De Blasio gets his wish-in spades

It looks as if the New York police unions are giving Mayor de Blasio exactly what he wants. He asked for a more laid back approach to law enforcement and he is getting it in spades. The New York Post reports;

Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show. Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame. Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241. Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.

Never mind that traffic and parking fines are a large source of the city's income if his honor want less policing the police seem happy to oblige. Someone might want to pass the word to the White House that the next time Obama wants to visit the UN he may want to bring along an extra 5,000-10,000 Secret Service agents to block intersections and direct traffic if he expects to make the ride  from JFK in under 12 hours.
For all of his honor's cant about police respect for the citizens they serve his past political affiliation reflect an affinity for totalitarian dictatorships. Judicial Watch notes that his beloved Nicaragua had 20,000 political prisoners rotting in prisons during their glory days, the days that young de Blasio visited that Latin American Utopia. That's not quite accurate. Yes, the present Mayor of New York did visit Nicaragua in the 1980's but that was two name changes ago. He was originally named Warren Wilhelm, Jr. In 1983, he changed his name to Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm. Then in 1990 he changed it to Bill de Blasio so everyone would know that he was a descendant of poor Italian immigrants whose family could afford to send his mother to Smith College. Bizarre behavior? Not when compared to other New York political luminaries such as Eliot Spitzer aka Client Number Nine or Anthony Weiner aka Carlos Danger.
De Blasio may soon have a referendum on his behavior and idiotic Sandinista rhetoric.  Staten Island's Republican district attorney Daniel Donovan who was accused of not rigging the grand jury in the matter of the death of Eric Garner may run in a special election to replace tax evading Congressman Michael Grimm.
Donovan is one of the most popular elected officials on Staten Island, taking 70 percent of the vote in his 2011 re-election campaign, and 65 percent of the borough vote in his unsuccessful race for attorney general in 2010, according to the Staten Island Advance. What do you bet he is endorsed by all the police unions?

Our DIVA President and his wife

  I think, America, we have to face the fact that the POTUS and FLOTUS are indeed DIVAs of enormous narcissism.
   The story's out there that Obama wanted to "play through" the 16th hole on a Hawaii golf course, even though "playing through" meant forcing an Army couple to relocate their wedding. 
  Ironically, knowing he would be in Hawaii during their wedding, the soldiers had whimsically sent an invitation to him, only to be told 24 hours before their outdoor wedding that Obama not only wasn't interested in attending their wedding, he was kicking them off their planned wedding location.
  The event coordinator assured the world that their knock off wedding location would be much nicer than the one Obama was planning on using, though word leaked out that the bride was "emotional" over losing the long planned wedding site.
  It's pretty hard to believe Obama didn't KNOW he wrecked their wedding, but considering he gets most of his info from MSNBC, I GUESS it's possible.
  I've noted on many occasions that the Obamas frequently are unconcerned about optics but since this incident has hit the fan for some reason, he's decided to make a public apology with a videotaped phone call.

“Listen, congratulations on your wedding,” Obama said in the call. “I feel terrible. Nobody told us and had they mentioned they were going to have a wedding on the 16th hole we would have skipped the 16th hole, I hope the wedding went OK anyway,” he added.

  As usual, Obama has claimed that "nobody told us" meaning it was somebody else's fault, not mine because if I had only KNOWN, I would have. Whatever. No one believes it.
  I'm actually wondering why he's even bothered to worry about the optics of this situation. 
  He never has before.

America, we have a race problem

  A few days ago, I was seated in the rear of a short puddle jumper flight. It was one of those little, noisy planes with two seats on each side. Behind us sat a youngish couple from a country where the women wear head coverings who talked loudly in their native language, laughing frequently and throughout the flight. 
  I didn't think much of it, except to wonder how people can talk so loudly through a whole flight but after the plane landed, something interesting happened, something I've never seen before, to be honest.
  As soon as the plane landed and was still taxiing and before anyone could arise from their seats or were supposed to unlock their seatbelts, the couple got up from the last row, got into the overhead bins and walked to the front of the plane, bypassing having to wait for the traditional courtesy line that forms waiting to deplane. 
  Americans of all colors watched them in surprise but no one said anything or tried to stop them, though sadly the Fickle Finger of Fate handed them a signal when, despite their early exit, their bag appeared last on the jetway as the rest of us picked up ours and filed past.
  I was thinking about this incident as we've watched the bad racial behavior across the country, all under the guise that "black lives matter."  I believe all lives matter, though that belief has become anathema to the perpetually aggrieved, some even choosing to grovel after accidentally making such an outrageous statement.
  Once sympathetic but law abiding citizens have watched in horror as police have been attacked across the country, supported by racialist presidential advisers such as the criminal Al Sharpton, who is looking ill these days, shrunken body and enormous head. The unabashed presidential adviser now enjoys ridiculing fat people, having lost weight and risen to the role of resident human lollipop of American politics, emulating the style of Hollywood starlets.
  Sharpton has a point that many Americans these days are overfed; a cursory look at clothing from a hundred years ago reveals that we're not only bigger, but taller. 
  Thus it's not improbably that we have huge young men who do not work (the unemployment rate for young black males is the highest in the nation..as high as 92%) but who often live on government payments, unaccountable for where their food dollars are spent. Michael Brown and Eric Garner are not anomalies.
  Add to that the lack of assimilation into polite society which has been encouraged by leftist politicians and media outlets such as the NYT and, America, we have a problem. Oh, the NYT recently encouraged readers to write poems, resulting in such lines that advocate that the cities to "burn on" until "every town is on its knees."
  So the young men take their cue, giants like Michael Brown and the hapless Eric Garner, ignoring the laws of the country, assuming, at times amiably, that some of the laws really do not apply to them. 
  Americans of all colors sit and watch as the bad behavior accelerates, now at the point where police are now being assaulted by Americans of all colors, supported by Communists, who think that some of the laws do not apply to them.
  The police are not the only target; much of America is.  
  Colin Flaherty writes at The American Thinker about recent and frequent mob violence during the Christmas holiday:

Holidays are a special time for practitioners and deniers of black mob violence. The Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day and of course New Year’s are among the most popular.

But not Christmas. Not usually. Not until this year: Black mob violence and resentment erupted across the country during the 72 hours before, during and after Christmas. And not the “carry signs and send out a press release” kind of political violence.

This year’s Yuletide racial violence was more spontaneous. More deadly. More old school.  Not connected to the recent political protests over Mike Brown, Eric Garner and fill in your favorite atrocity that racist police inflicted on black people For No Reason What So Ever.

