The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Monday Night Football’ Postponed; Buffalo Player Critically Injured

Posted on | January 2, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘Monday Night Football’ Postponed; Buffalo Player Critically Injured

Damar Hamlin, a second-year safety for the Buffalo Bills, was rushed to a hospital where he is reported in critical condition after paramedics spent 10 minutes on the field administering CPR.

UPDATE: I was texting with Instapundit right after this happened and he asked, “What kind of hit was it?” And I said, just a bang-bang play, and he got up right after it, but then . . . Boom. He fell over. It reminds me, in a way, of Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash. When you saw it happen, it didn’t look any worse than a lot of other NASCAR crashes, but it just happened to kill him. And if, as now seems likely, Damar Hamlin doesn’t make it, people will be watching video of this play over and over wondering how or why this particular hit proved to be fatal.

UPDATE II: The report is that Hamlin had a heartbeat, but wasn’t breathing on his on, and has been “intubated,” as they say. Trying to figure out why this happened is going to be a long process, and some people on Twitter are asking, “Vaccine?” But no, there’s no reason to suspect it’s one of those cases. Something about the hit itself — cerebral hemorrhage? I don’t know. It’s a mystery at this point.

Selfishly, all I can think about is how it’s ruined my usual Monday night routine of falling asleep during the game, not to mention how it might impact the Patriots, who are scheduled to play Buffalo next Sunday with their playoff hopes on the line. On the one hand, Buffalo’s loss of their starting safety would improve the chances of a New England win, but on the other hand, you don’t want it to happen this way, and it’s in poor taste even to mention it. Injuries are just part of the NFL and, of the eight games the Patriots have won this season, seven of them were against teams forced to play backup quarterbacks because of injuries to the starter. Sunday, for example, Miami started the game with Teddy Bridgewater at quarterback because the Dolphins starter, Tua Tagovailoa, was in concussion protocols. Then, in the third quarter, Bridgewater suffered a broken finger, and the Dolphins had to use third-stringer Skylar Thompson, a rookie picked in the seventh round. New England managed to win that game 23-21 and, so what? Injuries happen.

But to have a player killed in a game? As far as I know, it’s never happened in the NFL, and why did it have to happen on Monday night in a key AFC matchup with playoff consequences? My purely selfish attitude toward this situation may be a defense mechanism, a way to cope by avoiding emotional pain. Or maybe I’m just an asshole.

Anyway, let’s pray Damar Hamlin survives and makes a full recovery.

UPDATE III: Good news?

So he’s still alive, and by the way, Damar Hamlin had a GoFundMe to raise money to buy toys for children. It’s raised over $700,000 since he got injured. I donated. You should, too.



 

Category: Football

Rule 5 Sunday: Happy New Year!

Posted on | January 2, 2023 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Happy New Year!

— compiled by Wombat-socho

You probably don’t know who Robert McGinnis is, but you almost certainly recognize his art: in addition to drawing the covers for hundreds of action & romance paperbacks for over fifty years, he also created the extremely memorable movie posters for Breakfast At Tiffany’s and Barbarella as well as several James Bond and Matt Helm movies. This is cover art from Ladies Home Journal or possibly the Saturday Evening Post; the Pinterest page didn’t say.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1946, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Alaska Independence Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA – Trump’s Tax Returns, Maureen McGovern, Barbara Walters RIP, The Invitation, Pele RIP, The Recruit, Boxing Day, Sarah McLachlan, The Waitresses, and Kari Lake. 

