Turning A Blind Eye When Convenient

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the protest in Washington that few Americans have heard about. It seems odd that few Americans have heard about the protest since 78 people were arrested for obstructing traffic and three of them were charged with assault of a police officer.

The article reports:

Leftists will point to the support for Donald Trump as the right having violated the contract and that, having done so, gave them no choice but to respond with militant resistance. The right will say that five years of violence seems like a bit of an overreaction to a guy whose biggest crime was mean tweets.

And there’s no better example of this than the way the media covers right- vs. left-wing activism. A group of people waving American flags – or parents at a school board meeting! – are labeled domestic terrorists while rioters burning down buildings enjoy the Orwellian label “peaceful protesters.” 

The hypocrisy has been sickening to watch over the last five years. 

The most recent example is the far-left group’s unprecedented five-day protest in DC last week – directly attacking the Line 3 & DAPL through Minnesota. To give their violence the air of legitimacy, the group has fatuously titled their “direct action” the People vs. Fossil Fuels, even though state courts have rightfully ruled in favor of the energy- and job-producing pipeline. 

The violent rioters laid siege to the Department of the Interior’s headquarters, demanding that Biden declare a “climate change national emergency” and end all government projects that use fossil fuels. They attempted to “occupy” the building, clashed with law enforcement, and sent security personnel to the emergency room. (All while doubtless tweeting about how wonderfully tolerant they are.) 

All told, 78 people were arrested for obstructing traffic and three of them were charged with assault of a police officer. Many more were doubtless guilty of similar crimes and slipped through the cracks.

As far of the so-called progressive left’s cultural terrorism, they vandalized the Andrew Jackson statue outside of the White House. (One imagines the vandals don’t know about how the Cherokee Indians owned black slaves before the founder of the Democrat Party sent them on the Trail of Tears, but facts are immaterial at this point.) 

The article concludes:

Furthermore, the Cult of the Woke’s article of faith that pipelines are inherently evil is wrong in every way. Pipeline infrastructure is handled ethically and with as little environmental impact as possible. Transporting fuel via pipeline is greener than with trucks and safer than with ships. And if we’re going to provide for all the social programs that the violent left demands, how will we pay for them if we cripple our commercial base? 

This level of violence by radical leftists can’t be tolerated, and the hypocrisy from our failing fourth estate can’t be forgiven. Our social contract has been fundamentally violated, and if this level of urban warfare continues, then we won’t have a society at all. 

The Democrat party began its downhill slide when it chose to ignore the riots of 2020. Ordinary Americans did not want to see their towns burned down without any police intervention. If elections in the future are honest, they will reflect the fact that most Americans want to live in an orderly society with their property rights protected by the police.

Where Are The Perpetually Outraged?

Yesterday Fox News reported that BLM protestors had stormed the Oklahoma Capitol Building on Wednesday, forcing the Oklahoma House of Representatives into lockdown.

The article reports:

Demonstrators chanting “Black Lives Matter” stormed the Oklahoma Capitol on Wednesday, forcing the state House of Representatives into lockdown, in order to protest several Republican-backed bills, including one that provides legal protections to motorists fleeing riots.

More than two dozen protesters filled the gallery on the fifth floor while the Oklahoma House in the chamber below was in session. Video showed demonstrators chanting, “Stand united against all hate,” and “We will use our voices to stand against corruption, to fight hate, to defend Black and Brown lives.” The disturbance interrupted the session for several minutes.

The demonstration was organized against what activists describe as anti-protest and anti-transgender bills advancing through the GOP-controlled state Senate and House. One bill increases penalties for protesters blocking traffic and protects drivers who unintentionally strike drivers with their cars. Another aims to protect law enforcement and their families from “doxxing.”

The article notes:

Oklahoma Highway Patrol escorted protesters from the building, and a drug dog was brought into the chamber to make sure “nothing was left behind,” KOCO reporter Dillon Richards tweeted.

I’m not sure I have seen this widely reported in the mainstream media.

It’s interesting to me that none of the bills they were protesting has anything to do with hate. The only bill that might even remotely be related to hate is the one protecting law enforcement and their families from “doxxing.”  Their problem with that bill would probably be that it protects people they don’t like. Blocking traffic should be illegal. There has been more than one incident when an emergency vehicle has been blocked by a protest and lives were at stake. The bills passed were not anti-protest–they were simply pro-common sense.

The Five Questions That Will Determine The Presidential Election In November

The New York Sun posted an article yesterday by Conrad Black. The article lists the five things that will determine who wins the presidential election in November.

These are the five things listed in the article:

    • Can the President override the Democratic press’s thunderous campaign to terrorize the country over the coronavirus?

    • Can the president successfully connect Vice President Biden’s campaign to the hooligans, anti-white racists, and urban guerrillas who effectively are being encouraged by the corrupt Democratic mayors of many of the nation’s largest cities?

    • Will the economic recovery and the decline in the unemployment generated by the COVID-19 shutdown continue at its recent pace and strengthen the economy as a pro-Trump electoral argument?

    • Will the Republicans make adequately clear to the country the authoritarian and Marxist implications of the Biden-Sanders unity document?

    • Will special counsel John Durham indict senior members of the Obama Administration over their handling of the spurious allegation of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russian government in the 2016 election and Justice Department violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and how will Mr. Biden himself come through it?

The coronavirus has given us some insight into what unbridled government authority can do. Some of the regulations put in place by governors and mayors were based on common sense–things your mother told you when you were young like wash you hands, cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, and don’t hang around with sick people. Other regulations were simply power grabs to prevent Americans from exercising their First Amendment rights–churches in Nevada restricted to a lower percentage of occupancy than casinos, protests to open businesses criticized and shut down while other protests (that included looting and riots) were allowed to continue. We have had a taste of out-of-control government in recent months. A vote for Joe Biden and whoever he chooses as his running mate will give us more of the same. Joe Biden has already stated that he wants to reassemble the Obama team–the group that gave us anemic economic growth, Benghazi where our ambassador was murdered followed by lying about it on television, ISIS, politicization of the Justice Department, and too many other scandals to mention.

The voters will choose. We need to pray for wisdom in voting and an honest election.