  Of course, if you're a white guy of the Leftist political persuasion, don't expect to be appreciated by the racist Leftist black celebrity, even the rich beautiful ones. It's because of the color of your skin, see.
  Earlier this year I wrote about the liberal white public defender's expose concerning black violence and the cultural inadequacies that support the violence. If you haven't read it, you need to read his entire mournful soliloquy. Here's an excerpt:

I am a public defender in a large southern metropolitan area. Fewer than ten percent of the people in the area I serve are black but over 90 per cent of my clients are black. The remaining ten percent are mainly Hispanics but there are a few whites.

I have no explanation for why this is, but crime has racial patterns. Hispanics usually commit two kinds of crime: sexual assault on children and driving under the influence. Blacks commit many violent crimes but very few sex crimes. The handful of whites I see commit all kinds of crimes. In my many years as a public defender I have represented only three Asians, and one was half black.

As a young lawyer, I believed the official story that blacks are law abiding, intelligent, family-oriented people, but are so poor they must turn to crime to survive. Actual black behavior was a shock to me. The media invariably sugarcoat black behavior.

  The lawyer goes on to describe the abhorrent, ignorant behavior that is currently acceptable in some of the black community, particularly the "carnival" atmosphere at the court house among blacks, but not hispanics or whites.
  Not every black person suffers from this dystopic interaction with society; people like Allen West and community members decry this behavior, pointing to the Leftist nurturing of bad behavior in the condescending and destructive guise of racial tolerance and benevolence.
  Another example is a Facebook video of a young boy--a future Michael Brown--who is overturning a Dollar Store for no apparent reason other than vandalism. 
  It's videotaped by a laughing adult male who appears to admire the boy's behavior, continually referring to the boy as a "jit" (prison slang for young thugs) "going ham" (urban slang for doing something urgently, usually accompanied by an invective).
  The boy's vicious behavior is observed by several persons both white and black who do little to stop him other than call the much maligned police; indeed some folks seem to encourage him by simply watching until he is finally taken down by a responsible young black male who dogs him, then presses him to the ground saying "Merry Christmas" to wait for police, even as the helpless white female clerk simply watches.
  More assaults on whites, especially the elderly and the vulnerable; more assaults on police officers; more disturbances in public places.
  Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughts at PJ Media on the disparities between incidents such as the one cited earlier where an elderly white man is assaulted by a large raging young black man:

My pessimism is not ideological but empirical. The stuff of the recent protests are weary police of the inner city confronting hundreds of thousands of times a week a small subset of the population (perhaps African-American males between ages 15 and 50 constitute no more than 2-3% of the population) who account for nearly 50% of violent crime. For such a formula for disaster to dissipate, either one of two things would have to occur. One, the police will silently avoid such confrontations, to the degree that they can mask their noncompliance without career repercussions. That is, when a call comes in that an African-American young man is walking down the middle of the street and is a suspect in a recent strong-arm robbery, they will simply avoid him, or when complaints are voiced that a large African-American vendor is illegally selling cigarettes, with a history of 30 prior arrests, they will not answer the call. Unfortunately I think such the repercussions of that adjustment will be higher crime rates, especially in the inner city.

Two, the nation would have to have the Eric Holder-coveted national dialogue of race, rather than a name-calling sessions about “cowards.” The purpose would be to address the foundations of young black criminality — the break-up of the family, the pernicious role of federal subsidies, a value system that deprecates academic learning and idolizes sports and acts of supposed masculinity, the misogyny and racism of popular rap and other cultural expression, the neglect of the inner city by the rest of America, the legacy of racism on the individual psyche, and on and on. Yet to have such a discussion, not to mention their remedies, would put the Al Sharptons and others out of business. Moreover, the entire Obama electoral strategy was to galvanize the black community to register, turn out at the polls, and vote in monolithic fashion for Obama, as the emblematic black candidate. Because there was no margin of error in such calculus (given that racial chauvinism turns off one voter for every voter it attracts), if the cases of Skip Gates, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and the Eric Garner were not politicized, others would have to be invented to create the needed outrage and solidarity that translates into political clout.

  So 2-3% of our population--in addition to the criminal population of other races-- is putting the rest of us in danger.
  The young couple I first cited benefited by the surprise of the other passengers. Though that kind of thing make work for a while, the criminals of Flight 93 learned that it only works a few times before the general population figures it out.
  We fight, in addition to the thuggish behavior of the raging young male, political correctness that ties the tongues of most people who would speak out if differing opinions were welcomed anymore. Eric Holder made sure he reinforced that perception by ridiculing the opposition as a "nation of cowards," behavior that is a natural result of deliberate and repeated persecution.
  We need to support the portion of our population that protests bad behavior by all races; we need to stand against--and not be afraid to--the political correctness that prevents real conversation.
  And, above all, we need to realize we really do have a race problem. A carefully cultivated one, to be sure, but we need to expect civilized behavior from all citizens.
  Otherwise, like the guy says, Merry Christmas. 
UPDATE: I see the video of the "jit" at the Dollar Store has hit The Blaze.

Laurence Tribe: "The Clean Power Plan Is Unconstitutional"

It came as surprise to see Obama's Clean Power Plant proposed regulation branded unconstitutional on the opinion page of the Wall St. Journal by none other than his old law school professor, Laurence Tribe. Tribe's last foray into the editorial speculation came as the country neared a showdown over the debt limit. For awhile Tribe argued that the president had the power, even the obligation, to issue new debt notwithstanding the wishes of Congress. At the time I opined that printing bonds was not the same thing as selling bonds and investors would demand a huge premium to invest in paper that the courts might ultimately declare worthless. Eventually Tribe for some reason changed his mind. One hopes his legal reasoning is on point at this time.
This is not an academic exercise. Tribe has been retained by Peabody Energy whose interest in the regulation is literally a matter of corporate life and death. Tribe cites two cases, the most remarkable, the Obamacare individual mandate suit, wherein the majority ruled that the principle of federalism trumped the interstate commerce clause but it didn't matter as the mandate was actually a tax. More compelling than the constitutional argument is the statutory aspect. Tribe cites an arcane section of the 1970 Clean Air Act.

The brute fact is that the Obama administration failed to get climate legislation through Congress. Yet the EPA is acting as though it has the legislative authority anyway to re-engineer the nation’s electric generating system and power grid. It does not.
To justify the Clean Power Plan, the EPA has brazenly rewritten the history of an obscure section of the 1970 Clean Air Act. The EPA cites Section 111 of the Clean Air Act as authority for its proposal. In reality, this part of the law expressly says that it may not be used to regulate power plants where, as is the case in this situation, those plants are already being regulated as Congress contemplated under another part of the law, Section 112—one involving hazardous pollutants.

