In The Mailbox: 06.30.23

Posted on | July 1, 2023 | 1 Comment

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

SCOTUS sticks it to the socialists.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: 1970’s Nerd Programmers 1, ChatGPT 0
Twitchy: Ed Krassenstein Tries To Shame Libs Of TikTok & Fails, L. Louise Lucas Makes Us Laugh As Pornhub Pulls Out Of Virginia, and Laurence Tribe Writes BRUTAL Letter Trashing Justice “Wise Latina” Sotomayor
Louder With Crowder: Dylan Mulvaney lashes out at Bud Light while “America’s Beer” chooses an influencer of their own, JK Rowling hater demands she performs a sex act on him, but she ruins his life with a tweet instead, and Supreme Court rules AGAINST Joe Biden’s unconstitutional student loan bailout – here are some things to know
Vox Popoli: Pantsir vs Storm Shadow, also, Magic Dirt Fail in France
According To Hoyt: This is a Post I hoped Never To Write, The Problem of Hindsight, and Weird
Monster Hunter Nation: LibertyCon 35 was a blast, also, Gritty Cop Show: LibertyCon 35 Charity Game Recap (the statistically impossible edition)
Stoic Observations: The New Diversity
Gab News: Congress Enlists GAO For “Domestic Extremist” Study on Faming & Social Media Platforms

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: A Land without Honor
American Conservative: The Iron Cross Returns to the East
American Greatness: Supreme Court Rules Against Biden’s Loan Forgiveness Plan, in Favor of Web Designer Who Refused to Make Same-Sex Wedding Websites, also, Over 17 Million Guns Sold in 2022: Report
American Thinker: Thomas Sowell — Still Relevant at 93, NYC Bans Delicious Pizza for Climate Change, and Seven Truths to Unmask the Regressive Left
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Leftists in America Friday
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship moves into the 21st century, prepares to launch digital ration book, Cuban State Security arrests dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer’s wife, steals her money, warns her of imminent eviction, and The other Perón woman history forgot
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for June 30
Behind The Black: Webb takes infrared (heat) image of Saturn, Dragon cargo freighter safely splashes down in Atlantic, Curiosity tops a ridge to see its rough path forward, Another layered mesa in the Cydonia region of Mars, and A blacklisted American wins in court
Cafe Hayek: On Today’s Ruling On Student-Loan ‘Forgiveness’
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: SCOTUS Makes the Case for Trump
Dana Loesch: SCOTUS Ends Affirmative Action, also, News You Might Have MIssed
Don Surber: Ending centuries of Harvard bigotry
First Street Journal: The Supreme Court destroys all chances of race-based ‘reparations’, also, Dumb as a box of rocks
Gates Of Vienna: The Alienork Way, “We Are Dragged Into Reality”, Marinus van der Lubbe Gets an Extra 15 Minutes, Nancy Faeser Pronounces Anathema Against the Heretics of the AfD, The Mexican Standoff, and Makin’ Bacon With Annalena
The Geller Report: BIZARRE: Broken Biden Wanders Off During LIVE MSNBC Interview, also, Annihilating Ernest: The Woke Bell Tolls for Hemingway
Hogewash: What’s Up for July, 2023, also, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Is Evil Dead Rise the Year’s Most Pro-Life Film?, also, Dial of Destiny and the Lowering of Indiana Jones’ Expectations
The Lid: Ron DeSantis Pledges to Eliminate the Departments of Energy, Commerce, & Education PLUS the IRS
Legal Insurrection: Planner Of Attacks On Israelis in Cyprus Captured By Mossad Inside Iran, Taped Confession Released, Wisconsin Democrat State Senator Comments on Crime: ‘F**k the Suburbs’, Bates College Prof Reveals Inside Look at ‘the Racial Gaming of Admissions’, Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud – Video of Berkeley Law Dean Admitting To “Unstated Affirmative Action”, and Left Loves The Kochs Again, Now That They’re Reportedly Mounting Anti-Trump 2024 Effort
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Pat McAfee Responds To Criticism After ESPN Layoffs, David Pollack May Be The Most Surprising ESPN Layoff So Far: What’s The Plan For College GameDay Moving Forward?, Joe Theismann Pleads To Elon Musk: ‘Let Me Back On Twitter!’, WNBA’s Natasha Cloud Says ‘Our Country Is Trash’ In Wake Of Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling, ESPN On-Air Bloodletting Begins: Jalen Rose, Jeff Van Gundy Are Out, and Haley Cavinder Declares War On Paige Spiranac With Unreal Putt
Power Line: A Case Study in ‘Progressive Fragility’ & Entitlement, Joey Mumbles does college admissions, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Sen. Scott Highlights “Big Wins For Florida” In Recent NDAA
Shot In The Dark: Saint Paul Schooled, also, Thoughtcrime
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday: Wealth Taxes in Norway and SALT Cap Review
This Ain’t Hell: Gotta give credit to Grinston’s office, Valor Friday, The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down university affirmative action, exempting the service academies, and Chinese B/A-1100N Foiled by DOD
Transterrestrial Musings: The Affirmative-Action Decision, When Elites Don’t Fight, and Astra Carta
Victory Girls: Affirmative Action Dissenters Illustrate Hypocrisy in Action
Volokh Conspiracy: SCOTUS Holds That Speech Creators (e.g., Web Designers) Can’t Be Required to Create Content They Object to
Watts Up With That: BBC: China is Firming Wind and Solar Power with Coal Plants, also, Another Climate-Savior Alarmist Jetsets to South America – For Two Months Of Vacation!
The Federalist: Why Russia’s Instability Could Throw Off Xi Jinping’s Taiwan Invasion Timeline, State Department Finally Admits In Heavily Redacted Report That Biden Botched The Afghanistan Withdrawal, Records Suggest Top NIH Official Squashed Lab-Leak Theory For Fauci, Used Personal Email To Hide It, SCOTUS Decision Protecting Religious Liberty Provides The Perfect Ending To Pride Month, House GOP Rejects Socialist Mortgage Rule, But That Won’t Stop Biden From Taking Your Money For ‘Equity’, and Affirmative Action Is Another Nonsense Leftist Position We’ve Been Conditioned To Take Seriously
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet

