Full Court Press
Welcome back to the Scuttlebutt. Well, today is ‘return to the dentist to see how you’re healing’ day, after the extraction last week. It seems things are healing apace, although not at the pace I would prefer. Steak is still out of the question, as are really hard things, and crunchy things… Sigh.
Pour yourself something from the bar, and as always, please notice the cup at the tip jar Where we restock. I would like to welcome all the new faces and tip the hat to all those folks sending business my way. My blog will always be free, but comments require you to join and pay a very nominal fee. I got shouted at and cussed out on this, my little spot on the internet. I figure if you want to call me a ~0~< $^~<3r, you can buy me a coffee first.
Full Court Press is of course a basketball term… But I’m not here to talk about basketball. First, because I don’t know shit about it, and second because I care even less than that. Being short, and fat, it was never my game, and as a spectator sport? Meh. No, I’m here to pick on the Press, its bias and perceived ability to act as a court of law, and the Court system and its being used as an instrument of press propaganda.
First up on the firing line, we have the Seattle Times, with their amazing ability to ‘say the quiet part out loud.’ This wasn’t going to be part of my targeting this week, but they ran an article whose headline was just too gobsmacking tone deaf to ignore:
‘There's a sliver of hope as deaths of homeless people break records in King County:’
Of course, they didn’t mean that people could have hope because the homeless are dying in job lots, but that’s how it came across in https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/a-sliver-of-hope-in-a-record-setting-year-of-deaths-of-homeless-people/ In fact, the article went on to talk about how more and more of the homeless are dying each year, primarily from Fentanyl, with 67% of the deaths being ODs on that drug. They discuss how often Homeless folks die, and point out that in Seattle alone the death rate is up 113% in the last five years. It’s eight paragraphs down before they say “Well there’s hope that it will get better” for values of better that don’t involve more homeless corpses.
Look, I understand that we heartless conservatives, at some point, are willing to take the attitude that “well, if you insist on committing suicide with drugs, fine, I’ll let you. If you hold your life to be completely valueless, why should I argue?” but I thought the left was supposed to be the compassionate ones?
Of course, their ‘cure’ for this problem is more treatment for the addicted, not more enforcement for the fuckers importing this poison onto our streets. Their conclusion on the cause of Homelessness continues to be “There aren’t enough cheap or free places to live, that’s why folks are homeless… Instead of “We’ve become a magnet city for homeless people because the living is (comparably) easy, the sources of free food and cheap drugs are great, and minimum wage is so high that no one expects you to get a job if you’re not trained.”
I don’t have a solution for homelessness, any more than I have a solution for drug addiction. I have a few things that I think will help, starting with very serious and lethal consequences against those that sell, import, make, or otherwise facilitate this shit. (As in “You’re required to take whatever is found on you. All of it, within 6 hours.)
The best I have for homelessness is a program where the homeless folks will be offered a chance to refurb while living in, state-owned properties confiscated for back taxes. Land that hasn’t had any tax paid on it for ten years reverts to the state, an inspector determines whether or not the structure is safe, if it is, then you can join a CCC-type group (also see Habitat for Humanity) where, under the supervision of a few pros, you will convert this structure into living spaces. If it’s not a suitable structure (IE not safe, or it used to be a grocery store or something…) it goes to auction, with no reserve or it gets bulldozed and plans to build new high-density/medium-density housing gets broken out. The money garnered from the auction goes back into the program to build shells and buy the stuff, pay the very few pros, etc.… I’ve seen some of the structures that have been made in what, in an earlier time, would have been called “Hoovervilles.” Some of these folks have the skills to not just excel at this, but to end up being some of the “paid pros.”
If you choose NOT to participate, fine. Get out of town. If you have elected to no longer participate in our social contract, you’re welcome to do that, but then you don’t get the upside of it either. Move along, or get moved.
Of course, this plan will never fly, the unions would shit themselves, over “you’re taking bread out of my kid’s mouth!” But the thing is
Seriously, this work will never happen at the $100/hour that a carpenter makes, and let’s not even get into a plumber and electrician… The money just isn’t there to pay for that sort of work… But if we have the people who will be living in it work on it under the advice and supervision of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians… hey, maybe you gain some folks that decide they want to do this full time, and as a result gain union members.