In other words the EPA is doing something that it has been specifically forbidden to do.
The news from Henderson County, Kentucky today was very grim. Patriot Coal Corporation is idling two western Kentucky mining operations while it mulls the future of coal. The company employs approximately 670 men. They are represented by two senators. One is a cagey majority leader who just got reelected by promising to save coal mining jobs and the other wants very much to be president. Neither Sen. McConnell nor Sen. Paul can afford to lose this fight.
Obama and his EPA have picked a fight they probably can't win. McConnell will go to the mat over this even if it means shutting down the entire EPA which congress can do by simply not appropriating a budget but it would be much more pleasing if the regulation was shot down by Obama's old friend.

As rig counts fall nationally Ohio sees an increase!

As the price WTI crude approaches $53 per barrel, the lowest level since May of 2009, rig count in the US fell sharply. For the week ending December 12, the number of oil rigs in use fell by 27 which at that time was the single biggest weekly decline in two years. The following week, the number of rigs in use fell by 18.

The silver lining in this cloud is natural gas. In a week that saw the number of oil rigs decline by 37 the number of rig drilling for natural gas actually increased by 2. The rig count in Ohio is currently 47, up from 45 a week ago and up 12 from a year ago. Next door in Pennsylvania last week's rig count decline by 1 to 54 which is 2 fewer than a year ago.
Then natural gas boom isn't going to end anytime soon. Just four years ago, Marcellus natural gas production was 2 billion cubic feet per day. Later this year, production is expected to surpass 16 billion cubic feet per day.  And with recent "monster-well" announcements from Magnum Hunter Resources and Shell, experts say the Utica has the potential to be even larger. Magnum recently certified the biggest Utica well in history, which produced 46.5 thousand cubic feet per day of natural gas. And Shell's key discoveries outside of the Utica's mainstay in eastern Ohio indicate the pay zone extends much further than originally expected.

Rand Paul Promises More Debate Over Police Militarization

Senator Rand Paul will reintroduce legislation to strip out the transfer of armored vehicles and lethal weapons to local police forces from the Department of Defense. The original bill was crafted by the retiring Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. Passing this legislation will be a significant test for Paul and Tea Party candidates writ large. The cynic in me tells me that many who ran on the promise to cut spending will find that promise hard to keep. My complaint in this case is the legislation does it go far enough. It should prohibit the transfer off all DOD surplus equipment. It makes little sense to fund local police forces out of the already too small defense budget. If equipment is truly surplus let the DOD auction off non lethal gear.
In the last session support for Coburn's bill collapsed under intense pressure from police unions. Are police unions best suited to determine how a community is to be policed? While one can sympathize with police officers in their struggle against the likes of Bill de Blasio and Barack Obama it does not follow that they have cart blanche to circumvent the constitutional prohibition against a standing army.
In the House, Georgia Democrat, flaky Hank Johnson vows to introduce his version of the bill.

Bah! Humbug! Grinch booted from flight

It doesn't get any better than this! An airline passenger who objected to Merry Christmas wishes was bounced from the plane as the other passengers cheered.The New York Post reports;

The man was waiting to board American Airlines Flight 1140 to Dallas when a cheerful gate agent began welcoming everyone with the Yuletide greeting while checking boarding passes. The grumpy passenger, who appeared to be traveling alone, barked at the woman, “You shouldn't say that because not everyone celebrates Christmas.” The agent replied, “Well, what should I say then?” “Don’t say, ‘Merry Christmas!’ ” the man shouted before brushing past her. Once on the plane, he was warmly greeted by a flight attendant who also wished him a “merry Christmas.” That was the last straw. “Don’t say, ‘Merry Christmas!’ ” the man raged before lecturing the attendants and the pilot about their faux pas. The crew tried to calm the unidentified man, but he refused to back down and continued hectoring them. He was escorted off the plane as other fliers burst into cheers and applause.

 

Sony slips into history

Admittedly this subject is beyond the usual scope of this blog but I've long had a fascination with corporate dissonance. Economist are forever pointing to examples of Joseph A. Schumpeter's creative destruction as the old is brutally demolished to make way for the new. The implosion of the US steel industry would be a text book example. Thousands of jobs and billions of dollars disappeared over the course of months but most firms do not die heroic deaths but rather aimlessly wonder history's back roads in a protracted dotage. GE and IBM are examples of the living dead who have lost their ways and reasons for existence. The lions have lost their teeth and survive on the wealth accumulated by prior generations. They are perpetually "re-creating" themselves as if only they could find the perfect platitude they would once again be virile and relevant.
Some stood on the apex of greatness for a full century such as Sears of Sears Roebuck. It brought the essentials and amenities of civilization to rural America and became a part of Americana and just when it could have assured its market dominance for another half century fumbled away its destiny. Consider it was only a few years after Sears deemed the mail order business to be obsolete that Jeff Bezos founded Amazon. Had Sears had the foresight to replace their catalogue with a website it would have been the bull of e-commerce but now seems destined to follow Railway Express into memory.
In the wake of the hacking scandal it seems that Sony has stumbled upon the mother lode of bad ideas. Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal, the Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum of Sony Pictures, are the personifications of the Peter Principle. The have been promoted to the level of incompetence; the cream rises until it sours. As bad as those two actors may be they are but symptomatic of Sony's decline. Sony was supplanted by Apple in consumer electronics and Samsung seems destined to supplant Apple.
The redoubtable Sony Trinitron was once the gold standard of televisions. The superior picture quality was perceptible when viewed next to the competition. So how does Sony fight Samsung in the new smart TV market? It surrenders. From CNBC;

Sony and Samsung just struck a deal that will bring Sony's PlayStation Now streaming service to select Samsung Smart TVs in 2015, The Verge reported. The deal was made official Wednesday morning after the release of a joint statement.
PlayStation Now enables users to play video games from Sony's previous flagship gaming console, the PlayStation 3, on its current flagship model, the PlayStation 4. With this deal, Sony will be able to offer its video game-streaming service to consumers without forcing them to buy the console.

What is this? Corporate assisted suicide? Jack Kevorkian call your office. Did not anyone at Sony think to install PlayStation on the Trinitron? Where do they go from here? They'll probably plan a hostile take over of Kmart.

