Moonbat logic at work - budget edition

There's a breathtakingly stupid piece of moonbat propaganda floating around, seeking to blame local and state government fiscal mismanagement on ... wait for it ... Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader!

The main instigator for [defunding police], of course, is the protest movement sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and other African Americans. In their efforts to reduce law-enforcement budgets, however, the protesters have an unlikely ally: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. By spurning congressional Democrats’ efforts to dispatch additional aid to state and local governments, McConnell is enabling budgetary crises in city after city. These crises, in turn, are making well-funded police departments an easier target.

Police budgets are mostly paid by local governments. And for local governments, COVID-19 has been a fiscal catastrophe. Local governments fund themselves through a combination of property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, special taxes (on the occupants of hotels, for instance), and aid from states. By slashing consumer spending, the pandemic has slashed sales-tax revenue. The collapse of tourism has decimated special taxes paid by the hospitality industry, and job losses have reduced revenue from income taxes. Moreover, states—which face their own budgetary shortfalls—are likely to cut local aid. The result, according to the National League of Cities, is that from now until 2022, cities collectively face a budgetary hole of $360 billion.

On May 15, House Democrats responded by passing the HEROES Act, which would have allocated close to $1 trillion to state, local, and tribal governments—$375 billion of which would have gone to cities and counties. Because most states and many cities start their fiscal year on July 1, that cash might have helped local governments stave off major budget cuts.

Senate Republicans, however, oppose another large infusion of federal funds anytime soon. In April, McConnell suggested that states respond to their fiscal woes by declaring bankruptcy.

There's more at the link.

As we've covered in these pages many times, the reason state and local governments don't have enough money is that they've "wasted their substance on riotous living".  They're prodigal sons who refuse to come to their senses.  They've lavishly funded pensions for their workers, entitlement programs for their voters, and politically correct programs, outreaches and activities beyond number.  When they didn't have enough money coming in to fund their pet projects, they borrowed it.

As a result, many US cities and states are billions - sometimes hundreds of billions - of dollars in debt.  Unable to dig themselves out of the fiscal hole they've dug, they're turning to the Federal government and demanding bailouts from taxpayers all over the USA.  The so-called "HEROES Act" is nothing more than an attempt by the Democratic Party to ram that through Congress.  I'm very glad Senator McConnell has stopped it dead in its tracks so far - although, if the Democrats take control of the Senate and the White House in November's elections, I'm afraid it'll be forced upon us willy-nilly.

I think the premise of the HEROES Act, and the article cited above, is ridiculous.  I see no reason why taxpayers in fiscally responsible states should have the liability for fiscally irresponsible ones foisted upon them.  I think Senator McConnell is entirely correct when he said that states who've spent themselves into bankruptcy should be allowed to declare it, and take the consequences themselves.  Why should we pay for their profligacy?

To assert that police defunding is, or will be, the result of Senator McConnell's obstinacy in refusing to bail out states and cities, is breathtaking in its arrogance and denial of reality.  Those entities don't have enough money because they've wasted everything they had!  If we gave them money to bail out their debts, they'd merely incur more debt right away, to continue to live beyond their means.  They wouldn't recognize the concept of fiscal responsibility if it jumped up and bit them in the unmentionables.

The only sane approach is to spend no more than you have or can afford to pay off - not to borrow yourself into oblivion to fund such spending.  If cities and states need more money, let them cut spending, even at the expense of their much-vaunted "progressive" programs and activities.  To use an old idiom, let them "cut their coat according to their cloth" - and that includes paying down the debt they've already incurred.  Only when they're doing that, and have done so for some time, and are demonstrably on the way to genuine fiscal reform and recovery, should we consider helping them.  If they want to continue their financially self-destructive ways, let them do it on their own, without wasting our money into the bargain.

Distrust any attempt by the mainstream media to blame anything on anybody.  As Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a. the Instapundit, has said so often, "Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense".  He frequently quotes the tweets shown below.

Keep that in mind, and a lot of things will become clearer.

Peter

Negligence with a gun produces yet another serious injury

I was sorry - and angry - to read this report from Utah.

A man accidentally fired his gun while trying to dismantle it and struck a woman who was three bays over at the TNT Gun and Range on Saturday afternoon in Murray ... The bullet went through both of the woman's legs.

Sgt. Paul Christiansen with Murray Police Department said the woman was in her 50s and is expected to make a full recovery. She was sent into surgery the same day to treat her dual wounds.

There's more at the link.

Friends, I've repeated Jeff Cooper's four rules of gun safety many times in these pages.  To refresh our collective memory:

1. All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
4. Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.

This incident was a clear breach of Rule 2 at the very least, and probably Rule 3 as well.  Guns don't just "go off by accident" unless someone's fiddling with them, and it's all too easy to let one's finger stray too close to the trigger.  (That's not helped by the design of some pistols like the Glock, where one has to pull the trigger - AFTER UNLOADING THE GUN! - in order to disassemble it.  If one hasn't properly unloaded it, loud noises can result.)

Thanks be to God that nothing worse happened.  One trusts that measures will be taken to teach the erring gun owner better weapon-handling.  I hope he has good insurance, because the medical bills resulting from his goof are likely to be high, and I daresay he'll be held liable for every penny of them - as he should be.




Peter

The plot behind the riots is now clear

It remains true, as it has throughout history, that if one wants to understand an event or a series of events, look for a pattern.  If there's no pattern, it was probably spontaneous and unplanned.  If a pattern emerges . . . it was almost certainly planned, premeditated, scripted and directed, to at least some extent.  It may not have been 100% intended - the "spark to the flame" may have been accidental or spontaneous - but the pattern will reveal those who were ready, willing and able to jump on a bandwagon or take advantage of the spark.  They were prepared for it.

The same is true of the current riots across America.  The pattern is now becoming much clearer, and anyone with two working brain cells to rub together can see it for themselves.

The clearly intended, pre-planned nature of the riots is itself a give-away.  Sure, the tragic death of George Floyd was the spark that lit the fire.  That could not have been planned, but the plans to take advantage of any such incident were laid long ago, and preparations were made.  You don't think the riots were prepared in advance?  You're deluded, to put it mildly.

• Riots in scores of cities, breaking out simultaneously?
• Pallets of bricks distributed in advance, and rioters advised of their location through megaphones?
• Activists handing out Molotov cocktails and improvised explosives?
• Identical signs printed, T-shirts worn, and slogans chanted across thousands of miles?
• Solemn, almost universal left-wing proclamations of white American guilt, black American innocence, and the need for "healing", "reconciliation" and "justice for all" - all while allowing the injustice of brutal, thuggish, indiscriminate riots to continue, to intimidate the electorate?

