Kobe Bryant Suffers "Blacklash"

In an interview with Ben McGrath for the March issue of The New Yorker, McGrath asked about Bryant’s reaction to the Miami Heat’s show of hoodied solidarity with Trayvon Martin last year, to which Kobe Bryant responded, "I won’t react to something just because I'm supposed to, because I'm an African-American," Bryant said. "That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we've progressed as a society? Well, if we've progressed as a society then don’t jump to somebody's defense just because they're African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.”

That simple response that merely repudiated a mindless group-think, has brought the wrath of liberal blacks down upon Kobe Bryant.

Roland Martin the dopey newser whose tweet ("If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!") two years ago (February, 2012) got him suspended from CNN, responded to Bryant’s, statement with, “Remember when @JimBrownNFL32 took heat for blasting @kobebryant? Jim knew what he was talking about. Kobe is clueless about #TrayvonMartin.”

AND

“Let's just call it what it is: @kobebryant went to the Michael Jordan School of Don't Say Jack, Don't Do Jack. Just Cash Checks. Man, please”

A piece at The Urban Daily slammed Bryant for being a "jerk," adding, "Over the span of Kobe Bryant‘s career...we’ve seen him do and say some very smug, cavalier and even cornball things at times but the comments that he made regarding the Miami Heat’s support after Trayvon Martin was killed...by far takes the cake!"

The term "cornball" is often used to disparage blacks for "acting white."

Career criminal and freshly minted “activist” Najee Ali, director of the little known Project Islamic H.O.P.E., angrily called for a boycott of Bryant; "African American youth should no longer buy Bryant’s jerseys or shoes and should boycott all products he endorses."

Interesting enough, Kobe Bryant had already tweeted, “Travon Martin was wronged THATS my opinion and thats what I believe the FACTS showed. The system did not work #myopinion #tweetURthoughts”

It’s said, that you’re known by who your friends are, BUT who your enemies are says a lot about a person as well...and right now, Kobe Bryant’s enemies are making him look very good.

New York’s Loss Appears to be Alabama’s Gain

Just a month after Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) said “extreme conservatives” who are “right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay,” have “no place in the state of New York,” at least one entity is taking him at his word.

On February 17^th, 2014 Remington, one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, joined Gov. Robert Bentley (R) of Alabama to announce they’re bringing over 2,000 jobs to Alabama.

The company is viewing the move into Alabama as an expansion, but it will likely impact their Ilion, NY plant as well. The New York facility currently employees around 1,200 people. It is expected to stay open, but with a reduced workforce.

The company recently stated that, “The demand for Remington products has skyrocketed recently, for obvious reasons, so they need to increase their production capacity. They will be expanding their research capabilities with the Alabama plant, too.”

The initial estimated impact on Alabama’s economy will be roughly $87 million.

According to Remington’s website, the company designs, produces and sells sporting goods products for the hunting and shooting sports markets, as well as military, government and law enforcement markets. Founded in 1816 in upstate New York, the Company is one of the nation’s oldest continuously operating manufacturers. Remington is the only U.S. manufacturer of both firearms and ammunition products and one of the largest domestic producers of shotguns and rifles. The Company distributes its products throughout the U.S. and in over 55 foreign countries.

With so many other major gun manufacturers fleeing stricter gun control states, the fear in NY is that Remington and the thousands of much needed Upstate jobs it creates, could ultimately relocate entirely out of NY.

Elections and policies do have their consequences.

A Nation of Aging Civil Servants

I am an aging Civil Servant. I spent two decades fighting fires in the South Bronx...and it was fun. Business was good, especially during “the crack epidemic,” and the pay was decent and the benefits superior (unlimited non-line-of-duty medical leave, 3/4s of your pay for life for those who retire on “disability,” etc.). It wasn’t a bad life, all told.

Since those days, I’ve moved on to the Hazmat world where the compensation is even better and as I close in on “aging out,” I often wonder how long America can sustain the bad bets it’s made since FDR signed the 37 page Social Security in August of 1937.

Today, Medicaid IS insolvent and Medicare is slated for insolvency by 2026, and Social Security is generously scheduled for insolvency by 2033, although Rachel Greszler of Heritage makes the case for a much earlier demise for Social Security (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/06/history-suggests-social-security-insolvency-is-coming-sooner-than-projected).

America’s public sector pensions are an iceberg looming over Titanic America. Many Municipalities large and small are now spending MORE tax revenues on retired public servants than they are on active police, teachers and firefighters. According to the Empire Center, New York’s total unfunded liability for public-sector retiree health insurance comes to nearly $250 billion...RIGHT NOW (http://www.empirecenter.org/special-reports/2010/10/icebergahead101310.cfm)!

