A friend of mine shared a link with me to an article posted on The Federalist Pages. The article consists of an open letter written to the American Medical Association by Dr. Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D. Dr. Gonzalez is orthopedic surgeon and lawyer who lives in Florida. He is also a former Florida State Representative and former Congressional Candidate, and has published several books including The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.
I did not write this, but I agree 100% with the many points Dr. Gonzalez raises, which by the way, are historically and provably accurate. I have included the entire text of the letter here as well as a link to the post on The Federalist Pages. I hope Dr. Gonzalez and The Federalist Pages do not mind. Exposing the lies and disgusting assertions of the left has become of paramount importance in saving this country. Articles and letters such as this need to be read by as many Americans as possible. It is scary to me how many Americans accept the nonsense spewed forth by the Democrats who have sold their souls to the Left in an insane grab for total control of the government and the media that willingly goes along with them.
So, thank you again, Dr. Gonzalez. I will be supporting both you and The Federalist Pages in the future.
An Open Letter to the American Medical Association
Dear Sir and Madam,
I read with great disgust your “Organization Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity.” Seldom have I read a more destructive, divisive, and inflammatory document by a professional organization, and I have never been more ashamed of being associated with the American Medical Association at any time in my career.
The suggestion that our country owes anyone “equity” because of “past injustices” is revolting. My family arrived in this country in 1961. We have not been a party to any of the injustices that occurred so many decades ago, yet you hold my family, my colleagues, and me in the same light that you hold the cruelest slaveholder. How dare you say that I, a person who is forced to answer on a census form as being white/Caucasian, but who on a different question answers Hispanic/Latino/Cuban, should be in anyway held responsible for those who traded slaves and the African chieftains who willingly sold their tribesmen and women to the Europeans four hundred years ago?
How dare you say that I, and every one of my colleagues who have spent our lives treating the poor, minorities, majorities, and anyone else who may stumble into our emergency rooms, legally or not, without bias or favor, and without any chance of being reimbursed for our training and our efforts, should be thought of as members of an oppressive consortium designed to inflict evil or inequity to those who we selflessly treat?
How dare you join the countless number of camouflaged communists who furtively and purposely try to confuse those around them by conflating equity with equality? Ours is a nation built on the premise of equal standing under the law and only that. Everything else is to be achieved through excellence, dedication, training, and hard work.
Equity, on the other hand, is achieved by fiat, by taking from some and giving it to others at the point of a gun. Few better ruses exist for the state control of the means of production than through the illusory promise of achieving equity instead of equal standing under the law. This is a dangerous track you are entering from which you and the social system you seek may never be able to return.
You claim that we live in a land that was taken from Native Americans hundreds of years ago. That may be so, but you neglect that the same is true of all other civilizations on earth. The Babylonians invaded Israel. The Norwegians invaded England. The Visigoths invaded Rome. Rome invaded Egypt and North Africa. The Turks invaded Constantinople. The Mongols invaded Europe. The Germans invaded Russia. The Russians starved their people. The Germans committed holocaust upon the Jews. The Calusas ransacked and sacrificed their neighboring tribes. The Caribes attacked and imprisoned the Taínos. The Mayans continuously conquered each other and tore their victims’ hearts out while they were still beating. Mao starved 69 million people and the People’s Republic of China killed millions with their latest virus.
Every single civilization, even those in Africa and the Far East, have conquered and been conquered. It is a fact of life and a staple of history. Your skewed and biased view of the events that took place between the Europeans and Native Americans while ignoring every other injustice carried out throughout history upon the very groups against which you point an accusatory finger is ignorant, hypocritical, and insulting to the 100% of us living Americans who played no part in the invasion nor were victims of the conquests.
You have abused your position as the self-proclaimed purveyor of the medical profession to promote a self-proclaimed social(ist) agenda against the will of so many of those whom you falsely claim to represent.
I will oppose you with all my being, all my strength, my intellect, and my voice. I will oppose you from here to the ends of the earth. I will oppose you because of your disgusting abuse of the great privilege that has been bestowed upon you, and because of the great insult you asperse upon me by suggesting that I carry anything other than love, charity, and good will towards every human being that I meet and have treated in my 30 years of practice as a physician.
There is a magnificent document whose signers pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor to a cause much greater than themselves. Today, I pledge the same in opposition of you.
Here’s to seeing the end of your filthy, disgusting, and vile organization.
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D. Former Florida State Representative Former Congressional Candidate
Click here to read the letter on The Federalist Pages.
I can really understand why. I’ve written about this before, but apparently, the Democrat National Committee, on their official Twitter site, posted the following:
That has a lot of Democrats upset because as Joe Biden pointed out, he was going to send $2,000 checks “immediately” once Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff got elected to the US Senate from Georgia. In fact, this was one of their online ads:
As you can plainly see, there is no mention of this being a $1,400 check! I am seeing $2,000, how about you?
Well, as you can imagine, it’s drawn a lot of ire from the Democrat voters. Here is a smattering of what they had to say:
Gaslighting the very people who trusted & voted for you.
Amazing that your side easily sails under this extremely low bar every time.
$600 “down payment” huh? weird that no one called it that –…
Where the hell is William Barr? Or is he truly just another swamp creature?
According to a forensic investigation: Dominion Software Intentionally Designed to Influence Election Results
13th Circuit Judge Kevin Elsenheimer approved a forensic examination in Bailey v. Antrim County, which alleges the infamous vote flip county officials reported last month may have not been the result of human error despite the narrative being pushed by Michigan election officials and Democrat propaganda machine aka the media. Elsenheimer later approved making the findings public.