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Cate Blanchette, Fish Pic Friday – Ava Bart, Thursday Tanlines, Wednesday Wetness, Tattoo Tuesday, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Is It Time to Open Presents? and Silent Night

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: New Year’s Eve Edition

Posted on | January 1, 2023 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: New Year’s Eve Edition

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, as the Bard once wrote (copying others before him) and while I sympathize with folks who took it in the shorts this year thanks to Bidenflation*, I dasn’t complain too loudly, myself. Despite the year’s miserable beginnings in Provo’s Utah Valley Hospital, I had a really good tax season (my best since 2015 when I left the Washington area for Las Vegas) and the rest of the year was pretty good too. Here’s hoping 2023 is better for everyone.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

I’M NOT TRAPPED IN HERE WITH YOU! YOU’RE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME! (cartoon by @TGBComic on Twitter via Twitchy)

Elliot Rodger and Nick Fuentes: The Satanic Politics of Self-Destruction
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Christmas Eve Edition
A View From The Beach
EBL

Have a Holly Jolly (Commie) Christmas
357 Magnum
EBL

Long Season for the ’Bama Boys
EBL

Rule 5 Monday: St. Stephen’s Day Edition
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
EBL
Ninety Miles From Tyranny

‘I Don’t Talk to the Police, Sir’
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.27.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.28.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Why Have Democrat-Controlled Schools Become Such Cesspits of Racism?
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.29.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

BREAKING: Suspect in Idaho Student Murders Was Criminology Grad Student UPDATE: Killer Is ‘Obsessive’ Vegan?
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.30.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the last week in December 2022:

  1.  EBL  (12)
  2.  357 Magnum (9)
  3.  A View From The Beach (6)
  4.  Proof Positive (5)

Thanks to everyone for all the links, and Happy New Year!

New Year’s Sale
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Category: FMJRA Award

Another Bloody Year in ‘Killadelphia’

Posted on | December 31, 2022 | Comments Off on Another Bloody Year in ‘Killadelphia’

Murders declined slightly this year in Philadelphia. Through Monday, Dec. 26, the city had recorded 512 homicides this year — down from a record 562 in 2021 — according to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Most of the victims were young Black men, with the violence intensely concentrated in neighborhoods where poverty, blight, and other systemic disadvantages collide.
The number of people who were shot and survived — nearly 1,800 through Monday — also rivaled last year’s record-setting pace.
And while other crime categories, particularly those not involving guns, had been declining over the last few years to decades-long lows, police statistics show several offenses had marked increases in 2022: Commercial burglaries were up by 41% compared to last year, retail thefts by 51%, and auto thefts by 30%.
More than 2,800 robberies involved guns this year, police said — about 55 per week — a 22% increase over last year, and the highest annual tally since 2015. . . .
Interviews in recent weeks with violence survivors, community advocates, and law enforcement officials, as well as data on the issue, show some clear trends: Guns continue to proliferate, carjackings have hit record levels, and the effects are being felt widely across impacted communities.
As shootings and homicides have hit sustained new highs, so has the proliferation of the weapons used to commit them.
For the third straight year, according to police statistics, around 90% of all homicides were committed by gun, about 15% higher than both the state and national average.
Police also recovered more than 6,000 so-called crime guns — firearms typically recovered at crime scenes, in drug busts, or from people accused of possessing them illegally. That’s nearly double the tally from just four years ago.

Notice how the Inquirer, after acknowledging that this problem is disproportionately concentrated in the black community, immediately offers the excuse of “systemic disadvantage,” as if poverty (and “blight,” whatever that means) could somehow explain the recent increase in criminal violence. But has there been an increase in “disadvantage” since 2017, when Philadelphia recorded only 259 homicides? No, of course there has been no such thing, and therefore you can’t blame “blight” for the fact that Philadelphia’s deadly violence roughly doubled in a span of four years, 2017-2021, and has just slightly declined this year after setting an all-time record last year. What does explain it, then?

The George Floyd riots of 2020, and the subsequent implementation of “criminal justice reforms,” are the obvious explanatory factors. As for the impact of these national trends in Philadelphia, the drift toward “social Justice” (i.e., irresponsible leniency) in the city was aggravated by the 2017 election of Soros-backed Larry Krasner as the city’s district attorney.

