The Other McCain

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

Never Doubt God Answers Prayer

Posted on | July 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Never Doubt God Answers Prayer

You wouldn’t believe what can happen sometimes in a blogger’s life, and I am not at liberty to tell you what happened this afternoon, and maybe you wouldn’t think it was miraculous, but of this I am certain: It was no accident. God sent me where I needed to go, to do what needed to be done, and how could such a thing have happened randomly?

During our conversation, I said: “Think about Joseph — sold into slavery by his own brothers.” And then recounted everything that happened up until Joseph confronted his brothers and said to them, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and when you’re enduring tribulation, just remember that there must be some reason behind all this, some lesson to be learned from your suffering. God is testing you, preparing you for a future purpose.

The other person thanked me for my generosity and I was like, what? No, my motives were entirely selfish. As I say I’m not at liberty to discuss the details, but the duty of gratitude is all mine. Selah.




 

Category: Fear. Loathing.

Apocalypse in South Africa

Posted on | July 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Apocalypse in South Africa

How bad is the violence in South Africa? It’s even worse than Chicago:

Crowds looted shops and offices in South Africa on Wednesday, defying government calls to end a week of violence that has killed more than 70 people and wrecked hundreds of businesses.
The unrest, the worst in South Africa for years, also disrupted hospitals struggling to cope with a third wave of COVID-19 and forced the closure of a refinery.
Protests triggered by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma for failing to appear at a corruption inquiry last week have widened into looting and an outpouring of general anger over the hardship and inequality that persist 27 years after the end of apartheid.
Shopping malls and warehouses have been ransacked or set ablaze in several cities, mostly in Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal province, and the financial and economic center Johannesburg and surrounding Gauteng province.
Overnight it spread to two other provinces — Mpumalanga, just east of Gauteng, and Northern Cape, police said.
A Reuters photographer saw several shops being looted in the town of Hammersdale, Kwazulu-Natal, on Wednesday. Local TV stations meanwhile showed more looting of shops in South Africa’s largest township Soweto, and in the Indian Ocean port city of Durban.
Soldiers have been sent onto the streets to help outnumbered police contain the unrest and order was being restored in some places on Wednesday, such as the northern Johannesburg township of Alexandra, local TV reported.

Less than 10% of South Africa’s remaining population is white — 4.6 million in a nation of 52 million. Nearly two-thirds of the white population lives in two provinces — Guateng (Johannesburg and Praetoria), with 1.9 million (41% of the white total) and Western Cape (Cape Town) with about 900,000 (20% of the white total). In the KwaZulu-Natal province (Durban, on the east coast near the Indian Ocean) where the violence broke out, only 5% of the population is white.

Now, look at this Monday video from a French-language news channel:

The caption translates, “The situation is becoming increasingly tense in the country. In this video we see heavily armed men shooting at protesters. It is not known whether these gunmen are South African police.” Are the gunmen vigilantes? I don’t think so.

Notice they all seem fit and muscular, and they show a certain level of discipline. This suggests to me that they are professional security. What were they doing here? Trying to clear the highway, it looks like to me. But the appearance of such forces in the midst of this chaos is a warning of what lies ahead in South Africa, and perhaps here in the United States. That was a point raised last night by Tucker Carlson:

 

It is not a defense of apartheid, and certainly not an argument for a return to apartheid, to say that the current “hardship and inequality” causing violence in South Africa is a predictable consequence of the post-apartheid era. The underlying problem is not inequality, per se, but rather the unrealistic belief that politics can eradicate inequality. Poverty does not automatically cause of political unrest; rather, what causes unrest is the belief — promoted by left-wing activists — that political action can end poverty, and that a lack of political power is the only reason people are poor. Let me quote Federalist No. 10:

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties. . . .
But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

James Madison here describes the origins of political division as a matter of people freely pursuing their own interests. The basic job of government is the protection of property rights, and notice that Madison assumes that “different and unequal faculties” will result in people having “different degrees and kinds of property.” No matter what the government may do, this cannot be avoided in a free society. The problem we see in South Africa is that too many people there (as here) were led to believe otherwise and, nearly three decades after the end of apartheid, the failure of the false promise of “equality” produces an irrational rage among those who feel they have been cheated out of something.

