Dealing the race card…

…from the bottom of the deck?

Black Lives Matter chapter to protest in support of Texas tourists accused of assaulting NYC hostess

In case you didn’t hear, this case involves 3 women from Texas who allegedly attacked a hostess at Carmine’s restaurant in NYC when the hostess refused to seat friends of the women who  could not produce a COVID vaccination card (as required by NYC law).

From the article:

The group said they want the charges dropped against the three women and for Carmine’s “to pay for promoting a false narrative and creating fake news reports.”

I guess the new “get out of jail free” card (with a cash bonus) is the race card…

The response by Carmine’s seems appropriate; we’ll see if they (and common sense) prevail in a world obsessed with race-based cancel culture:

“None of the attackers offered any reason for their attack. None of the hosts – all of whom are people of color – uttered a racial slur,” the statement continued. “None of the attackers mentioned anything about race to our managers, staff, or the police who arrested them, and the Texas criminal defense lawyer’s false assertion otherwise is a deeply cynical ploy to try to excuse wanton violence. “

Are you kidding me?

So, using illegal drugs while on parole is only a “technical” violation? Aren’t drugs the reason many of these people were in prison to begin with?

New York Gov. Hochul orders immediate release of 191 Rikers Island inmates, citing ‘technical’ violations

The scariest observation from this article?

“New York incarcerates more people for parole violations than anywhere in the country,” she said. “That is a point of shame for us and it needs to be fixed.”

It’s not a point of shame for me; I’m not the one who violated the conditions of my parole. And just because New York incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the country (a claim that I have not verified), it doesn’t mean that these people should not be locked away. I might just mean that we are simply better at catching criminals.

In any event, shame on you Gov. Hochul for asking us to accept the shame for criminals.

Objectivity is the new racism?

It’s hard to believe, but apparently objectivity is now racist:

Math Suffers From White Supremacy, According to a Bill Gates-Funded Course

I am particularly interested in the following snippet from the article, citing the web site equitablemath.org (page 67):

“Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity…”

Math, getting the right answer and objectivity are now on the educational chopping block? Well, if you need a compliant populace – one that won’t be able to question their leaders using logic and reason – then I guess eliminating math and objectivity are a pretty good start. But what good would it do to have a voter base too dumb to see the facts, one that can only be motivated by partisan rhetoric? Oh, wait….

What a crock! (updated)

OK, so maybe you’ve heard of the latest jobs report (aka “Employment Situation Summary“). This shows a slower than expected job growth, which some have blamed on the cornavirus “delta” variant. However,  that’s just a load of dingo’s kidneys.

Many of us have seen the help wanted signs posted everywhere in our communities as employers clamor for employees; how could it possibly be that job growth is “slow”? As it turns out, what the government defines as “job growth” might be the real culprit – along with the administration’s insistence on paying people not to work.

You see, the so-called “job growth” noted in the Employment Situation Summary describes jobs actually filled, not new jobs made available. Even if the economy has millions of job openings available the jobs report will show little growth if no one comes to claim them. And millions there are: while the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) hasn’t caught up to August, in June there were more than 10 million job openings in the U.S. That’s substantially more than the 8.4 million who are unemployed, and ~2.5 million more job openings than at any time in the 10 years prior to the pandemic. If just these 2.5 million “extra” jobs were filled we’d be back at pre-pandemic levels of unemployment. But hey – why go back to work when you can make money at home watching reality TV?

A clear case in point comes from a New York Times article on the job report:

[name redacted], [age redacted], took a job as a United States Postal Service carrier in late August after more than a year out of work. He will make more than $10,000 a year less than he did in his previous job as an assistant property manager in Chicago. But with unemployment benefits expiring this month, he wouldn’t have been able to pay his mortgage if he didn’t take the carrier job, he said.

“I took it in desperation,” he said. “I held out for the longest time. The unemployment benefits were very generous.”