Russell Ramsland Jr., a former Reagan administration official who has also worked for NASA and is a co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, released this preliminary statement.
We conclude that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.
Russell Ramsland, Jr.
Somehow, this is not surprising since this is the very system designed and used to put and keep Hugo Chavez in power in Venezuela. And that is a fact, jack!
Ramsland pointed to the fact that the tabulation log for the forensic examination of the server for the county showed 15,676 individual recorded events. Of those, some 68 percent were recorded errors.
“These errors resulted in overall tabulation errors or ballots being sent to adjudication. This high error rate proves the Dominion Voting System is flawed and does not meet state or federal election laws.
Ramsland went on to say that a staggering number of votes required adjudication!
This was an issue not seen in previous election cycles still stored on the server, which points to intentional system changes. These intentional changes lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail (more on that in a second)!
The statements by Democrat election officials attributing these issues to human error are not consistent with the forensic evidence, which points more directly toward systemic changes intentionally designed to create errors to push a high volume of ballots to bulk adjudication (which means somebody decides, after the fact, who gets that vote).
Of course, Democrats are already howling this report is full of lies and/or false conclusions. I might buy that, especially if I was a Democrat … except for one small thing.
And that is … no audit trail!
Crucial security and adjudication logs are mysteriously missing from Antrim County’s Dominion Voting Systems machines. Hmmm! What an amazing coincidence.
I work in IT, and I know how logs like that work. They do not just disappear. They have to be intentionally removed. The lack of these logs prevents any form of audit accountability, and their “convenient” absence is extremely suspicious since the logs for all previous election cycles are still present. This is another indication of foul play.
This means that, while you can see that errors occurred, conveniently for the Democrats, you cannot go in and see what the errors actually were or how they were adjudicated. The only possible conclusion is that the 2020 cycle logs in these Dominion machines were manually removed to prevent the discovery of proof of fraud. In and of itself, for anybody with a thinking brain and an understanding of computer logs, this is proof of fraud.
It may not matter in the long run. They can probably just rely on the willful ignorance of too many Americans and the media’s willingness to dutifully squash the story for their masters.
I don’t care if you are a republican, a democrat, an independent, or what; you should not be okay with the fraudulent use of our election process and the destruction of our system of government. You should want every LEGAL vote counted and a peaceful transition of power once that occurs. But if this election is allowed to stand without a COMPLETE and VALIDATED recount, we are already Venezuela; we just don’t see it yet.
And yes, that includes CNN, MSNBC, and sadly, many on Fox News as well!
Here are a few more thoughts on the 2020 election!
Data is now coming in that is proving criminal fraud in the 2020 Presidential election! Much of this data is simple math and does not require video surveillance, an eye-witness account, or a smoking gun.
Perhaps that is why the Arizona Supreme Court has consented to hear Trump’s case, and why Texas has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule four battleground state elections unconstitutional. Evidence is becoming so blatant it can no longer plausibly be ignored.
According to one analyst, there were 16 dumps of exactly 4800 sets of digital (not actual) “votes” for Biden in the early morning hours in one state and 44 dumps of exactly 6000 digital (not actual) “votes” in another state. Tell me … what are the statistical odds of that actually happening?
In sample after sample, Biden’s victory just doesn’t add up. I wonder why that is … ?
It is because decisive, targeted, and non-ubiquitous election fraud occurred on November 3, 2020!
This fraud was not actually “wide-spread” in the way we understand the term. It was very targeted, with only six locations being used. However, if these six locations were flipped, it would flip these “swing states” and their electoral college votes.
The reason they got caught is that Trump was on his way to an easy win. Do you remember what the election counts were when you went to bed? Trump was way, way ahead. This forced the cheaters at these six locations to go full-on criminal by intimidating observers, taping newspapers over windows, reporting a leaking toilet as a “water main break,” and shutting down counting and then immediately restarting once Republican observers had departed. However, the sheer number of votes needed also broke the algorithm because they needed too many “fraudulent” votes to ensure Biden won, and it became obvious to anyone willing to look. If the numbers had been much closer when we went to bed, they probably would have gotten away with it. And sadly, because of the swamp, they still might. That would be bad.
And this is why the left isn’t calling for transparency, audits, or open communication to build confidence in the electorate. It is exactly why they are obfuscating, playing legal games, defying court orders, and howling in the press that it is all over.
Ask your self, is this the behavior of a group that won an election fair and square?
It is unbelievable, yes! But it is also all documented, cited, and sourced. Of course, it won’t matter if you’ve already OD’d on the Kool-Aid.
And while I am at it, here are my thoughts on mask mandates …
From a recent messenger chat with a friend. The friend’s name has been omitted out of respect for his privacy and the chat message slightly edited for clarity …
#####, my comment was somewhat “tongue in cheek” and was in no way directed at you or anyone else who uses caution and common sense in avoiding contracting or spreading disease. I wear a mask when it is appropriate. But I don’t see anyone in this group blindly following the commands of little dictator wannabes!
I have seen too many examples of dictatorial nonsense and imperial edicts enacted on Americans by Democrat elitists with little thought or basis in science or fact to have much patience for more of the same. They are simply using coronavirus as a justification. Even this massive mail-in voting push and the chaos it has caused was justified by the media perpetuated COVID panic. This was not a coincidence. This is being used as a vehicle for all kinds of agenda-driven power grabs. This is made especially clear since these edict issuers do not follow the very rules that they demand we follow. Pelosi, Gavin, Whitmore, and Fauci are just a few examples recently in the news (if you look beyond CNN and MSLSD). More finite examples are everywhere if you only look.