Losing Our Constitutional Rights

Fox News posted an article today about the Missouri couple seen defending their home from rioters on June 28th.. Although Missouri’s Castle Doctrine allows you to use deadly force to defend property, authorities acquired a warrant to search the McCloskey’s home and seized the rifle that Mark McCloskey was shown holding during the June 28 incident.

The article reports:

There was no immediate indication the McCloskeys were arrested or charged with a crime. The warrant applied only to a search for the guns, KSDK reported.

On Monday, the McCloskeys appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” and disclosed that protesters had returned to their neighborhood July 3 – but the couple was alerted in advance and hired a private security company to protect their residence.

…In the June incident, Patricia McCloskey said, the couple was startled just before dinnertime when “300 to 500 people” entered the gated community where they live.

“[They said] that they were going to kill us,” Patricia McCloskey told Hannity on Monday night. “They were going to come in there. They were going to burn down the house. They were going to be living in our house after I was dead, and they were pointing to different rooms and said, ‘That’s going to be my bedroom and that’s going to be the living room and I’m going to be taking a shower in that room’.””

The article notes:

The couple’s attorney at the time, Albert Watkins, said in a statement that the couple did not arm themselves until after they began feeling threatened.

“My clients didn’t sit on their front stoop with guns. … No firearms were on them at the time that they, were, as property owners standing in front of their home,” Watkins said at the time. “It was not until they basically were in a position of seeing and observing violence, recklessness, lawbreaking, and knowing that the police were not going to be doing anything.”

Were they supposed to just sit there and be attacked? The police were not in sight. Until the police deal with people who are not protesting peacefully but looting and rioting, Americans need to be armed to defend themselves. There was absolutely no reason to take the rifle away. Since the house has been targeted more than once by rioters, how are the McCloskeys supposed to defend themselves? Thank God they were able to hire a security group to protect their home and themselves. The seizing of the rifle not only violates their Second Amendment rights, it puts them in danger. They are lawyers, and I would love to see them sue the person responsible for the search warrant and the seizing of the rifle.

The Independence Day Boat Parade

Today I attended an Independence Day Boat Parade. It was beautiful and ended with a man dressed in Colonial American attire reciting the Declaration of Independence. There were many patriots there cheering the boats and their many flags. There were also protestors there from Black Lives Matter. The protestors were very well behaved–noisy, but well behaved. There was no violence and no litter left behind. But I have some questions.

The chants were the usual–no justice, no peace; black power salutes and chants; and ‘what do we want? dead Trump.” I thought the last chant was a bit much since President Trump has done more for the black community than all of the Presidents before him–he has instituted prison reform, he has increased funding to black colleges, and he has increased black employment to new highs. So I guess I am not sure exactly what they want. It did cross my mind that they might not be sure of exactly what they want. At one point they were yelling something like give us what we want or we will burn everything down. That sounds more like spoiled children than a political movement.

America was in unity believing that the death of George Floyd was a horrible thing. The policeman who was responsible for that death was charged with murder. It was made clear that the policeman’s behavior was totally unacceptable. Was the looting and destruction that followed acceptable? Did the destruction of stores in black neighborhoods accomplish anything? Protest is legal in America and should remain so, but protest should have a point and a goal. We can work together to make things better. We will never be a perfect country, but we can make things better.

There are areas of unity we can build on. It is up to all of us whether we want to unify and accomplish things or simply destroy the country we have.

A Different Perspective On The Riots

Many of us have looked at the Marxist roots of Black Lives Matter (as well as the fact that they freely funnel money into Democrat coffers) and considered the current riots as a push toward social disruption that will usher in socialism as a means of equity. What is not mentioned by those who espouse socialism is that it totally eliminates the middle class and leaves two classes–the elites in charge and the equally poverty stricken. Unfortunately our schools are not teaching the lessons of history regarding socialism. However, there is another take on the current unrest that is very interesting.

On July 1st, Sohrab Ahmari posted an article at The Spectator about the current riots.

The article notes:

America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of globalization were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and conservative-nationalist options.

This deposition explains the storm of unrest battering American cities from coast to coast and making waves in Europe as well. The storm’s ferocity — the looting, the mobs, the mass lawlessness, the zealous iconoclasm, the deranged slogans like #DefundPolice — terrifies ordinary Americans. Many conservatives, especially, believe they are facing a revolution targeting the very foundations of American order.

But when national institutions bow (or kneel) to the street fighters’ demands, it should tell us that something else is going on. We aren’t dealing with a Maoist or Marxist revolt, even if some protagonists spout hard-leftish rhetoric. Rather, what’s playing out is a counter-revolution of the neoliberal class — academe, media, large corporations, ‘experts’, Big Tech — against the nationalist revolution launched in 2016. The supposed insurgents and the elites are marching in the streets together, taking the knee together.

I believe the following is the most important paragraph in the article:

They do not seek a radically new arrangement, but a return to the pre-Trump, pre-Brexit status quo ante which was working out very well for them. It was, of course, working out less well for the working class of all races, who bore the brunt of their preferred policy mix: open borders, free trade without limits, an aggressive cultural liberalism that corroded tradition and community, technocratic ‘global governance’ that neutered democracy and politics as such.

The rioters do not understand that they are being used by the very people who choose to keep them in poverty by shipping jobs overseas and undercutting wages by opening  borders.

The article continues:

Does anyone seriously believe the American establishment — Walmart, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, the trustees of Ivy League universities, the major sports leagues, even Brooks Brothers, for God’s sake — would sign on to a movement that genuinely threatened its material interests? And yet these and many other firms and institutions are falling over themselves to express solidarity with the ‘uprising’, some going so far as to donate millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter, an outfit that lists among its objectives the abolition of the nuclear family.

Over the past four years, every trick in the book has been used to end the ‘nightmare’ of national conservatism and populism. The methods deployed by the elite reflect its tendencies and preferences as a class. Just think of recent skirmishes. A decisive majority of British voters resolved to leave the EU and then had to spend three years fighting a political establishment that marshaled all its vast resources to thwart Brexit. It failed. In America the liberal establishment tried harder, failed harder, but learned more. From the minute Trump won the presidential election, Democrats, elements of the security apparatus, and their media allies set out to undo the result. The marquee events were the ‘collusion’ probe and an impeachment push that was perhaps the single biggest insult ever to the intelligence of the American people. There were also countless smaller attempts to unseat Trump and destroy his entourage.