Next, we have a follow-up on the guy I mentioned last week who wrote a tell-all about NPR. As completely unsurprising as it is, homeboy got shitcanned. Look, I could do a full screed on this event alone, how NPR sees themselves as the victim here, how it’s no doubt all Trump’s fault, etc, yada yada yada. But Tom Knighton over at “Tilting at Windmills” already did, so you should go over and give his piece a look.
I called for it last week, I’m calling for it this week, and I will call for it forever. DEFUND NPR. As long as it’s a propaganda arm of a political party, it should not be entitled to our tax dollars. The article above goes into the breakdown of why when the left claims “less than 1% of our funding comes from your taxes” they’re lying out of their asses. There are some serious “shell game financing shenanigans” going on here. The actual number according to NPR’s admission is 32%. Either we bring back the “fairness doctrine” (required equal time, at the same time slot.) for any information source that gets US governmental funding, or we do away with US media sources getting tax money. Period.
Also, from the “Wow you said the quiet part out loud” department: On the HBO show “Real Time With Bill Maher,” while discussing the 15-week abortion ban that seems to be an “unofficial” American standard, with Piers Morgan, and Gillian Tett, Bill just set it all out on the deck.
Tett asked “Why we even care? And added that “it’s outdated and strange that people do.” At which point Maher replied to; “it’s strange that people care” with “Not if you think it’s murder.”
He went on to say: “I don't understand the 15-week thing, or the Trump's plan [sic] is, ‘Let's leave it to the states.’ You mean, so killing babies is okay in some states? Like, I can respect the absolutist position. I really can. I scold the Left on when they say: ‘Oh, you know what? They just hate women. People who aren't ... pro-choice.’ They just — they don't hate women. [The pro-abortion crowd] just made that up.”
He ends with this kicker of a statement: “[Pro-lifers] think it's murder. And it kind of is. I'm just okay with that. I am. I mean, there's eight billion people in the world. I'm sorry, we won't miss you. That's my position.”
So there you go, Bill agrees that it’s murder, he just doesn’t give a shit, there’s too many people on the planet anyway, and people need to die.
Well, I applaud his honesty, if not his morality or wisdom. OK, Bill, people need to die? You first son.
Look, I’m not “anti-abortion at all costs.” My Grandson had to be aborted this summer. Yes, HAD TO. A one-chambered heart, no long bones, and no digestive track for starters. That’s not shit that you can “live with,” like oh I don’t know, a club foot, or being born with Downs. Due to medical incompetence, this wasn’t figured out until after the baby was 21 weeks along, and due to the state they live in, that meant doing a delivery and letting the child die “naturally.” The family went through hell because of all of this, and the damage to my daughter’s psyche is permanent.
The laws need to take things like this into account. One size fits none. But then that’s why we have judges, to make the hard decisions like that, and tying their hands with a one-size-fits-all law is a mistake. So is abortion on demand, up until the point of live birth.
When Maher put that out there, the audience and his fellow liberal, pro-abortion cronies were aghast. They rebelled against the suggestion that “abortion is murder” by one of the most famous leftist pundits in the US, and he used it to force them to admit that, yes, indeed, it is. Unintentionally, Bill may have helped the very cause he’s opposed to. When you have to say “I want to kill my child,” it makes it a little bit different.
The Press had already tried Mayorkas (If you don’t recognize the name, he’s the Secretary of Homeland Security, a cabinet-level position, and thus unfireable except via impeachment.) even before the Impeachment Articles were walked over to the Senate for action on Tuesday. 20 Minutes after convening the constitutionally mandated trial on Wednesday, it was over. The Senate Democrats seemed to think that the press saying “He’s OK, the border isn’t his fault, and if it is, it’s a good thing really,” was good enough for them. No evidence heard, no trial, no debate.
“The articles of impeachment are unconstitutional, and don’t rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.” According to Chuck Schumer. Everything was a straight party vote, 48-51 with The Republican Senator from Alaska voting “present” on one of the two articles, and 49-51 on the other. It’s worth noticing that this breaks 200 years of precedent. Never in the history of the Senate have they not held a trial referred to them by the House, except when the individual had already resigned.