For instance, you can safely board and fly on a plane with a mask on, but you can’t safely go to church wearing a mask? You can take a sailboat out on a lake in Michigan and be safe from COVID, but you’re not safe in a powerboat? A family can drive to a golf course together in a mini-van, but once there, they all have to ride in separate golf carts? Explain the science behind that to me. Or, is it just more agenda-driven erosion of our rights and working toward Hillary Clinton’s stated goal of a more “compliant citizenry.”
So, while I will not blindly submit to imperial edicts like unenforceable mask mandates issued by the US’s agenda-driven domestic enemies, I will wear a mask when appropriate to protect those I care about. But it will be my decision as a free American to do so. That is how it must be because once you give up your freedom, it is typically a bloody mess (civil war or revolution) to get it back. I believe this is how most Americans should feel, and I suspect how you feel.
Well, maybe except Biden, who I assume probably wore his mask while sitting alone in his basement.
So, I am done with political rantings … at least for a while. I am not particularly sorry if this offends anyone. Our country’s welfare and the integrity of our election system and system of government are at stake here!
A Texas grand jury has indicted Netflix for the child porn depicted in the film, Cuties!
A grand jury in Tyler County, Texas, has indicted Netflix, Inc. for “knowingly” distributing the graphic and “lewd” film “Cuties” on its streaming platform.
In full disclosure, I have not seen this film. Nor will I. But from the information readily available from numerous sources, it is clear this film contains graphic material that depicts young girls, under the age of 18, in sexually suggestive situations. There are instances of nudity, twerking, and child pornography. The indictment also claims there is a lewd display of a young girl’s pubic area while clothed or partially clothed, and that the girl was under 18 when the film was created.
Now I am no prude. Sleep with whoever the hell you want above the age of consent. But crap like this has no serious literary, artistic, or scientific value. I suppose it may have some political value to certain segments of our society who seem to be testing the waters for legitimizing this kind of behavior.
Thankfully, there is hope. Some people were upset!
Netflix experienced a huge backlash from many conservative communities for the film’s disturbing and hypersexualized portrayal of pre-pubescent girls. You’d think the sexual exploitation of pre-teen girls would be completely unacceptable to all Americans. Apparently, that’s not the case …
A number of Americans did launch a hashtag campaign, #CancelNetflix, against the company on various social media sites in the hope that people would cancel their NetFlix accounts. Yes. I canceled mine.
Netflix is becoming less popular among conservative viewers.
But then honestly, I hadn’t watched Netflix in a while anyway. I began to lose interest with the whole Michelle Wolf, Bill Maher, Jane Fonda thing. Add to that Barack and Michelle Obama and Susan Rice on the Board of Directors and an upcoming Obama talk show – well, it’s just not me.
To be fair, I believe that a free people should be able to watch what they want. If you don’t like it, you can certainly turn it off, change the channel, or cancel your subscription. But there is a legal aspect to this, at least in my mind. Programing should conform to society’s accepted rule of law. Airing softcore kiddie porn, or material which only appeals to the prurient interest in sex with minors, should not be legal. It will be interesting to see how this case plays out in Texas.
I suppose I am a little old fashioned, but I am proud of that. In many cases, change is good. Sometimes, however, it is not. So, before you condemn me for being a right-wing, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, bitter, deplorable, puritanical (did I miss any) old fool, ask yourself – would you want your 11-year-old daughter portrayed in that manner?
I would hope not …
And if it wouldn’t bother you, I would argue that I am not the one with the problem.
Did this title strike a nerve? I hope so! Too much is at stake here to be worried about political correctness. If a few people are so insecure that a few words trigger a total psychological meltdown on their part … too bad. We are reaping that which the “no individual responsibility, everyone gets a trophy, you can’t play tag on the schoolyard at recess, helicopter parenting” mentality has sown in our country. There are just not enough blankies, puppies, and cups of warm cocoa to go around. It is too bad, and I hope the pendulum begins to swing back the other way soon … before it is too late.
We desperately need a few more sheepdogs!
Why do I say this? Well, step back, clear your eyes, and take a good look around. America, the greatest nation on this planet, is being attacked by a coordinated and well-funded radical left movement, and we are in real danger of losing our country.
This post has been stewing in my brain since the first presidential debate. Yes, the event was a complete catastrophe. I think both candidates performed like two spoiled 70-year-old toddlers. President Trump came on way too hard and aggressively. The endless whoppers Joe Biden told were utterly unbelievable. And Chris Wallace? Well, Wallace should probably move over to MSNBC or CNN. The most fabulous “moderator” in modern history quickly lost complete control of the debate, and his bias was blatantly evident.
Here are just three examples:
Proud Boys
Chris Wallace asked President Trump to go on the record [again], and denounce White Supremacy. President Trump answered that he had already done so numerous times.
In fact, President Trump had just recently announced a plan to prosecute both Antifa and the KKK as terrorist groups. The last time I checked, the KKK was a white supremacy group.
Of course, that was not the answer Chris Wallace wanted, so he pressed harder. President Trump asked exactly which group Biden and Wallace wanted him to denounce (which was a tactical blunder on his part). Biden replied, “Proud Boys.” Trump answered by telling the Proud Boys “stand back and stand by.” I don’t know, maybe Trump should have said, “stand down.” You know how we love to parse words these days.
Here is my problem. Did Chris Wallace then turn to Joe Biden and ask him to denounce Antifa or BLM? No, he did not.
Yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU consider Proud Boys a violent right-wing hate group. However, they believe that almost all conservative organizations are violent hate groups. They are both incredibly left-leaning, after all.