The article concludes:

Which social class most excels at politically correct manners? That would be the professional-managerial class, the laptop class. Its children learn the patois for discussing ‘issues of race, gender and sexuality’ from an early age. They’re expected to have mastered it by the time they take their entry-level jobs. It’s a skill that private schools are doubtless teaching already.

Working-class people, meanwhile, are most likely to struggle with this language. Even when they mean well they don’t always get it right, not least because the rules constantly shift with the vagaries of critical race theory and LGBTQ acronyms. By fortifying the requirements to speak and think correctly — and raising the stakes for failures — the neoliberal class has now built a repressive new mechanism for staying at the top and keeping the oiks down. Especially those who voted the wrong way in 2016.

So whatever you do, don’t call it a leftist revolution. With the flags, the protests, the kneeling and the new language, it’s a counter-revolution. The outcome remains uncertain, but the class war is well and truly under way.

This is a very interesting perspective.

I Guess They Really Are Not Interested In Tracing The Virus

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the people tracing the spread of the Covid-19 virus in New York City.

The article reports:

New York City officials are busy tracing those infected with COVID-19 and everyone they’ve come in contact with, but they have been ordered not to ask residents if they attended Black Lives Matter protests.

Avery Cohen, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, told the website THE CITY that if people can volunteer such information, but “no person will be asked proactively if they attended a protest.”

De Blasio in in the process of hiring 1,000 people to map all the intersections in which a person testing positive for COVID-19 could have potentially infected others.

A slew of Democrats whined when Americans protested draconian lockdowns, but they are totally behind people rioting and looting in the days after George Floyd died on Memorial Day in the custody of the Minneapolis police.

De Blasio says the two instances are not the same, saying at a June 2 press conference that “400 years of American racism… is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.”

Earlier this month, the city council’s health committee chairman, Mark Levine, tweeted, “Let’s be clear about something: if there is a spike in coronavirus cases in the next two weeks, don’t blame the protestors. Blame racism.”

This is about to get interesting. It has been three weeks since the protests began. The incubation period for the coronavirus is two weeks. Based on the theories that caused the country to lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, we should be at epidemic stages right now. Why isn’t that happening? Is it happening and the news is not reporting it? I suspect that we are about to find out that the coronavirus is not nearly as contagious or deadly as we have been lead to believe. Now that we have had three weeks of protest and no epidemic, it’s time to open up the country and get back to prosperity, which is what the Democrat mayors and governors have been attempting to avoid all along.

I’m Not Convinced This Was An Accident

The Washington Times is reporting today that three New York City police officers were served drinks laced with bleach at a Shake Shack at 200 Broadway in Manhattan.

The article reports:

The New York City Police Department found “no criminality” by Shake Shack employees after three officers drank milkshakes believed to be contaminated with bleach.

The NYPD reached that conclusion early Tuesday after a “thorough investigation” by detectives in Manhattan.

I’m sorry–I just don’t believe that. How many other people had drinks with bleach in them? How many other people got sick after ordering drinks from the Shake Shack? I am not impressed by the investigation by the detectives in Manhattan.

The article concludes:

The PBA (Police Benevolent Association) said the officer had been “on protest detail.”

The group advised all members “to carefully inspect any prepared food item they purchase while on duty.”

“When New York City police officers cannot even take meal without coming under attack, it is clear that [the] environment in which we work has deteriorated to a critical level.

“We cannot afford to let our guard down for even a moment,” the PBA advised in bold-face type.

According to WCBS, the Shake Shack employees were being questioned, but there have been no arrests.

Just last week, Shake Shack bragged about its contributions to those protesting the police around the country and calling for departments to be defunded.

“Last week, we shared the immediate actions we’re taking to become better allies, not only for our Black colleagues, but for the entire Black community. That included a $100K donation to” the Equal Justice Initiative, which the restaurant chain said it “stand[s] behind the important work” such as “ending mass incarceration + excessive punishment.”

On June 12th, The New York Post reported that two National Guardsmen who were deployed to Washington, D.C., during the George Floyd protests were delivered a pizza containing shards of glass in the dough and cheese.

There are a lot of crazies out there. Everyone needs to be careful.

 

We Can, You Can’t

Spectator USA posted an article yesterday about the resumption of Trump rallies in the coming weeks. The article illustrates the double standard being applied to large gatherings of people.

The article reports:

Are you ready for the second blame wave? As the country braces itself for an inevitable repeat surge in COVID-19 infections, we’re told red-state governors ‘opened too soon’. The next outbreak, we can be sure, will be something to do with the fact the President decided to resume his political rallies, approximately two weeks from now.

What nobody says is that individual or social behavior is the cause. It can’t possibly be the thousands of people closely together marching down city streets yelling and chanting, some with masks, some not. The guidelines fell completely by the wayside for the Democrats and much of network cable news.

In the middle of May, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser extended her lockdown order through to the June 8. Two days prior to her own lockdown order was to be reviewed, on June 6, she encouraged mass gatherings of protests, in a tweet saying ‘Let’s all meet here soon #BlackLivesMatter’, with a photo showing off her big block yellow letters painted down a DC street. In a press release about a possible spike in coronavirus cases in her city, after two weeks of protests she encouraged herself, Bowser announced that ‘DC Health has confirmed that a new peak was detected in the data, resetting the Districts Phase One count to nine days of sustained decrease.’

Florida congressswoman Val Demings, who features on the shortlist to be Joe Biden’s VP nominee, tweeted on June 8 that she had joined a ‘Healing and Hope Rally last night to speak with our community as America grieves.’ Two days later she scolded the President: planning to hold ‘mass rallies in Florida and elsewhere as we experience a resurgence in COVID cases is irresponsible and selfish’.

Wow! One set of rules for me, and one set of rules for thee.

The article concludes:

Either the funniest or most egregious behavior came from the Grim Reaper himself. Remember Daniel Uhlfelder? He is the Florida attorney who donned a Grim Reaper costume and harassed Florida beach goers with body bags, he secured through funds raised from Act Blue. Daniel was so serious about the deadly virus spreading through a state run by a Republican governor that he turned his novelty act into a traveling show. But those plans were apparently put on hold as he himself joined in and encouraged protests, as he tweeted on June 7, ‘We are here in the Florida panhandle in Deep South where hundreds have turned out for peaceful protest. No peace. No justice.’ Also, no virus, it seems.