This is a perfect example of how enhanced unemployment benefits have actually prevented a full employment recovery. If the enhanced unemployment benefits were not ending this man would have likely, by his own admission, “…held out…” as a result of the “…generous…” unemployment benefits. He’d probably still be unemployed!

Now when you read in the New York Times that “There are still 5.3 million fewer jobs nationwide than there were in February 2020”, you  know to call “bullshit” on their claim. The fact is that there are approximately 10 million jobs available in the U.S. right now – but now one willing to take them and give up their “generous” unemployment payments. The reality is that the only thing currently slowing down job growth is Biden’s enhanced unemployment payments.

So when administration officials start pushing to extend enhanced unemployment benefits – citing the job report as justification rather than cause – make sure you tell them where to go. It’s time people are incentivized to work – not to stay home and watch soap operas on the people’s dime.

9/17/21 – UPDATE: The latest JOLTS report estimates that there are now 10,934,000 open jobs available in the U.S. as of July – almost 3.5 million more than the highest point in the ten years prior to the pandemic. In May of 2021 the unemployment rate fell to the same average rate as from 2011 through 2019 (before the pandemic, 5.8%), and yet we continued “enhanced” unemployment benefits until September 2021. Can anyone guess as to why there are so many unfilled jobs available in the U.S.? This is isn’t rocket science, folks, just basic math. Oh, wait; apparently math, getting the right answer and being objective are no longer acceptable behaviors. That explains why no one else can see the hypocrisy of paying people not to work and then complaining about the jobs report…

Even Democrat appointees agree

Judge rejects DOJ move to block Texas abortion law

What the article doesn’t say? This judge was appointed by President Obama….

I disagree with this abortion law, too; but we can’t simply invalidate laws that we don’t like. There must be a valid legal reason to override the will of the people (or at least their representatives). I’m sure once a sound legal argument is provided the law will be overturned, but until then it merits a full hearing on the facts.

Again – and I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but what the heck – is it possible that those who wish to alter the makeup of the Supreme Court are making a poor effort fighting this case, then using their losses as justification for court packing? It just seems strange that they haven’t been able to present a reasonable legal argument to fight this law.

Don’t start the court packing yet…

Everyone is up in arms re: the Supreme Court’s refusal to block a recent Texas anti-abortion law. However, before we jump on the “pack the court” bandwagon, maybe we should read the decision. A couple of quick notes:

1) The court does not make laws, nor does it invalidate laws simply because it does not sit well with their political or moral beliefs. They can only gauge the legality of a law based on other laws, and on the supreme law – the Constitution of the United States.

2) Theirs is not an opinion on the legality of the Texas law; it is only a denial of an application for injunctive relief. The law’s constitutionality has not been determined by the court.

3) The denial make the following statements:

“The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue.”

“The State has represented that neither it nor its executive employees possess the authority to enforce the Texas law either directly or indirectly. Nor is it clear whether, under existing precedent, this Court can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas’s law.”

“In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicant’s lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.”

4) Even the dissent by Chief Justice Roberts notes the following:

“Defendants argue that existing doctrines preclude judicial intervention, and they may be correct.”

“Although the Court denies the applicants’ request for emergency relief today, the Court’s order is emphatic in making clear that it cannot be understood as sustaining the constitutionality of the law at issue.”

I’m not excited about this Texas law, but I would be less excited by a Supreme Court that caved to public pressure instead of upholding the laws of the United States. And the fact remains that the Court was not tasked with determining the constitutionality of the law; this was only an application for injunctive relief (a  stay on the law preventing it from being enforced). In summary, the plaintiffs failed to make their case but the court left open the opportunity to resubmit. Let’s see if the plaintiffs were listening before we go on a court-packing spree.

Editor note: What if the poor showing by the plaintiffs was intentional, and designed to get their case rejected? Could this be a strategy by left-wing entities designed to garner support for court packing?

NPR = National Propaganda Radio?