“And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”
— Luke 12:15

“Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”
— I Timothy 6:5-8

What is causing violence is an anti-Christian belief system — “doctrines of devils,” as the Apostle Paul says — encouraging covetousness, a sentiment that will always produce rage and violence.




 

Category: South Africa

In The Mailbox: 07.13.21

Posted on | July 14, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.13.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Extremism Scottish Style, 1297 (colorized)

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Artists Didn’t Realize That Math Was Important, Or Something
EBL: Don’t Tread On Me
Twitchy: CNN’s Alisyn Camerota Has The Sadz, also, DHS’ Mayorkas Says Cuban Refugees Coming By Boat Will Be Denied Entry
Louder With Crowder: Trans Couple Tries To Breastfeed Baby, Biology Gets In The Way
Vox Popoli: Police It Or Lose It, also, I Blame The Racism

 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Welcome To The Machine
American Conservative: The Danger Of Wokeness In Uniform
American Greatness: Gov. Abbott – Fleeing Democrats Will Be Arrested On Their Return To Austin, also, Biden Won’t Help The Cuban People
American Power: CBP Records Highest Number Of Illegal Alien Deaths In 20 Years
American Thinker: So Much Evidence That January 6 Was A Calculated Setup
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Totally Not A Real Artist News
Babalu Blog: Cuban Protests Continue Despite Regime’s Violent Repression, also, Putin Warns World Not To Interfere
BattleSwarm: The ESG Threat, also, The Establishment Media Complex Is Utter Garbage
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, also, Virgin Galactic Shares Crash After Branson Flight
Cafe Hayek: “Externality” Is Not “Open Sesame”
CDR Salamander: The Hard Truth In An Inactivation Schedule
Da Tech Guy: Five Fast One-Liners On Cuba, also, Let’s Be Blunt – We All Know
Don Surber: They Want Us To Quit. We Won’t. also, Bidenflation So Bad, Even Wolf Blitzer Noticed
First Street Journal: More Journolism From The Philadelphia Inquirer, also, Free The Capitol Kerfufflers!
The Geller Report: Texas House Votes 76-4 To Send Sergeant At Arms To Detain Or Arrest Fleeing Members, also, Democrats Plan To “Fact Check” Private Text Messages
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Math Is Hard
Hollywood In Toto: Blue Velvet At 35, also, NPR Blames The Right For Cancel Culture
The Lid: Democrats Are Fighting Against One Man, One Vote
Legal Insurrection: Chicago Gangs Outnumber Cops, Who Are Retiring In Record Numbers, also, Why Are The Democratic Socialists Silent On The Cuban Protests?
Nebraska Energy Observer: A Judge For The Ages, & Welcome To America
Outkick: “This Guy Is A Bag Of Shit”, also, Kendrick Perkins Calls Out Gregg Popovich
Power Line: Everything Old Is New Again, also, The Thompson Bodycam
Shark Tank: Did Biden Just Concede Six Million Votes To Trump?
Shot In The Dark: Speaking Of Cuba, also, Judgment Day
The Political Hat: The Ultimate In Queer Pride – The Hyena Of The Gestapo
This Ain’t Hell: Anthony Travis Nielsen – Phony Green Beret, also, White House Not Ruling Out Haiti Request For U.S. Troops
Transterrestrial Musings: Cuba
Victory Girls: Damaging Report Released On Navy (Un)Readiness
Volokh Conspiracy: Fourth Circuit Panel Affirms Teenagers’ 2A Rights
Weasel Zippers: Without Trump, The Atlantic May Go Out Of Business, also, Virginia School PTA Purging Asian Parents Over Lack of Diversity
The Federalist: Texas Dems Throwing Tantrum Over Special Session Tout Their “Sacrifice” As They Flee In Private Jet, also, Why Congress Should Demand An Audit Of Biden’s Taxes
Mark Steyn: Mack The Knife, also, Blizzard Of Lies Hits Legoland

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— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Linkagery

Oh, Dear God: Barrett Brown Again!

Posted on | July 13, 2021 | Comments Off on Oh, Dear God: Barrett Brown Again!