Need I go on?  The evidence is overwhelming.  This response was pre-planned, awaiting only the right incident to activate it.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying through their teeth, and takes you for a fool.

I have no doubt that racism exists in America.  Anyone can see it in news reports from day to day.  The recent, tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and (most recently) George Floyd are graphic illustrations of that reality.  However, note the fuss that's been made about those three deaths in particular.  What about the hundreds - literally hundreds - of black deaths at the hands of other blacks, in crime-ridden cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, and many others?  They happen daily, with big "scores" almost every weekend - and no liberal or left-wing or progressive politician says a single damned word, or does anything effective to stop them.  It's a strangely blinkered outrage that ignores the many tragedies for the few.

As Larry Elder, himself black, has pointed out:

In 2018, according to the FBI’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were about 600,000 nonhomicide violent black-white crimes each year, with 90% involving a black perpetrator and a white victim. According to economist John Lott, writing in 2014: “Based on the most recent available FBI crime numbers, black male teenagers were nine times more likely to commit murder than were their white counterparts. That’s right, nine times, and the gap in these urban areas is undoubtedly even larger.”

Blacks kill twice as many whites (500 in 2015) as whites kill blacks (229 in 2015). Blacks, at 13% of the population, commit 50% of murders, and 90% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks. The Wall Street Journal‘s Jason Riley wrote in 2014: “Blacks commit violent crimes at 7 to 10 times the rate that whites do. The fact that their victims tend to be of the same race suggests that young black men in the ghetto live in danger of being shot by each other, not cops.” The No. 1 cause of preventable deaths for young white men is accidents, like car accidents. The No. 1 cause of deaths, preventable or otherwise, for young black men is homicide. In absolute numbers, Chicago often has more murders than any other city in America. The population of Chicago is approximately one-third black, one-third white, and one-third Hispanic. Yet, blacks account for over 80% of the city’s homicide victims.

As to this narrative of blacks being “hunted,” several recent studies found cops more hesitant, more reluctant to shoot a black suspect than a white suspect. One such study was conducted by black Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who called his conclusion the most “surprising result of my career.”

There's more at the link.

Why aren't we hearing those facts from commenters across the political spectrum?  Because they don't favor the politically correct narrative, that's why.  Political capital can be made from white or police killings of black people, but not from black-on-black violence.  It's the ultimate in cynical exploitation.

Sundance sees it that way, too.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

Once you see the strings on the grievance marionettes, you can never watch the pantomime without seeing them; thus the playbook is transparent. Team Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Team AME Church have again aligned, exactly as we expected.

. . .

All of the activist grievance leaders, in addition to the politicians, have been instructed to reign-in the protests in coordination with the 5:00pm Obama remarks. That timing allows the media to present the ‘healing Obama’ narrative; riots and looting stop etc.

Meanwhile, attorney Ben Crump will deliver the same healing message with the added demand that all police officers must be arrested by the time the first memorial takes place at 1:00pm tomorrow.

The “all we want is an arrest” approach, comes directly from the BLM/AME playbook as executed in Orlando/Miami (Trayvon Martin), Ferguson (Mike Brown), and Baltimore (Freddie Gray). Now that both networks have come back together and aligned, all of the coordination is much easier.

. . .

The actual goal is far less about racial healing and more specifically about how to obtain political benefit and paint President Trump as the problem ... Everything within the strategy is coordinated and planned carefully. The script is how the political value is maximized. In the larger background the goal is activism based on race for 2020 to avoid the problem that was encountered in 2016. Joe Biden, and the DNC apparatus writ large, are the intended beneficiaries.

There's more at the link.

The drumbeat of anti-Trump, anti-police, anti-establishment rhetoric is constant, incessant, and almost identical across platforms and people.  Open, blatant lies are disseminated without blinking, and without correction.  The same talking points are being parroted by politicians, clergy, community leaders - anyone who can command a microphone for a few moments to hammer home the agreed talking points.  They don't criticize the rioters, except in the most general terms.  Instead, they criticize the system that has produced the conditions that engendered the riots, and blame everything on President Trump.  It's all his fault.

(No-one ever seems to add up the number of years in political office of all the Trump critics, and compare the total to the President's number of years in political office - three, to be precise.  Have you ever wondered why all those critics - including former Presidents - didn't manage to fix the problems they're currently bewailing, after all those years when they were in positions of authority and could have done so?  Nobody seems to want to ask - let alone answer - that question.  Funny, that . . . )

These riots are being used to obtain the maximum political advantage.  That's why Democratic-Party-controlled cities and states are not cracking down on them, are not using the National Guard and/or federal government assistance to control them, and are wringing their metaphorical hands and bewailing the evil Trump administration instead of doing something effective.  That's why even some anti-Trump Republicans are doing likewise.  It's all a setup.  They want more chaos and destruction, because in it they see a path to electoral victory in November 2020.  They are relying on their allies in the mainstream media to see to it that a majority of voters blame President Trump for the chaos, and vote against him (and for them) in the elections.  This is nothing more or less than an attempt to tear down the entire country.

We need to draw a sharp, clear distinction between the righteous anger of many people at institutionalized racism and police brutality on the one hand, and the thuggery and nihilism of the rioters on the other.  I have no problem standing against the former issues:  indeed, I'll gladly join any public demonstration against them, and demand investigations and answers.  However, I will have nothing to do with any attempt to excuse, tolerate or justify the riots, the destruction being wrought by gang-bangers, thugs and looters in the name of racial justice.  They need to be brought to heel, as quickly and as expediently as necessary.  If violence is necessary to accomplish that, I believe it's fully justified.  They've brought it upon themselves.

What many of the liberal, left-wing and progressive commenters are missing, I think, is that a great many Americans in the "silent majority" - Democrats as well as Republicans - are thinking along those lines too.  I'm hearing from many of my contacts in other cities and states that there's a growing groundswell of anger, resentment and determination among "average" voters - a determination to vote for law and order in November, irrespective of the party concerned.  If President Trump can capitalize on that, particularly if he can find a way to crack down on the violence despite all the obstacles put in his way by his political opponents, I think he may benefit from it.