These people want you to believe that this pandemic is caused by some magical woke virus, one which somehow skips those who have the right politics. What it actually does is raise the suspicion that Democrats and progressives have wanted to keep the economy shut down and people at home as long as possible to affect the outcome of the November election. Your job and your family or your church (also protected by the First Amendment) are not important. Our joining in large crowds to protest is.

There is almost assuredly going to be a spike in COVID cases and it will also almost assuredly be put on red-state governors and the President holding rallies. But Democratic activists and politicians themselves created this situation. They encouraged the world to disregard lockdown and people will now follow their lead, no matter how much they are scolded by the media. These people think we’re all stupid. We’re not.

What if there isn’t a significant uptick in coronavirus cases as a result of the protests? Would that mean that the past two months of lockdown was unnecessary? What kind of credibility would the CDC have if we simply see the normal increase due to reopening the economy? It’s going to be an interesting couple of weeks.

An Interesting Twist To The Story

Unfortunately we have reached the point where the truth about the actual cause of George Floyd’s death is somewhat irrelevant. George Floyd has pretty much been left behind in all the current chaos. His death was simply an excuse to commit mayhem by people who commit mayhem. I remind you of the past protests by antifa and the like at the various G-7 conferences. The anarchists have been with us for a while, and unfortunately we have generally chosen to ignore them rather than arrest them.

On June 3, a website called lawofficer.com posted an intriguing article. I am not familiar with the website, so I can’t vouch for its veracity, but it raises an interesting question.

The article reports:

And if you aren’t careful you would believe it but Michael Baden is a hired gun and he is used by attorneys to say what needs to be said to drive pubic opinion and drive the civil lawsuit settlement higher.

The truth is Michael Baden didn’t do an autopsy.

He couldn’t have because if he did, he would not have been able to give the opinion that was needed by the media and the attorneys. You see, the determination of asphyxia or strangulation is not difficult to see. It takes just a few seconds of looking at the eyes and Baden may be a hired gun but he’s not stupid and he proves that in his carefully crafted statements.

On Fox News, he spoke about the George Floyd case in terms that seem ridiculous to any professional pathologist. As he discusses what the “autopsy” showed he said “in the video” several times.

“There was compression, you can see in the video…

“The video of the pressure of the neck and back goes along with his statements that he couldn’t breathe.”

And it goes on and on and on.

There is little doubt that the actions of the police officer were a major contributing factor in the death of George Floyd. However, I do wonder if the charge of murder will stick. It looks as if this policeman had a history of excessive force and should have been fired a long time ago. He was simply an incident waiting to happen. If the murder charge against the officer (and the charges against the other officers) do not hold up, we can expect more riots. This is definitely a lose-lose situation.

Who Is Buying The Bricks?

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article showing the delivery of pallets of bricks to various cities in America. There were no construction sites in the areas where the bricks were delivered. Please follow the link to the article to see the various pictures of brick deliveries in key cities.

The article reports:

These protests are organized – bricks are being delivered uninhibited to riot sites.

In cities around the US bricks are being delivered to riot locations and used to destroy property.

The article includes the following:

The article concludes:

Find who are shipping the bricks and you find who is behind these criminal riots!

It’s Time To Find Out Who Is Giving The Marching Orders

This was posted on Facebook by a friend:

These are not spontaneous protests. They are being orchestrated with a purpose. The idea is to undermine everyone’s sense of security and hopefully insure that President Trump is not re-elected.

I have been told by a friend that the above flyer is from a previous protest and not from the current unrest. Please consider the implications of that.

For further proof that this is political, The Gateway Pundit is reporting today:

At least 13 Joe Biden staffers made donations to a radical leftist group that is raising money for the looters and rioters in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund has raised $20 million in the past week by leftists to bail out violent Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists after they are caught looting and rioting.

Protesting is legal. You generally don’t get arrested for that. Looting and rioting are illegal. You should get arrested for that, remain in jail, and serve jail time for that.

Just for the record, black lives do matter, babies lives matter, law and order matters, and respect for other people’s property matters.

Who Is Rioting And Who Is Providing The Bricks?

The following video was placed on YouTube today:

Breitbart posted an article that included an interview with Bernie Kerik, former New York City Police Commissioner, today.

The article reports:

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik called for the FBI to investigate the funding of “domestic terrorism” from operations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, offering his remarks on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Ed Martin.

Riots and protests across multiple metropolitan cities are coordinated, said Kerik.

“I think the FBI has to investigate, especially this time, [when] you have enormous coordination between what’s going on in Minneapolis, then L.A., Houston, Atlanta,” Kerik determined. “There’s a bunch of coordination going on.”

Kerik added, “These pop-up riots, where they’re destroying businesses and cars and everything else, who’s paying? When these Antifa people get locked up, who pays their bail? Who gets them out of jail? How did they get there in the first place? Who pays for their communication networks?”

“I would say 10 to 15 percent of the people in Minneapolis that started protesting were from Minneapolis,” estimated Kerik. “Eighty to 85 percent of the people there were bused in. They came from somewhere else, and out of that group, you have a core group in a leadership role.”

This is an example of the need to follow the money. Who is buying and placing the bricks so conveniently? Bricks are not cheap. Who is paying for the buses to get people to these cities? People are not trashing their own neighborhoods–paid activists are doing it for them. It’s time we held the looters and their leaders accountable under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act.

There Has Been An Arrest

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that Derek Chauvin, the fired Minneapolis police officer who was seen on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, has been arrested. The other three officers were not arrested.

CBS Minnesota is reporting:

Fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been arrested four days after George Floyd’s fatal arrest that sparked protests, rioting and outcry across the city and nation, and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced he has been charged with murder and manslaughter, with the charges scheduled to be released shortly.

Every American is entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers. Therefore, despite the video and what appears on it, we need to withhold judgement until Mr. Chauvin has been tried. However, it is encouraging to me that he has been arrested and charged with murder in relation to the death of George Floyd. Hopefully this will provide closure for the family of George Floyd and might help calm some of the protestors that have created so much havoc in Minneapolis.

 

 

It Begins Again

Hot Air posted an article yesterday about what is currently happening in Hong Kong.