How involved is the White House in violent protests?

  When Sarah Palin was accused of being complicit in the shooting of Gabby Giffords, I thought it absurd. All she did is what every politician does: "target" political areas to win.
  But when Leftist politicians went all over the country, including Obama's much lauded "rain puddle" sermon that "we are better together" calling for comity, for an easing of political speech, we knew he was just talking about Palin type folks, not himself and his ilk.
  Any time there's a Leftist call for being nicer, that refers to the right wing, certainly not their own.
  Each time a violent extremist attacks Americans, the media tries to pin it on Tea Partiers, on Republicans, hopefully digging about for bits of information that can link a conservative with the atrocity. 
  In short, I don't want to be guilty of doing what Leftists do, which is to rush to unreasonably blame political opponents.
  Yet this situation is not like the Palin situation, where she did absolutely nothing overt to incite violence. Later a friend even claimed the Giffords shooter was a "left winger," a fact that dropped out of the public discussion for obvious reasons.
  Now an insane individual has murdered two policemen, creeping up behind them and slaughtering them like animals, while social media reveals he'd been planning this and that he had taken cues from violent Islamic extremists. NYPD officers had a few weeks ago been attacked by an ax wielding Muslim extremist.
  The public has been subjected to repeated calls for violence, perpetual grievances again police and those who do not have black skin. What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.
  Some reflections from the past week:
  Obama's luxury vacation is again being recorded by slavishly eager ciphers in the press.
  Yet Obama himself seems unusually uninterested in the murders of policemen, which seems odd, given his extreme interest in any perceived slight of black people, even as petty as a cop who is making sure an old professor isn't breaking into his own house.
  Yet after the murders of the policemen, Obama remained on the golf course, issuing a statement that he was "monitoring" it from the golf course,causing consternation among even the most committed journalists, but  22 hours later his staff issued a statement that he "unconditionally condemned" the murder. 
  Unconditionally? Why the need to say "unconditionally" unless you're politically concerned that you look bad because you haven't been sufficiently demonstrative in disapproving the murders?
  Meanwhile Palestinian activist Masri led taunting chants of "pigs in a blanket" through out Ferguson.
  So-called protesters scream they "don't need no white saviors."
  To combat criticism about his lack of action, de Blasio attacked the NYPD, something that has become the go-to excuse for Leftist politicians lately including Obama.
  For a more effective argument, de Blasio then moved to blaming the media for "dividing us" notwithstanding his own suggestions that his black son needed to avoid police and the divisions he had already created between himself and the NYPD, including his order that police need "retraining."  
  The violent protests continued, unabated.
  One might suspect that those politicians--the Holders, the Sharptons, the Obamas--who have fanned these flames of war have done even more to encourage dissension and violence.
  For example, we know that communists are behind much of the activity. Did you notice the professionally printed signs? the organized social media? the "united" front around the country in orchestrated marches?
   Powerlineblog:

Beginning way back in 2002, we wrote about International A.N.S.W.E.R., a Communist organization that was founded in September 2001 and that organized substantial antiwar demonstrations during the Bush administration. A.N.S.W.E.R. embodied within itself the seeming contradiction between the far left and Islamic extremism: it enthusiastically supported both Kim il Jung and Saddam Hussein, and is directed in part by the Muslim Student Association.

  Robin of Berkeley's been wondering about these circumstances in California. She reasons through the circumstances of the continued rioting in Berkeley and concludes this:

2. What do I think is going on? Again, I don’t know. But the official story makes no sense. I don’t think that this “spontaneous” protest/rioting movement has been so spontaneous. Interesting, isn’t it, that the riots just so happened to coincide with the one week that the UC Berkeley students have off before finals? And though I’ve been here for decades, there’s never been anything like it — yes, a riot up on Telegraph every few years, but never in downtown, never involving thousands of people, and never a takeover of a freeway, Amtrak, etc. etc. This whole thing feels planned and engineered. But by who and where? That is the million dollar question.

  Of course, communists and socialists are always at these occasions; they even had booths at the Stewart/Colbert DC "rally." They have cemented their relationship with the NEA.
  In fact, "neo-Coms" have become a driving force in the Democrat party.
  A.N.S.W.E.R. itself is an umbrella party for all kinds of troublemakers. 
  Another group  (whose colors are red and black) fomenting hatred and violence is the Treyvon Martin Organizing Committee TMOC #turnuptheanger. Their banners scream " No Cops No Prison," which of course is anarchy.
  Tweeted by "Loot-Back" from The Daily Beast:

   Given that the now discredited monstrous Rolling Stone U.Va. false rape accusations have tentacles to the White House, is it so hard to believe that, given the Sharpton actors involved in the rioting, many of the "community organizers" who are creating these violence protests are known--or worse--to the White House?
  After all, Sharpton is Obama's primary advisor on race relations.
  His history includes criminal behavior such as tax dodging, false accusations, racial exploitation, defamation, racial slurs, anti-Semitic incitement resulting in death.
 AND he is highly supported not only by the White House, but by a major news network to lend himself credibility.
  Much like the unsuccessful Occupy movement, riots have "broken out" in 90 US cities.
  Holder and Obama met behind closed doors with the Ferguson rioters, reportedly saying that they should "stay the course."
  Who wouldn't wonder if there's White House involvement in these disturbances?

Protest resumed-photo from NY Daily News

Just tell your doctor to go to hell

In a sane world it would be the patient not the doctor who asked about the other's gun ownership but if you are on Medicare expect to hear questions concerning gun ownership from your primary care physician soon.
"Do you keep loaded firearms in your home?" is the most frequent question as this covert assault on the Second Amendment, engineered by the authors of Obamacare, is implemented. Your response will be recorded as part of your mandated electronic medical record.
"Who wants to know?" is the logical rejoinder. Your physician has not taken any particular interest in your private life up until now so who wants to know? If medical records are confidential how will a federal bureaucrat know what answer you give? Oh, but your medical records are to be shared with any federal agency that takes an interest in your personal life. It's not as if you were an illegal migrant who is afforded every privacy protection including a confidential zip code.
This would be a good fight to fight soon. If majorities in both house of congress cannot protect senior citizens' privacy maybe it's time to start firing again.
Florida has already enacted legislation that prohibits physicians from asking about gun ownership and other states will follow but in the meantime you have the right to tell your doctor to go to hell.