In many ways, current domestic US politics reflect 1938 European politics.  In that year, Hitler at last took the mask off his aggression and naked ambition and demanded compliance from his opponents.  Cravenly, they caved in.  Appeasement was the order of the day.  Neville Chamberlain came back to Britain from Munich waving a piece of paper and proclaiming "peace in our time".  September 1939 proved how misguided and foolish he was.  In the same way, we have appeasers trying to persuade us that only by knuckling under to the forces of violence and destruction can we stop them.  If we do, we're rapidly going to find that they'll be back for more, taking advantage of our weakness to wreak yet more havoc on our society.  Appeasement won't stop them.  Only determination and the reimposition of the rule of law will do so.

It's long gone time the riots, and the rioters, were stopped.  If the government won't do it, it'll be up to ordinary Americans to do so.  I don't think the rioters have figured that out yet . . . and certainly the politicians, activists and agitators who are using them don't appear to have taken that into account.  In particular, they don't seem to realize how many Americans are now ready and willing to do that, if it becomes necessary.  As Kim du Toit asks:  "What if we - we, the suffering middle classes who form the backbone of this nation - just say, 'F*** you, and your conversation'."

By demonizing ordinary Americans, accusing them of racism, deriding them as "bitter clingers" and "deplorables", and characterizing them as "vigilantes" if they dare to protect their livelihood and property against rioters, the left is making them angry enough to turn them into activists.  Perhaps that's overdue.

Peter

This may explain why Minneapolis PD allowed rioters to burn down their precinct

If this account is correct, it looks like Minneapolis had already gone a long way down the liberal, progressive, socialist road to hell that's being followed in California and many other places.

All of the adults on the city council have retired or been voted out, and the council is now composed of earnest young progressives like our boy mayor Jacob Frey. And what does every young progressive like Jacob fear the most? Being called a racist. We also have a few AOC types who want to seize the Lake of the Isles mansions for the (well-connected) people.

. . .

Retail stores are soon found to be easy targets. Chain stores are the easiest. CVS and Walgreens and Chipotle will absolutely fire any employee who looks at a petty criminal in a mean way. The store manager is held responsible for shrinkage –loss due to theft– but if the manager even attempts to stop theft, he or she will be fired.

. . .

Now add in the great progressive paranoia: I cannot stand to be called a racist.

So rather than risk that city and county officials decided to stop enforcing laws against retail theft. Remember that video from a San Francisco store of thieves cleaning out all the makeup in a drugstore in broad daylight? It happens here in Minneapolis also.

Here the thieves will grab a box of trash bags off the shelf, pull out a couple, and fill it with easily fenced stuff like Tide detergent, diapers, and small electronics. If there are cigarettes, they’ll jump over the counter and grab them, along with Similac baby food (that’s already behind the counter due to high theft). Then they will walk out, and if you stand in their way, you may get shoved down. Certainly all of the “Sir, please, stop” which is the corporate recommended solution, will not slow them down.

The really great thing is, a merchant can call the police while burning a DVD of the perp’s faces, and the cops probably will not show up. If someone is injured by the bad guys, probably someone will come and hand the manager a card with a case number, but that is all that will happen. I have seen this many times in many stores.

When this virus thing happened, the city actually announced that they would not prosecute retail theft and transit fare jumping, among other things.

There's more at the link.  It makes depressing reading, but explains a lot.

Aaron Clarey (a.k.a. Captain Capitalism), who lives in or near Minneapolis, is even more scathing.

Minneapolis (and Minnesota in general) is a failed city/state, full of leftists, parasites, communists, and race pimps, all pampered and enabled by self-loathing, pussy white people who want to bring about a socialist utopia.  I hate the citizens of Minneapolis.  I hate the people of Minnesota and I am merely biding my time until I can move.  This is merely poetic justice watching a potpourri of leftists (SJW's, antifa, aggrieved black members of the community, spoiled rich kids from the suburbs-turned-virtue-signaling-activists, and simple thieves/looters) destroy a neighborhood/city that has voted-for and doted on leftist political causes EVERY SINGLE TIME.  You COULD NOT FIND A MORE PRO-MINORITY, PRO-SOCIALISM, PRO-SJW block of voters than Minneapolitans... who are now watching their city get destroyed by the same leftists they so enthusiastically supported and sucked the ***** of.  Meanwhile, the most cowardly mayor and governor in all of history stand by and do nothing, letting their most loyal constituents and neighborhoods burn.  It truly is an example of "Enjoy the Decline" and "Enjoy the Show."  You get the government you deserve.

Regardless, I am supremely confident Minneapolitans and Minnesotans in general will learn nothing.  They will go back to voting for socialism, treating minorities as incompetent teenagers instead of adults, and nothing will change.  And thus you will have essentially two groups of people.  One with guilty (predominantly white) goodie two shoes Minnesotans who obey the law and will constantly castrate themselves in front of socialists and socialist policies.  And another group (skewed towards a minority population, but also most certainly including white leftists/antifa/SJW/professional activist-victim/socialists) whose self-perceived victimhood and all-important egos will in their mind rationalize them to "heroically" riot, steal/loot property that is not theirs, destroy their town, and in general act like feral animals (but never major in STEM, get a job, stop having kids they can't afford, and in general take responsibility for themselves).

Again, I cannot emphasize how much of this is self-inflicted and how much of this is outside the rest of society's control, and thus why I (and neither you) should care.  It is the consequence of decades of brainwashing generations of victims ... They are NOT capable of having a civilized society and you do not what to be part of this society (no matter how "cool" it is to be "in the city" or whatever crappy "theater" or "colleges" or culture Twin Cities politicians promote).

I don't know how many times I've told people to move out of Minneapolis, businesses to never invest in Minnesota, young people to start careers elsewhere, industrious black men to leave the ghetto, and that YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR OWN PROPERTY IN MINNEAPOLIS AS IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A LARGE COMMUNIST HOA.  But nobody listens.

Again, more at the link.

Such perspectives help to explain why the dreadful Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress from that city, and why her predecessor was the appalling Keith Ellison (self-avowed Antifa supporter, progressive extremist and currently Attorney-General of Minnesota, who will take over the prosecution of the police allegedly responsible for the death of George Floyd.  There goes any hope of a fair trial for them, IMHO.)

Let the powers that be ignore the law, and those responsible for enforcing it will pretty soon realize that if they do as they swore to do when taking the oath of office, they'll be treated as criminals.  That's almost certainly why Minneapolis PD rolled over spinelessly, and abandoned one of its precinct headquarters to destruction by a mob of rioters.  They knew they'd be damned if they did, and damned if they didn't.  Personally, I'd be ashamed to work for an outfit like that . . . but I took (and still take) my federal law enforcement oath of office seriously.  It remains binding on me in retirement, because it has no expiry date.  Minneapolis PD clearly doesn't feel the same way about theirs.