Side Note: Did you know the ACLU was initially a communist organization? It was. I read the memo where they announced the decision to change their name because too many Americans really disliked communists. A copy of the memo was available on the internet at one time. It may have disappeared by now.
After President Trump’s “stand down'” request, Enrique Tarrio (hardly a WASP name), leader of Proud Boys, is reported to have stated, “That’s my president.”
Picture from NBCMiami.com
FYI: This is Enrique Tarrio. He is Afro-Cuban. Enrique is the national leader of the Proud Boys, which includes a large number of Black and Hispanic members. The media reports that Proud Boys is a white supremacy hate group. However, the truth is the group is anti-Antifa, anti-rioters, anti-communism, anti-socialism, and anti-looters. They are pro-law enforcement and pro-USA.
Aside from Enrique, could some white supremacists be lurking among the ranks of Proud Boys members? Of course, there could.
Now, here’s a hard question for you. Can you be honest with me! Could there be black supremacists included in the ranks of BLM? Hmmm.
Antifa
Biden laughed, saying that Antifa doesn’t exist – that Antifa is just an idea. Ok, Joe! If Antifa is just an idea – it is one that uses real bricks, clubs, Molotov cocktails, fireworks, and other ideas to threaten, intimidate, and destroy Americans and American businesses. You should get out of your basement more often, Joe.
Photo from therightscoop.com
I mean, we could say that the Waffen-SS was just an idea as well. Of course, they murdered millions. But here’s the rub. Did Chris Wallace press good old Uncle Joe on this comment? Nope!
So, Antifa attacks Americans, burns American businesses, beats up American journalists, and yes, sometimes accidentally set themselves on fire with Molotov cocktails.
Who do the Proud Boys clash with? Antifa! Maybe if law enforcement was allowed to do its job, other Americans wouldn’t have to step in to help.
BLM
I have a real problem with this one. I will tell you upfront, I am not a racist. You certainly don’t have to belive me, but it’s true. My family is one of incredible diversity. I just believe all lives matter. In my opinion, if you have to put a color in front of “lives matter,” you’re a racist.
But BLM is not about race at all. If they were, they would care about all the black communities being destroyed by BLM’s “white” useful idiots. They would care about the Black on Black crime in our big cities, the shooting of innocent children in drive-by attacks, , the fatherless children, the drugs, the poverty, and the millions of Black lives and families being ruined every day. But they don’t. That is because BLM is a Marxist movement. They just use race to achieve their goals.
Photo from freewestmedia.com
You don’t believe me? Have you read their mission statement, their charter, or any of their handouts? Incidentally, you can’t find any of this on their website anymore. It was there, I saw it! But, they recently scrubbed it all clean. I guess some people were beginning to take notice, after all.
Here, let me help!
Read these quotes carefully. They look innocuous at first glance. But what do the words actually mean?
We disrupt theWestern-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.
We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.
Handout 1 – Black Lives Matter Document Set
You won’t find these statements on their website anymore. I wonder why? And I am sorry, but there is a massive difference in the knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and leadership abilities of 16-year-olds and 50-year-olds. Wisdom is accumulated through experience, which requires time.
BLM leaders have even admitted in several interviews that they are a Marxist organization. This isn’t new news, but it may indeed be news to you. This guy really sums it up very well in his video, which also includes a historically accurate portrayal of Fascism.
Yes. The lunatics are now running the asylum. “Protected groups,” long separated, isolated, protected, and coddled by the Democrat Party because they were “useful” as voting blocks, have escaped the plantation, and joining together in “collective” entitlement thinking, are burning down the house.
In short, some groups of really unpleasant people with an incredibly dangerous left-wing agenda are running around this country doing bad things to good people. The Dems don’t want to stop it! Why? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that both the DNC and BLM raise money through ActBlue. Antifa doesn’t need ActBlue because they have George Soros, who seems to have bottomless pockets.
So, who are you going to call?
When a group of BLM protesters decides to drag you out of your car and beat you to a pulp, or an Antifa mob decides to burn down your small family-owned business because you have an American flag hanging out front, who are you going to call?
Well, the way things are going, you might as well call the Ghost Busters! Combine the radical left’s push to defund or eliminate the police with the backstabbing and “stand down” orders from radical left politicians like Bill de Blasio and Ted Wheeler, and you have a severe problem. The cops won’t be there. Or, even if they are, good cops will be reluctant to act out of fear of being falsely charged with a crime for doing their job.
You may find yourself completely on your own!
There is a reason gun sales have surged since March. And a large percentage of these sales are to first-time buyers. People are scared and want to be able to protect themselves and their families. And I do not blame them one bit.
We all think – it won’t happen to me. However, I was accosted not too long ago in a grocery store by a twenty-something punk who looked like prime Antifa material. He didn’t like my patriotic t-shirt. Fortunately for him, he did not push things too far. I am pretty confident he would have had a terrible day. He simply saw an older man … and did not know he was picking a fight with a veteran who served with the 101st Air Assault Division, and who is also a trained bodyguard, a 5th-degree blackbelt, and who carries. Of course, I am glad he decided to stomp off muttering curses rather than escalate things. The fact is … you just don’t know.
Become a Sheepdog
Are you buying a gun?
Don’t just buy a gun. Learn to use it proficiently. Go to the range regularly. Take classes. I train regularly to stay proficient at certain skills.
Can you get your weapon out of its holster quickly … and without having it taken from you in the process (weapon retention)?
Can you shoot accurately from any position?
Can you shoot well one-handed … right and left (what if your “shooting hand” is injured)?
Can you reload or rack your pistol one-handed?
Can you shoot when breathing hard?
Do you know when not to shoot!!