“There is a new culture of disrespect for law enforcement in this City that is promoted and championed by District Attorney Larry Krasner . . . We’ve now endured over a year and a half of the worst kinds of slander against law enforcement — the DA routinely calls police and prosecutors corrupt and racist, even ‘war criminals’ that he compares to Nazis.”
— U.S. Attorney William McSwain, 2019

Here’s a question: Did Larry Krasner create the “culture of disrespect for law enforcement” in Philadelphia or, as I rather suspect, was Krasner’s election an expression of a pre-existing anti-police sentiment in the city?

Joe Biden got 81% of the vote in Phiadelphia in 2020. Hillary Clinton got 83% of the vote in Philadelphia in 2016. No matter who the Democrats nominate for any national or statewide office in Pennsylvania — even the brain-damaged John Fetterman — that candidate will get 80% of the vote in Philadelphia. Are people who vote for Democrats expressing respect for law enforcement? Or are they instead expressing sympathy for the kind of criminals who are terrorizing Philadelphia?

Democrats are the anti-cop, pro-criminal party, and electing Democrats is an invitation to crime. No one should be surprised that deadly violence prevails in Philadelphia — or Chicago, Baltimore, etc. This is what the residents of those cities voted for when they elected Democrats.

Because the media are controlled by “Democratic Party operatives with bylines,” crime is reported in a deliberately misleading way, as reporters strive to conceal the real causes of crime — i.e., the “culture of disrespect for law enforcement” that produces a political alliance between criminals and Democrats. More from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Carjackings, another gun-related crime, have continued to rise at a startling pace. Police said more than 1,300 carjackings were reported this year, a 53% increase over last year and nearly six times the annual total reported just three years ago.
Eleven people were shot during carjackings this year, police said, and officers made 274 carjacking arrests, sometimes for charges connected to violence, other times for theft or unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Police and community members say the rise in the crime is fueled in part by young people using the cars for joyrides around the city, or to commit additional crimes. Criminal justice experts have also pointed to the increased value of used cars, plus electronic key fobs and heightened vehicle security that require robbers to confront drivers for their keys.

The word for this is deflection — blame guns, rather than criminals, for the increased number of carjackings and, while you’re at it, bring in “experts” to cite irrelevant facts, as if “electronic key fobs” and other anti-theft technology didn’t exist prior to the past three years. The real reason that carjackings have skyrocketed is that Krasner won’t prosecute criminals, and the criminals know this, so they’ve run rampant.

Probably the main reason homicide declined in the past year is because not all victims are innocent victims — bad guys killing each other reduced the number of would-be killers. Dozens of Biden voters criminals getting killed? Who says there’s no good news from Philadelphia?



 

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 12.30.22

Posted on | December 31, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.30.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

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

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: The Invitation
Twitchy: Meathead Ignores Reality Of Trump’s Tax Returns, Still Thinks He’ll Be Arrested, also, More Katie Porter Texts Emerge, None Of Them Good
Louder With Crowder: ‘I’m losing my g*ddamn mind’, Hero emerges to confront looters, demand they put their stolen goods back or else, and Hooters enlists Elon Musk to fight fake news and inform Twitter users millennials do in fact still love boobs
Vox Popoli: The Vicious Circle, You Can Legislate Morality, Polish Regulars in Ukraine, Clown World Claims Brazil, and Dialogue 2022
According To Hoyt: You’ve Got To Have Faith! — Riding the catastrophic wave of change part V, also, Romance Is In The Air by Dan Hoyt
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S3 E24: Wrapping it Up