Moreover, while private sector compensation packages for executives have long come under fire (and rightly so), excessive compensation for public officials tend to fly under the radar, probably due in large part to the incestuous connection between media and government.

Recently New York City’s brand new Public Advocate Letitia James asserted that the city’s top library officials are paid too much. That assessment probably came as a result of stories like this one about Queens Library head, Tom Gallante’s near $400,000/year take (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-library-head-grilled-391g-salary-article-1.1603749). Brooklyn’s library head makes $333,000/year, while the New York Public Library head makes $711,000. (According to the New York Public Library’s tax filings for 2011, then-president Paul LeClerc’s base compensation was $334,914, and his total compensation reached $802,482.) In other cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, top library officials made $290,000 and $191,000 respectively, said James.

In the many small suburbs of Long Island and Upstate, School District Superintendents rake in up to half a MILLION dollars per year (http://nypost.com/2012/11/14/suburban-ny-school-districts-paying-500000-plus-to-superintendents/).

ALL of this is economically unsustainable absent a great surge in private sector growth that has so far eluded the USA along with its Western European counterparts.

The future, for America’s taxpayers looks bleak. According to economists Robert Novy-Marx and Josh Rauh, state and local taxes would have to increase by $1,385 per household immediately to make good the pension promises to state and local workers, including firefighters and cops. That's not going to happen given all the other demands on taxpayers. Default, in this case, is the proper word for cities and states using bankruptcy to repudiate their pension obligations.

A half decade ago, when the economy was humming, a common estimate held that federal taxes would have to rise 50% immediately to fully fund entitlement programs. Today, a 50% tax increase wouldn’t even meet the government's current, never mind future obligations.

In his first post-election (2012) press conference that he doesn't want any proposals that "sock it to the middle class." He must know better. A long-term socking, or SOAKING is exactly what's coming to the middle class, which must pay for the benefits it consumes.

With private sector defined benefits (traditional pensions) mostly gone, with Detroit and many smaller Municipalities simply defaulting on their pension obligations (and with Chicago considering the same) and even the Military’s vaunted pension benefits being scaled back retroactively, how can any public sector pensioners be optimistic?

We seem inevitably headed to an age of higher taxes, coupled with fewer services as a government that has over-promised for far too long ultimately has to make good on its fundamental obligations.

So, where is the “good news”? Given that, we all die in the end, there probably isn’t all that much good news. In fact, it seems that for Baby Boomers especially, it appears that the forecast is for more pain before the sun inevitably sets.

The Dicey Prospects of Putting Jurors on TV

Juror #8

CNN has found a juror (#8) in the Jordan Davis killing (“the loud music shooting”) willing to be interviewed on TV.

It’s always a dicey proposition for any juror to go before the cameras in such agenda-driven venues.

For one thing, jurors heard a LOT more evidence and were privy to a LOT more information than was covered in news accounts.

Moreover, jurors generally have a rough time relaying their understanding of the law, which is to say, how they “understood” the law and the judge’s instructions is NOT always what was intended. So jurors, on that level, seem to have the SAME problems understanding the law as do news-entertainment people in the national media.

In the case of “juror #8,” she frustrated CNN hosts by insisting that “race played no part in the verdict,” while also relaying that “there was a lot of yelling and shouting,” to indicate how tempestuous such proceedings often get.

MORE troubling however, was that she claims to see Michael Dunn (the shooter) as “a good guy.”

OK, I’ll admit that from all I saw of the guy, he seemed to be an arrogant, insufferable prick, however, I may just be more sensitive to such things, or my perception of people might be a bit off...that wouldn't be the first time I've heard that. In either case, Dunn’s “prickishness,” or lack of same, SHOULD NOT be taken as evidence of any proof of wrongdoing, absent direct proof of that guilt.

Even more disturbing, in explaining why they didn't convict Dunn of First Degree murder, juror #8 explained that they believed he was firing only because he truly believed he was in fear of his own life.

Yikes! IF that is indeed the consensus then he SHOULD HAVE been acquitted of everything EXCEPT criminal reckless endangerment (firing nine rounds from a gun in a densely packed public area). Self defense is an affirmative and legal defense against murder and manslaughter charges.

What’s VITAL here is that NO GUN, no lead pipe, NO weapon whatsoever was found by police and the Dunn defense’s charges that “police didn't search for weapons extensively enough,” DOES NOT change the fact that no weapons were found.