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Category: Linkagery

What Part of ‘Drop the Gun’ Is So Difficult for Some People to Understand?

Posted on | June 30, 2023 | Comments Off on What Part of ‘Drop the Gun’ Is So Difficult for Some People to Understand?

A ‘routine traffic stop’ in small-town Illinois

Watching the police bodycam video of this incident, I was struck by how much of what we call “race” is actually about culture.

A police officer in Rantoul, Illinois — a town of 12,000 people, about 15 miles north of Champaign, and 120 miles south of Chicago — approaches a car that he recognizes as having fled at high speed a couple months earlier. The driver, later identified as 20-year-old Jheremia [sic] Xavier McKown, begins speaking in what might be called a ghetto way, which was confusing to me. This guy looked white, so why was he talkin’ like a brotha out the ‘hood, y’know what I be sayin’?

His behavior was similarly distinctive, acting like every felon I’ve seen in these Police Activity videos (and I must have watched hundreds by now) when apprehended in the midst of felonious activity. The cop is like, “stop reaching in the car” and yet McKown keeps reaching. The cop finally decides to pull him out of the car and a struggle ensues, even as McKown tries to pretend he doesn’t understand why the cop wants to handcuff him. Not to spoil the ending, but there were six pounds of marijuana in the car, as well as three loaded handguns — two Glocks under the driver’s seat, and one in the possession of the passenger, 18-year-old Jordan Richardson. Richardson’s pistol had an extended magazine, and Illinois investigators later determined it had been stolen during the burglary of a vehicle in Colorado. While McKown is wrestling with the cop, resisting arrest, Richardson takes off running on foot. This is ghetto thug behavior, except it’s not happening in a ghetto, it’s happening on a tree-lined street in a picturesque small town. And who are these thugs, anyway?

Jheremia Xavier McKown

You can see why I was confused. McKown (whose mother apparently couldn’t spell “Jeremiah” correctly) is very, very light-skinned.

Cafe au lait, with extra au lait. Almost as white as Rachel Dolezal.

Here we encounter a problem with the belief that the problems experienced by black people are a result of hereditary inferiority. The “DNA is destiny” crowd will have to explain why this guy — who’s got to be at least 75% Caucasian — was thuggin’ like a ghetto homeboy, whereas there are black people of 100% African ancestry with MIT engineering degrees. Clarence Thomas grew up in the segregated South and became a Supreme Court justice, whereas this damned-near-white kid grew up in small-town Illinois and became a felon. Say what you will, this disparity just can’t be explained by genetics, nor do I think the “social justice” crowd can explain how McKown is more “oppressed” by systemic racism in 2023 than Justice Thomas was in the Jim Crow era.

People don’t become drug dealers because of “oppression.” There is no reason to believe McKown was denied opportunities for education or employment because of his race. He just would rather deal dope than to work any legal job. Where did he develop that preference? I don’t know, but you can’t blame “white supremacy.” Meanwhile . . .

[State’s Attorney Julia] Rietz asked for a $2 million bond for McKown after informing Beckett that McKown had a prior juvenile adjudication for attempted armed robbery. In 2020, Rietz said, McKown tried to rob two cannabis dealers, and one of them shot McKown in the leg.
“This is a defendant who is a danger to the community. Because of him, Rantoul is in an uproar,” Rietz argued.