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Conservative Party Uselessness On Both Sides Of Atlantic
American Greatness: Criminology Student Arrested in Pennsylvania For University of Idaho Student Slayings, Biden White House Plans to Obstruct GOP Investigations, and Protesters Gather to Oppose ‘Drag Queen Christmas’ at Orlando Venue
American Power: Southwest Meltdown Was ‘Perfect Storm’ of Well-Known Vulnerabilities, also, How Southwest Airlines Melted Down
American Thinker: Citizens! The Declaration of Independence: Now Read It, and Learn, also, Fishing as a Guide to Election Integrity
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Alaska Independence News
Babalu Blog: As Cubans struggle to find food, Castro dictatorship’s tourist resorts serve extravagant buffets, Distribution of new food ration books in communist Cuba delayed due to the lack of materials, Image of the Day: A photo that perfectly captures Cuba’s socialist revolution, and Surprise! Anti-embargo U.S. Senator visits Cuba’s fake president
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for December 30
Behind The Black: SpaceX successfully launches Israeli imaging satellite, South Korea test flies a solid-fueled missile, Philippines issues warning about Chinese rocket debris from launch, and Pushback: University eliminates “bias reporting” option that allowed any student to anonymously squelch dissent
Cafe Hayek: Most Lockdowners Can’t Admit They Were Wrong
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Here Come Da Draft
Don Surber: Snow is racist, also, Four words no conservative says
First Street Journal: Helen Gym Flaherty and Broken Windows, also, Some “public health activists” want new #MaskMandates
Gates Of Vienna: More on Luna’s Story, also, Cultural, Territorial and Racial Suicide This Way Cometh
The Geller Report: U.S. Military Equipment From Afghanistan With Sensitive/Classified Intel for Sale on eBay
Hogewash: But It’s OK When They Do It, Masks Now, Masks Tomorrow, Masks Forever, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Someone Else’s Tax Returns, and Is Twitter Jealous of Mars?
Hollywood In Toto: White Noise Offers Disaster Cinema, Woody Allen Style, also, Shane Gillis Should Thanks ‘SNL’ for Canceling Him
The Lid: Twitter Files: Majority of Americans Want FBI Investigated for Violating Our Free Speech
Legal Insurrection: Omnibus Bill Flown 1,500 Miles to St. Croix so Biden Could Sign it, Harvard’s New President Served on Advisory Board That Advanced DEI in Higher Education, Associated Press Reportedly Took $8 million in Donations to Fund its 2022 Climate “News”, Kirk Cameron Book Reading Draws Large Crowd at Indianapolis Public Library, and Appeals Court Upholds Florida High School “Separating School Bathrooms Based on Biological Sex”
Nebraska Energy Observer: Some videos
Outkick: TCU Cheerleader Trolls All-Pac-12 Linebacker Brother For Being Home While She’s In Playoff, Steve Sarkisian Bizarrely Chewed Out Alamo Bowl Staffer For Touching His Chest Before Losing To Washington, Blaine Gabbert Helps Rescue People After Helicopter Crashes Into Tampa Bay Water, Allen Lazard Fined 10K For Hilariously Trolling Terrible Dolphins Defense, and NC State Announcer Suspended for Saying ‘Illegal Aliens’ During Broadcast
Power Line: How Extreme Can You Get?, Thoughts from the ammo line, and Worst Article of the Year: Dead Last at The Bulwark
Shark Tank: Florida’s Biggest Winners & Losers Of 2022
Shot In The Dark: Before The Truth Gets Its Pants On In The Morning, also, Best Intentions
This Ain’t Hell: New infantry toys 2023, The U.S. Navy conducts drone delivery to moving warships, Congresswoman retaliates against Wounded Warrior for getting COVID, Can’t Keep a Fat Man Down, and Valor Friday
Transterrestrial Musings: Mars, Technology, Homeland Security, and Vaccine Risks
Victory Girls: Hochul In Hot Water Over Covid Test Contract, also, The Top 5 Losers Of 2022
Volokh Conspiracy: MIT Faculty Senate Statement on Free Speech, also, En Banc Eleventh Circuit Rejects Legal Challenge to School District’s Bathroom Policy
Watts Up With That: W. Hudson Bay polar bear population decline stories are unethical and ignore critical caveats
Weasel Zippers: Biden Silent As Americans Grapple With Nationwide Shortage Of Kid’s Meds, Antibiotics, Biden Signs $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill After Having It Flown 1,500 Miles To His Vacation On St. Croix, and CDC Wants Teachers To Rate Students On Level Of “LGBTQ Inclusivity”
The Federalist: Biden’s Top 10 Blunders Of 2022 That Prove He’s In Cognitive Decline, Universal Health Care Ends With The Government Telling You To Kill Yourself, and Ginni Thomas Transcript From J6 Panel Reveals Witch Hunt Operation Without A Witch
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet: Friday December 30th