Al Sharpton Got What He Wanted

Two police officers are dead. It happened in Brooklyn. Two cops, one Hispanic and the other Asian were shot to death as they sat in their patrol car. Let us hope that Saint Louis Rams players who entered the playing field displaying the "hands up don't shoot" shtick, MSNBC hack and Obama's personal ambassador to the grievance community Al Sharpton and especially NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio who sided with rioters against his own police force can tone down their victory celebrations. They got exactly what they wanted.
Retired NYPD detective Harry Houck blasted Al Sharpton while appearing as a guest on CNN. "Al Sharpton got what he wanted."



Al Sharpton may say otherwise but it is an indisputable fact that his entire career has been built on misinformation and racial discord. There are pimps and drug dealers with more morals.
The killer was identified as  Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, who had addresses in Georgia and Brooklyn and there is no doubt about his motivation. “I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” he wrote in his Instagram post. The chrome plated automatic with the wooden grips was found on his body.




Needless to say New York's finest have had their fill of Mayor de Blasio. Just last week cops began signing a “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver, distributed by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, that warned the mayor and speaker to stay away from funerals of cops killed in the line of duty.
The New York Post reports;

City Council President Melissa Mark-Viverito and Mayor Bill de Blasio were less than welcome guests at the poignant gathering.
“We’re all in this together,” the mayor told grieving cops, according to a cop who was there.
“No we’re not,” one officer said tersely in response.

Come to think of it, if Barack Obama had a son he would look like Ismaaiyl Brinsley.


Update: New York police officers turned their backs toward Mayor de Blasio as he entered a press conference.

Hacked Sony emails reveal secret plan to revive SOPA

It's an ill wind that blows no good. The mystery hackers who have left Sony reeling in embarrassment and discord were good enough to leak evidence that 6 Hollywood studios were secretly trying to resurrect the odious SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation. SOPA and its companion Senate bill, Protect IP, gave the Tea Party its first warning that Senator Marco Rubio and Congresswomen Marsha Blackburn were not to be trusted.
Readers will recall that SOPA pitted chiefly Google but other internet entities such as Wikipedia and Reddit against the movie and music industries. The hacked emails reveal that the motion picture industry has broken the uneasy truce that existed between it and Google, code named Goliath.
The Motion Picture Association of America is "trying to secretly censor the Internet" and revive the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, Google general counsel Kent Walker claimed in a blog post Thursday. The 6 studios budgeted $500,000 each and MPAA poured $1.175 million into the campaign. SOPA would essentially meddle with the search engine’s indexing of websites, something countries like China have been placing restrictions on.
The Times reports the industry group went so far as to hire a law firm to help Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood draft subpoenas and legal briefs in a case he brought against Google. Hood's letter to Google can be viewed here.
On a philosophical note copyright laws must evolve with changing times. Older readers will remember that it was once illegal to Xerox copyrighted material even if it was but one page from a 500 page novel. To assert, as MPPA does, that something as innocuous as autocomplete is a threat to their precious content is patently absurd. MPPA can rejoice that the Bit Torrent site, Pirate Bay, was taken down last week by Swedish authorities but Torrentz.com can furnish the persistent web citizen with more movies than Netflix. Perhaps MPPA and Sony should worry more North Korea than Google and Angelina Jolie.

From Oprah & Michelle: kiss our rings, knaves

  So Michelle Obama's phony Target run in which she was asked to pull down a detergent bottle because she's tall has been hooted and catcalled around the Twitterverse.
  AND it's pretty much been disqualified as true, in comparison with FLOTUS's description of a"feel good" moment on the Letterman show.
  You may not have heard a woman's call to the GB show, claiming to be the sister of the short detergent Target buyer. Here it is from The Blaze, along with the picture of FLOTUS who has changed her story from being "undercover"  to "not highly disguised":

  Soooo sunglasses, cap, hair pulled back, casual clothing pushing a cart at Target.
  Who knew?
  Apparently not the short teacher who's also an Obama voter, according to her sister.
  Now let's remember this.
  White people ushered the Obamas into office. He was reelected.
  They spend millions of Target customers' tax dollars for jet fuel to fly wherever they want around the world, including vacation and fundraisers, sometimes taking separate planes on the same day.
  This "racist" incident reminds me of the Oprah incident in which a shop girl was widely ridiculed, branded racist because she told Oprah the $38,000 hand bag she asked to see was very expensive.
  Oprah interpreted that as racism, which seems to be the de rigueur slur rich people slap at the commoners.
  To say these folks are pampered, overly sensitive, elitists is probably inadequate.
  What on earth can these people be thinking, accusing the working class who are just trying to pay the bills AND their taxes of being racist?
  But it's nice to know that they're looking for menial labor jobs for their daughters, just so they can experience what we commoners experience. Daily Caller:

“We are looking for opportunities for them to feel as if going to work and getting a paycheck is not always fun, not always stimulating, not always fair,” President Obama said in a hard-hitting interview in Parade magazine. “But that’s what most folks go through every single day.”
Michelle Obama also chimed in.
“I think every kid needs to get a taste of what it’s like to do that real hard work,” she said.
“That’s what life is,” the first lady added.

  They say this even though the Obama girls know poverty because they have poor relatives. 
  Let's remember that Oprah is one of the richest people in the US. Likewise the Obamas have raked it in, ever since he was paid to write a "memoir" in his twenties and she, as a state legislator's spouse, was given a $300,000 job for doing just about nothing and sometimes not even showing up for work.
  So, yeah, ladies. Get a grip.
  You ARE the 1%. We're not. 
  But we're not going to kiss your rings or bow to you or accept your petulant, demeaning, condescending charges of racism.
  YOU ARE the 1%.
  You'll never live a life such as we do.  That's fine. Just lay off lobbying for sympathy by  whining and false accusations.

McSally wins!

  Kudos to Martha McSally, who's won her recount to grab the Gabby Giffords seat in Arizona, giving Republicans the largest majority since 1929.
  McSally is the first female combat Air Force pilot and the woman who won her suit to not be forced to wear the hijab as an American military officer in Saudi Arabia.
  Next up, Trey Gowdy as Speaker of the House?
  People have been wondering what Obama has on Boehner to get him to capitulate so quickly on the budget.
  How feasible is the possibility of a Gowdy Speakership?
  Take a look at these.
  Maybe.
  Maybe not.
  It appears unlikely Paul Ryan will challenge Boehner, though he appears to be more likely to win than Gowdy.