The article reports:

When we were discussing China’s new “national security” law for Hong Kong yesterday, it was noted that pro-democracy advocates were already railing against the betrayal of the promises China made when taking over control of the city from Great Britain. Protests were planned, but pro-Beijing lawmakers were warning that any sort of public demonstrations could be dealt with harshly. Well, that took all of one day to come to pass. Despite concerns about a new wave of coronavirus infections, demonstrators took to the streets and were quickly met by police forces firing tear gas canisters indiscriminately into the crowds at a large shopping center. And then the arrests began.

…Tam Tak-chi, one of the city’s most well-known democracy advocates, was arrested shortly after the protests began. He had previously predicted that he would be detained if China moved forward with its new legislation and it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. He was charged with holding “an unauthorized assembly.”

The article concludes:

In that sense, much of the “freedom” enjoyed by Hong Kong since 1997 has largely been illusory anyway. China regularly intervenes in local elections if the residents begin electing too many people with crazy ideas about freedom and democracy. The top leadership positions, currently exemplified by Carrie Lam, are always held by pro-Beijing politicians who take their marching orders from the CCP. People have regularly been arrested in Hong Kong for demonstrating, giving speeches or contacting foreign media outlets, things that people in free nations simply take for granted.

Up until now, a certain amount of demonstrating and chatter about democracy has been allowed, apparently just to humor the locals. But now it appears that China isn’t going to even bother providing a fig leaf to the 1997 agreement they entered into. They’re probably sure that they can get away with it because nobody is going to risk going to war with them or attempt any sort of direct military intervention right on China’s doorstep to free Hong Kong’s citizens. And while it’s sad to say, they’re probably right.

This was predictable. I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different had the British not signed the treaty with China. However, we need to learn from what we are watching–China is not a reliable partner in any treaty. On May 5th, I posted an article citing a provision in the recent trade agreement (signed before the coronavirus outbreak in America) that says if there is a natural occurring disaster, the two parties will renegotiate. This is another example of the fact that China, under communism, is not willing to play fair on the international stage. Best wishes to the people of Hong Kong. I am not optimistic about your future.

Some Wise Words From A Friend

Thoughts on today’s Civil Rights March in Richmond, Virginia.

Folks the Governor of Virginia (AKA King Ralph) has lost control of the situation and declared a state of emergency. He is using this as an excuse to suspend the Constitution and Civil Rights of the People of Virginia.

The National Guard has basically told him they are not playing his silly game, the county Sheriff’s have sided with the people.
This should tell you something really important. The National Guard General I guarantee you had a bunch of JAG lawyers backing him up when he said “No”.

Antifa has publicly sided with the people and pro 2nd Amendment groups calling the Governor a fascist and a tyrant (I did not see that coming and I am not ruling out a false flag or trouble here, but at least they are calling the Governor out for being a Tyrant and acting like a Fascist).

The West Virginia Legislature has already publicly offered counties to come on over to the Mountain State.

The Governor now backed into a corner has tried to hire private military contractors. Which also have said “No”.
(This should also set off major warning bells)

Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase warns all Patriots to remain calm and keep their heads on a swivel and not to take any action that allows the Governor to set this up to look like anything other than what this is, his fault, his listening to the Liberal echo chamber and not the average citizens of his state.
Some anti-gun lobbyists got paid a lot of money for helping set this in motion and filled a lot of campaign coffers.
Part of the reason this situation came up is several of the Democrats now elected ran unopposed. (We can never let this happen again)

Be smart out there folks. This needs to be about the 1st and the 2nd Amendments.
Freedom of Speech,
Freedom of Thought,
Freedom to Assemble,
The Right to Self Defense can never be Denied.

The Primary reason for the 2nd Amendment is so the Citizens may resist Tyranny. However we are no where near that point yet. Attending today’s Civil Rights march with a long gun and dressed anything less than your Sunday best is counter productive.
The Governor of Virginia wants an excuse. He wants to excuse his egregious abuse of power and abuse of the Constitution. Do Not Under Any Circumstances give him an excuse for his over reach of power. Do Not give him an Excuse to grab for more power. He will use egregious behavior on the part of the protesters to try to claim his Tyranny was “only doing what was necessary”.

This is a time to follow the wisdom of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr he knew a thing or two about showing resistance to tyranny with dignity:

Show up dressed in your Sunday best and have dignity, display your dignity for all to see.
Walk proudly with your head held high, be solemn, be respectful, be reverent, you can even be silent when you walk in protest of tyranny.
Let your presence, you reverence shout for you.
Do not under any circumstances act undignified. This March is above all about Dignity and Freedom. We are Free men and women, and we will resist Tyranny, displays your Dignity and show the Governor and his Liberal Masters you are unbowed and you are upright and not on bended knee.

Liberal protest marches are usually a spectacle, a clown show.
Do no sink to that lack of dignity, lack of self respect, and most of all respect for others. When you act like offensive clown, you do not further the cause. You alienate supporters and potential supporters. Worse you offend and impose upon the disinterest that just wanted to go about their daily life and make them worse than disinterested, you make them an opponent.

Your cause is just.
Do not sully the cause with egregious behavior. Do not tolerate your fellow marchers and protesters acting improperly.
Police each other so the Police can stand and observe the Parade and remain unengaged and unmolested.

The Nation and the World are watching you!
(And so are a lot of drones and intelligence services)
We will resist Peacefully, until Peace is no longer an option.

As General Mattis would say:
“Be polite, be Professional, but keep your head on a swivel and never ever lower your guard”

Written and posted on Facebook by Herbert Clayton Bollinger

The Quest For Freedom

Hong Kong protests have been in the news for a while, but there is not a lot being written about what is currently happening in Iran. The protests in Iran are the largest since the protests nine years ago. This time the protesters know that America is cheering for them.

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line about the protests in Iran.

The article reports:

The New York Times reports on the protests against Iran’s repressive regime. It calls them the most intense since 1979. The 1979 protests, of course, led to the overthrow of the Shah.

The mullahs were the target of strong protests in 2009. But the Times supplies evidence that the current wave is even more intense.

The 2009 protests are believed to have resulted in 72 deaths over a period of many months. The current protests have led to 180 to 450 deaths in just four days.

More significantly, the nature of the protesters appears to be different. Students led the 2009 protests. Reportedly, the current protesters are mainly unemployed or low-income men between the ages of 19 and 26, and the protests are centered not at universities but in working class neighborhoods.