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Category: Linkagery

BREAKING: Suspect in Idaho Student Murders Was Criminology Grad Student UPDATE: Killer Is ‘Obsessive’ Vegan?

Posted on | December 30, 2022 | Comments Off on BREAKING: Suspect in Idaho Student Murders Was Criminology Grad Student UPDATE: Killer Is ‘Obsessive’ Vegan?

Details compiled by Heavy.com:

Bryan Kohberger is the suspect and criminology graduate student who is accused in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, who were killed in Moscow, Idaho. Kohberger, 28, was arrested on December 30, 2022, in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, court records show. His name was first confirmed by WPVI, a Philadelphia news station.
The accused man’s full name is Bryan Christopher Kohberger, according to Monroe County court records in Pennsylvania. . . .
Kohberger is facing extradition to Idaho on murder charges, the WPVI news station reports. Kohberger, an Albrightsville, Pennsylvania native, is a graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, not far from Moscow. According to the WSU website, Kohberger is pursuing his Ph.D in criminal justice and criminology. . . .
The deaths were previously ruled homicides, police said.
“These individuals have been identified as Ethan Chapin, 20, Conway, WA; Madison Mogen, 21, Coeur d’Alene, ID; Xana Kernodle, 20, Avondale, AZ ; and Kaylee GonCalves, 21, Rathdrum, ID,” Moscow, Idaho, police wrote in a statement.
The cause of death was homicide by stabbing. . . .
When Kohberger was arrested, he “asked if anyone else was arrested,” [reporter Brian] Entin wrote in a tweet, adding, “I’m told he had a ‘quiet, blank stare.’” . . .
According to the NBC Philadelphia story, which broke on December 30, 2022, Kohberger was “taken into custody near the Pocono Mountains” in connection with the November 13, 2022, Moscow homicides. . . .
Kohberger . . . obtained a master’s degree from DeSales University, according to a commencement document from DeSales, which is located in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. . . .
Kohberger is listed on Meritpages.com as being a graduate of “Northampton Community College, Class of 2018” and “From Albrightsville, PA.” That website says that he made the dean’s list at Northampton, where he was studying “Liberal Arts, Psychology,” according to Meritpages.com.

UPDATE: The fact that Kohberger was attending grad school at Washington State University, just eight miles from the University of Idaho campus where the four students were murder in November, is certainly intriguing. Some had also previously suggested that the Idaho murders were the work of a serial killer, tying them to unsolved stabbings in Silverton, Oregon, and Washougal, Washington.

UPDATE II: Well, the police in Idaho held a press conference, but because the suspect has not yet been arraigned, they couldn’t divulge anything about the case except (a) they haven’t found the murder weapon yet and (b) a white Hyundai Elantra, matching the description of a vehicle seen near the murder scene at the time of the crime, was seized at Kohberger’s Pennsylvania residence. So we don’t know how the cops broke the case, or what evidence they have against Kohberger, and won’t learn more until after the suspect is extradited to Idaho and gets arraigned, at which time we’ll see the affidavit.