2012: Barrett Brown calmly explains why he’s going to ‘destroy’ an FBI agent

Longtime readers will remember Barrett Brown, the former “Anonymous” spokesman who went to federal prison after a September 2012 incident in which he threatened an FBI agent’s family in a bizarre 13-minute video rant on YouTube. That episode went down while I was trying to cover the 2012 presidential election, but Barrett had been threatening me (and also Patterico) in connection with some of the weirdness swirling around Neal Rauhauser, which is a very long story.

My habit, from decades in the news business, is to operate in “file it and forget it” mode. Once I’m through covering a story, I forget about it and move on, and this would certainly apply to Barrett Brown, if he could just go somewhere and stop bothering people. Prison would be best, but the feds had to turn him loose (“Notoriously Crazy Felon Barrett Brown Has Been Released From Federal Prison,” Nov. 29, 2016) and a couple years ago, he showed up in the comments here with a bunch of paranoid accusations (“Is Barrett Brown Back on the Junk?” July 1, 2019). Did I mention he’s a heroin addict? Because whether or not he is back to his old junkie habits, the symptoms of organic brain damage caused by Barrett’s years of substance abuse are readily apparent.

Can you say “impaired judgment,” boys and girls?

The American journalist Barrett Brown has been arrested and detained in the UK for allegedly overstaying his visa and for alleged public order and incitement offences relating to his role in holding a protest banner which said: “Kill Cops.”
Police arrested Brown on Monday at a canal boat moored in east London, where he had been living for several months with a British woman. He was interviewed and released on bail the following day, but immediately detained by immigration authorities.
Brown told the Guardian he intended to claim asylum in the UK. . . .
Brown said he had been in Britain since November. His profile in London grew last month when he was photographed without a mask at a protest against a new crime bill. . . .

Barrett Brown in London, April 3, 2021

Hey, if you’re a convicted felon in a foreign country on an expired visa, maybe holding up a “KILL COPS” banner is not such a good idea.

Oh, but Barrett is an “investigative journalist,” see?

Speaking to the Guardian [May 21] from Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick airport, 28 miles south of London, Brown said two of the alleged offenses for which he was arrested concerned the banner.
He said that . . . police turned up at Bow Locks, on the River Lea in a rundown eastern district of the city, after his fiancée left for a coronavirus vaccine appointment.
Brown said he intended to claim asylum in the UK on the basis that he had been persecuted in the US for his journalism.
“The asylum case is something I’ve been thinking of doing for a couple of months,” he said, “because I’m just not confident in the US’s ability to properly handle me, any more than they did last time.”

What “journalism” has Barrett done lately that anyone would bother to “persecute” him for? Heroin addicts are not noted for their productivity, and if Barrett’s byline has appeared anywhere the past two years, I must have missed it, but it’s not like he’s been exposing some dark government secrets that would result in him being “persecuted.”

As recently as a year ago, he spent a month in rehab and — here’s that impaired judgment symptom of his brain damage again — then apparently decided to travel via Antigua to London in order to crash on a houseboat in a river on the bad side of town with a “fiancee” (likely some credulous bimbo impressed by the famous America “investigative journalist”) then overstayed his visa, a crime he might have gotten away with, had it not been for his genius idea to show up at a public protest holding a “KILL COPS” sign. Now he wants to play persecuted martyr by forcing the British government to grant him asylum, and I can only hope he succeeds. Farewell and adieu, Barrett! Go somewhere — anywhere will do — load up on narcotics and nod off like the hopeless junkie you are, and stop bothering the rest of us with your self-aggrandizing drama.

Someday he’ll die of an OD, and nobody will bother to notice.




 

Category: Barrett Brown

What’s Happening in Houston?

Posted on | July 13, 2021 | Comments Off on What’s Happening in Houston?

Say hello to Danny Garcia Cazares. Thankfully, you can also say good-bye to him, because he’s dead now, and will no long terrorize Texas, which is what he did every day of his worthless criminal life:

Houston police said in a statement that Cazares had a history of mental illness and was arrested three times in the last year.
All three times, he was released from jail on bond.

One of the charges? Felon in possession of a firearm.