This makes sense because the current protests were triggered by economic grievances, especially an increase in gasoline prices. The Times acknowledges that the Trump administration’s sanctions against Iran are “a big reason” for the economic squeeze.

The difference in the nature of the protests is significant because unemployed and low-income youths have less to lose than university students. They are less likely to cowed for long.

The article states that it is doubtful that this protest will lead to an overthrow of the mullahs, but it may be a step toward that end.

The Following Was Posted On Facebook On Sunday

DNM’s World posted the following on Facebook on Sunday:

Say what you like about the Star Trek: TOS episode “And The Children Shall Lead” but I am going to use it as an aid to make a real world point. More often than not, someone is using the children to advance evil causes and agendas.

In the episode Gorgan, a noncorporeal being (and anything BUT a “Friendly Angel”) is using the children of Federation scientists to advance his desires. Through these children, he has manged to kill those very scientists, and now Gorgan has his sights on Marcos XII and its population of children to recruit for his cause to rule the universe. Kirk was able to stop Gorgan by showing his evil to the children (using the videos of them with their families…and their deaths) and what this monster really did to their parents and the children called Gorgan’s bluff.

Now we have to deal with a similar evil and unlike the noncorporeal Gogan, the environmental statists of flesh and bone are using children to destroy our liberties and freedom. They are using the children not just in America, but the whole world (which for the most part has embraced Marxism) to advance their cause.

On September 20, 2019; with the approval of public school administrators and teachers (and the parents that agree with them), coupled with our major media news outlets with MSNBC leading the charge (remember they are trying to convince you that climate change is real and we must give up our freedoms for the greater good); most public high school students walked out of class to protest on behalf of our natural environment. Not just American governments (local, state, national), but governments all over the world to demand that they step up and do something to deal with our changing climate. 

“As You Believe So Shall You Do, As You Believe So Shall You Do, As You Believe So Shall You Do, As You Believe So Shall You Do…”

Here is a question to ponder. Would our schools grant dismissals if the children would go to some kind of rally in support of America or perhaps go in support of something like say…the Second Amendment or something that supports the true intentions of the First Amendment like freedom of faith and religion? The short answer is No, while my answer would be “I Don’t Think So.” The progressives leftists are truly in control of most of the educational institutions on the planet and that includes our so-called public/government (Common) elementary and secondary schools.

Spock and Dr. McCoy said it best regarding the evil that our “green blooded” hero and his best friend and captain would have to face very soon regarding Gorgan’s ‘adopted children;’  

Spock: “Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth.”

McCoy: “Or by misleading the innocent.”

While Swedish born Greta Thunberg, the 15 year old face of the movement; we adults have to question about the adults who are pulling the strings as the children do their “fist pounds” to make the rest of us submit to the powerful ‘Gorgans’ of the world who would not only impose terror and fear into our lives, but make us all slaves to the permanent underclass forever in poverty and forever needing the “help” of the rich elites everywhere in the world.

Thunberg has been given lots of publicity by our major media, and like any leftist either a mastermind or some kind of “useful idiot,” you know that the our own American Democrat Party Press (if not most major international media outlets that lean progressive) will jump on any opportunity to advance the progressive cause. Thunberg also has the blessings of Ellen DeGeneres, Michael Moore, Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg and Melissa Fumero.

Right now one of the biggest environmental causes at the moment is the very communist-socialist concept that is named the “Green New Deal” (by the way it does not impress our young environmentalist leader), which is not about saving the planet but rather setting back the human race a thousand years or so when we did not have electricity or food that could actually kill us and not because it’s processed but it was rancid.

Even the food inspectors will not be able to help the masses should the Green Statists have it their way…and chances are those very same statists will be able to enjoy the comforts of electricity and healthier food (processed or not) as they rule over the masses with Iron Fists of greater power. It seems they will never be happy until the masses are miserable…and even then they are not happy, but want to impose more suffering.

As with Captain Kirk and Spock, we must tame our own beasts and demons and do what we can to fight these children and their puppet masters who have enslaved them and their desire to enslave the rest of us…for if they are not stopped, we will not only be stripped if our liberty but our children’s liberty will be stripped as well.

Our environment will truly be worse and filthy if these Communist Greens have it their way.

Just look at what has happened to California. Rest assured the elite will have their personal clean environments and comfortable lifestyles as they look down on the “dead waste of civilization” who they view as neanderthals.

 

Update On Hong Kong

Politico posted an article today about the latest events in Hong Kong. The article is taken from the South China Morning Post. Please consider the source when reading the excerpts.

The article reports:

Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has formally withdrawn the much-despised extradition bill that sparked the nearly three-month long protest crisis now roiling the city, confirming the Post’s exclusive report earlier on Wednesday.

She will also set up an investigative platform to look into the fundamental causes of the social unrest and suggest solutions for the way forward, stopping short of turning it into a full-fledged commission of inquiry, as demanded by protesters.

The decision to withdraw the bill will mean that the government is finally acceding to at least one of the five demands of the protesters, who have taken to the streets over the past 13 weeks to voice not just their opposition to the legislation, but the overall governance of the city in demonstrations that have become increasingly violent.

Apart from the formal withdrawal of the legislation, the protesters have asked for the government to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate police conduct in tackling the protests, grant amnesty to those who have been arrested, stop characterizing the protests as riots, and restart the city’s stalled political reform process.

Whether they will view the investigative committee as adequate in meeting the call for a commission remains to be seen. On the bill withdrawal, a government source said that Lam will emphasize that the move was a technical procedure to streamline the legislative agenda, with the Legislative Council set to reopen in October after its summer break.

Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line Blog today about Hong Kong. In the article he quotes a Claudia Rosette article at The Wall Street Journal:

[T]he millions of protesters. . .have been doing the world a heroic service. Like their predecessors at Tiananmen, they are exposing on a world stage the brutality of the Beijing regime. From the only place under China’s flag where there is any chance to speak out, they are shouting the truth, day and night, in the streets and from the windows—while they still can.

During more than 13 straight weeks of protest, Hong Kong’s people have demanded the rights and freedoms—including free elections—that China, in a treaty with Britain, guaranteed to Hong Kong for 50 years after the 1997 handover. At a press conference last week held by Hong Kong’s Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized some of the biggest peaceful protests, spokeswoman Bonnie Leung observed that if the authorities would simply keep those promises, “the whole movement will end immediately.”