What do you do if you are involved in a shooting incident (I recommend joining USCCA)?
Get in shape
Join a gym, run, bicycle, dance, hike, do yoga, lift weights, but do something. You don’t have to be a super athlete. After all, you are not training to fight eighteen rounds. Most serious self-defense situations are actually over pretty quickly.
Study a serious martial art
We are not talking sport karate here. When your life or the life of those you care about is on the line, there are no rules. The driving need is simply not to lose. A back fist to the forehead or a jump spinning roundhouse kick to the head just isn’t going to work. There are dojos out there that train martial arts as they were initially intended – a system of personal combat, and not as a sport or a pathway to some kind of omnipresent supergalactic oneness. Find one, join, and train seriously.
On the upside, those dojos usually cost much less to join than Supreme Ultimate Grandmaster Billy Bob’s Karate Super Center and Health Food Emporium.
OMG! You’re advocating violence!
No, I am not advocating violence here. But I do believe that you, as a free and law-abiding American, have the God-given right to protect yourself, your family, and your livelihood from injury or the wanton and idiotic destruction of radical left-wing rioters that are determined to destroy America. That right, clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That is why the left wants these documents gone and forgotten.
Also, this is not about being paranoid; it is about being prepared
Of course, you may choose not to protect yourself. That is certainly your right as an American citizen. However, you do not have the right to deprive me of the means to protect my family and those I love.
I would also add that when you are sitting in your car, and Antifa thugs are smashing in the windows with sledgehammers and threatening your family with Molotov cocktails, it is a little too late to make that decision to be prepared.
So you decide … it’s your choice; sheep or sheepdog?
We can always be a bit more prepared than we were yesterday. No matter your age or condition, you can do something to improve your ability to protect yourself and those you love. Make that first step in your decision to be a sheepdog and not a sheep. America needs you to step up.
A friend of mine sent me a message a few days ago containing some random ideas on cause and effect, trends, and his conclusions. His thoughts got me thinking about several things, and I decided to do a little research and explore a few of his ideas. After doing a little digging, I then decided to share a bit of what I found in a short post. I may explore a few more of his musings as well. This one turned out to be interesting.
Random Idea #1
Sensationalism in the media has finally stirred enough pots so now we have an entire cross-section of society that believes police target minorities.
Do the police actively target minorities? We hear about it from the mainstream media, groups like BLM, and Left-wing politicians all the time. I have heard some statistical claims by some that I know are complete nonsense because I am interested in these things and do quite a bit of research myself.
Unfortunately, most people with an ax to grind, start with their belief, and then search for statistics to back it up. In addition, they will often take statistics out of context and completely ignore any statistics that do not support their belief. This is intellectually dishonest.
An intellectually honest person forms their belief based on the information the statistics provide.
You also have to understand the context in which the statistics exist. Many today, especially in the media and the radical Left, choose to ignore the background of the statistic they happen to be quoting at the time and instead choose to focus on that all-important “bumper-sticker” slogan or attention-grabbing headline rather than FACTS.
And too often, it seems, they continue to quote statistics that have already be debunked by well-respected research groups, think-tanks, and institutions of higher education.
But what is the truth …
The Bureau of Justice Statistics keeps and provides data on public interaction with police. The latest BJS figures are from 2011 and comprise the latest, most extensive, and accurate data set available.
When it comes to street stops and traffic stops by law enforcement, they fall firmly in line with the demographics of the nation. In 2011, 65.2 percent of those stopped in street stops were white, 15.3 percent were Hispanic/Latino, 12.4 percent were black, 3.6 percent were Asian, 3.1 percent were two or more races, and .6 percent were American Indian.
This demographic breakdown of traffic stops by police officers very closely tracks the demographic makeup of the population. It does not show any propensity for the over-policing of minority populations.
What Harvard says …
A study by a Harvard professor released in 2016 found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings even though officers were more likely to interact physically with minorities than whites.
Mr. Fryer, who happens to be black, told The New York Times that the finding of no racial discrimination in police shootings was “the most surprising result of my career.”
The 63-page study, “An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force,” appears to support research conducted at Washington State University showing that officers in simulation tests were actually less likely to shoot at blacks than whites.
This does not surprise me since if you are a cop and you are involved in the shooting of a black suspect, you will be publicly charged with felony murder before any investigation is even launched, never mind completed.
The Left, failing in several coup attempts since the 2016 election, has simply now revived the anti-police rhetoric of the Obama years
Biden’s criminal-justice plan promises that after his policing reforms, “black mothers and fathers will no longer have to fear when their children ‘walk’ the streets of America” — the threat allegedly coming from cops, not gangbangers.
President Barack Obama likewise claimed during the memorial for five Dallas police officers killed by a Black Lives Matter–inspired assassin in July 2016 that black parents were right to fear that their child could be killed by a police officer whenever he “walks out the door.”
South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has said that police shootings of black men won’t be solved “until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism.”
Beto O’Rourke claims that the police shoot blacks “solely based on the color of their skin.”
I have to admit, it’s enough to scare the proverbial crap out of anyone, especially if you are American who happens to be black! But is it accurate?
Another point to consider …
In 2016, the Obama administration recommended that all police departments lower their entry standards to qualify more minorities for recruitment. Many departments had already reduced reliance on written exams and eliminated requirements that recruits have a clean criminal record (Does anyone else see a problem with this one especially). These practices intensified after his administration’s suggestion.
The PNAS warned that these efforts would not reduce racial disparities in shootings.
In fact, a 2015 Justice Department study of the Philadelphia Police Department had already found that black officers were 67 percent more likely than white officers to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black suspect. And, Hispanic officers were 145 percent more likely than white officers to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black suspect.