UPDATE III: More background on the suspect:

A relative told The New York Post Kohberger is ‘OCD’ about his eating habits and forced his family to buy new pots that had never been used to cook meat. 
‘It was above and beyond being vegan. His aunt and uncle had to buy new pots and pans because he would not eat from anything that had ever had meat cooked in them. He seemed very OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder)’ the woman said. …
Law enforcement sources told CNN that his DNA was discovered at the scene of the crime – with officers managing to track down who owned the car seen in the area of the slayings.
However, Kohberger has no prior arrests, according to public records, so it is unclear how officials got hold of his DNA.
Authorities then discovered that he had left the area and traveled to Pennsylvania, where an FBI surveillance team had been tracking the 6ft tall man.
He was kept under surveillance, with the FBI watching him for four days, while investigators from Moscow Police and Idaho State Police worked to get an arrest warrant. . . .
Nick Mcloughlin, who was friends with Kohberger [in high school] told the Daily Beast he was ‘stunned’ to see his old acquaintance arrested.
Mcloughlin said Kohberger was ‘down to Earth,’ when he graduated junior year. But at the start of senior year, Kohberger returned ‘thinner than a rail,’ had turned ‘aggressive’ and taken up boxing.
Recalling how their friendship soured, Mcloughlin added: ‘He always wanted to fight somebody, he was bullying people. We started cutting him off from our friend group because he was 100 percent a different person.’
[Mcloughlin] said he has ‘no idea’ what prompted the sudden change. . . .

The murderer is a vegan? Round up all the vegans! Lock them away! No one is safe from the violence of these killer vegan maniacs!



 

Category: Crime, Idaho

In The Mailbox: 12.29.22

Posted on | December 30, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.29.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Mount Butler, on the southwest side of Tonopah. Bit foggy tonight.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What’s The Interest Rate On Borrowed Trouble?
EBL: Putincide, also, Pele, RIP
Twitchy: Catturd Says If They Can’t Explain Ray Epps “They Were In On It”, also, Fascism-Fighting Journo Says “Hateful Homophobic Hillbilly” DeSantis Is Investigating Venue Over Drag Show
Louder With Crowder: Meet ‘Screwdolph,’ the family-friendly drag queen who guides Santa’s slay with his nipples in front of kids, Elon Musk roasts Anthony ‘the Science’ Fauci while hinting corporate media might be next target of ‘Twitter Files’, and ‘Jared, you’re a pervert’
Vox Popoli: The Soft Will Die, The Losers Lauding the Lame, Predictions From the Tree of Woe, and The Greatest is Gone