Instead, President Xi Jinping and his puppet, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, have defaulted to threats, propaganda and force. Ms. Lam’s administration has deployed riot police, tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. Officers have made more than 1,000 arrests.

China has been pressuring Hong Kong companies, including Cathay Pacific Airways, to fire employees who join the protests. Chanting “Stand with Hong Kong! Fight for freedom!” the protesters have refused to back down. Some told me they are ready to die for their cause. Many of their predecessors did in Tiananmen.

Hong Kong police have begun firing warning shots with live ammunition. This weekend, police were caught on video beating unarmed civilians bloody on the subway. China has been conspicuously drilling troops of its People’s Armed Police across the border, and last week it sent fresh army troops to its garrison in Hong Kong, labeling this a routine rotation to ensure “prosperity and stability.”

(Emphasis added)

The article at Power Line Blog concludes with an UPDATE:

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, has finally agreed to withdraw the extradition bill discussed above. She takes her order from Beijing, so it looks like China wants to avoid a Tiananmen Square style massacre and the worldwide condemnation it would bring.

Will this concession, absent the freedoms China promised Hong Kong in 1997, be sufficient to take the steam out of the protests? Perhaps.

Another possibility is that the protesters, if anything, will be emboldened by the concession and that China, having made it, will believe it can defend a crack down by claiming that the protesters couldn’t take “yes” for an answer.

 Stay tuned.

 

Can’t Both Viewpoints Have A Parade?

Last weekend there was a Straight Pride Parade in Boston. A group of people decided that since there have been gay pride parades, they should be able to have a straight pride parade. As expected, there were protestors in attendance. Some of them were not very nice.

The Washington Times is reporting today that some of the people who misbehaved during the parade, who expected to get off with a slap on the wrist after being arrested, are not necessarily getting off that easily.

The article reports:

Two Boston Municipal Court judges refused to throw out the charges against the 18 defendants who appeared Tuesday in court, frustrating defense attorneys and prosecutors who sought to have minor charges dismissed, as reported by local news outlets.

Judge Thomas Horgan also told out-of-towners that they risked 90-day jail sentences if they set foot in Boston for any reason other than court and lawyer appointments, rejecting one defendant’s request to visit relatives in the city’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

“Stay out of Boston,” said Judge Horgan, according to the Boston Herald.

The article continues:

Meanwhile, Larry Calderone, vice president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, praised the courtroom outcome, noting that many of those arrested came from outside the city and state and accusing them of coming to “create havoc.”

He said the four officers injured have not been able to return to work yet, and that the union wants the offenders “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“A lot of the assaults that happened during the day, you only knew of a few of them,” Mr. Calderone told reporters outside the courtroom. “Many officers were assaulted throughout the day with bottles of urine being thrown at them, bottles of chemicals, bottles of unidentified material, rocks.”

The city is looking into complaints that police used excessive force during the event.

“Multiple times I asked why I was arrested, he said ‘for calling me a pig,’” Joshua Abrams, who was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, told WBZ-TV before his arraignment. “Well, that’s my First Amendment right to do so.”

If Mr. Abrams was resisting arrest, that is a crime. This is how protestors who cross the line from protest to assault need to be treated. Enforcing the law serves as a warning to those who want to cause trouble that they will be held accountable for the trouble they cause. The First Amendment allows protest; it does not allow assault.

As a side note, American Greatness reported the following yesterday:

Far-left Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley lent a helping hand to violent antifa agitators over the weekend after a number of them were arrested on assault and battery charges.

The two “Squad” members urged their followers on Twitter to contribute to the bail fund for the “counter-protesters” who tangled with law enforcement while protesting the Straight Pride Parade in Boston on Saturday. A masked Antifa protester told reporters that the violence was necessary in order to shut up Straight Pride marchers.

This is the fact of the new Democrat party. If you are for law and order, there is no way you can support this. I have not yet heard any Democrats denouncing these tweets.

A New Dimension Of Insanity

Om Wednesday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about the latest protest by a group of climate activists. I don’t claim to be a scientist and I don’t claim to be a climate expert, but there are a few facts that I learned in school that have not changed. There is a difference between weather and climate. Climate is cyclical. The climate we are living with is always changing. Generally significant change takes a long time. Scientists have found plant fossils under the ice in Greenland. That indicates that at some point that part of the earth was much warmer. Right now you can’t grow much in Greenland. During the Middle Ages there was a period of global warming. There were no SUV’s. Generally speaking, there is a lot involved in climate science that we simply cannot explain.

The article reports:

When group members (of Extinction Rebellion) planned to glue themselves to the Capitol in early July, providence prevented them. Earlier in the day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), along with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.) introduced legislation to declare a national state of climate emergency. It was one of the group’s primary demands, and nullified the need for drastic action.

But these climatistas had to do something. So instead of glue, on July 9 they marched on the Capitol armed with chalk to commit offenses that were “only slightly against the law,” according to spokeswoman Kaela Bamberger. Capitol Hill police prevented them from even approaching the building—much to their disappointment.

Two weeks passed, and Sanders’s legislation went nowhere. Extinction Rebellion leaders decided Tuesday was their chance for arrest. It was time to cover themselves in glue.

A few days before the big event, the group sent out a mass email advertising dramatic “action.” Journalists were contacted over encrypted messaging apps with vague instructions about when and where to arrive outside the Capitol.

Upon our arrival, Extinction Rebellion members shepherd us downstairs to the Cannon rotunda, where an underground passage leads into Capitol offices.

When several young people arrive and begin their work about half an hour later, it’s a bit underwhelming. Gluing oneself to a building sounds dramatic—just short of self-immolation—but in practice, it’s an unceremonious affair. The two climate warriors closest to me dump Gorilla Glue into their palms and plaster them to the open doors of the passageway. To make their roadblock complete, they glue their two free hands together, human chain style. If I had not seen the whole process, I would have thought they were overly romantic tourists.

The article concludes:

After about 15 more minutes of shouting, singing, and a few tears from the climatistas, the police decide they’ve had enough. They clear the hallway and remove everyone from the doors, leading them out of the Capitol building. According to Extinction Rebellion spokespeople, 13 people were placed under arrest.