I'm glad I don't live anywhere near that city, because if I were confronted by a mob of rioters bent on causing me harm, I'd be doing my level best to return the favor, particularly in defense of my wife and home.  During eighteen years spent in various war and conflict zones, I came to understand what Josh Billings so famously quipped:

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
But four times he who gets his blow in fust.

As the old saying goes, there's many a true word spoken in jest.  I've learned (the hard way) to be as fusty as I can, when danger makes it necessary.  I recommend the principle, particularly in these troubled times - and doubly so in a progressive hellhole such as Minneapolis appears to have become.

Peter

Minneapolis: the cowardice of the city authorities

I'm sure we've all seen images of the rioting and destruction in Minneapolis following the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of police there.  I won't bother to reproduce any here.

I have no problem with protests against the actions of police in Mr. Floyd's death.  If I were living in or near Minneapolis, I'd take part in them!  On the basis of video evidence, I have no hesitation in labeling it police malfeasance, at the very least.  There should be (and I hope there will be) legal consequences for all concerned.  However, when the protestors start behaving like thugs and criminals, that crosses a line just as clearly as the one the police crossed in dealing with Mr. Floyd.  The protestors make themselves criminals too.

I can't understand how the city authorities in Minneapolis are allowing this anarchy to continue.  In northern Texas, I know for sure that every small business would have its owner(s) and/or employees deployed outside with firearms in the event of similar trouble here - and they wouldn't hesitate to use their guns if necessary in defense of their property.  They're entirely within their rights to do so.  Many of their customers would join them to help out.  However, that doesn't appear to be the case in Minneapolis, where business owners are cowering at home, relying on the police to protect their property - and the police are conspicuous by their absence.

This abdication of authority and responsibility seems to be a pattern in that part of the world, judging by earlier reports.  It's a license for anarchy.  Unless it's stopped, and the authorities do their job, Minneapolis may become - perhaps already is - ungovernable.  The current behavior of its police force, letting the riots continue without actively moving to stop them, appears to be nothing less than an acknowledgment of that reality.  I can only assume their behavior is the result of orders from the city authorities, which means that the latter are equally culpable.

If that's the case, I think - I hope! - that an increasing number of Minneapolis residents will take matters into their own hands, and start striking back at the anarchists and criminals and thugs who currently appear to rule their streets and business districts.  If I were living there, I'd be among them.  If police fail to keep the peace, then it's up to us to do so in our own neighborhoods and towns.  If police have no duty to protect individual citizens, as the Supreme Court has ruled, then citizens most certainly have the right to protect themselves and their property.  That's one of the primary justifications for the Second Amendment to the United States constitution.

If the authorities can't be trusted to stop this sort of anarchy, why should they be trusted to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, or business and commerce, or anything else?  Right now, Minneapolis doesn't appear to have a city government at all.  Will its residents do something about that at the next elections?  I hope so . . . but as Joseph de Maistre famously said, every nation gets the government it deserves.  I guess that applies to every city, too.  I just can't figure out how Minneapolis became such a nasty place as to deserve the government it's got!




Peter

Nah. I'm sure there's no connection. None at all . . .

Headlines to make you see red, when taken together:

California will pay illegal immigrants

not included in coronavirus stimulus

Newsom Proposes Cuts For

State Worker Pay, Schools, Health Care

In Grim COVID-19 Budget Revision

Western governors join Gavin Newsom

in $1 trillion appeal to Congress

for coronavirus aid

What a coincidence!  That the states falling over themselves to hand out taxpayer dollars to illegal aliens, the homeless and what they define as "needy" groups, should turn around and demand that the rest of us pay them ONE TRILLION DOLLARS for "coronavirus aid"!  And what a coincidence that only a few days after announcing millions in taxpayer dollars as a handout to illegal aliens, California's governor is asking state employees to tighten their belts!  There can't possibly be a relationship between them.  Right?  Right?  Anyone . . . Bueller?

Perish the thought that the "coronavirus aid" Western states are demanding might not be for costs related to the current pandemic, but instead to replenish their states' coffers that they've depleted wasted through misspending, overspending, ideological blindness and just plain incompetence - so they can turn around and waste that money all over again in the name of "compassion" or "tolerance" or "equality".

None of those things could possibly be more than coincidental . . . could they?




Peter

Isn't this fraudulent misrepresentation?

I was baffled to read about a sales tactic by food delivery companies such as DoorDash and others.

In March 2019 a good friend who owns a few pizza restaurants messaged me ... For over a decade, he resisted adding delivery as an option for his restaurants ... But he had suddenly started getting customers calling in with complaints about their deliveries.

. . .

He realized that a delivery option had mysteriously appeared on their company's Google Listing. The delivery option was created by Doordash.

To confirm, he had never spoken with anyone from Doordash and after years of resisting the siren song of delivery revenue, certainly did not want to be listed. But the words "Order Delivery" were right there, prominently on the Google snippet.

. . .

Tricking businesses onto your platform and creating additional headaches for small business owners in the pursuit of Softbankian growth is a bad as it gets. Many restauranteurs were complaining about their Google listings being "hijacked" by Doordash, sometimes even usurping their own preferred delivery.

These underhanded tricks aren't unique to Doordash though. In recent weeks there has been some great work coming out around a Yelp - Grubhub phone scam. This one is just priceless (seriously, read this Buzzfeed piece). Grubhub for their own sites generates a phone number for each restaurant that goes to a centralized, Grubhub owned call center. If someone calls in and orders via this number, the restaurant gets charged a fee. Apparently, some enterprising BD folks came up with the idea that Yelp could put the Grubhub phone numbers in place of the real restaurant phone number on the Yelp listing. Customers who think they’re “helping” their local restaurants by calling in the order are still creating a fee for Grubhub.

There's more at the link.

I'd say that tactic is at least underhanded, if not downright dishonest.  How is it legal to publicly pass off a phone number for your company as the phone number to order from another company?  How is it legal to misrepresent your phone number as theirs, on other business Web sites?  How is it legal to have Google add your delivery service to the Web listing of another company, without that company's permission and authorization?  Isn't that almost the definition of the crime of fraudulent misrepresentation?  Why have no criminal charges or civil lawsuits been filed?  I'd appreciate comment from the legal eagles among my readers.