There is probably no other crime that is more predictive of murder. If there is one thing that everybody ought to be able to agree on, when it comes to crime, it’s that felons caught with guns need to be put behind bars for a long time. They are a danger to everyone in the community. And so, after Cazares — whose criminal record dates back to when he was 18, and whose sister said he had schizophrenia — is released from custody, guess what? He got a gun and shot two people:

The victim and shooter in Thursday’s downtown Houston aquarium shooting have been identified by authorities.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences identified the victim as 28-year-old Gabriel Alexander Moriones Vargas. The shooter was identified as Danny Cazares, 39.
A 24-year-old woman, who was Vargas’ wife, was injured in the shooting and taken to the hospital, police said.
The shooting occurred around 8:10 p.m. at 410 Bagby Street in the bar area on the second floor of the aquarium.
Police said video evidence showed Cazares approach Vargas and his wife in the restaurant, produce a gun and then fire multiple shots at them, before turning the gun on himself.
Authorities said the preliminary investigation, including a statement from Vargas’ wife stated that the victims did not know Cazares.
The motive in the shooting remains unknown.

Motive? Crazy people don’t need “motives”! And this guy was crazy:

According to Click2Houston, the suspect once underwent a mental health evaluation after being found “wandering around the Cy-Fair Fire Departments’ bunkhouse.”
The gun charge resulted from his niece calling police to report he was “seated at the bar with a loaded pistol in his pocket,” at a different Houston restaurant. He was also accused of “trashing a hotel room,” the television station reported.
His family told Eyewitness News that Cazares was “a sweet man” who had schizophrenia and had required hospitalization for it.

Aw, his family said he was “a sweet man.” Right, and Hitler liked puppies.

When are journalists going to stop quoting the families of heinous criminals this way? Guy shoots two people in cold blood, and we’re supposed to pity him because his family says he’s “sweet”? For all we know the entire Cazares family is a menace to society. But the real point here is, why did they let this guy out of jail on bond three times?

What the hell is going on down there in the Houston courts?

See, I can understand liberal judges giving criminals a slap on the wrist in places like San Francisco or Chicago, but Houston, Texas? Even if it’s a Democratic bastion — Joe Biden got 56% pf the vote in Harris County — it is still Texas, by God. Even a Democrat-controlled city in Texas ought to be immune to left-wing “social justice” nonsense.

For the past few months, I’ve been seeing more and more stories about cases like this in Houston, and wondering what was going on. And apparently, other people have taken notice of this problem:

These numbers are simply staggering:

In 2020, 18,796 defendants were charged with new felonies and misdemeanors while out on bond, a number that has tripled since 2015, county data shows. Approximately 89,600 individuals were charged with felonies and misdemeanors in Harris County that year. . . .
The Houston Chronicle reviewed murder cases in Harris County from 2013 to 2020 and identified 231 deaths linked to a defendant previously charged with crimes and out on bond. The review found that 79 individuals were free on multiple bonds, misdemeanor or felony, before the murder charge and of those, 38 defendants were out on multiple felony bonds. . . .
Violent crime in Houston, and elsewhere, started rising last year. It plays out in almost daily incidents that add up to a homicide rate that is one of the highest in the last three decades. Just this week, Xavier Davis, of Houston, was charged in a triple killing; he was out on bond on an unrelated family violence charge.

You can read the whole thing. That there have been more than 200 murders in eight years committed in Houston by criminals out on bond is a disgrace to Texas, and I hope that Texans will take notice.




 

Category: Crime, Texas

64 Shots: Londre ‘KTS Dre’ Sylvester Gunned Down Outside Chicago Jail

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on 64 Shots: Londre ‘KTS Dre’ Sylvester Gunned Down Outside Chicago Jail

Getting murdered is a family tradition for some people in Chicago, and the death this week of Londre Sylvester, 31, was probably predictable. In June 2015, his younger brother, Devon “Kutthroat Von” Davis, was killed in a drive-by shooting. “Kutthroat Von” was only 21 at the time, and was a rapper best known for his song “Kill to Survive,” the lyrics of which are a paean to the violence of street gang life:

Bitch, I’m finna purge
When the Glocks load up
No lackin’, lil’ bitch look up
I was raised in the field with them demons, so what?
It’s kill to survive in the field, turn up …