The “uproar” was because McKown’s passenger who ran from cops, Jordan Richardson, ended up getting shot to death, but before we get to that, let’s get a bit more information about McKown:

A Champaign man charged in connection with an incident that led to the death of his friend in Rantoul on Wednesday will have to jump through some hoops before he can be released from jail.
Judge Roger Webber ordered late Friday afternoon that before Jheremia McKown may post bond, he will have to persuade a judge that his bond money is coming from a “legitimate and lawful” source.
State’s Attorney Julia Rietz filed the motion for a “source of bail” hearing after Judge Chad Beckett set bond for McKown at $500,000 following his arraignment on charges of armed violence, possession with intent to deliver cannabis, aggravated unlawful use of weapons and resisting arrest. . . .
In written support of her request for a source of bail hearing, Rietz repeated the allegations surrounding McKown’s arrest by Rantoul police about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. . . .
After the arraignment, McKown made a phone call from the jail — which inmates are informed are being recorded — to another man with two pending weapons cases who was able to post $15,000 in cash to win his own release in February despite telling a judge he was “looking for work” and had no income.
That man asked McKown what his bond was and when McKown told him he would need $50,000 to be released, the man replied, “That’s what we were expecting, we got you bro.”
“It is believed that the cash found (in McKown’s car) is from the fruits of illegal narcotics activity, and that there is reason to believe the defendant has access to other large amounts of U.S. currency derived from the same illicit activities,” Rietz wrote.

“We got you bro” — his criminal associates promising to bail him out with the money they make from dealing dope. They’re career criminals. They’ve never earned an honest nickel in their lives.

And as for Jordan Richardson . . .

Jordan Richardson (right) hugs his mother, Amy

His mother, Amy Richardson, was the subject of a friendly article in Smile Politely, “Champaign-Urbana’s culture magazine”:

Mother refuses to let authorities demonize son killed by Rantoul police
“I can’t sleep. The time that I have [fallen] asleep, I just woke up with a nightmare,” said Amy Richardson, whose son Jordan was shot and killed by police in Rantoul last week. “I keep rounding that corner and hearing those two shots and then I just wake up.”
It was just after noon on Wednesday, June 7th when Amy dropped off her son at a friend’s car and left. She noticed police coming up the street and turned her car around. She watched as police approached the two Black youth in the car and arrested 20-year-old Jheremia McKown. She heard McKown cry out, “I’m not fighting, I’m not resisting.”

(She knew her son was hanging around McKown. Indeed, his mother gave him a ride to meet up with McKown. Not going to say she’s to blame for her son’s death, but . . .)

Amy then saw her son Jordan take off running. She drove around the corner to try to intercept him. Rantoul police Sergeant Jerry King, a ten-year veteran of the force, chased after him.
“All I heard was pop pop,” she recalled, “and I turn the corner, and my son was laid out in a driveway.” Police would not let her near her son as he lay bleeding. He was transported to Carle Hospital in an ambulance. Amy frantically demanded to see her son at the hospital, but police would not let her. Police were “so cold” about it, telling her, “No, his body’s evidence.”
Jordan Richardson, who was 18 years old and just recently graduated from Rantoul Township High School, was found to have a single gunshot wound in his chest at 1:42 p.m. and pronounced dead shortly after.
State’s Attorney Julia Rietz is painting this picture with a broad brush. Focus has been on the case of McKown — alleged to be involved in a high-speed car chase in April, found last week with six pounds of marijuana in his car, possessing two loaded handguns, and fighting with police — who is held on a half-million dollar bond. Because of McKown, Rietz said at arraignment, Rantoul was in an “uproar.”
Jordan’s death at the hands of police has already been deemed justified in the media for his association with McKown. “They’re just trying to make him seem like he’s just some low down thug,” Amy said. “No, I refuse, I absolutely refuse to let them do this.”

(Just hanging out with his buddy, in a car with six pounds of weed and three pistols, but he’s not “some low down thug.” Thanks, Mom.)

“My son was an amazing kid,” Amy said. “He was so smart. Anybody around here that you ask, they don’t have a bad thing to say about my son.” . . .

(“He was so smart,” mom says, and yet her son seemed to have trouble comprehending the simple sentence, “Drop the gun!”)

The shooting at a balloon launch for Jordan on Friday, June 9th has also cast a shadow over events. An individual with a rifle shot into the crowd, miraculously missing everyone, and fled on foot. . . .

(Call me a cynic, but when you get shot by cops and then gunfire breaks out at your memorial “balloon launch,” you might just be “some low down thug.”)

“These Rantoul police have been on my son’s heels for months now,” Jordan’s mom told me. In October 2022, Jordan was shot at while visiting a friend at Golfview Village apartments in Rantoul. When police arrived, she said, they tackled Jordan and left him with a “big knot” on his forehead. Police seized his phone, Amy said, although, “He was the victim.” After the incident, Jordan was “fired up” and “angry.”
Amy sent Jordan to Colorado after he was shot at because she was “scared for [her] son’s safety.”

(Gosh, somebody shot at Jordan while he was “visiting a friend” — this happens all the time in a picturesque small town with a population of 12,000, right? — and it was his mom who sent Jordan to Colorado. After he got shot by the cops, they found that Jordan’s gun had been stolen in Colorado. Coincidence, I’m sure.)

He finished high school early and returned for the graduation ceremony a couple weeks ago.
“I feel so twisted,” Amy said, “I know he wanted to come here and graduate, you know, and walk the stage. He earned that right. But then I just keep questioning myself that I made the right decision by letting him come back here.” . . .