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Greasy Pole #24 – The Killer Koala episode
American Conservative: Economics for the Nation, also, BlackRock Plots to Buy Ukraine
American Greatness: AZ Republican Abe Hamadeh Files Motion for Stay to Delay Inauguration For Office of Attorney General Until All Issues Are Resolved, also, CDC Pressures Teachers to Increase ‘LGBTQ Inclusivity’ in Classroom Instruction
American Power: In Memphis Public Schools, Literacy Taught in Every Class
American Thinker: The Big Question about Ukraine, Black Lives Matter Lauded Fidel Castro, Domestic Terrorists, and The Real Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Labor Force Participation News
Babalu Blog: NBC News outraged immigrants fleeing socialist dictatorships are getting asylum preference, Castro dictatorship’s false narrative fails to explain the mass exodus of Cubans, and Shocking! ‘Dream holiday’ in totalitarian poverty-ridden hellhole of Cuba is ruined for some Canadians
BattleSwarm: Can You Run .223 And 5.56 NATO Interchangeably?
Behind The Black: Red China’s Long March 3B rocket launches “experimental satellite”, Royal Astronomical Society ends blacklisting of James Webb, A hint at Mars’ past climate cycles, and Pushback: Catholics sue Michigan for imposing queers and the queer agenda in religious schools
Cafe Hayek: Ronald Coase (1910-2013), also, Innovism’s Packaging
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Chicago Boyz: House
Da Tech Guy: Under the Fedora, Don’t be a weak follower like John Blumenthal, and The latest Twitter Files contains evidence of High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Don Surber: FBI investigates George Santos — but not Hunter Bribened, also, No, judge, the First Amendment protects hate speech
Gates Of Vienna: The ECHR Rules Against Eric Zemmour, How Deadly is the Vax?, and It Would Have Been So Much Worse If I Hadn’t Been Vaxed
The Geller Report: DEFEATED: January 6 Panel WITHDRAWS Trump Subpoena, also, In 2019, 40 Democrats Called Ukraine’s Nazi Azov Battalion a Terrorist Org. Now They Send It Billions
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Don’t Know Much Biology, Supernova Remnant LMC N49, and The Saga Continues
Hollywood In Toto: The Whale Punishes Us from Start to Finish, also, Why Did You Stop Going to the Movies?
The Lid: Will China Reinfect The World? Will Biden React Correctly This Time?
Legal Insurrection:  U. New Hampshire’s Student Bar Association Won’t Recognize ‘Religious Freedom Club’, Iran Court Sentences Woman to 10 Years For Removing Hijab in Protest, Declares it “Prostitution”, Time Interviews Author Who Explores the ‘White Supremacist Origins of Exercise’, Netanyahu Returns as Prime Minister While Media Throws Hissy Fit Over Israel’s “Most Right-Wing” Government, and End of Year Thanks
Nebraska Energy Observer: Reflections
Outkick: Georgia OC Shares Blunt Comments On How Football Isn’t Family, LeBron James Appears To Hint The End Might Be Near, Kliff Kingsbury Says Cardinals Had ‘No Idea’ JJ Watt Was Retiring, Josh Dobbs Gets The Nod For Titans In Completely Meaningless NFL Game, and Hooters Girl Sloan Miavitz: Trust Me, Millennials Are ‘Still Into Boobs’
Power Line: Thought for the Day: Churchill on “Expert” Rule, Why No One Trusts the CDC, and A Twitter Files footnote (4)
Shark Tank: Findings Imminent In Drag Queen Show Investigation, Possible Criminal Recommendations On Table
Shot In The Dark: Root Causes, The Minnesota Way, and They Fought The Law & The Law Won
STUMP: Cold Kills: Some Comparisons of Heat and Cold Deaths 1999-2020
This Ain’t Hell: Manipulated, part II, Congressman-elect lies about..well everything, and Retired veteran shot at Shaw Air Force Base
Transterrestrial Musings: Light Posting, Frank Tipler, The New Normaling Of Blackouts, and Going To The Movies
Victory Girls: Antiquated IT System Is Key Reason For Southwest Airlines Implosion
Volokh Conspiracy: New York’s Ultra-Broad Definition of “Blight” Continues to Enable Eminent Domain Abuse
Watts Up With That: UK weather extremes to become new normal, says National Trust, also, BBC’s Fake Worst Drought in China Claim
Weasel Zippers: DHS Comedy Hour: “The Border Is Not Open, We Will Continue To Fully Enforce Our Immigration Laws”, also, Liberal NYC Mayor Defends Carribean Vacation During Severe Winter Storm
The Federalist: Courts Won’t Stop The Feds From Deputizing Big Tech—The People Must, Only Spiritual Brotherhood Can Save Men In The Job Crisis, and The Federalist Staff’s 2022 Winners And Losers Of The Year
Mark Steyn: New Year and a New Normal, also, Don’t Let Them Eat Cake

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Category: Linkagery

Why Have Democrat-Controlled Schools Become Such Cesspits of Racism?

Posted on | December 29, 2022 | Comments Off on Why Have Democrat-Controlled Schools Become Such Cesspits of Racism?

The headline phraseology is borrowed from Glenn Reynolds who, in a different but related context, calls attention to the concurring opinion of a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:

“I write separately to express my views on the topic of hate speech, disturbingly present in both the facts of the case before the panel and regrettably, a reemerging threat to society throughout the nation today. . . . The continued prevalence of hate speech and crimes against American citizens and residents on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability is evidence of the enduring threat of hate crimes to the fabric of American democratic society and to the safety and security of individuals.”