In this case, I'm glad to say that the misrepresentation backfired on Doordash when the owner of the pizza business found a way to make them pay him a lot of money at no extra cost to himself.  It's an amusing tale that I'll leave you to read for yourselves.

There's also the issue of delivery services charging fees to restaurants for referrals, even if customer calls didn't result in orders.  GrubHub is in all sorts of trouble in New York over that practice.  It looks like Yelp got in on the scam as well.  I don't understand why charges haven't been filed against both companies.  Surely that's illegal?

All I can say is, if I found another company misrepresenting itself as my business, I'd be furious.  Those sorts of shenanigans are why so many small restaurant owners I know are very angry with food delivery services.  They claim they're costing them customer goodwill by delivering food late and cold, causing customers to blame the restaurant, and post negative reviews about it on social media.  In other words, they're blaming the restaurant for the delivery service's shortcomings.  In the restaurant's shoes, I'd try getting together with others to launch a class action lawsuit against the delivery companies concerned.

That's why I won't use most food delivery services.  I'd rather call in my order direct to the restaurant, making sure it's their number, not a third party's.  I'll use a delivery service with whom they've contracted, knowingly and honestly, or collect my order if necessary.  I don't want to reward dishonest misrepresentation with my customer dollars.

Peter

True dat!

Found on Gab:

And that's why we're having so many problems getting out of "this" together - because with very few exceptions, those managing "this" aren't part of what the rest of us are experiencing.  I reckon most of them need replacing, at once if not sooner.




Peter

Betraying America, redux - or, fiddling while America burns

The well-known (and almost certainly apocryphal) story of Emperor Nero playing the fiddle while his city of Rome burned around him is well-known.  It seems the same story could be told of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party right now . . . but not apocryphally.  They appear willing to let this country go to the dogs, just so long as they can ram through their ideology - an ideology which has nothing whatsoever to do with the coronavirus pandemic and the damage it's done to our nation and our economy.

Let Tucker Carlson explain just how ghastly is their new "HEROES Act" and its focus on ideological concerns, rather than relief for those who are suffering.  You really should take seven minutes to listen to his monologue from last night.  To call this bill "mind-blowing" is an understatement, IMHO, as he makes clear.

When the Democrat's first "relief bill" appeared, I called it "Betraying America", and asked:

Would somebody please point out to me what (if anything) those points have to do with providing relief to American citizens and corporations from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic?  I'm calling on Democratic voters and supporters in particular.  Come on - precisely how do those points bring relief to Americans who've lost their jobs and livelihoods, and to companies that are about to go to the wall under the impact of this crisis?

I can only say the same thing, in spades, for the legislative atrocity the Democrats are calling the "HEROES Act".  It's 1,815 pages long, containing 347,000 words.  Something that massive is obviously not a recent, hurried production.  Clearly, this has been prepared over a long period of time, probably with various departments and groups working on specific sections and clauses.  It's bundled together every pie-in-the-sky socialist wet dream you can imagine, and seeks to thrust this burden onto the backs of those Americans still working, who'll have to pay for it, one way or another, sooner or later.

This is so blatant, so in-your-face, that its sheer chutzpah leaves one breathless.  Nancy Pelosi has even gone so far as to dismissively observe, "I can't be bothered about what others say.  What I'm proud of is what we are doing."  I'm sure she is . . . but I suspect the rest of America, particularly its taxpayers, won't be anything like as proud.  In particular, allocating about $900 billion to cities and states to bail out their spendthrift budget deficits and long-term indebtedness is sheer lunacy.  All that guarantees is that they'll immediately take out more loans and go into debt once again, to continue to fund expenditure they can't afford;  then they'll come back to Congress and demand yet another bailout, citing this first one as a precedent.

If this bill passes, America will become a debt-ridden, fiscally crippled hellhole almost overnight.  It's that bad.  I sincerely hope that every legislator who's signed on to, or votes for, this monstrosity will be punished severely at the polls in November's election.  They deserve nothing less than to lose the offices they've disgraced by ignoring reality and pandering to socialist pie-in-the-sky.




Peter

Choosing political expediency over ethics and morality

There's a remarkable admission in an article in the New York Times yesterday, titled "I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway."

Let’s be clear: I believe Tara Reade ... Discounting Ms. Reade’s accusation and, one after another, denigrating her corroborating witnesses, calling for endless new evidence, avowing that you “hear” her, is nonsense. We are now up to four corroborating witnesses ... So stop playing gotcha with the female supporters of Mr. Biden or the #MeToo movement, making them lie to the camera — or perhaps to themselves — about doubting her to justify their votes.

I’ll take one for the team. I believe Ms. Reade, and I’ll vote for Mr. Biden this fall.

. . .

Suck it up and make the utilitarian bargain.

All major Democratic Party figures have indicated they’re not budging on the presumptive nominee, and the transaction costs of replacing him would be suicidal. Barring some miracle, it’s going to be Mr. Biden.

So what is the greatest good or the greatest harm? Mr. Biden, and the Democrats he may carry with him into government, are likely to do more good for women and the nation than his competition, the worst president in the history of the Republic. Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do, the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it.

. . .

Utilitarian morality requires that I turn my face away from the people I propose to sell out: Monica Lewinsky, Tara Reade. This is agonizingly hard for me to do. Pretending not to believe the complainants — which is what is taking place with Ms. Reade — or that they’re loose nobodies, which is what much of the media did to Ms. Lewinsky, is just an escape from the hard work of moral analysis ... Better to just own up to what you are doing: sacrificing Ms. Reade for the good of the many.

There's more at the link.

Here you have the classic difference between liberal and conservative;  between socialist and capitalist;  between those who believe the state can (and should) do everything, and those who believe in individual freedom.  It's simply stated:

The individual is less
important than the group.

That's it, in a nutshell.  In this case, it's more important for the "group" to triumph (however you care to define the group:  liberal/progressive/left-wing political supporters, or women, or feminists, or anti-Trumpers, or whatever) than for the allegations of a self-described sexual assault victim to be investigated and, if proved, prosecuted as criminal charges.  It's more important that ethical, moral and criminal evil be allowed to triumph (in the crime of sexual assault) rather than allowing partisanly perceived political evil to triumph (in President Trump winning re-election).