Out lurking late night like a bat
That’s when a nigga aim be the best
Show no mercy, got it tatted on my chest
Kutthroat gon’ take a nigga soul
Damn Kutthroat heart so froze
Kutthroat don’t love no hoe
‘Cause a bitch ain’t shit, on Moe

“Show no mercy, got it tatted on my chest” — boasting of cruelty and violence, killing people with Glocks? Yeah, that’s popular entertainment for a certain segment of Chicago’s population for whom crime is a way of life and homicide is a hobby. The video for “Kill to Survive” shows the performer waving a laser-sighted pistol and has 4.3 million views on YouTube. So there is no surprise in the fact that “Kutthroat,” with his “heart so froze,” got gunned down by rival gangsters.

Devon “Kutthroat” Davis with his pistol

Oh, did I forget to mention that “Kill to Survive” (KTS) is actually the name of a criminal alliance of Chicago gangs (the 075 Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples from Lakeside and PocketTown)? The reference to “Moe” in Kutthroat Von’s lyrics is to “Moe Town,” a Southside neighborhood also known as the Motor Row District near I-55. The KTS “set” (as neighborhood crews are known in Chicago) is reportedly “at war with numerous sets such as NLMB, Sirconn City, GloryBoyz 3hunna.” It is alleged that Kutthroat Von himself perpetrated at least two murders, including the 2014 drive-by shooting of Keith “Keke” Bonds.

Hey, did I forget to mention that no one was ever charged with the 2015 murder of Kutthroat? Because in some years, 70% or more of the homicides in Chicago are never solved, there are literally hundreds of murderers walking the streets, if they haven’t themselves been killed in the endless violence, or sent to prison on other charges. So, the dead Kutthroat’s brother Londre Sylvester used the gang slogan “KTS” as a stage name for his own career as a rapper, and actually had “Kill to Survive” tattooed on his neck. Class act, these guys.

Murder is a family tradition, and in 2016, Vincent Davis Sr., 43, the father of Devon and Londre, was gunned down in Chicago. Five months later, prosecutors charged Devontay Murray, 19, who was already in custody on an unrelated robbery charge, with that murder.

Devontay Murray, accused of killing Vincent Davis Sr.

If you do the math, you realize Vincent Davis Sr. was only 17 when his oldest son Londre was born, one of eight children the senior Davis sired before his death at age 43. And judging from the short and violent lives of his sons, murder is the family business. Londre recently spent time in the Cook County Jail on a gun charge:

Court records indicate Sylvester’s fiancee had put up $5,000 on Friday to secure his release on charges of violating a previous bond in a 2020 gun case. . . .
Court records indicate Sylvester had been jailed in June for violating conditions of his bond in the 2020 gun case but had been living under house arrest since last December with a GPS monitoring device.
A judge had granted him four hours each Thursday to leave the house to run errands, but sheriff’s officials claimed he’d violated those conditions by visiting “various locations in Chicago and Wisconsin” on June 11.
Sylvester’s public defender called for a bond hearing, claiming Sylvester was arrested June 11 “after running errands during the allotted time on the allotted day of the week.” Judge Lawrence Flood set bond at $50,000, requiring a deposit of $5,000.
The gun case stemmed from an April 2020 arrest when someone reported Sylvester carrying a gun in his car in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Officers spotted Sylvester behind the wheel of a white Jaguar sedan, parked beside a pump at a gas station in the 8200 block of South Halsted Street, according to a police report.
When they approached the car, officers saw that Sylvester, who was on parole for a 2015 gun conviction, had a 9 mm Glock pistol in his lap.
One of the officers tried to grab the gun from Sylvester as Sylvester put the car in gear, the report states. Two officers struggled with Sylvester and wrestled him out of the car.

See, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is a crime, but when murder is the family business, gun ownership is a prerequisite, so it was impossible for Londre “KTS Dre” Sylvester to pursue his criminal occupation without a gun, and that’s why he was in jail. Until his fiancee bailed him out, and he met his predictable fate:

A man who was apparently ambushed after being released from the Cook County Jail in Chicago suffered as many as 64 bullet wounds to his head and other parts of his body, police said.
The shooting Saturday night killed 31-year-old Londre Sylvester, who is also reportedly known as a rapper in Chicago, a police report said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Sylvester had just been released after being fitted for electronic monitoring and was walking to a waiting vehicle when several suspects “exited two separate vehicles and all began to shoot in Sylvester’s direction, striking him numerous times,” the police report said. . . .
Following Saturday night’s shooting, the suspects reentered their vehicles and fled the scene, police said.
A 60-year-old woman who was with Sylvester was shot in one of her knees and was hospitalized in good condition, police said. A second woman, who is in her 30s, suffered a graze wound to her mouth, police said.

Sixty-four bullet wounds.

The suspects are still at large — a frightening thought, but then you remember that as many as 70% of murders in Chicago go unsolved, so “suspects at large” describes hundreds of people in Chicago.

Out lurking late night like a bat
That’s when a nigga aim be the best
Show no mercy, got it tatted on my chest

My advice? Stay away from Chicago.




 

Category: Chicago, Crime

In The Mailbox: 07.12.21

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.12.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: How The Most Powerful Branch Of Government Could Control U.S. Public Policy
357 Magnum: That Is Either Ironic Or Idiotic. Or Both.
EBL: Trump At CPAC 2021
Twitchy: CNN’s Havana Bureau Chief Tweets From Cuba That It’s Impossible To Know The Real Picture There Since The Internet Is Down
Louder With Crowder: Five Things To Know About The Anticommunist Uprising In Cuba
Vox Popoli: The “Conservative” Defense Of Pedophilia, also, Schizophrenia At Google

 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: False Compassion
American Conservative: Every Left-Wing Attempt To Prosecute Trump Has Failed
American Greatness: Trump Winds & Biden Whirlwinds, also, Biden Official Suggests Cuban Protests Are About Rising COVID Cases
American Power: Critical Race Theory Is Driving Educators Out
American Thinker: COVID Began Far Earlier Than We Were Told
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: When Oppressed People Have Nothing Left To Lose But Their Chains, also, Cuban Police Shoot Protesters While Pro-Regime Mobs trucked In To Incite Violence
BattleSwarm: Does Cuba Have A Little Revolution Brewing?
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Virgin Galactic Finally Launches Richard Branson Into Orbit
Cafe Hayek: Which Decisions “Affect Nobody But The Individuals Who Perform Them”?
CDR Salamander: Midrats Post-July 4th Melee
Da Tech Guy: Make Woke Toyota Broke Toyota, also, The Glories of The Market
Don Surber: Black Parents Embrace Homeschooling, also, Trump Didn’t Make The Flag Divisive. You Did.
First Street Journal: It’s Being Set Up Again! also, Hold Them Accountable!
The Geller Report: PM Boris Johnson – “Obama Is Unacceptable”, also, DHS Says Trump Reinstatement Talk Is Dangerous
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Barnard 68
Hollywood In Toto: Chelsea Handler Says White Men Are The Only Targets For Comedy Left, also, How Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame Broke Some (But Not All) Of The Rules
The Lid: Epic Twitter Thread Gives Perfect Primer On Why MAGA Folks Doubt 2020 Election Results
Legal Insurrection: CNN’s Prime Time Lineup Fails to Crack 1 Million Viewers, also, Why Is Kamala The Last Democrat Arguing Against Voter ID?
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, also, Afghanistan – The Last Act
Outkick: American Flags Fly High In Opposition To Cuba’s Communist Regime, also, “Leave Family Out Of It”
Power Line: Will Cuba Finally Be Free? also, The Metaphysics Of Bacon
Shark Tank: DeSantis Infrastructure Plan Will Help Rural Communities
Shot In The Dark: Generation Gaslit, also, Over The Target
The Political Hat: All The Sinners Are Saints In NY, also, The Woke-Industrial Complex
This Ain’t Hell: An Inspiring Tale Of Five ANZAC Soldiers Who Escaped The Nazis, also, Horace Jackson – Phony Green Beret
Transterrestrial Musings: “The Worst Speech of Biden’s Presidency”, also, Branson’s Flight
Victory Girls: Tracy Stone-Manning Has An Ecoterrorism Problem, also, Oakland Families Rally With Police Against Antifa Thugs
Volokh Conspiracy: “We’re Getting Some Unexpected Rulings Because The Justices Don’t Want To Be Packed”
Weasel Zippers: Poll Says 58% Agree Media Is The Enemy Of The People, also, Internet Goes Down In Cuba As Regime Tries To Hang On 
The Federalist: Ignoring Georgia Illegal Voting Proves Democrats Don’t Care About Voter Integrity At All, also, Kamala Harris – It’s Almost Impossible For Rural Americans To Make A Photocopy
Mark Steyn: The American Press Comes Out for Media Surveillance, also, Spellbound – I Married A Witch