Whether lowered hiring standards are responsible for those disparities was not addressed.
A study by Michigan State University and the University of Maryland at College Park show that police actually do not target minorities!
A study published in 2019 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demolishes the Democratic narrative regarding race and police shootings. While the radical Left claim that white officers are engaged in an epidemic of racially biased shootings of black men, it turns out that white officers are no more likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot black civilians. It is a racial group’s rate of violent crime that determines police shootings, not the race of the officer.
The more often officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the higher the chance that members of that racial group will be shot by a police officer. In fact, the study found that if there is a bias in police shootings after crime rates are taken into account, it is against white civilians.
This study looked at 917 officer-involved fatal shootings in 2015 from more than 650 police departments. Fifty-five percent of the victims were white, 27 percent were black, and 19 percent were Hispanic.
Between 90and95percent of the civilians shot by officers in 2015 were attacking police or other citizens.
90 percent were armed with a weapon.
So-called threat-misperception shootings, in which an officer shoots an unarmed civilian after mistaking a cellphone, say, for a gun, were rare.
The Black Lives Matter narrative, however, remains impervious to the truth
The truth is, the persistent belief that we are living through an epidemic of racially biased police shootings is a creation of selective reporting on the part of the media.
In 2015, a PNAS study addressed white victims of fatal police shootings that included:
A 50-year-old suspect in a domestic assault in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that ran at the officer with a spoon.
A 28-year-old driver in Des Moines, Iowa, who exited his car and walked quickly toward an officer after a car chase.
A 21-year-old suspect in a grocery-store robbery in Akron, Ohio, who had escaped on a bike and would not remove his hand from his waistband when ordered to do so.
I suspect that had any of these victims been black, the media and activists would probably have jumped on their stories and added their names to the roster of victims of police racism. Instead, because they are white, they are unknown.
The biggest threat facing minorities in crime-ridden cities is not “over-policing” or “brutal policing.” The most significant danger facing minorities in crime-ridden cities is “de-policing” and allowing criminals free reign.
I hope you will take some time to check out some of my other “blog posts by clicking here!
And if you enjoy reading a good action-adventure story, check out my new novel, Montagnard, on Amazon.com! It’s getting a lot of great reviews.
Who is really polluting the climate change debate?
I have not met too many conservatives who do not want clean water, clean air, or who want the world to end in 2012! Oh, wait! We are past that already. Well, let’s just say twelve years from now! I get a real kick out of these climate alarmists running around warning us that if we don’t give them all our money, the world will end in twelve years, while at the same time, they are planning long-term fundamental changes to our country.
I mean, if we’re all going to die, what’s the point …
While we can all certainly agree we should be good stewards of our planet, we must take a scientific-based approach to ensure its longevity. However, Congress has proven time and time again that they are great at ignoring real science and incredibly incompetent when it comes to making smart decisions. Or, at least decisions not based on direct influence from wealthy mega-donors.
You can find a study to back any position!
For example, in the 1960s, industry-funded research was designed to downplay the risks of sugar while highlighting the hazards of fat. The study was requested by an industry group called “the Sugar Research Foundation” who needed evidence to refute concerns about sugar’s role in heart disease.
The SRF then sponsored research by Harvard scientists that did precisely that. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967, with no disclosure of the sugar industry funding. It suggested there were significant problems with all the studies that implicated sugar. It concluded that cutting fat out of American diets was the best way to address coronary heart disease.
So, what does that have to do with climate change research?
Not a damn thing! But it does show you that, with enough money, you can get whatever research results you want. Even from some “highly respected” sources.
The fact is that an overwhelming majority of climate-research funding comes from the federal government and left-wing foundations. While it is true that the energy industry funds both sides of the climate debate, the government and left-wing foundation funding only go toward research that advances the global warming regulatory agenda. What we actually have is a pre-determined public-policy outcome buying research to support its program. The resulting government and left-wing foundation gravy train is a much greater threat to scientific integrity than the actual risk of global warming is to our planet.
With the fate of the U.S. economy, and perhaps the planet at stake, you would think Americans would want the actual facts!
But some people in the government and the media work very hard to keep the facts from getting in the way of good brainwashing!
Back in 2015, the New York Times and the Boston Globe pointed to documents uncovered by the radical environmental group Greenpeace, and attacked global-warming skeptic Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon by suggesting that he hid $1.2 million in research funding contributions from “fossil fuel companies.” Their stores were part of an ongoing campaign by Greenpeace and their media allies to discredit opponents of the warming agenda.
However, by choosing to not be impartial watchdogs, and closely allying themselves with radical activist groups, those reporters fundamentally misled readers on the facts of global-warming research funding.
The Smithsonian Institute, which employs Dr. Soon, told the Times it appeared the scientist had inadvertently violated disclosure standards, and they said they would look into the matter.
Soon is a widely respected astrophysicist, and his allies came quickly to his defense.
“It is a despicable, reprehensible attack on a man of great personal integrity,” says Myron Ebell, the director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who questioned why media organizations were singling out Soon over research funding.
In fact, it is almost impossible for some of the world’s top climate scientists such as Soon, Roger Pielke Jr., the CATO Institute’s Patrick Michaels, and MIT’s now-retired Richard Lindzen to get funding for their work. This is because they do not embrace the global-warming fearmongering favored by the government-funded climate establishment.
It is interesting to point out here that, back in the 1950s, a study by MIT showed that when the government funds research through grants, it typically receives the results it wants. Amazing, isn’t it! It shocked the nation back then. I believe it has only gotten worse today.