That attitude, of course, is the diametric opposite of our constitution, which assigns individual rights to "the people" and to each individual member of "the people".  That's why we speak of "equality before the law" and the importance of "due process" (both of which the author of the above article would deny to Ms. Reade).  One can take that further.  In the mid-eighteenth century, William Blackstone published his "Commentaries on the Laws of England".  In it, he stated the seminal proposition that "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" (a concept that came to be known as Blackstone's Ratio).  As Wikipedia points out:

The phrase was absorbed by the British legal system, becoming a maxim by the early 19th century. It was also absorbed into American common law, cited repeatedly by that country's Founding Fathers, later becoming a standard drilled into law students all the way into the 21st century.

Other commentators have echoed the principle. Benjamin Franklin stated it as: "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".

The attitude expressed by the NYT op-ed writer appears to turn on its head the principle expressed in Blackstone's Ratio.  In so many words, she's arguing that it's better for political reasons that the victim of crime (Tara Reade) should suffer than that the guilty party (Joe Biden) should be held accountable.  What's more, she has no qualms, and no shame, about stating that openly, in print.

One doesn't have to wonder what Blackstone would have said to that . . . or what the Founding Fathers would have said.  One suspects their reaction would have been to call loudly for tar, feathers and a rail.  It's certainly mine.  As for deliberately voting on the basis of expediency - openly advocating the triumph of evil over good in the ethical and moral sense, in order that one set of partisan political principles may triumph over another - all I can say is that such a person has no place in my world, or I in hers.  If her view triumphs, it effectively means civil war between those who have principles, and those who have none:  between those who support our constitution, and those who reject it.  On so amoral a foundation no society can stand, and no nation can endure.




Peter

Voting by mail will be "The Most Massive Fraud Scheme in the History of America"

That's the opinion of lawyer Jim Bopp Jr., who's filed suits in more than one state to prevent unsupervised, check-and-balance-free postal balloting.

“I don’t use the word ‘voters,’” he says, “I use the word ‘people on the registration rolls’ because many of them are ineligible to vote. They’re not voters. They’re people that are on the registration rolls that are ineligible to vote.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the nation, Democratic officials and activists began pushing states to switch to voting by mail, eliminating in-person voting altogether — and probably permanently.

But organizations that have spent years reviewing the voter rolls in many states estimate that more than 20 million of the names nationwide are duplicates, people who have moved away, are deceased, non-citizens or felons who have not had their voting rights restored.

“Democrats have been trying to register everybody in the country and then fight purging the rolls of ineligible people, and now they want to mail ballots to every single one of them,” says Bopp. “It’s just like, talk about the most massive fraud scheme in the history of America. Makes Tammany Hall looks like a bunch of pikers, or the Pendergast Machine in Kansas City look like they didn’t even know how to steal elections.”

. . .

All-mail voting is not the same as absentee voting as voting absentee involves the voter requesting an absentee ballot, usually by mail, with a signature.

Some states have more stringent requirements than others. In Kansas, for example, people requesting an absentee ballot are required to send a copy of a driver’s license or State ID with the application for an absentee ballot.

“Part of the problem with this discussion is, we are familiar with absentee ballots, and that does involve quote mailing a ballot, end of quote,” says Bopp, “but there are numerous safeguards, the most important of which is the prior application. You have to apply.

“You have an audit trail, and all sorts of things. And that’s why a lot of these Democrats and liberal activists don’t like absentee ballot,” he says. “They want wholesale mailing out without application because it eliminates half the fraud protection.”

There's more at the link.

Equally dangerous, IMHO, is the push to legitimize so-called "ballot harvesting".  That resulted in all the Congressional districts in Orange County, CA - previously solidly Republican - turning Democrat in the last election, due solely to a flood of mail-in and absentee ballots "collected by volunteers".  Republicans used similar shenanigans to win an election in North Carolina.  The problem isn't limited to one political party.

I think there's likely to be absolutely massive electoral fraud this November as Democrats try to ensure, by hook or by crook, that they retain the House, take back the Senate, and defeat President Trump.  They've never forgiven him for defeating Hillary Clinton last time, and they want to make him a one-term President to exact revenge.  If they can't do that, they at least want to emasculate his policy agenda by controlling Congress.  Endangered Republican incumbents will be sorely tempted to indulge in shady tricks of their own to defend their seats, or unseat key Democrat players.  I think Mr. Bopp's warning needs to be taken very seriously indeed.

Perhaps we need to throw out every incumbent, irrespective of their party affiliation, and elect fresh blood?

Word!




Peter

"Fake news", caught in the act

The Gateway Pundit reports:

Many of you have by now seen various photos of medical workers boldly standing in front of lock down protesters like they are in Tiananmen Square or something — but what the media hasn’t shown you is that the photos are being faked.

In an instance of photo staging by the media caught on Facebook Live, a car with lock down protesters comes to a stop at a traffic light. As soon as they did, a medical worker hopped in front of their car with photographers, had a few photos snapped, then crossed the street like nothing happened.

The woman filming the staged photo-op quickly called the photographers out and urged them not to publish the faked photos.

“You’re a fraud!” she screamed as they walked off, never having actually protested.

Click over there to follow the Twitter link and see the video for yourself.  It's a classic example of media fakery - and proves that photographic "evidence" may not necessarily be true at all.

It's come to the point where one should automatically distrust any and every media report about the coronavirus pandemic, or President Trump's handling of the situation, unless and until it's corroborated by independent, trustworthy sources.  The media generally isn't interested in the truth - only in how they can twist the "facts" to suit their partisan political agenda.




Peter

The sheer, unmitigated gall of it!

The dictator governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, is displaying all the hallmarks of a wannabe tyrant in her handling of her state.  Her latest atrocity was to make even the gathering of health information into an exercise in partisan politics.

Michigan Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has handed over control of the state’s new contact-tracing operation to one of her own campaign vendors and one of the left’s biggest technology firms. The move has sparked concern that she is using the coronavirus to strengthen the Democratic Party’s data operation, potentially at the expense of public health.

The Whitmer administration announced Monday that it had awarded a contract for contact tracing in the state to Every Action VAN, an arm of the Democratic data behemoth NGP VAN ... The group is run by Stuart Trevelyan, a longtime Democratic campaign operative who worked in the Clinton White House and is currently assisting presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign with voter outreach and fundraising, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Whitmer’s own gubernatorial campaign paid NGP VAN nearly $5,000 in 2019, according to state campaign finance records. Every Action is a branch of the firm that works with nonprofit organizations.

. . .

Partnering with Every Action, Michigan hopes to collect information from thousands of individuals across the state to better understand the spread of the coronavirus. Trained volunteers are placing phone calls to those who have been in contact with coronavirus-infected individuals, inquiring about their health and advising them on appropriate precautions.