(She could have left him in Colorado, and then her “low down thug” son could have gotten shot by Colorado police instead.)

“Was my son a threat to you because of the color of his skin?” Amy wondered. “Because he had dreads? What made my son so threatening to you that it had to go like this? I just don’t understand. I really don’t understand.”

Well, ma’am, what made your son “so threatening” was probably that stolen pistol with the extended magazine he was carrying when he took off running from that car — you know, the car with six pounds of weed in it? The car that had fled from police at high speed two months earlier? The car driven by the criminal Jheremia McKown?

Wonder no more. This week we got police bodycam video, as well as home surveillance camera video from nearby residences, all of which are referenced in the report issued by the State’s Attorney’s office.

Rantoul PD 6-7-23 OIS Final… by WICS Newschannel 20 (WICS A…

State’s attorney: Rantoul officer’s use of lethal force was legally justified
The same officer who shot Jordan Richardson as he ran because he refused to drop a gun also tried to save his life.
“He just wouldn’t drop the (expletive) gun. I don’t understand,” Sgt. Jerry King said to a fellow officer as he applied pressure to the chest of the 18-year-old he shot seconds earlier.
On Wednesday, State’s Attorney Julia Rietz concluded that the actions of the 10-year officer on the afternoon of June 7 constituted a justifiable use of lethal force.
“Sgt. Jerry King’s use of deadly force in firing his weapon in Richardson’s direction while Richardson was in possession of a firearm and disobeying commands to drop the weapon were legally justifiable given the totality of the circumstances,” she said. . . .
Officer Rene Wissel, who made the stop of driver Jheremia McKown, radioed for help, alerting fellow officers that the person running had a gun that he dropped then picked up as he continued to run.
Officer Tyler Johnston, who arrived to help Wissel, also saw Mr. Richardson stop in the front yard of a house, reach down and pick up an object, then continue running. Johnston gave chase, yelling “drop the gun, drop the gun, police, stop,” having no apparent effect on Mr. Richardson.
King, meantime, was in his squad sport utility vehicle when he saw Mr. Richardson carrying an olive-green handgun and running between two houses in the 400 block of East Belle. He ran right in front of King’s vehicle, still carrying the gun.
State police investigators learned later that the gun found near Mr. Richardson’s body that had his fingerprints on it had been reported stolen May 20 from a car in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“As he passed the front of my patrol car, I feared that Jordan would begin firing at my squad car,” King wrote in his original police report.
Mr. Richardson turned his head to look at King as he ran past his car, which caused him to stumble and drop the gun at the edge of a driveway. Again, he picked it up and ran.
Jumping from his squad, King drew his gun, aimed at Mr. Richardson and yelled three times, loudly enough for Mr. Richardson to hear him, to drop the gun or risk being shot.
“Jordan had made it approximately 70 feet up the driveway before once again stumbling and falling forward onto the ground. I was now approximately 50 feet from Jordan,” King wrote in a report prepared after reviewing his body-camera footage. “Jordan was now still on the ground with his left hand on the ground supporting him and his gun in his right hand but facing away from me. I gave another command, ‘Drop the gun!’ and at the same time, Jordan began spinning around towards me holding his gun.
“It was at this moment, with Jordan turning towards me while armed with the handgun, that I felt he was going to shoot me,” King wrote. “I fired two rounds in quick succession at Jordan as his body, and more specifically his arm holding the gun, was spinning towards my direction.”
Mr. Richardson’s last audible words were “I’m hit.”
Rietz noted that the time between when King gave his first command to when he fired was approximately six seconds.

At least eight times, cops yelled at him to drop the gun. And, in point of fact, while running from cops, Richardson accidentally dropped the gun twice, but picked it up again. “He was so smart,” his mom said.

Live the ghetto life, die a ghetto death.

