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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas today.  It's here.

MAY 24,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

DO BLACK LIVES ACTUALLY MATTER? – FROM FOX:   At least eight people have been killed and 34 were injured in shootings across Chicago this weekend, reports said.  The youngest victim, Dajon Gater, 15, was killed on the city's West Side Friday night. Gater was standing on a front porch when two males approached him and fired, striking him in the head, FOX 32 Chicago reported. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital, police said.  At least two other people were fatally shot Friday, following an incident at an East Garfield Park convenience store.  Police said a male was in an argument with a woman, 23, when he started shooting at her and an 18-year-old male who was with her. The woman, identified as Destiny Nunez, suffered a gunshot wound to the torso and was pronounced dead at a local hospital, officials said. The other victim, Adrian Navarro, was struck multiple times in the torso and leg. Navarro was transported to Stroger Hospital where he was pronounced dead, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.  Another normal weekend in Chicago, with many black lives taken or ruined.  Notice the interest of the political left.  Notice the tough questions being asked of the black leadership.  The mayor is a woke fool who won't take questions from white reporters, and who responded to a "no confidence in her" declaration from a Chicago police organization by calling it a badge of honor.  There is no movement to throw her out. 

A BIT OF BOTHER – FROM EPOCH TIMES:   Auditors who are examining votes in Windham, New Hampshire, may have discovered why initial results showed a discrepancy in the vote count for a Democrat candidate.  Republicans in Windham, New Hampshire won all four seats in the legislative election on Nov. 3, but a Democrat candidate, Kristi St. Lauren, requested a recount, which was granted because she lost by just 24 votes.  However, during a hand recount, it was revealed that she didn’t lose by 24 votes. Instead, the effort revealed that the GOP candidates had actually received 300 additional votes, while St. Laurent lost 99 votes.  An audit was carried out to determine why there was a discrepancy in the initial results and the recount tally. Now, the auditors involved in the process have said that they may have discovered the reason why.  “We now have experimental confirmation that if the contest is undervoted, a fold through a vote target can create a vote. None of the 65 ballots [were] marked for St. Laurent, but the machines interpreted 25 of the folds as votes for her,” wrote the Twitter account, WindhamNHAuditors, which is operated by auditors Harri Hursti, Mark Lindeman, and Phillip Stark. It later clarified that it was 75 votes, not 65 votes.   What a great way to conduct a modern election.  How inspiring!  With developments like these, a good argument can be made to audit the entire 2020 election result nationally.  But it won't happen. 

May 24, 2021       Permalink

RON HITS ANOTHER HOMER – OVERNIGHT:  Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida makes another contribution to good government, taking on high tech.  This could be the start of a serious trend.  We hope so.  From Fox Business: 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a measure that he says will protect state residents from Silicon Valley’s "power grab on speech, thought and content."

The Big Tech Bill, as DeSantis calls it, allows residents to fight back against de-platforming and censorship, allowing them to sue tech companies for up to $100,000 in damages for each proven claim in a bid to ensure companies are more transparent about their content moderation practices.

The law requires companies to detail how they reach conclusions about content moderation and stick to those standards consistently, DeSantis said during a press conference on Monday.

The Florida Attorney General will also be able to bring action against tech companies that violate the law, which prohibits the de-platforming of political candidates as well.

"This session, we took action to ensure that ‘We the People’ — real Floridians across the Sunshine State — are guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites," DeSantis said in a statement. "If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable."

DeSantis noted that Florida would be the first state to implement such a law.

COMMENT:  It's the start of a long battle.  Big tech has big lawyers, and no doubt they will try to bring down the new law in court. 

But I think Ron will have the public on his side.  And he can make this a major issue in his upcoming campaign for re-election.  This and school choice.

DeSantis is considered a frontrunning candidate for president in 2024.  Taking on cancel culture is one of the reasons.