Rioting in Toledo...for shoes

  One indoor mall survives in Northwest Ohio; you can see the remains of some of the other malls here and here. 
  Southwyck Mall is gone, a wasteland of concrete and bouncing dust balls, in part due to "youths" who barricaded entrances and attacked shoppers, gathering at night to "rabble rouse."
  Franklin Park Mall is the only one left; it's a nice area but has had difficulties with attacks and brawls, even starting urban myths about abductions, thus scaring off many shoppers.
  So Dec. 17 when hundreds of people lined up before 6 a.m. to buy shoes, it's probably no surprise that it turned into a brawl.
  Police were called.
  What spiritual vacuum must exist in the souls of people who do this.  
  For shoes.

It's a sad day when federal bureaucrats have to do the work that journalists won't do!

I have never seen a federal agency respond to a media article with such vehemence and precision. The US Energy Information Agency, one of the few federal agencies Obama has not been able to politicize, went after Nature Magazine like Bill Buckley on Norman Mailer after Nature published Natural gas: The fracking fallacy. The Nature post essentially repeats the Obama mantra ""We can't drill our way out of this problem." It cites a study by a team at the University of Texas the finds that fracked wells decline in production more rapidly than conventional well ergo the vision of energy independence is a mere mirage in the visions of Sarah Palin and Rick Perry and Obama's Luddite proclamation is as sound as e=mc squared. The EIA responded to Nature as UVA should have answered Rolling Stone fallacious reporting.
In a letter to Nature bearing the Department of Energy letterhead Deputy Administrator Howard Greunspecht eschews the usual bureaucratic gobbledygook and goes after Nature like a literary critic.

"EIA would expect a journal of Nature's reputation to adopt a scientific approach to journalism, pursuing information and having the story follow where the information leads, rather than selectively collecting information and sources to fill what appears to be a dramatized story line built around the journalistic device of a (false) conflict meme...
While recognizing that different standards apply to editorial opinions and news features, the article and the accompanying editorial (The uncertain dash for cash) appear to function as an integrated newsatorial..."

The University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology (UT/BEG), the team Nature implied had debunked the fracking fallacy was not pleased either. In its letter it accused Nature of cherry picking its finding in order to set up dueling theories of the merits of fracking when in fact UT/BEG and EIA were in accord on most points.

"With due respect, in our opinion, Nature is lacking in objective and balanced coverage of broad energy research. Just as in climate, biotech, medical, and physics, there is rigorous research being conducted in energy-all energy. We question why Nature would not ask the BEG team, rather than a freelance writer, for a manuscript discussing our work."

Hats off to the EIA!

Obama thinks soldiers are Santa, bombs are gifts

Transcript:

President Obama said, "We are free and safe and secure over here because you are willing to serve over there," adding "You never stop serving, you never stop giving, you guys are like Santa in fatigues.[silence] Although I bet one of those C-130's is a little more efficient then Santa's sleigh."

  In this age of perpetual outrage, isn't it interesting that there's not even a kerfuffle when Obama compared US soldiers to "Santa in fatigues" and the C-130--which carries warriors, equipment and occasionally BOMBS--as Santa's sleigh.
  I mean, it's a bad joke admittedly, but, hey, Code Pink. CAIR.
  Where are ya?

My cultural insensitivity

  I have to confess that the older I get, the less I understand this culture. Sadly, I must conclude that my mother was right.
  It's unreasonable to expect, nowadays, that the privileged among us studying law at major universities take their final exams when they've been traumatized, indeed, in "total despair" and devolved into "inconsolable tears" over the "psychic effects" of current events, so much so that one of the privileged is motivated to publish a long exegesis explaining that it's not because they're "coddled weak millenials" but because they're strong.
  Around the country, then, protesters are protesting the color of the skin of protesters. See, the culture will cure itself of racism by being racist.
 The complaint over in San Francisco was that the "white guys are trying to take over the microphones," which would be a bad thing presumably, because the color of your skin is more important than the content of your character, I guess.
  We learn that (in a slap to white Leftist sympathizers) "Dear white protesters, this is not about you" which I guess means shut up, stupid, I'm the center of attention not you, reinforced here at SFGate,:

The sentiment was forcefully articulated in a widely distributed Tumblr post this week in which an unnamed, apparently African American poster wrote: “Dear white protesters, this is NOT about you,” and urged whites to “hand over the bullhorn to a Black person (because your voice doesn’t need a bullhorn to be heard ...).”

And it erupted Tuesday on the steps of Old City Hall in Berkeley, when City Councilman Kriss Worthington, who is white, was repeatedly interrupted as he denounced aggressive police before a crowd of protesters.

“Let a black person talk!” one yelled. “We’ve heard from enough Caucasian men!” yelled another. Worthington handed the mike over to Councilman Jesse Arreguin, who is Latino — and after similar heckling, the megaphone was passed to a black UC Berkeley student who was warmly welcomed.

  But this blog post isn't about race.
  It's about (I think) the spiritual vacuity in the lives of people who seem to have nothing to do but complain about everything while trying to change everybody else with more rules, regulations, condemnations and a few shoes thrown at your head now and then.
  Sigh.
  Even laundry detergent isn't safe in I HATE THIS PLANET psycho world.

    This, yes, this new "Flirty Shades of Surf" , a womyn claims, "glorifies and normalises abuse of women and is not appropriate to be sold as a laundry product."
  Originally, this move away from our Father God as the Judeo Christian west has traditionally viewed God sprang from the Age of Reason's confidence in mankind as a rational being.
  Here you can see, all previous rationale has been breezily tossed out the window like a gum wrapper on a Texas highway.
  Then there's Sally Kohn's squawk, er, tweet that "If a bunch of Sony execs can be so blatantly racially biased, should be easy to realize such bias exists in baking, schools, police, etc."
  So, um, yeah, racist baking. I understand Ms. Kohn omitted a letter there, but, yeah. Is this so hard to believe?
  And while the sane among us (which currently outnumber the insane, at least for now) queue up to pile flowers at the site of another Islamic terrorist attack, an Australian newspaper pleads for sympathy for the violent Islamic murderer who "must have loved ones too" except, yeah, he killed her. 
  Happily, journalistic endeavors rarely involve research and common sense anymore. No wonder The Toledo Blade is piling up on our driveways every day, unwanted but free.
  Not to kill even your Christmas spirit, but Katherine Timpf over at NRO has a list of shopping tips from the culturally sensitive, though I'm sure their sensitivity does not tip toward the unborn, Christians, Jews, Catholics, conservatives, Republicans, ok, I'll stop.
  Anyway, here are some of the "shopping tips" she offers from the "PC police":

Toys like army men promote aggression in boys and can lead them to abuse women later in life. (So...no army men.)
Fight against sexist “princess culture” by giving girls one of these books about environmental activist, “gender-nonconforming” princesses. (So....no princesses.)
Give the “traveling man” in your life a shawl! And if you don’t think men like shawls, you’re sexist. (so....no cardigans.)