Category: Crime, Illinois, Racism

In The Mailbox: 06.29.23

Posted on | June 30, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.29.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Lies, Damn Lies, & Academia
EBL: So what is happening in the Ukraine War now?, Blade Runner 1929, and Supreme Court Rules Harvard’s Racist Admission Policies Are Unconstitutional
Twitchy: Cervical cancer trust wants vaginas to be called “bonus holes”, Fauxcahontas takes a swing at SCOTUS & KOs herself instead, and Tweeps point and laugh at the soft bigotry of Democrats’ sock accounts
Louder With Crowder: Allen, TX body-cam footage shows cop’s true heroism in action, “That’s the issue every year”, and Dana Carvey & David Spade take turns cracking hilarious “anti-science” jokes at Fauci’s expense
Vox Popoli: Be Based, Young Man, We Can Hope, and The End of Affirmative Action
Stoic Observations: The Werewolf, also, The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Post-Cold War Consensus Is Dead. What Will Take Its Place?
American Greatness: Biden Abroad: The Moral and Material Collapse of U.S. Foreign Policy, Latest Leaks Don’t Incriminate Trump, They Incriminate Democrats, and Thousands of U.S. Prisoners to Get Free, Government-Funded College Education
American Power: Supreme Court Strikes Down Race-Based Admissions at Harvard and U.N.C.
American Thinker: The Controlled Demolition of Nation-States, also, Corporate America Doesn’t Hear Anybody
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Senile Biden News
Babalu Blog: Four Cuban national team soccer players defect during tournament in the U.S., Cuban dictatorship loses appeal in London court over defaulted loans, Reports from Cuba: Regime persecutes religious Cubans for their ‘civic position,’ according to human rights group, and Cuban dictatorship exports at least $66.5 million in seafood, tells Cubans there isn’t any for them
BattleSwarm: Special Session: Take Two, also, China’s Demographics: Even Worse Than You Think
Behind The Black: Redwire gets new contract to build two more replacement solar panels for ISS, MOXIE instrument on Perseverance sets new record for oxygen production, King Charles III proposes his own vision for space, focused not on private enterprise but on achieving a globalist utopia, Blue Origin negotiating with India to use its rockets and capsule for Orbital Reef space station, and In Pennsylvania, Democratic Party politicians just proved their fascist anti-first amendment beliefs
Cafe Hayek: I Was Mistaken
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Chicago Boyz: Plane Spotting Meets the 21st Century, also, More History Friday – The Murder of a Very Modern Major General
Da Tech Guy: The Left Won’t Like this Silver Lining, also, Joe Biden’s latest attempt to steal elections will make Wile E. Coyote proud
Don Surber: Trannies Erasing Lesbians
First Street Journal: Get #woke, go broke!, also, Today’s #woke left sure do hate Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and democracy . . . when those things go against leftist values
Gates Of Vienna: Geert Wilders: “The Government is Betraying Our Own People”, Islamic Doctrine Allows Base Behavior — Both Muslim and Non-Muslim Women Are the Victims, Koran Assaulted With Fire and Bacon, Brussels Says: Give Us More of Your Euros!, and France Goes up in Flames (Again)
The Geller Report: Biden Family Received Over $40 MILLION in Bribes, “This Was Organized Crime.”
Glenn Reynolds: Affirmative Action’s Demise & Higher Education
Hogewash: Tonight’s Sky: July, 2023, In Re Affirmative Action, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Tim Dillon: YouTube Censors ‘Have Gone Completely Insane’, Is This the Ultimate Cancel Culture Horror Story?, and Woke-Busting ‘Morning Show’ Preps Season 3 Debut
The Lid: Many Americans Think Life Was Better 50 Years Ago. They’re Misguided.
Legal Insurrection: Clarence Thomas Reading His Epic Takedown Of KBJ’s Affirmative Action Dissent Left Her “Visibly Angry”, SUNY Buffalo Law School Program Racial Preference For “Students of Color” Challenged By Equal Protection Project, George Washington U. Arming Campus Police Despite Outcry From Students, Israel Seizes Millions in Cryptocurrency Belonging to Iran’s Islamic Guard, Hezbollah Terrorist Group, and ‘Tyranny of a Minority’: The Left Freaks Out After Affirmative Action Ruled Unconstitutional
Nebraska Energy Observer: Truckers
Outkick: Clay Travis Challenges Mark Cuban To Debate After Mavs Owner Sides With Woke Disney, Charles Barkley Surprises Ernie Johnson Prior To ‘The Match’ By Informing Him Of Induction Into Sports Broadcasting Hall Of Fame, PGA Tour Stars Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Others Come To Defense Of Patrick Cantlay After Hit Piece Regarding LIV Merger, Ex-MLB Star Jim Edmonds Sets Off Wokesters After Discussing ‘Redskins,’ ‘Indians’ Name Changes, and Hockey Goalie Mikayla Demaiter Reports For Duty As The ‘Reigning Bikini Queen’
Power Line: Deep state of denial, Supreme Court Finally Strikes Down Race-Based Admissions, and The time has come today
Shark Tank: FL Reps Champion The Shelter Act
Shot In The Dark: Capitulation Or Fighting For The Enemy?, Bygone,
The Political Hat: Apologies for lack of posting
This Ain’t Hell: “Hello, Chicago, hello!”, Navy Recruiting- Work Harder!, and Woke initiatives in the Military-Part of a larger agenda intended to fundamentally change America
Transterrestrial Musings: SpaceX Update, The Rot At The Department Of Justice, Too Many Dishonorable People Are Honored, and The Woke Bell Tolls
Victory Girls: Penny Indictment: Shooting the Sheepdog, also, Rainbow Spirit And Sparkle Creed Infest Christian Churches
Volokh Conspiracy: The Unsurprising Affirmative Action Decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, also, Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Ruling in the Harvard and UNC Racial Preferences Cases
Watts Up With That: Huge Nebraska Solar Park Completely Smashed to Pieces by One Single Hailstorm!, also, Is the Energy Transition Moving Too Fast?
The Federalist: German Court Says Pro-Lifers Can Still Pray Outside Abortion Mills — For Now, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Dissent Is An Argument For Institutional Racism, ‘Soft Girl Summer’ Delivers In Ways ‘Hot Girl Summer’ Never Could, Another Year Of Bidenflation Means More Record-Breaking Independence Day Cookout Costs, American Patriotism Is On Life Support. Let’s Revive It Again, and Of Course Ketanji Brown Jackson Supports Affirmative Action. It’s The Only Reason She’s A Supreme Court Justice
Mark Steyn: Disintegration of the Republic