Contrast this treatment with that of Michael Mann
Mann is the director of Pennsylvania State’s Earth System Science Center. He was also at the center of the 2009 Climate-gate scandal. This occurred when uncovered e-mails between climatologists revealed they were discussing how to skew scientific evidence to support their claims as well as how to blackball experts who don’t agree with them.
Mann is a prime example of pro-warming scientists who have taken millions from government agencies. The federal government, which by the way, will gain massive regulatory power if their climate legislation is passed, has funded scientific research to the tune of $32.5 billion since 1989. This number is provided by the Science and Public Policy Institute. This amount dwarfs research contributions from oil companies and utilities, which have historically funded both sides of the debate.
According to a study by The American Spectator, Michael Mann received some $6 million, mostly in government grants, including $500,000 in federal stimulus money WHILE he was being investigated for his Climate-gate e-mails.
So where is the “free and balanced” press?
I used to cringe at the statement that the mass media has become the enemy of the American people. Now I am in agreement. They more I see, the more I believe many in the media are directly supporting a left-wing takeover of this country.
Despite claims that they are watchdogs of the establishment, media outlets such as The Times have ignored the government’s heavy-handed role in directing climate change research. And they have ignored millions in contributions from left-wing foundations; funding that, like government grants, seek to tip the scales to one side of the debate.
Media outlets have also been one-sided in their reporting on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The NY Times trumpeted Greenpeace’s FOIA requests revealing Soon’s benefactors. Yet, they have ignored the government’s refusal of FOIA filings by the Competitive Enterprise Institute requesting funding source disclosures of external income of NASA scientist James Hansen, a key ally of Al Gore.
The fact that we have experienced a lack of “global warming” for over a decade and have actually experienced dangerous and record-breaking low temperatures combined with scandals such as Climate-gate are strong evidence that the establishment has oversold a warming crisis in an effort to gain power and control.
Failure of the media to cover both sides of the debate fairly while attempting to shut up their critics shows either a clear disregard or ignorance of the real threat to science.
Clarence Thomas is an American judge, lawyer, and government official, and for the last three decades, a highly respected Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is, perhaps, one of our era’s most consequential and controversial jurists.
Often described as an originalist or textualist, Thomas would be ranked neck and neck with the late Justice Scalia for being considered the most conservative justice on the court, and for being a part of the conservative wing of the Supreme Court.
Myron Magnet
I was reading a article in the September issue of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. The article was adapted from a speech given by Myron Magnet at Hillsdale College’s Constitution Day Celebration in Washington, D.C. on September 17, 2019. Magnet earned an MA from Cambridge University and a PH.D. from Columbia University where he taught for several years. He has worked as an editor for the City Journal, and written for several publications including The Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He has also authored several books, including The Founders at Home, The Building of America, 1735-1817, and, most recently, Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution.
A fascinating article
According to this article, during his almost three decades on the bench, Justice Thomas has been laying out a plan for reshaping Supreme Court jurisprudence. His template for this endeavor is the U.S. Constitution as the Framers wrote it 232 years ago. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the first Federalist, the plan was to create “good government from reflection and choice,” rather than settle for a regime based, as are most in history have been, on “accident and force.”
In Clarence Thomas’s view, what the Founding Fathers achieved 232 years ago remains as modern and up-to-date as it was in 1787.
However, according to Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court lost its way. During the 1930s and the implementation of the “New Deal,” the Supreme Court buckled under President Franklin Roosevelt’s threat to enlarge and stack the court. Roosevelt had wrongly diagnosed the cause of the Great Depressions as a “crisis of overproduction” and therefore, wanted to take control of the entire economy to regulate it. Sound vaguely familiar?
The “Court’s dramatic departure in the 1930s from a century and a half of precedent,” Thomas says, was a fatal “wrong turn” that marks the start of illegitimate judicial constitution-making.
Myron Magnet, Author, Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution
Starting with this fateful decision, over time the “Supreme Court” has over seen and sanctioned the development of a new administrative system. One in which the Congress has given up its legislative role, and has delegated the power to make and enforce laws to nameless, faceless, and unaccountable bureaucracies. According to Thomas, this new legislative process has no basis to exist within our constitutional structure.
The United States is a Constitutional Democratic Republic, and a wildly successful experiment in self-government that lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in existence. Americans have shed more blood in the name of Liberty and Freedom than any other nation on the planet.
To exist, such a nation relies on a system of ethics. It does take a certain level of character to be capable of liberty.
Unfortunately, for the last several decades, some have been leading a movement toward the politics of victimization, the politics of race, or gender. The Left divides Americans into categories and then pits one category against another in order to gain and keep power. They have succeeded in dumbing-down our education system to the point that we have a generation of young people incapable of critical thinking. These kids can only regurgitate what they have been spoon-fed by the public school systems for their entire time in school.
The Left simply wants a compliant citizenry and to take total control of your life.
And I think Thomas Sowell agrees …
According to Sowell, one of the more painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is the number of people who are unable to make a coherent argument. Sure, they can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, and repeat slogans. They can do almost anything … except reason.
And what about Thomas Sowell’s thoughts on the divide and conquer politics of today’s left?
If you believe in equal rights, then what do “women’s right,” “gay rights;” etc. mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.
Thomas Sowell, Random Thoughts column, 2013
Give up your freedom, give up our Country!
Socialism, communism, fascism … all different names for the same authoritarian form of government, and the antithesis of everything America was founded on.
Socialism, in fact, has a clear history of failure so blatantly obvious, that only a truly dishonest liberal intellectual could successfully ignore it. But for today’s new radical left, the facts don’t matter and the U.S. Constitution is a thing to be disregarded and destroyed … except in the rare occurrence (sort of) following it just happens to suit their agenda.