But state Republicans are raising concerns that the project will give the Democratic firm access to health and other private data of unwitting residents.

There's more at the link.

The public outcry was immediate, and so strong that Whitmer rapidly backtracked.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration acknowledged Tuesday that normal protocols were bypassed when a no-bid contract for coronavirus contact tracing was awarded by the state to Great Lakes Community Engagement, which is operated by a well-known Democratic consultant Michael Kolehouse -- who has previously written that President Trump should "get Coronavirus ASAP" and that someone should "do the country a favor and cough on that man," Facebook posts reviewed by Fox News show.

. . .

The state abruptly canceled the contract Tuesday.

“Nearly every major Democratic campaign in America is powered by NGP VAN's software, including the Obama campaign’s voter contact, volunteer, fundraising and compliance operations in all 50 states," NGP VAN boasts on its website. The Washington Post has described NGP VAN as "the voter file provider for Democratic campaigns and independent groups up and down ballot."

NGP VAN has previously exposed secretive and proprietary information due to technical glitches, The Washington Post has reported, including when a software patch was improperly applied.

. . .

“I want to know how Gov. Whitmer’s administration decided to hire this company without a competitive bid process, or letting the Legislature — charged with ensuring accountability within state government — know about it,” wrote GOP state Rep. Shane Hernandez in a letter to Whitmer that was first reported by The Detroit News. “I want to know what safeguards the governor has in place to ensure the information gathered during this COVID-19 response doesn’t wind up in the hands of any campaigns."

Again, more at the link.

I'm mind-boggled by the sheer chutzpah displayed by the Governor.  How on earth did she think she was going to get away with this?  Did she really think her opponents were going to turn a blind eye to such malfeasance of office, or roll over and play dead and allow her to ride roughshod over normal State acquisition and purchasing rules and procedures to benefit her own partisan supporters?

From issuing plainly nonsensical (not to mention unconstitutional) orders, to managing the state of Michigan for the benefit of her partisan supporters rather than all its citizens and residents, Governor Whitmer is demonstrating every day that she's unfit for office.  I don't know how Michiganders propose to remove her, but they'd better do so as quickly as possible, before she and her cronies ruin or destroy their state around their ears.  She's a disaster in the making.




Peter

Am I a prophet, or what? - Illinois edition

I've been warning about the budget woes and pension underfunding of Illinois in general, and Chicago in particular, for years.  It's a classic case of politicians who spend, spend, spend (using money they haven't got - deficit spending) in order to favor the constituencies (unions, liberal and progressive pressure groups, etc.) that re-elect them.  (Illinois isn't alone in that, of course.  Earlier this year there was a sneaky, underhanded attempt to fix up a federal bailout [to the tune of billions, perhaps even trillions of dollars] for such mismanaged state pension systems.  It's still on the back burner, but if the Senate and the White House change hands in November, I expect it to be rammed through faster than prunes through a duck.)

A couple of years back, I wrote:

... before long, Illinois' corrupt politicians and their union cronies will be calling upon the Federal government to bail them out, at the expense of every taxpayer in the USA.  Other states that have similarly mismanaged their finances (California for sure) will probably do likewise.  I can only hope and pray that the response to such demands will be "Not just no, but HELL, NO!"  Why should US taxpayers have to bail out Illinois unions and politicians, only to allow them to continue in the same vein as before?

Looks like I was exactly on target.  Using the current coronavirus pandemic as an excuse, Illinois Democrats are doing precisely that.

Illinois Senate Democrats are asking the federal government for more than $41 billion in federal aid — about a quarter of it for a pension fund bailout — to keep the state financially afloat as the coronavirus pandemic continues to slash revenues across the board.

A letter from Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, addressed to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, went out Tuesday to Illinois’ entire congressional delegation — a day before Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the economic shutdown would result in an estimated $2.7 billion revenue shortfall in the state’s current budget.

“I realize I’ve asked for a lot, but this is an unprecedented situation, and we face the reality that there likely will be additional, unanticipated costs that could result in future requests for assistance,” Harmon wrote on behalf of the state senate Democratic caucus.

Harmon’s federal wish list for the second phase of federal coronavirus relief includes $15 billion in block grant funding to shore up the state’s spending plans for this fiscal year and the next two.

The Oak Park Democrat also asked for $10 billion for the state’s desperately underfunded pension plans.

The Illinois Republican Party slammed that request on Twitter, accusing Democrats of “brazenly using a global pandemic as an excuse to ask the [federal government] to bail them out of the fiscal disaster they manufactured over the last two decades.”

Harmon also wants $9.6 billion for local governments, $6 billion for Illinois’ overloaded unemployment insurance system and $1 billion in public health support for “historically underserved communities”.

There's more at the link.  There are also more details of the request at Wirepoints, which has accurately and consistently covered Illinois' fiscal fecklessness for years.

It was Rahm Emanuel (until recently Mayor of Chicago) who opined during the Obama administration, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."  Clearly, his advice has not been lost on his party, or his successors in office.

Illinois' fiscal problems are almost entirely of its own making.  The state, and left-wing/progressive strongholds within it, have overspent and wasted money for not just years, but decades.  They're now trying to make the rest of us, the taxpayers of this country, pay for all their excesses and mis-spending.  As far as I'm concerned, and as I've said before, the answer should be not just "No", but "Hell, no!"

Look for other states to make similar demands during this crisis.  They think that since so much federal money is being thrown around, no-one will notice (or care very much) that they're taking the opportunity to divert billions, even trillions of federal dollars to pay for their own excesses and self-indulgence.  We dare not let that happen, because it will establish a precedent that will be used again in future.  If we pay off Illinois', or California's, or any other state's deficits, what's to stop them spending just as much all over again, then demanding another bailout?  What makes you think they've learned anything from their excesses, and won't repeat them at our expense given half a chance?

We, the taxpayers of this country, should all be writing to our representatives and Senators to protest any attempt to foist others' economic incompetence and corruption onto our backs.  If we don't, and it happens, we'll have only ourselves to blame.




Peter

Rewarding illegal aliens for being here???

I'm mind-boggled by California Governor Gavin Newsom's latest progressive tomfoolery.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday plans to give cash payments to adult immigrants living illegally in the state to help them weather the coronavirus crisis.

The plan, which would use a mix of taxpayer money and charitable donations from corporations and philanthropists, will give 150,000 adults $500 each during the coronavirus outbreak, the governor said.