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Category: Linkagery

CBS Evening News — !!! — Reports About Hunter Biden Influence Scandal Cover-Up

Posted on | June 29, 2023 | Comments Off on CBS Evening News — !!! — Reports About Hunter Biden Influence Scandal Cover-Up

“What was Hunter selling? What skill or expertise did this crack-addicted loser possess that might be worth $5 million to a Chinese ‘business partner’? The only thing Hunter Biden had to sell — his only marketable value — was his father’s political influence. Period, end of sentence.”
— what I said on Saturday

Excuse me for quoting myself, but it’s important to keep our eyes on the ball here. This scandal is not really about Hunter Biden, it’s about Joe, because without Joe’s influence, Hunter had nothing to sell to the Chinese or Ukrainians or any other of his shady foreign clients.

This fact has been blindingly obvious to anyone with two eyes and a brain for so long that it’s not exactly bombshell investigative journalism, but the media were so intent on getting rid of Trump — Orange Man Bad! — that they were willing to pretend they didn’t see the same facts the rest of us saw. So now, with the Republicans controlling the House Oversight Committee, and the documentation of this scandal steadily drip, drip, dripping into public view, the media have belatedly decided, “Hey, you know what? Maybe this is a real story after all.”

Color us surprised aka damn near gobsmacked, when reporter Jim Axelrod earnestly and respectfully (!) interviewed IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, allowing him to fully answer really good questions.
They gave the piece almost 3 whole minutes on the CBS Evening News broadcast [Tuesday] night…

? “There were certain investigative steps we ?????’? ??????? to take that could have led us to President Biden.”

– IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley? https://t.co/nkvuiHB5l2

— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) June 27, 2023

The fact of the matter — again, obvious to everybody — is that Merrick Garland perjured himself when he testified to Congress that he didn’t interfere in this investigation, because of course he did. Probably what has stirred the media hornet’s nest, is that slap-on-the-wrist sweetheart plea deal Hunter got in his tax-and-gun case. Blatant favoritism like that simply can’t be ignored if, like the media is always telling us, they’re fighting to save Our Democracy. Hundreds of Trump supporters are languishing in federal prison because of the J6 riot, and the DOJ is just going to let Hunter Biden walk free? Really?

So finally this story is gaining traction with Big Media, and even the New York Times is doing some real reporting about this stinking pile of corruption otherwise known as the Biden administration.

Prediction: After Labor Day, House Republicans will vote to begin impeachment proceedings against Merrick Garland, and then . . . Well, we don’t know where it will end, but things are rolling along now.

As William Jacobson said on Dec. 18, 2019: “Democrats will rue the day they forced this impeachment through the House.”

Category: Corruption, Joe Biden, Scandal

In The Mailbox: 06.28.23

Posted on | June 29, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.28.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
Twitchy: CA Senate Passes Bill Allowing 12-Year-Olds To Consent To Castration & Mutilation, School Board Gets Brutally Fact-Checked On Woke Bathroom Policy, and NBC News Unleashes Orwellian Spin On AZ Gov. Hobbs’ Radical LGBTWTFBBQ Executive Orders
Louder With Crowder: Google defends Christians, drops sponsorship of blasphemous drag show after employees complained, Watch: Roseanne Barr goes OFF over the left’s failed attempt to cancel her over “Holocaust” comment, and Based official wrecks radical gender ideology: “If one of my kids came home and presented as a cat…”
Vox Popoli: “It’s Just Words”, also, Rangers Lead the Way
Gab News: They’re Banning Public Prayer In Ireland
Flappr: An Ode To Summer