Character, honor, critical thinking, ethics, integrity, and America’s great history: all the things needed to help ensure the continued success of this constitutional democratic republic are ridiculed, discarded, or removed.
In a government system based on equal opportunity and individual rights, the truth is much relies on the individual. In this land of equal opportunity for all, each citizen must forge their own fate, like all the other Americans that came before them. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
If you fall down seven times, get up eight
Not everyone can or will succeed every time they try. But you have the right to try again. Yes, we as a country provide certain safety nets, but they are a hand up … not a hand out. And, they need to be viewed as such. If you come to rely on the government for your existence, the government owns you, body and soul.
Regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex, or gender, everybody faces adversity at one time or another. Each individual must choose whether or not to buckle down and overcome that obstacle, and in this way, shape their own destiny.
Unfortunately, it is simply easier to blame life’s adversities on some powerful evil entity that forces us into a state of victim-hood … powerful entities that only a mighty and benevolent government master can protect you from.
The Constitution, as created for us by our Founding Fathers is a brilliant document designed to ensure individual freedom for all American citizens,. But, it presupposes citizens of the first kind, not the second. Without them, and a culture that nurtures them, no free nation can long endure.
I try not to get too political on my blog, but sometime I can’t help it. I love my country and do not want to see it destroyed by irresponsible leadership.
Did you know that originally you had to own property to vote in the U.S.? Do you know why that was? It was because taxes were based on your property and it was important that property owners had a say in how much they could be taxed on their property!
Today, voting and the voter registration process has morphed into nothing more than an attempt to grab more power. We don’t let 16-year-old kids fight wars, drink alcohol, buy guns, or get married because their rational brain is not fully functioning yet and they can easily be led. How many really think letting a 16-year-old vote is a great idea? If you do, I’d have to really question your motivation!
Is your vote for sale?
With the 2020 election looming in the future, irresponsible politicians are up to their same old games, promising things that the Federal Government cannot afford to provide in an effort to buy votes. Free healthcare, free college, government funded savings accounts, and guaranteed minimum income payments. Each politician seeking to be elected or re-elected stridently trying to out-promise the others in an effort to buy your vote. Truly … an example of pandering of epic proportions!
Do you really believe we can tax our working citizens enough to pay for all this?
Let’s Fact Check the Fact Checkers!
On February 1, 2019, an economics professor at Duquesne University tweeted a statement that said the following:
Some fact checkers immediately labeled this as a false claim. However, the number of billionaires, their estimated net worth, and the costs of running the government for the time period the professor used for his calculation support this claim.
Davies used figures from 2016, pointing at Forbes estimates of 540 U.S. billionaires worth $2.4 trillion, and he used the CBO’s report of federal outlays for FY 2016 of $3.9 trillion which would give an average of $2.6 trillion for eight months.
The reason this tweet was labeled false is that the number of billionaires and their net worth change constantly.
Many people will become richer or poorer within weeks, or even days of any publication due to changes in stock prices and exchange rates. For example, on July 27, 2017, Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, was indeed the richest man in the world … for a few hours.
Forbes has identified additional billionaires since 2016, and their combined estimated net worth could fund the government longer than eight months. So, the tweet is labeled as FALSE.
Are you kidding me? So, now there are enough billionaires to fund the government for 9 months, 12 months, or 18 months? The point Antony Davies was making is accurate and valid to this day. The claim, by fact-checkers, that his statement is false is misleading at best.
So, say you tax all the billionaires at a rate of 100% and fund the federal government for, let’s be generous and say three years. What then?
Who do we tax next?
As Margaret Thatcher so clearly stated, “The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.”
We would need to tax the millionaires, then the middle class, then the poor. At this rate, in 10 years we’d all be broke! Can you say Venezuela?
Some claim paying taxes is our patriotic duty
Perhaps it is. I have no problem with paying fair taxes to support the expenses of the federal government.
However, before they raise taxes even one iota, they need to ensure that they are acting as responsible stewards of taxpayer money!
Do any of you see any signs of that? No? Then why should we let them take more of our money?
Perhaps if the federal government demonstrated and practiced responsible spending habits, some of the federal deficit and current budget issues could be avoided. Perhaps they could start by cutting wasteful spending. Here are a few of my suggestions worth looking into:
Despite trillion-dollar deficits, last year’s 10,160 earmarks included $200,000 for a tattoo removal program in Mission Hills, California; $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming; and $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia.
The Securities and Exchange Commission spent $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
Members of Congress have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars supplying their offices with popcorn machines, plasma televisions, DVD equipment, ionic air fresheners, camcorders, and signature machines — plus $24,730 leasing a Lexus, $1,434 on a digital camera, and $84,000 on personalized calendars.
Fraud related to Hurricane Katrina spending is estimated to top $2 billion. In addition, debit cards provided to hurricane victims were used to pay for Caribbean vacations, NFL tickets, Dom Perignon champagne, “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and at least one sex change operation.
The state of Washington sent $1 food stamp checks to 250,000 households in order to raise state caseload figures and trigger $43 million in additional federal funds.
The National Institutes of Health spends $1.3 million per month to rent a lab that it cannot use.
Congressional investigators were able to receive $55,000 in federal student loan funding for a fictional college they created to test the Department of Education.
The Conservation Reserve program pays farmers $2 billion annually not to farm their land.
More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen. Another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for.
The federal government owns more than 50,000 vacant homes.
These are just a few of the many examples of past government financial inefficiencies and waste. Before you try to take more of my money, be sure you are spending the money you already take wisely!
D.C. Gilbert 