:03:04.935-08:00YATES: LATEST PERFIDIOUS FACE OF THE LAWLESS LEFT<span style="font-size: large;"> The dangerous defiance of the lawless left continues to subvert the efforts of the Trump Administration to restore a semblance of sanity to America's immigration policy. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> A pinch-faced Obama holdover at the Justice Department, one Sally Yates, has exploited and betrayed her temporary trust as Acting Attorney General (pending the Democrat-delayed confirmation of Jeff Sessions as permanent AG) to gain 15 minutes of infamy through an act of pure dereliction of duty and defiance of law.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> President Trump, unlike so many elected officials of both parties, has kept his campaign promises by signing a series of executive orders putting into effect various policies and programs that could be effectuated without legislation. Among the most prominent of these was to suspend entry of aliens from seven terrorist-harboring nations pending the thorough vetting of their backgrounds that the Obama administration declined to perform.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The constitutionality and legality of the suspension/vetting order has been thoroughly demonstrated <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444371/donald-trump-executive-order-ban-entry-seven-muslim-majority-countries-legal">elsewhere</a> by a variety of legal experts. More to the point here, the order's legal and constitutional validity was vetted and approved by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the elite Justice Department office specifically charged with the responsibility of reviewing Executive Branch orders, policies, programs, and proposed legislation for legality and constitutionality. The author of <i>Splashing Rocks</i> served as Senior Counsel at OLC in one stretch of his legal career, and so is especially knowledgeable of the points that follow.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPNF63mVS5Jm3k4e8cydZzflr2n4bumiBcEvXI5MFudnRm16bstL5Yyl5zNx4s3WPI8c2G4-ZlCA9KdRbi-PQN9jvOAMjAtV5MXJQaV3rSBgRAjSu3XedfjMslhkRMld9gYYNbxaC0TeA/s1600/yates.publicpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPNF63mVS5Jm3k4e8cydZzflr2n4bumiBcEvXI5MFudnRm16bstL5Yyl5zNx4s3WPI8c2G4-ZlCA9KdRbi-PQN9jvOAMjAtV5MXJQaV3rSBgRAjSu3XedfjMslhkRMld9gYYNbxaC0TeA/s320/yates.publicpic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Dismissed DOJ Caretaker Yates: Subversive Face of the Lawless Left</span></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</span><div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Ms. Yates was not content merely to defy the President and abandon her duties in refusing to defend the immigration order. With the typical melodramatics and self-aggrandizement of the leftist hack that she is, Yates issued an outrageously political letter applauding herself for "stand[ing] for what is right" and "seek[ing] justice" -- in a blatantly partisan declaration that the President was doing the opposite.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Yates actions and statements were dishonest, lawless, and profoundly irresponsible. She richly deserved to be among the first Obama holdover cadres to receive an emphatic "You're fired!" from the President. But there is a significant additional twist to this episode which sharply underscores the utter lawlessness and hypocrisy of the political lawyers of the Democrat Left.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Just before the various controversies over the immigration order came to a head, critics on the left were suggesting that it would be irresponsible for President Trump to issue executive orders that were vetted only by White House Counsel <i>without any clearance by the above-described OLC</i>. For example, Democrat/Liberal Walter Dellinger, who headed the OLC during the Clinton administration, <a href="http://wvpe.org/post/key-justice-dept-office-wont-say-if-it-approved-white-house-executive-orders">recently asserted</a> that it is "essential that any order issued by the President be reviewed for lawfulness by the career lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel. That is not a task that can be left to White House staff if we are going to be a nation of laws."</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> In the case of the suspension/vetting order, the Trump Administration did exactly what Mr. Dellinger recommended: the order <i>was</i> vetted and cleared by OLC for legality and constitutionality. Yet Acting AG Yates -- who is an Obama political holdover whose position is merely that of a "caretaker" -- chose to disregard the OLC clearance and refused to defend the order on inarticulate justice policy grounds and because she was "not convinced" that it was lawful. But to paraphrase Walter Dellinger, "that is not a task to be left to" a politically appointed and motivated caretaker/hack like Sally Yates "if we are going to be a nation of laws."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> First, if Yates was "not convinced" by the OLC opinion, she should have been. She is simply unqualified to second guess OLC on a constitutional law issue, let alone where OLC's opinion rested on such well-established legal and historical precedent. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> As I can personally attest, OLC is an extremely selective office that hires only the most highly qualified attorneys. Virtually all OLC attorneys graduated near the top of their class from one of the nation's most elite law schools and then proceeded to a clerkship on a U.S. Court of Appeals. It is a prestigious proving ground for Supreme Court Justices, including William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Yates got her law degree from barely mid-rank University of Georgia Law School, had no judicial clerkship, and has no apparent standing as a legal scholar. She would have been lucky to be granted an interview at OLC, let alone to be hired there. She was in her role as the Acting AG only as a ministerial "caretaker" until Jeff Sessions would be confirmed as Attorney General. Yet this politically appointed caretaker had the audacity to make the radical and extraordinary step of dismissing OLC's opinion (not to mention prior DOJ approvals of comparable suspension orders by the Carter and Obama administrations) and trashing the President's order because this second-rate lawyer was "not convinced" it was constitutional.