I love headlines that attempt to sway opinion using minor facts while ignoring the larger picture:

Fed Up With Inaction Over Voting Rights, Thousands Are Planning A March On Washington

Thousands? Really? Because MILLIONS are for Voter ID, but let’s just ignore that little tidbit of information:

Four in Five Americans Support Voter ID Laws, Early Voting

Unfortunately, this is all I’ve come to expect from NPR in recent years. It’s a shame, really – they were my go-to only a few years prior. They now seem happy to drink the political Kool-aid; too bad it’s laced  with LSD…

Of course they did…

Far left (pronounced “socialist”) politicians have immediately chastised the Supreme Court over their decision to vacate the CDC’s expansive extension of its eviction moratorium. They seem to forget that the Supreme Court doesn’t answer to them; it answers to the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Examples of their wrath, from a recent news article:

“This is an attack on working people across our country and city,” [New York City mayor] de Blasio tweeted Thursday.

What about the CDC’s attack on landlords, Bill?

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., claimed that if the Supreme Court “thinks this partisan ruling is going to stop us from fighting to keep people housed, they’re wrong.”

Keep fighting all you want, Cori; just don’t force landlords to buy your votes.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries claimed the “Supreme Court does not have a scintilla of credibility” after the decision.

Upholding the Constitution? That’s not only credible, Hakeem, it’s their job!

Now, to be fair, let’s include a few quotes from the Supreme Court decision:

…careful review of that record makes clear that the applicants are virtually certain to succeed on the merits of their argument that the CDC has exceeded its authority. [emphasis mine]

It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts.

The moratorium has put the applicants, along with millions of landlords across the country, at risk of irreparable harm by depriving them of rent payments with no guarantee of eventual recovery.

Could the CDC, for example, mandate free grocery delivery to the homes of the sick or vulnerable? Require manufacturers to provide free computers to enable people to work from home? Order telecommunications companies to provide free high-speed Internet service to facilitate remote work?

I made this very argument (although with different “free” services/products) in a previous post; where would the CDC’s authority to spend other people’s money end if this moratorium were allowed to stand?

Does this ruling mean that millions of people will be evicted? Possibly. For renters who have simply relied on the moratorium to spend their rent money elsewhere, with no evidence of financial hardship and no effort to negotiate in good faith with their landlords – probably (and rightfully so). But all renters who are behind on their rent? I don’t think so. To whom will the landlords rent to then? What is the likelihood that the majority of rental seekers will simply be those previously evicted for not paying rent? Instead, I think this ruling will provide incentive for renters and landlords to negotiate in good faith (and for renters to apply for the available rental assistance funds) rather than allowing rents to go unpaid with no recourse.

Wealth redistribution via moratoriums

I’m glad someone finally came to their senses – even if it was just the “conservative wing” of the Supreme Court:

Supreme Court strikes down Biden administration’s eviction moratorium

The rent moratorium was a bad idea from the start. It negated the right to own, utilize and dispose private property, essentially seizing property in defiance of the 5th Amendment:

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Some have argued that it was not a taking, since it only delayed the ability to collect rent but did not excuse  the debt. I disagree; when the government sees fit to nullify the only available leverage to ensure payment… well, that sounds like a taking to me. What if these people need a car? Should the dealer be forced to give them one under the government’s promise of later repossession once the car’s life has been exhausted? How about food? Should the local grocery store be required to give credit with no means to collect?

But the worst part of the rent moratorium is what it does to ordinary, moral people. What do you think such people will do when their neighbors – taking advantage of the government’s benevolence, flush with enhanced unemployment benefits and no rent to pay – enjoy the finer things in life that they have not yet earned? How long will it take the normally moral to succumb to the siren song of free money? And once seduced will they ever become moral again, or will they line up at the socialist’s feeding trough to leach off of those still foolish enough to work and pay rent? How long before the leaches outnumber the productive? How long before the feeding trough is empty?

This is the promise of socialism. Welcome to the new world.