  But, but, BUT,  don't even THINK about buying a "normal size Barbie" doll, either, because she's too pretty.
  WELL, we can take care of THAT in actual HUMANS by encouraging WOMYN to dye their armpit hair, a topic so important that the Washington Post has illustrated it here.

  And, hey, those climate change formerly global warming CHRISTmas carols are a real lift to the spirit! 

  (silent night! Endless night! All is dark, there’s no light. Cyclone clouds have blocked out the sky, We’re almost out of our dry-meat supply. Sleep in uneasy peace. We may have to eat Aunt Bernice.)

  And then there's the big rape culture hoax, embraced by many college students who diligently berate and ban conservative viewpoints but are eating their own these days, just as their Communist professors have diligently taught them but are shocked by the boomerang.
 These people really are (thankfully) in the minority.
  Maybe it's because I live in a Great Lakes state that I find this all so banal, so indicative of restless, empty spirits searching for meaning deeper than oneself.
  All I can say is that people aren't going to find meaning in their lives by dyeing their armpit hair, acting like Grinches at Christmas or even by buying normal sized Barbie dolls.
  It takes a little more work outside oneself.
  Like maybe trying a selfie with the God who is there
  Just be sure to avoid Dr. Frank & Edith (whom I met) Schaeffer's apostate son Frankie, whose Christianity has apparently been subsumed by the most impressive American cultural trends.

Tea Party mom wins against false arrest

  I have to say I'm pleased that Nancy Genovese has won her lawsuit against the Long Island cop who arrested her for having a legally owned rifle and taking a picture of a helicopter outside an Air National Guard base.
  I wrote about this here around the time it happened. Unfortunately the longislandlawyersblog.com that supported many of the details of the story is no longer around but Hot Air and the NY Post have some of the details but the most horrifying details are missing.
  I quote the now defunct blog here from my previous post:

Using force, Lieutenant Iberger pushed Nancy Genovese when she objected to the seizure of her rifle. Deputy Carlock taunted Nancy, asking in a disparaging tone, “You’re a real right winger, aren’t you?”, and stating in words or substance that she was never going to see her rifle again.

During the remainder of the six hours that Nancy Genovese was forcibly detained on the side of the road, she was taunted, verbally harangued, threatened, belittled, abused, humiliated and harassed by members of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office. For example, Deputy Carlock repeatedly referred to Nancy as “a right winger” and “tea bagger”, and threatened that they were going to arrest her for terrorism to make an example of her to other “tea baggers” and “right wingers”.

  But the story doesn't end there. If she'd been released after six hours, that would have been a really bad experience, but nothing like what this woman experienced, apparently as a "lesson" to "teabaggers."
She was thrown into jail for 3 days with the general population. These are her claims:

• She was injected with unknown fluid. 
• She was stared at by guards when told to remove her clothes. 
• She was put into a strait jacket, accused of being crazy. 
• Much of the money she was forced to leave in an unlocked car was stolen.

Mediaite claimed she was a Glenn Beck fan. Well, she must be guilty, for sure.
  The charges were eventually dropped, but the damage was done.
  Sounds like an episode of Fringe, right?
  Murtha and Murtha deal with the scoffing that this actually occurred here.
  Once she got out of jail, Nancy sued. The town of Southhampton defaulted, having its head attorney distracted by personal problems, as he said. Nancy therefore won a judgment of $70 million, which will likely be challenged.
  The Examiner also discusses this story here and here.
  Make no mistake.
  If this is true, which it appears to be, there's a lot more at stake here than just one woman's story.

  The money to which this previous post refers, I believe refers to her sons' tuition dollars which she had on the front seat.
  This was an obvious case of harassment.
  Little did we know at the time this was written that acts just like this were going on at the highest level of government against Tea Partiers. 
  But you know what they say. What goes around.

What is BLACK PRIVILEGE?

  What is black privilege?
  This is a question I have not previously seen in media but I think it's an important discussion to enter into the marketplace of ideas.
  We've been inundated with demands to acknowledge that, having been born with white skin, a person automatically possesses white privilege, which appears to be an amorphous mutating condition, often disallowing those with white skin from speaking knowledgeably about race, here discussed by Sally Kohn who has white skin but possesses black privilege:

It’s not wrong to be white. Maybe a few people in America think so, but that’s it. What racial justice activists and those protesting in Ferguson do think is that it’s wrong to not scrutinize what race means in our society today — how implicit bias shapes everything from our neighborhoods to our economy to who gets to live and who gets to die when they’re doing nothing else but holding a toy. That’s what’s wrong. We don’t have a choice about which side of that equation we’re born on, but we do have a choice about whether we acknowledge the reality of bias and talk honestly — together — about solutions.

  Having been assured by Sally that it's "not wrong to be white," let me elucidate further the subject of black privilege. 
  At the outset of of this post, I should specify that there are some distinct characteristics of having black privilege, including these:

• You do not have to be black to have black privilege.
• You can lose black privilege if you have black skin but have the wrong content of character.
• You can also lose black privilege in other ways:   If you attempt to build character for any reason including acquiring discipline, entering the military, becoming a scholar, speaking clearly and/or having sympathies with others who attempt to build character.
• The content of your character--or lack thereof--determines the amount of black privilege you can claim.
• Everyone must be evaluated by the color of their skin.
• Just about anything you do can and sometimes will be excused~with impunity. 
• You can loot the property of other persons of black privilege as long as you are doing it to show others you aren't "playing games."
• You can accuse those with white privilege of being cowards, while in turn if they do discuss race they are considered racists.