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Biden’s Border Disaster
American Greatness: School District Bans Parents from Attending School Board Meeting on Parental Rights
American Thinker: Palestine: The World’s Oldest Antisemitic Word, The American Tyranny That Taxpayers Are Funding, and Jack Nicholson, Donald Trump, And The Ugly Work That Needs To Be Done
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Babalú Blog’s 20th Anniversary: The Exercise of Freedom, Reflections on Babalu Blog at 20, and Babalu Blog celebrates 20 years of making jack-*sses of the Mainstream Media and its pantheon of ‘Cuba Experts’
Behind The Black: Europe successfully tests rocket engine to be used in its first reusable rocket, Las Vegas developer touts spaceport plan, Another tourist site for future Starship passengers on Mars, Sierra Space says first Dream Chaser will be ready for launch by December, and Google employees (!) force the company to drop sponsorship of queer event
Cafe Hayek: Make of This What You Will, Take Responsibility, and Phil Magness Exposes As Shoddyship Some So-called “Scholarship”
CDR Salamander: RADM Pyle Goes Salamander
Chicago Boyz: Back in the Olden Days
Da Tech Guy: The First and Most Important Question for Every Election 2024 GOP Candidate, also, #Catholicism, #SaintDymphna and #MentalHealth
Don Surber: The Lesson Of 2020
Gates Of Vienna: Sheep Thrills, also, “They Will Keep Coming”
The Geller Report: HATING AMERICA: Biden Regime Shuts Down 4th of July Celebration Near National Landmark [Again]
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Zooming Into the Sh2-284 Nebula, What Our Ancestors Did, and I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: Canadian Animators Share Shocking Tales of Anti-White Racism
The Lid: Grieving Mother Tells How California Stole Her Daughter, Transitioned Her, Then Caused Her Suicide
Legal Insurrection: Fallout Continues from NYC Eco-Tyrants’ War on Wood Fired Pizza, The OceanGate Disaster: a Submarine Captain’s Early Unofficial Assessment, Ron DeSantis Goes For Jugular of Education Establishment, Sues To Halt “Unchecked Power” Of Federal-Enabled College Accreditators, NBC News Desperately Tries to Spin Trans Activists Chanting ‘We’re Coming for Your Children’, and Massive Data Breach Hits California Public Pension Funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS
Nebraska Energy Observer: Government Picking Your Pocket
Outkick: Caitlyn Jenner Tees Off On Martina Navratilova, College World Series TV Ratings Hit Home Run Despite Yawners At End; Final Jell-O Shot Tally Is In, Dustin Johnson Isn’t In A Hurry To Return To The PGA Tour, But He May Not Have A Choice In The Near Future, Odell Beckham Jr. Refers To Himself As A Ferrari While Explaining Why He’s Skipping Out On Ravens’ OTAs, and Should Disappointing San Diego Padres Give Up On 2023, Trade Juan Soto?
Power Line: The New York Times Confirms It: IRS Whistleblower Told the Truth, Mental Health You Say?, and Voters Worry About Election Fraud
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Early Salvos In The Speech Wars
Shark Tank: Diaz-Balart Speculates That Red China Has Compromised The Biden Administration
Shot In The Dark: There Is A Whisper In The Dark, also, Solved!
This Ain’t Hell: Three More Accounted For, 100 Years of Passing Gas, and News Flash: Putin Losing War in Iraq According to Biden
Transterrestrial Musings: The Human Suffering In Our Cities, Leftism And Long Covid, and Who Let The Dogs Out?
Victory Girls: IRS Whistleblower Speaks: Hunter Got Kid-Glove Treatment
Volokh Conspiracy: Chief Justice Roberts Calls Out Counsel In Moore v. Harper
Watts Up With That: Still Waiting for The Magical Future of Free Wind Power, also, French President Suggests Taxing America to Save the European Green Energy Dream
The Federalist: Biden’s Snubbing Of U.K. Candidate For NATO Chief Is A Huge Mistake, Multi-Faith Coalition Of Immigrant Parents Protest Maryland Public Schools’ Woke Sex Ed, DOJ Rot Goes So Much Deeper Than Merrick Garland, Former Head Of DOJ Tax Division Urges Federal Judge To ‘Trash’ Hunter Biden Plea Deal, and Polls Show Americans Want Businesses To Put Away Pride Flags And Stay Out Of Politics

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Category: Linkagery

Your ‘Private’ Messages Aren’t Private

Posted on | June 28, 2023 | Comments Off on Your ‘Private’ Messages Aren’t Private

Let’s start with the obvious: The reason that Pedro Gonzales’s “private” messages got leaked is because he supports Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and we may presume the leaker supports Donald Trump. This is not to defend Gonzales or anything he said in the messages; it’s just acknowledging the reality that politics explains why this leak happened. How many people were participants in the “group chat” where Gonzales said various unpleasant things about Jews, etc.? We don’t know, but we must suppose that Gonzales believed that all of them were sympathetic to anti-Semitism and — here’s the real kicker — maybe they were, and still are. Which is to say, I do not rule out the possibility that Gonzales’s anti-Semitic messages were leaked by pro-Trump “friends” who are themselves anti-Semitic.

Jew-haters exposing a fellow Jew-hater because he supports one GOP candidate and they support another? This is just sad.

Why is this being published by Breitbart-dot-com? Oliver Darcy was too busy? The SPLC has lost interest in anti-Semitism? Or is DeSantis such an apostate to the True Faith that anything goes in terms of smearing him? Because I don’t think Matthew Boyle or his editors really care about Pedro Gonzales, per se. No, he is of interest to them because, as Boyle says, “Gonzalez has become perhaps most well-known as one of the most active and strident pro-Florida Gov. Ron Desantis influencers on Twitter.” And therefore he must be EXPOSED!

Well, it should go without saying, I don’t like this game, because this is probably not going to be the last inning of the game. If it’s going to be open season on DeSantis’s supporters, then Trump’s supporters can expect to get the same kind of treatment. And if the right wing is going to consume itself with a spree of reputational destruction, we can expect the sold-out GOP Establishment crowd to profit from this, to say nothing of the chortling glee we’ll hear from the Democrats. Andrew Breitbart never played the game this way, so far as I can remember.