What bothers me most here is that casual conflation of (a) “hate speech” with (b) “hate crimes,” suggesting that suppression of (a) will prevent (b), a suggestion offered without evidence. And it is my belief that, not only is this false, but that the opposite is true, i.e., that there is likely to be more violence motivated by “hate” if people are forbidden to express whatever resentments and grievances might inspire such violence.

Consider the fact that the case before the court involved two students — Cedric Epple and Kevin Chen — who were expelled from Albany High School in Alameda County, California. This is on the east side of San Francisco Bay, barely three miles from the Berkeley campus of the University of California, which is to say that this school is nearly at the Ground Zero of Wokeness. Less than 5% of the voters in the town are registered Republicans. There is perhaps no place in America where “hate speech” is more strongly condemned, and yet here’s what was going on among these teenagers:

In November 2016, at the suggestion of a friend, [plaintiff] Epple created a private Instagram account to share comments “privately with my small group of friends.” . . .
Chen “followed” the account using the Instagram username “kkkevinkkkkk.” Chen likewise understood that Epple’s second Instagram account was to “be a private forum (by invite only), exclusive to [their] friends, and a place where [they] could share sarcasm, jokes, funny images, and other banter privately.” Not all of the persons who eventually followed the account knew who the owner of the account was.
Between November 2016 and March 2017, Epple used the account to make a number of cruelly insulting posts about various AHS students. These ranged from immature posts making fun of a student’s braces, glasses, or weight to much more disturbing posts that targeted vicious invective with racist and violent themes against specific Black classmates. For example, in early February 2017, Epple uploaded a photograph in which a Black member of the AHS girls’ basketball team was standing next to the team coach, who was also Black, and Epple drew nooses around both their necks and added the caption “twinning is winning.” In another post, he combined (1) a screen shot of a particular Black student’s Instagram post in which she stated “I wanna go back to the old way” with (2) the statement “Do you really tho?”, accompanied by a historical drawing that appears to depict a slave master paddling a naked Black man who is strung up by rope around his hands. On February 11, 2017, he posted a screenshot of texts in which he and a Black classmate were arguing, and he added the caption “Holy shit I’m on the edge of bringing my rope to school on Monday.” Other posts, although not referencing specific students, contained images either depicting, or making light of, Ku Klux Klan violence against Black people. One post included what appears to be a historical photograph of a lynched man still hanging from a tree; another depicts a Klan member in a white hood; and a third combines the caption “Ku klux starter pack” with pictures of a noose, a white hood, a burning torch, and a Black doll.
Epple also created several posts that, while omitting references to violence, still aimed highly offensive racist insults at identifiable Black classmates. In one, he uploaded an image of a Black student sitting in class that was captioned with the statement “The gorilla exhibit is nice today.” . . .

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The issue before the court was whether the school could expel students based on private communications that happened off-campus, a relatively narrow question about the limits of public school disciplinary policy. What is of interest to me, however, is what the behavior of these students says about the apparent presumption of the Circuit Court judge who thinks that censoring “hate speech” is the best way to deal with what he calls “a reemerging threat to society.” As if California public schools weren’t already in the iron grip of wokeness?

Isn’t it likely that these teenagers were pursuing the thrill of defying authority — the frisson of rebellion — by expressing beliefs and attitudes they knew were forbidden? Maybe these kids aren’t actually any more racist than their classmates, but instead are just doing what adolescents have always done, rebelling against the prevailing social norms which, in Alameda County, are those of uber-woke liberalism.

While it is certainly not my intention to defend such behavior — crude and deliberately offensive “jokes” — or even to argue against expelling these students, it seems to me that the facts of the case contradict the Ninth Circuit judge’s argument in favor of more aggressive suppression of “hate speech.” It’s not as if Epple and Chen were doing this in an environment of tolerance toward expressions of racism — quite the opposite. So, the judge seems to be arguing, the answer to acts of rebellion against repression is . . . more repression?

Count me as skeptical — or call me a RAAAAACIST! for doubting that more stringent political correctness will solve anything.



 

Category: California, Constitution, Education
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