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The purported policy and "justice" grounds on which Yates declined to defend the order are even more outrageous and insupportable. Whatever authority an Acting Attorney General might have to question a presidential action on strictly legal grounds, she has no standing to second-guess the policy behind a presidential order -- let alone one involving the President's authority over national security, foreign affairs, and border control. An executive order is <i>law</i>. For an acting Attorney General to decline to defend or enforce it is not only a dereliction of duty, but a lawless and irresponsible act bordering on treachery.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Yet it is not entirely surprising that a Democrat Attorney General, acting or otherwise, would arbitrarily reject a valid OLC legal opinion for partisan political reasons and personal aggrandizement. This is merely the latest manifestation of the Democratic Left's scornful disregard for the rule of law when it interferes with their political designs.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Early in the first Obama administration, Congress was considering enactment of a bill (the DC Voting Rights Act, or DCVRA) that would authorize the District of Columbia to have a seat in the House of Representatives. The Constitution, however, expressly and repeatedly states that only States may be represented in the House (and the Senate). Consequently, a constitutional amendment is required to give DC a voting Representative in Congress. Therefore, in attempting to authorize such a DC Representative through simple legislation, the DCVRA was patently unconstitutional.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> OLC had previously issued a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/attachments/2015/06/01/op-olc-v031-p0147.pdf">formal opinion</a> during the latter Bush Administration that an earlier version of the DCVRA was patently unconstitutional (it was drafted by yours truly). Confident that the Obama Justice Department would not let the mere Constitution stand in the way, however, radical proponents of DC representation reintroduced the bill promptly after Obama's election. To its great credit, however, the Obama appointees at OLC upheld the prior opinion that the DCVRA was unconstitutional. Acting Assistant AG for OLC David Barron, now a Court of Appeals Judge, appears to have been responsible for the ruling. OLC had little honest choice, however, since the bill's unconstitutionality was so glaringly apparent that a contrary opinion would have seriously undercut OLC's hard-earned reputation of rigorous, nonpartisan integrity in issuing its legal opinions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Foreshadowing Ms. Yates' more recent lawlessness, Obama's radical leftist Attorney General, Eric Holder, showed as little deference to OLC's constitutional expertise as he typically did to the Constitution itself. Holder not only rejected the OLC opinion, he completely circumvented longstanding DOJ practice and precedent in order to assure that there would be no Department questioning of the patently unconstitutional DCVRA. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> To Holder, securing a House seat for the solidly Democratic and overwhelmingly black District of Columbia was far more important than obeying the unmistakable constitutional requirement that only States could be represented in Congress. So he dispensed with the usual Department opinion on whether the bill was constitutional, and instead redirected the bill to an attorney of his choice in the Solicitor General's office, and altered the issue to whether the bill was <i>defensible</i>, whether or not it was constitutional in fact. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Needless to say, Holder obtained the desired "clearance," and the unconstitutional DCVRA proceeded to Congress with the Obama Administration's fraudulent imprimatur. To this day, the OLC opinion that Holder rejected has been kept secret and withheld from disclosure in defiance of both congressional and FOIA requests. Obviously, Holder did not want an opinion that demonstrated the duplicity of his actions to see the light of day. Fortunately, this unconstitutional atrocity was sidetracked and killed by procedural obstacles unrelated to its constitutionality. Thanks to Mr. Trump's election, it is unlikely to see the light of day again -- unless it is resurrected like some legislative vampire by another anti-constitutional Democratic administration we can all hope will never arise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Nonetheless, the pattern of politicized lawlessness established by the likes of Sally Yates and Eric Holder should be a warning to all who support the efforts of the Trump Administration to restore a standard of responsible law enforcement in the wake of the disastrous legal carnage of the Obama regime. Both Yates and Holder wrongfully rejected clearly correct OLC opinions in order to further the partisan goals and campaigns of the Democratic Left. These lawless Democrat radicals -- especially the lawless radical lawyers -- will stop at nothing, least of all the constraints of the Constitution and the rule of law, in their fanatical efforts to subvert the President's efforts to make America great, secure, and safe again.</span><br />