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Category: Linkagery

England Soccer: ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’?

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on England Soccer: ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’?

This is a subject that I am loath to raise because (a) I don’t know a lot about contemporary England, (b) I don’t understand soccer strategy, and (c) this involves accusations of RAAAAACISM!

England lost the European championship final to Italy in an overtime “shootout,” a sort of sudden-death situation where the teams, having finished in a tie (it was 1-1 between England and Italy after two 15-minute overtime periods) take turns with penalty kicks. As soon as it finished, England’s fans lit up in outrage at the defeat, with some claiming that the coach, Gareth Southgate, had blown it by choosing black players to take three of the team’s first five penalty kicks. All three of the black players — Marcus Rashford, Jaden Sancho and Bukayo Saka — missed, and the online abuse directed at these players caused a big controversy.

Here was what was suggested by some England fans: This happened because their coach wanted to make some kind of political “statement” by having one of the team’s black players kick the decisive goal. That’s why, according to these fans, the penalty-kick lineup went with two white players first, then the three black players, because it’s the player who kicks the last goal who makes the headlines and, had it gone as the coach hoped, this would create an “anti-racist” media narrative in England (where claims by Meghan Markle that she’s a victim of royal family racism have dominated the news for months now).

As I say, I can’t judge the likelihood of this scenario, but if it were actually true — if Gareth Southgate really did engage in a sort of athletic tokenism for political reasons — it would be insane. England is as crazy about soccer as Alabama is about football, and never in a million years would Nick Saban allow racial symbolism to affect his decision-making. Saban cares about exactly one thing — winning — and whether players are black or white (or Hawaiian, as with Tua Tagovailoa) is absolutely irrelevant in that calculus. So the suggestion that England’s coach would have sacrificed a chance to win the European championship in order to promote an anti-racist media narrative is so mind-boggling to me that I’d dismiss it as a conspiracy theory but . . . but . . .

But the choices Gareth Southgate made do seem rather suspicious. He claims that he picked the best available PK “takers,” and certainly no one could fault him for the first two choices — Harry Kane, 27, and Harry Maguire, 28 — both of whom scored on their kicks. But next up was Marcus Rashford, 23, who was nursing a shoulder injury and hadn’t played much in the game. Rashford managed to fake out Italy’s goalie, but his kick struck the post and bounced away. OK, it was still 2-2 in the shootout at that point, but then Italy scored on their next try, and next up for England was Jadon Sancho, 21, who only started two games during the tournament and, like Rashford, had only been brought into the final against Italy in overtime. Sancho’s kick was stopped by the Italian goalie. Next for England was 19-year-old Bukayo Saka. He had started four of England’s five games in the championship tournament, but this was the first penalty kick of Saka’s adult career!

Again, the coach swears his choices were entirely based on the ability of the players, but how could it be that the final kick was allotted to a mere teenager who had never taken a PK in a professional game?

Of course, the England fans raising questions about this can be dismissed as promoting a racist conspiracy theory, but the circumstances are such that you can’t say there’s no reason for their suspicions. And if they’re right — if Gareth Southgate was trying to arrange matters so that a black player could become a national hero — then he bears the responsibility for the backlash when that plan didn’t work out. If that was the plan.

But my knowledge of “metric football” is not sufficient to enable to me to evaluate this situation, and I only mention it because the sports media are denouncing English soccer fans as RAAAAACIST! Which, maybe they are. But sometimes, even racist soccer fans may have a point.




 

Category: Great Britain, Racism, Sports
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