Now here’s a big takeaway from this, not only is this an entirely new precedent, but that second article that was voted to be “not a high crime or misdemeanor” and therefore “not an impeachable offense” as determined by the US Senate?
Knowingly making a false statement to Congress in violation of 18 USC Section 1001 (a felony.) Roll that around in your head for a moment. The US Senate just said that a cabinet-level official lying to Congress is not a crime, or at least not enough of a crime to impeach someone. It’s always been my position that you REALLY want to be careful what weapons you craft for a political war, because if you use them, so will your opponent. Chuckie Schumer should know this; it’s been used against him regularly. Yet, he did it anyway. That tells me that the Democrats were DESPERATE to not have Mayorkas sworn in, in front of the national news media, answering questions about the border this close to the election. Even the Press didn’t try to lock down debate to this level.
Now the press did call this “a political stunt.” And yes, to a certain extent, it certainly is. But that charge coming from a group that tried to impeach Trump AFTER HE LEFT OFFICE??? That seems a little bit ludicrous. Oh, a little side note here, the “Oversight Project” reports that fliers distributed at an Illegal Immigration Resource Center in Matamoros Mexico read "Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open." Here’s the Link
https://twitter.com/OversightPR/status/1780054306454167954
but folks, remember, “there are no, OK very few, illegals voting in American elections.”
Here’s my concern. There’s only so far you can go out on a limb, before it either breaks under your weight, or you have to jump to another limb/tree. To carry this analogy forward, that other limb/tree would be a different style of government.
So, here’s my question to you, and I welcome your feedback, even if I don’t agree:
We, as a republic, are a nation of laws. At what point, if ever, does a, or even more than one, of the branches of government ignore the law to such an extent that they become “Enemies of the Constitution: domestic?”
Along with that, I need a constitutional scholar who knows the law better than I do to help me figure out: If the House says a crime has been committed, and the Senate says “We find that this thing is not actually a crime,” Does/can SCOTUS get involved? Article One says the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments. And the House has the sole power to charge with an impeachable offense. SCOTUS is not mentioned… BUT article three says SCOTUS has power over all cases in law and equity, and includes laws derived from the constitution, and controversies between “Public ministers and councils” which seems to indicate that the House could sue the Senate for failure to hold the trial, and SCOTUS would decide that case. We’re in Tera Incognita here, and here there be dragons.
Down in Texas, there’s a City and County named Victoria. They have a Public Library system, as most places do. And as most places nowadays seem driven to, that public library has a “Mission Statement.”
(You might guess that I’m not a fan of Mission Statements. You would be right. If you have to tell everyone what your job is, you obviously ain’t doin’ your job worth a fuck. Or at least so my dad might have put it.)
But I digress. Shocking I know.
Anyway, you can imagine I am sure, what the mission statement of a library would be. It might be something like: “To encourage a love of reading and commitment to literacy." Which just happened to be the OLD mission statement for the VPL.
What got my attention and ire, was that the volunteers for the library are raising a stink over what the Victoria City Manager has decided is the NEW mission statement:
"To enhance our community’s wellbeing by providing a welcoming space that prioritizes improving access and technology, fostering strong community support, inspiring personal development, and serving as a reliable anchor for our diverse community."
Have you ever read such a load of politically oriented DIE safety word-filled bullshit in your life? (if so, you probably have an email address that ends in .mil, .gov, or .edu) I mean, seriously? This is the hill you want to die on?
In South Texas?
OK, it’s your funeral.
For the Quote-of-the-day, I’m going to the “Presidential Professor” (That means he’s one of the most senior tenured professors there) of the City University New York. CUNY, who had this to say about O.J. Simpson:
"O.J. Simpson was an abusive liar who abandoned his community long before he killed two people in cold blood. His acquittal for murder was the correct and necessary result of a racist criminal legal system. But he's still a monster, not a martyr." —CUNY professor Marc Lamont Hill. Now, I want you to understand that this dude teaches LAW. He teaches judges and lawyers. “(his acquittal was) Correct and necessary result of a racist criminal legal system.” It’s OK to commit first-degree murder if you’re black? If you can figure out a different interpretation, I am all ears.
Until next time I remain,
Yours in service.
William Lehman.