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G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6111822283476390741.post-15581004751149074952017-01-23T14:44:00.002-08:002017-01-23T14:56:51.291-08:00GOVERNMENT BARRIERS SUPPRESSED INAUGURAL CROWDS<span style="font-size: large;"> The last few days have witnessed a petty and partisan media campaign to denigrate and belittle the enthusiastic crowds that attended President Trump's inauguration festivities. Wielding various forms of photographic and statistical "evidence," the media banshees went to great lengths to demonstrate that Obama's first inauguration drew larger crowds than Trump's -- a question of no real interest to the public.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Then, when President Trump's supporters understandably pushed back with counter-evidence (one obvious point is that Obama's crowds were artificially inflated by the hordes of Democrat federal workers who live in the DC area), the MSM pounced on them for pursuing such a petty issue -- the very issue the media snipers raised in the first place!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> But before this controversy gives way to matters of greater moment, <i>Splashing Rocks</i> will now get to the heart and truth of the matter -- which has heretofore escaped the focus of the MSM.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The debate has mistakenly focused on the size of the crowds who were actually able to <i>attend</i> the ceremonies and parade. But in light of the extreme government obstruction of access to these events, the proper measure is how many people <i>came</i> into town <i>attempting</i> to attend the events. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <b><span style="font-size: small;">The Long and Winding Line to the Trump Inaugural . . .</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The fact is that the already large and enthusiastic crowds attending the Trump inauguration events would have been far larger if many thousands (like me) had not been prevented from gaining access to those events by a perverse array of government barriers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>SR</i> can testify firsthand to all this, because I was among the frustrated citizens who were stalled in miles of security lines and shunted from barrier to barrier and fence to fence in their vain efforts to gain timely access to the inaugural events. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b>. . . stretched endlessly on near L'Enfant Plaza</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> To its great credit, though, the pro-Trump crowd retained its high spirits and enthusiasm despite all this. But many thousands, like <i>SR</i>, went home early rather than spend more hours in the "long and winding lines" that the government's exaggerated (or deliberately designed?) security measures necessitated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>SR</i> came into town on Metro's Orange Line, hoping to decamp at one of the stations relatively convenient to the events -- Federal Triangle, Smithsonian, or Navy Memorial. But no, all of those stations were closed for security reasons -- what proved to be the universal justification for the wall of obstruction that enmeshed the entire sector of the National Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Instead, would-be attendees were shunted to the L'Enfant Plaza station, three full blocks south of the Mall and still further from the Capital West Lawn inauguration site. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> There, they emerged to see an enormous line of people, some three or four abreast, the end of which was nowhere in sight, or anywhere near it. Requests for assistance in finding where one could get into the line were met with befuddled shrugs. No one really knew where the line ended, and for good reason: the line was not straight, but labyrinthian, like some kind of sadistic corn maze that turned first one way, and then another, only to turn again on itself. And each segment in the seemingly endless turns was long -- very long. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> After an interminable period with only slight forward movement, <i>SR</i> joined a young couple next to him in leaving the line to follow a tip they'd received of a shorter or faster-moving line closer to the Smithsonian Institute. But here one merely moved from the Scylla of long lines to the Charybdis of cement barriers and meshed security fences. The cement barriers running east-west adjacent to the Mall seemed endless. Further, in order to move north toward the Smithsonian and the Mall, the barriers forced one to detour for several blocks <i>South </i>before turning back north.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In short, the federal government had erected a dystopian labyrinth of lines, barriers, and fences that made it nearly impossible for all but the early arrivals to reach even the outer aprons of the Mall. By the time <i>SR</i> was able to reach the far west edge of the Mall -- from which the West Lawn ceremonial platform was not even visible -- the ceremony was over. All that remained was a replay of the lovely teenage soprano, Jackie Evancho, beautifully singing the National Anthem on the jumbotron.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>SR</i>'s attempt to get even remotely near the parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue were equally, if not more, frustrating. All attempts to cut through to a point anywhere near the parade were met with more cement barriers, fences, or stern guards directing one to the end of another line that, again, was nowhere in sight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Along with thousands like him, <i>SR</i> gave up and headed back to the Metro. The platform at L'Enfant Plaza station was full of early departees who had simply tired of waiting in endless security lines and being shunted from barrier to barrier and "pillar to post." It had become evident that the federal and DC governments were more interested in providing "safe spaces" for leftist demonstrators than in enabling patriotic citizens to actually <i>attend</i> President Trump's inaugural events.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> All of this was obviously lost on the clueless national media "reporters" who purported to cover the inaugural events. Not a single TV reporter was anywhere in sight on the south side of the Mall where these interminable lines formed and crawled. So the national media outlets were simply ignorant of the reality that so many thousands attempting to attend the events were prevented from gaining timely access by the massive government security block-out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Consequently, once again the MSM's reporting was wrong and biased against President Trump and his supporters. Insofar as it failed to recognize how excessive government barriers prevented so many thousands (like <i>SR</i>) from actually reaching the inaugural events in time, the MSM's portrayal of Saturday's crowds was seriously misleading.</span></div>
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<br />G. C. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13177443866672814170noreply@blogger.com2