May 24,  2021     Permalink

MAY 23,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

A STEP FORWARD – FROM FOX:   A bill that would increase penalties for protestors blocking roads and obstructing emergency vehicles is on the way to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.  And the two term GOP governor, who’s running for re-election next year, says he’ll sign the measure into law.  "I will sign soon," Abbott tweeted this weekend. "Peaceful protest doesn’t include blocking roadways & preventing emergency vehicle access. That chaos won’t be tolerated in Texas."  The governor sent his tweet soon after the Texas Senate voted 25-5 to pass the bill, which would toughen penalties and calls for jail time for protestors who purposefully block emergency vehicles from passing through a roadway, or obstruct a hospital entrance.  Abbott has been a great governor of Texas, and would fit comfortably on a national ticket.  In fact, the Republican Party has a number of great governors.  This new law will make Texas even better than it already is.

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS – FROM FOX:    Hall of Famer Charles Barkley spoke out after the league announced that Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James would not be suspended after he violated the NBA’s health and safety protocols earlier this week when he attended a promotional event with rapper Drake and actor Michael B. Jordan.  ESPN reported on Saturday that the NBA did not intend to suspend James after he attended a photoshoot for Lobos 1707 tequila, which is a brand that he is an investor in.  Barkley, who is as outspoken as anyone in sports media, shared his thoughts on the NBA’s decision.  "The NBA ain’t got the XXXXX to suspend Lebron James. Zero." Barkley said during a virtual interview with Yahoo Sports.
Barkley admitted that he started to laugh when he heard the news of the league’s decision.  "The NBA, they ain’t got no chance of suspending Lebron James. If it was a nobody, they would put him in health and safety protocols," Barkley said. "Ain’t no XXXXXXX way LeBron James is going to be sitting out because of health and safety protocols."  Barkley said when he read that, he started laughing and said: "Lebron James is playing Sunday. Guaaaaranteeed."  Wait.  Isn't this the same NBA which has become so ultra-sensitive to political correctness?  And isn't that the same LeBron James who puts on the self-righteous face and lectures us all on our racism?   Guess when you're a godlike figure you don't have to play by the rules.

May 23, 2021       Permalink

DEATH OF A CITY – AT 10:08 P.M. ET:  St. Louis, once the happy subject of songs like "Meet Me in St. Louis," now is the crime capital of the United States.  What an accomplishment.  But, not to be outdone, its woke mayor is determined to make things worse.  From Fox: 

In St. Louis, Mo., the worst-in-country murder rate is at a 50-year high, the police department has nearly 100 unfilled jobs, and the mayor wants to defund the department and shut down a city jail.

St. Louis's Tishaura Jones, who became the city’s first Black female mayor last month, had campaigned on a promise to enact progressive criminal justice reforms.

The head of the city’s corrections department is also on his way out. Jones announced his resignation last week, saying she hadn’t requested he step down but making clear she wasn’t satisfied with how he ran things.

Whatever the old administration was doing clearly wasn’t working – but it remains to be seen if police cuts are the answer.

In 1990s New York City, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani did the opposite, hiring more police, stepping up enforcement and locking away more felons – dramatically cleaning up crime in the Big Apple.

Yup.  It worked.  And thousands of lives, mostly black, were saved.  You'd think other cities would want to copy the example of policies that actually do the job.   But, those policies aren't genuinely WOKE, and WOKE is the fad these days.

St. Louis had 87 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2020, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the worst rate in the country.

It’s now at its highest rate in 50 years – even as the population has dwindled in that same time period.

Some city officials have blamed the spike in violence on the coronavirus pandemic – which would follow the national trend, except St. Louis also led the country before COVID-19 in homicides per 100,000 in 2019 with 65.

A city that will not be beaten in the race to the bottom.

For comparison, Baltimore saw the second-worst rate and also its highest on record in 2019 – with 57 per 100,000, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Interim City of St. Louis Director of Public Safety Daniel Isom explained the mayor's plan this way:
"Funding a comprehensive approach to violent crime is the best approach to reducing murders. This requires both police and partnering agencies adequately funded to support victims and hold offenders accountable. It also requires target arrest and prosecutions to get murderers and shooters off the streets and not filling jails with nonviolent offenders."

And Jones told the UK newspaper The Telegraph Tuesday that "more police doesn't prevent crime."

COMMENT:  Properly deployed, as in Giuliani's New York, more police do in fact prevent crime.  It's been shown repeatedly.  You get the feeling that many of these woke mayors are more interested in keeping criminals out of jail to satisfy their families than in protecting the public. 

May 23, 2021       Permalink