But there is no photo-op. Any arrests that occur happen away from the reach of cameras; the arrest-hungry climatistas get a pyrrhic victory.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Bamberger (Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman Kaela Bamberger) sighs to me as we exit the scene.

Because our schools and colleges are indoctrinating rather than teaching the scientific method, we can expect to see more of this.-

 

When Perspective Is Missing

All of us have our sensitive spots. Sometimes we react to comments we find offensive that were not meant to be offensive at all. Sometimes we read meanings that were never intended into things based on our own experience. Some recent local events illustrate that point.

A local weekly newspaper called The County Compass (which I would consider a conservative news outlet) publishes a page written by members of the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association (CCTA). The CCTA is composed of ordinary citizens who are concerned about the rapid growth of government and increase in taxes in recent years. Members attend local board meetings of various kinds and attempt to hold our elected officials accountable. They also post vetting reports of candidates on their website during elections to provide voters with information. The group is made of up people of all ages from different professional backgrounds and personal experiences. Recently the CCTA page dealt with the issue of bringing those to justice who have engaged in a soft coup attempt to undo the 2016 election. The writer of the article stated that she hoped those guilty would be held accountable for their violations of the civil rights of Americans and their attempted coup. At the top of the article was a picture of a noose, which to many Americans represents an old fashioned concept of justice. Unfortunately, for some people a noose, even in a totally non-racial context, represents racism. The professionally outraged saw the picture and swung into action.

A local young black woman chose to post that graphic on her Facebook page with a remark about the paper’s being racist for having published it; she chose to disregard the subject matter of the article entirely; therefore, her post was completely out of context.

The NAACP got involved, and a local TV station interviewed Jeff Aydelette, the publisher of The County Compass, and the NAACP on the subject.  Then this past Wednesday, about 120 members of the NAACP staged a protest rally outside the offices of the Compass.  Jeff offered them chairs, went around and shook hands, and behaved in his usual gentlemanly way.  Again, a report was featured on local TV.

Now The County Compass is getting calls from advertisers who are cancelling their ads.  They are saying that the NAACP is telling them that their businesses will be boycotted if they continue to advertise in the Compass.

Although I am willing to concede that the picture may represent different things to different people, I think it needs to be viewed in context. I believe that this protest is simply an effort by the political left and its allies to shut down a conservative news outlet. This should be a wake-up call to all Americans who value free speech and freedom of the press that our First Amendment rights are under attack.

 

How You Word The Question Is Important

On Tuesday, YouTube posted a video of Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono speaking at a pro-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. The Blaze posted some of her remarks.

The article reports:

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono used her time in front of the crowd to fire up the protesters with a tale of school kids in Hawaii who are worried about their abortion rights and to brag about how she rallied those children.

“I just left 60 eighth-graders from a public school in Hawaii, and I told them I was coming to a rally in front of the Supreme Court, and they said, ‘Why?'” Hirono said. “I said it’s because we are — we have to fight for abortion rights, and they knew all about it.”

…”I asked the girls in that group of eighth graders: How many of you girls think that government should be telling us, women, when and if we want to have babies? Not a single one of them raised their hands,” she continued.

Getting kids to love abortion is apparently pretty popular with the protesters because they cheered wildly at this.

“And then, the boys who were there among the 60, I told them, you know, it’s kind of hard for a woman to get pregnant without you guys,” she said, and the crowd laughed. “They got it.”

Lots of gender assumptions and cis-hetero posturing there, but we’ll move on.

She said she asked the male students, “How many of you boys think that government should be telling girls and women when and if we’re going to have babies? And not a single one of them raised their hand,” again to great excitement from the gathered abortion enthusiasts.

First of all, most eighth graders respond to peer pressure. I would not call this a reliable poll.  Second of all, it’s all in how you word the question. The government is not telling women when to have babies–the government is attempting to protect the lives of the unborn. The government is not telling women to engage in activities that might result in pregnancy–that is a choice women make.

It offends me that the Senator took it upon herself to talk to eighth graders about abortion. This is a subject that the children should discuss with their parents. There was no consideration given to children whose parents have raised them in religious settings where abortion is considered immoral. I think the Senator was totally out of line in talking to the eighth graders and then using them to promote something that is not universally supported.

The video is up at YouTube and included in the article at The Blaze. I chose not to post it here.

What Are We Teaching Our Children?

Breitbart reported today that a  student at Park City High School in Park City, Utah, has admitted to releasing pepper spray inside a lecture hall last month in an attempt to prevent the school’s Turning Point USA student group from hosting an event. The student said that he did not feel that the Turning Point USA event would be a safe thing to have at his school (so he made it unsafe by using pepper spray? Logic, anyone?).

The article reports:

“I didn’t feel as though [the TPUSA event] was a very safe thing for a lot of our students to really have in our school, so I decided I wanted to disrupt it,” said the student during his hearing in 3rd District Juvenile Court on Friday, elaborating on his reasons for releasing the dangerous chemicals inside the lecture hall.

…Judge Knight reportedly told the student that he had been shutting down speech because he did not agree with it, and suggested that he find less harmful means for protesting, if he chooses to do so again in the future.

The student, who had been facing 18 criminal charges, admitted in court to four class B misdemeanors, which included one count of criminal mischief, a third-degree felony, two counts of assault and one count of disrupting a meeting.

Judge Knight dismissed the remaining 14 charges and sentenced the student to 100 hours of community service.

Additionally, the student was ordered to write an essay about civility, write a letter of apology to the school’s resource officer who entered the school seeking to identify the substance, pay restitution to the school for clean-up costs, and pay the co-pay of the individual who was hospitalized as a result of the incident, according to The Park Record.

We need to start teaching our children about the First Amendment. Evidently they are not learning about it in school.

Paid Protesting

These are two pictures of a person who was protesting at the hearings for Judge Kavanaugh being paid for her protest. The pictures were posted on Twitter.

What we are currently seeing in the hearings on Judge Kavanaugh is nothing more than Kabuki Theater. It is disgusting to see the process of appointing a judge to the Supreme Court become a circus. Some of the protests were so out of hand that Diane Feinstein apologized (and then was criticized by some of the more radical opposition for doing so). I hope we can complete this circus quickly. I don’t think it enhances the public’s view of our political process.