Just incidentally, there are some amusing passages in Matthew Boyle’s article, like when he decides to “expose” Gonzales as an admirer of — gasp! — the late Sam Francis. Except, of course, Gonzales is an editor at Chronicles, where Francis was a beloved columnist for many years. If there’s anyone on the Chronicles payroll who doesn’t like Sam Francis, that would be shocking. Also, Boyle tries to make something out of Gonzales saying that Paul Gottfried, another regular Chronicles contributor, is a “good” Jew, i.e., the kind who hates Ben Shapiro.

It should go without saying that I know Professor Gottfried, having met him at the same kind of Thought Criminal conferences where I used to have beers with Sam Francis. While I can’t say I am personally acquainted with every Thought Criminal on the SPLC “hate map,” I’m familiar with most of them, one way or another. A few years ago, when former Breitbart editor Katie McHugh decided to dump all her email correspondence into the SPLC’s lap, I was saddened and amused because not only did I know Katie, but I also knew several of the DANGEROUS WHITE NATIONALISTS she decided to “expose.”

Kevin DeAnna? Check. Marcus Epstein? Check. Peter Brimelow? Check.

Speaking of which, the last time I talked to Peter, he extended me an invitation to visit the VDare “castle” in West Virginia, and I meant to take him up on that offer, but it slipped my mind. After I get back from Alaska, I’ll have to give him a call. But anyway . . .

Eventually, this election cycle will end and, one way or the other, it will also end the Trump-DeSantis war, a conflict that I lament as unnecessary and harmful. Vote for whoever you want to vote for, hate whoever you want to hate, I don’t care, but why should conservatives — all of us regarded as “deplorables” by the Powers That Be in the Biden Age — tear each other apart over this? People need to wake the hell up.

As for Gonzales and his “private” messages, young people need to learn a lesson I’ve repeatedly taught my kids: Never say anything in a text message, email or a DM that you wouldn’t want to see screencapped and printed on the front page of the New York Times. There are few beliefs more dangerous in the modern world than thinking that your “private” messages will stay private, if anyone ever has a motive to leak them. For all you know, the political associate you regard as your “friend” could be a federal informant, an agent provocateur, and you’ll DM yourself straight into federal prison. Learn the value of silence.

Category: Scandal

Ironic Journalism

Posted on | June 28, 2023 | 6 Comments

Reuters decided to go digging up the past, and perhaps didn’t calculate the possible consequences of what they would find:

In researching the genealogies of America’s political elite, a Reuters examination found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living presidents, Supreme Court justices and governors are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people…
President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president — except Donald Trump — are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and — through his white mother’s side — Barack Obama. Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished.

By the way, I hate this newfangled way of referring to slavery, using the verb “enslaved.” Did the person who owned slaves actively enslave them? The verb implies that, had it not been for this particular slave owner, the slave would otherwise have been free — but it wasn’t like that at all. The first African slaves in Virginia arrived aboard the White Lion. Originally from Angola, then a Portuguese colony, these slaves had been part of a cargo aboard the Spanish ship San Juan Bautista, bound for Santa Cruz, Mexico. Before the Spanish ship reached Mexico, however, it was attacked by English privateer ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer, who took about 60 slaves, most of whom subsequently ended up in Virginia. Had this raid not happened, these Angolan slaves would have ended up in Mexico instead, but either way, they would not have been free — because they were “enslaved” before they ever left Africa.

Why do most Americans know nothing about this? Why is it that we never hear any criticism of the Portuguese, Spanish, French and Dutch who were involved in slavery? Or why isn’t it pointed out that slavery in Africa had existed for centuries before any Europeans ever began purchasing slaves and sending them across the Atlantic? Why it is made to seem that the only guilty parties are white Americans?

If you start asking questions like that, and are willing to devote many hours to researching the subject — as I did, long before The 1619 Project provoked controversy — you may come to the realization that this grievance-mongering approach to the history of slavery is Marxist in its origins, traceable to the anti-American propaganda of the Soviet Union and Communist Party (e.g., Herb Aptheker). The reason Americans (but not Mexicans, Brazilians, etc.) are so incessantly guilt-tripped about slavery is because the guilt-trippers hate America.

It is strangely amusing (but not really surprising) to learn that Barack Obama is descended from slave owners, as is Joe Biden, and while my own genealogical research has not revealed whether my distant ancestors owned slaves, it’s quite likely at least some of them did, and so what? I did not inherit a Greek revival mansion surrounded by live oaks draped in Spanish moss. My grandparents were born on small farms in the red clay hills of Randolph County, Alabama. When discussing what life was like growing up in rural Alabama in the 1930s, my aunt said, “We didn’t even know we were poor — everybody was poor.”

The idea that we should feel shame about our ancestors, who never lived in our world of air-conditioned comfort, is absurd and insulting. The past in which slavery existed is, as has been noted, Gone With the Wind — destroyed by the bloodiest war in our nation’s history — and there is nothing to be gained by hindsight recriminations over that past.