  So what is black privilege?
  Black privilege means you can claim grievance for events that happened decades, even centuries ago. 
  Because of events that happened decades or even centuries ago, you can demand special rights, special exemptions, special reparations and the imposition of special fines.
  You can expect to receive government grants and loans simply for the color of your skin, regardless the content of your character.
  Black privilege means you can claim that black lives matter, yet abort 25% of your population. You can march in the streets demanding that the financial cost of aborting those black lives be paid by others, regardless of sexual behavior.
  You can skip final exams because you're upset about an incident that did not involve you involving someone you did not know.
  You can hold the highest offices of the land, yet claim that racial prejudice is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people who elected you.
  If you have black privilege, you can accuse others of being too aware of the color of someone's skin, but you yourself can judge everyone who does not possess black privilege of being too aware of the color of someone's skin.
  If you have black privilege, you really cannot be proud of your country. Instead, you need to repeatedly and continuously report things that you perceive your country does wrong, at least according to the content of your character and mindset.
  If you have black privilege, you are allowed to roam the streets complaining that black lives matter, even while hammering to death those with white privilege. 
  You might even choose to find someone with white privilege and literally torture them in the most hideous ways even perverted movie directors haven't imagined, knowing that, though you may end up in jail for committing these horrendous acts **or**you may not. 
  Most assuredly, a person with black privilege will know that the press (including the so-called main stream media) will simply not be interested in what you've done or the victims you've tortured and murdered. This is true whether your victims have black privilege or white privilege. 
  Also note that, when you are a black privilege murderer, no angered mobs will roam the streets, setting businesses on fire and hurting people because they're mad those tortured white privilege victims have been murdered.
  But as a person possessing black privilege, you may also beat and kill other persons possessing black privilege, sometimes with impunity but sometimes not. It just depends on the city and whether the police have black or white privilege in enforcing laws, which apparently (in some cities) were written primarily for persons with white privilege.
  You can be a minister of God with black privilege which in some cases entitles you to be called "the reverend" without any of the traditional qualities usually required of persons of the cloth. In fact, you can be a tax cheat and a divisive racemonger who encourages violence and swears at your audience and still call yourself a man of God.
  In fact, if you possess black privilege--and let me remind that a person does NOT have to have black skin to possess black privilege but even may forfeit black privilege by having the wrong content of character--if you possess black privilege, you are allowed--even expected--to be belligerent, profane, bitter, accusatory, smug, hateful, self-confident and utterly devoid of logical reasoning, always returning in debate (particularly absent rational reasoning) to your own black privilege and the lack thereof of your debating partner, who undoubtedly does not possess black privilege because they have the audacity to argue with you, a person of black privilege.
  And, remember, most important of all.
  If you have black privilege, your argument always wins because everyone else is stupid.
UPDATE: College president apologizes for saying all lives matter. 
More racial attacks. 
Black conservative again attacked
 

Amnesty under water 39%-56%

Running his mouth at what was billed as a town hall meeting in Nashville Obama expressed confidence that no future president would have the courage to undo his executive amnesty.

“It’s true a future administration might try to reverse some of our policies. But I’ll be honest with you — the American people basically have a good heart and want to treat people fairly and every survey shows that if, in fact, somebody has come out and subjected themselves to a background check, registered, paid their taxes, the American people support allowing them to stay. So any future administration that tried to punish people for doing the right thing, I think, would not have the support of the American people,” Mr. Obama told a supportive crowd at a town hall meeting in Nashville. “It’s true, theoretically, a future administration could do something that I think would be very damaging. It’s not likely, politically, that they reverse everything we’ve done.”

This poll from Bloomberg suggests otherwise with only 39% of Americans approving of executive amnesty while 56%  disapprove.
Conversely, a future Democratic presidential candidate such as a Hillary Clinton must run on a platform that promises more presidential overreach and to preserve amnesty and what is left of Obamacare by 2016 which is under water 52% to 38% in the RCP average? Go girl!
The poll also gave Republicans the best marks they have received since the inception of the poll in 2009. Forty-five percent of Americans approve of the Republican Party while 47 percent disapprove. The Democrats achieved a 41percent favorable rating juxtapose a 50 percent unfavorable. The poll sample was 1001 Americans. Had the sample been composed of registered or likely voters disapproval of Obama's amnesty would have been more pronounced.

Leftists leverage racism....again

   Warning:
   If you're depressed today, you'd better not read this post.
  Are these items related to the Obama administration's meddling in race relations? 
  Obama's contention that racial prejudice is deeply rooted in American society?
  Are they related to Holder's action of sending in government grievance mongers into Ferguson to discuss "white privilege," the police and that black lives matter?
  Last week a white Bosnian man named Begic was attacked, beaten and murdered by black youths. "Authorities" immediately claimed it was not a hate crime. 
  Would they claim this if Begic were black?
   A white Bosnian woman was just attacked in the same neighborhood. A Bosnian neighbor claims marauding bands of black youths have been harassing white  Bosnians for quite some time:

"It is common for African-American teens to walk in the middle of the street and block in cars at intersections," said the man, who has lived in the neighborhood for half a decade. "We have been stopped at intersections in Bevo and our car attacked by teens who pound on the car -- laughing at us."

"They only do this to white individuals, who they have learned will generally not respond. There is a pattern here and it is racially motivated," he alleged. "Many of us are arming ourselves in order to avoid becoming the next victim to be beaten to death in the streets."

  Though the FBI has entered this particular case to investigate it as a "hate crime," where are the crowds demanding that the lives of whites have the same value as the lives of blacks? 
  In fact, the harassment has been going on for some time by black hoodlums whose lives apparently have more value than the lives of others who are not black:

Fox News also reported there had been a string of previous crimes involving poor minorities and Bosnians in the area.

And an AP story reposted on the chamber Web page said there have been other violent incidents lately that have rattled the Bosnian community. A 19-year-old Bosnian immigrant was shot and killed in a May 2013 convenience store robbery, and earlier this month, there was an armed robbery and separate carjacking.

  Where is the Occupy crowd? Where are the racists claiming white privilege now?
  Are they busy claiming that the song "White Christmas" is racist?
  There are rumors, some say false, that a second grand jury witness in Ferguson has been found dead.
  Most horrendous is the fact that a young white woman who had recently separated from her abusive black boyfriend was found tortured and ultimately died in a most unspeakable way and it is believed to have been murdered by that black boyfriend and/or his black cronies. Even her black friends say he's the perpetrator.
  Don't read the account of what they did to her unless you have a strong stomach.
  But where are the grievance mongers demanding justice for that young white woman? 
  Instead we have the prospect of local law officials covering it up because the story doesn't fit the narrative Obama and his ilk favor.
  The most powerful offices in our country are held by black people, yet there is more racial unrest and crabbing about white people than we've heard in decades, a fact that enhances the agenda of both black and white rich Democrats.
  And this is where we are today.
  Judging justice by color. 
  I prefer not to think of color as a yardstick for how I value my friends and family, but then that quality is apparently part of my "white privilege" mentality because, if you're Obama or his "kind", you judge everyone by the color of their skin.
  And that's ok.
  Because, you know.
  Black privilege.