California has had an estimated 2 million immigrants living in the country illegally. They have not been eligible for the $2.2 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress last month, which pledged cash payments to most Americans while boosting unemployment benefits by $600 per week.

. . .

Taxpayers would be kicking in $75 million for the money, while a group of charities has committed to raise another $50 million for a total of $125 million.

There's more at the link.

So money legally seized extorted collected from taxpayers is to be used to fund illegal aliens?  That's an absolute travesty of justice, no matter how one looks at it.

If a private charity or individual donor wishes to help such people, that's fine with me.  It's their money, and they can decide what to do with it.  However, for the state to forcibly take money from taxpayers, and then squander it on those who've flouted the laws of this country to be here . . . that's iniquitous.

If I were a California taxpayer, I'd be filing a lawsuit over this.  Since I'm not, I can only fume from a distance.  Nevertheless, those of my readers in California might wish to take note of this.  The sooner you can leave that progressive hell-hole, the freer you'll be in every way, politically and financially!




Peter

Constitution? What Constitution?

Police in Raleigh, North Carolina, have done themselves no favors by enforcing a clearly, unquestionably unconstitutional order.  Here are a couple of excerpts from a Twitter thread discussing the matter.

There's also the small matter of the Constitution of the State of North Carolina:  Article I (Declaration of Rights), Sections 5 and 7.  Italics are my emphasis.

Sec. 5. Allegiance to the United States.

Every citizen of this State owes paramount allegiance to the Constitution and government of the United States, and no law or ordinance of the State in contravention or subversion thereof can have any binding force.

Sec. 7.  Suspending laws.

All power of suspending laws or the execution of laws by any authority, without the consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights and shall not be exercised.

In other words, according to North Carolina's own Constitution, that State's governor had no authority to ban public protests, because such protests (i.e. the right to "peaceably assemble") are themselves protected by the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States.  What's more, there was no consent given to, and no prior authorization of, his order by "the representatives of the people".

That makes the actions of the Raleigh Police Department prima facie illegal and unconstitutional.  Raleigh PD, what happened to "protect and serve"?  You're protecting the bejeesus out of an illegal order!!!  In doing so, you're ignoring the Constitutional rights of your own citizens!

When I took the Federal law enforcement oath of office, I solemnly swore:

... that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

There was (and is) no expiration date on that oath.  It binds me still.  Did members of the Raleigh Police Department swear a similar oath, or make a similar promise?  If so, congratulations, officers.  You are now forsworn.

The same insanity is visible in Michigan, and California, and every other state where jackbooted thugs (in the guise of politicians and bureaucrats) are requiring their law enforcement agencies and officers to impose and enforce blatantly unconstitutional (and therefore illegal) orders.

The question is, what will happen to citizens who stand up for their Constitutional rights, and refuse to allow anyone to ride rough-shod over them?  I certainly will, if push comes to shove;  and I will not allow officers to treat me as a criminal when it is, in fact, their enforcement of unconstitutional orders and ordinances that is clearly and prima facie illegal.  Do I expect officers to acknowledge that, and back down?  I hope some will, but I'm sure many won't - because for many of them (clearly including Raleigh PD), to judge by their uncomplaining acceptance of such edicts, the Constitution is so much toilet paper.

That's what comes of ignoring and/or minimizing the importance of civics and US history in their education, both as children and as police candidates.  In particular, they've clearly never heard of Marbury v. Madison, where the Supreme Court of the United States ruled:

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

. . .

Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

Marbury v. Madison therefore elevates the US Constitution, and that of North Carolina as well, over any edict by the Governor of that state, as well as any law passed by its legislature.  Would someone kindly inform Raleigh PD of that little fact?




Peter

Inevitably, the coronavirus becomes a political football

We're seeing the beginnings of coordinated action by the Democratic Party, and its allies in the mainstream media, to use the coronavirus pandemic as a means to attack President Trump and the Republican Party.  Any and every "news" report can and will be skewed to portray the latter in the most unfavorable light possible.  Headlines may bear little or no relation to the content of the report that follows, because those writing them know that many readers won't go much further than the headline;  so a misleading one, even if not supported by the details, will do its propaganda best.

Here's one example from yesterday.  The Drudge Report, a reliably anti-Trump source, headlined its main page as follows:

Fox News, a more-or-less reliably pro-Trump source, used this headline:

Fauci expresses 'cautious optimism' on coronavirus,

says lives could have been saved if US acted earlier

Which headline is correct?  Apparently the second, because what Dr. Fauci actually said was this:

He acknowledged that lives could have been saved had U.S. officials acted earlier, but still defended the Trump administration's response. “‘What would have, what could have,’ it’s very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But, what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated." He continued, "If we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different, but there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down.”

No anti-Trump source that I was able to find disagreed with that content.  In other words, Dr. Fauci didn't "download on Trump";  in fact, he doesn't even appear to have mentioned his name in connection with the dilemma over when, and how far, to shut down the USA in response to the pandemic.  In this case, the Drudge headline is clearly slanted, biased propaganda, rather than news, while the Fox headline is a much more accurate reflection of what Dr. Fauci actually said and/or implied.

Looking at the headlines over the weekend, it's clear that most of the anti-Trump media (including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy [owned by the WaPo's holding company], The Atlantic, and the many other usual suspects) are all in lock-step over ascribing the pandemic's consequences to the present Administration's mistakes in handling it.  It's becoming a constant, daily drumbeat of propaganda.  They're clearly taking their marching orders from a central set of "talking points", orchestrated by the Democratic Party and/or its influential backers.

In reality, as I mentioned last week, from an historical perspective there were plenty of mistakes made, on both sides of the political aisle, that led to the problems we've experienced in our national response.  There's more than enough blame to go around - but why bother?  Our immediate task isn't to exact retribution for what was done, or not done, five months, or five years, or five decades ago.  It's to solve our present crisis.  When, and only when, we've done that, need we worry about pinpointing blame - but that won't prevent the same problems from arising again, because their basic cause is human nature.

In good times, we forget or ignore the bad, and so we're not prepared when the latter come around again.  It's been that way throughout human history.  The current pandemic is no exception.  Anyone trying to tell you that this time is different, that this time one side alone is to blame while the other is doing its best to cope despite its political opponents . . . they're lying through their teeth.  The truth is not in them.  Whoever they are, on whatever side of the political aisle, if they try to lie to you like that, consider voting against them and for their opponent.  US politics will probably be healthier for it.




Peter