It should be a high bar for someone to shoot an unarmed person...far higher than “believing they are endangered,” when no one got out of the other car, no assault took place (Zimmerman was at least assaulted prior to firing at Trayvon Martin), NOTHING seems to reasonably suggest Mr. Dunn had any reality-based fear for his life. IF the jury heard otherwise, certainly juror #8 gave no indication of that.

As for CNN’s astonishment that the jury had a rough time convicting on 1^st degree murder, well that only shows that news-entertainers are, for the most part, even dumber than the folks they dupe onto their shows.

First degree murder requires “forethought and intent.” In this case, 1^st degree murder would constitute that there was some evidence that Mr. Dunn didn't like what he called “thug music” blaring from the next car and decided right there, “I’m gonna teach these goons a lesson they won’t forget.”

AGAIN, no such evidence seemed to be uncovered in trial. Juror #8 suggests there wasn't and CNN’s dopey hosts seem to believe that apparently Dunn’s “whiteness” was all the proof you’d need. Apparently, “WHY else would a middle aged white guy shoot someone black?”

CNN a station which highlighted the murder of white air force corpsman David James by black homeowner Trevor Dooley during the Trayvon Martin case and has continually brought on guests that highlight the stark racial disparities in violent crime rates is on shaky ground when it tries to appear neutral on such issues. In continually brining on “experts” who highlight the wide disparities in violent crime in America, they appear anything but!

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz has said that he believes there was a strong possibility that the attempted murder charges against Dunn might not hold up when the case is eventually retried. He said attempted murder, in which a person was not killed, must involve premeditation, which, of course, must be proven.

"I think there is some chance that will be reversed, because [of] the jury instruction, and the charge of attempted murder may not fit," he said.

A problem with Corey's strategy, Dershowitz said, was that she "always overcharges."

Dershowitz believes that Corey should have charged Dunn with second-degree murder in Davis' death. THAT makes sense, given that according to FindLaw notes that 1^st degree murder falls into two categories:

* Premeditated, intentional killings

* Felony murder

While 2^nd degree murder is either:

* An unplanned, intentional killing; or

* A death caused by a reckless disregard for human life

(http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2011/08/difference-between-first-second-degree-murder.html)

According to FindLaw, the real difference between first and second degree murder is the degree of intent under which the defendant acted when carrying out the killing.

First degree murder requires that a defendant plan and intentionally carry out the killing, whereas second degree murder requires that the killing either be intentional or reckless, and occur in the spur of the moment.

According to that definition this case clearly appears to fit a 2^nd degree murder charge much better.

Is Dershowitz right that perhaps DA Corey actively undermines some cases by deliberately overcharging, so that they’ll be overturned on appeal?

Might be...but that doesn’t explain away the abject ignorance of CNN’s newser entertainers.

Poor CNN....ALL They're Left With Are Curtis Reeves and Willie Noble!

Carol Costello  (above)          AND            Erin Burnett  (below)

What are the race mongers at CNN and MSNBC going to do now?!

In the wake of the “Loud Music Shooting” in which white, middle aged software developer Michael Dunn killed young, black Jordan Davis, they were able to attempt to turn an ugly incident between an adult jerk and a bunch of teen jerks into a racial incident...the upcoming major national crimes offer no such possibilities.

DRATS!

All they have left right now are Curtis Reeves and Willie Noble. What will Carol Costello, Erin Burnett and the other race mongers do for an encore?

I guess they’re going to have to wait...for the "right crime.”

And given the stats over race and crime (young black males committing a widely disproportionate amount of the violent crime in America), it could be a long and painful wait.

Seriously, do I HAVE TO go over these stats on race and crime again? Stats, by the way, which I gleaned by watching CNN!

OK, I will;

— "Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against other blacks." Forty-five percent of the victims of violent crime by blacks are white folks, 43 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic.

— “Blacks are seven times as likely as people of other races to commit murder, eight times more likely to commit robbery and three times more likely to use a gun in a crime.

— "Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery."

— “Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse.”

So once again, what do these crime statistics tell us? Merely that “the real repository of racism in America — manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder is NOT to be found in the white community, but the African-American community. In almost all interracial attacks, whites are the victims, not the victimizers.”

In the case of Curtis Reeves, a white former cop who shot another man over texting in a movie theater (claiming the guy throwing popcorn at him constituted a “threat”), he unfortunately shot another white man.

In the case of Willie Noble of Arkansas, a black man who shot a teen after the group the teen was with egged his car, he sadly also shot...another African-American.

What were these guys thinking?!

Don’t they know that news-entertainers like Carol Costello, Melissa Harris-Perry and Erin Burnett live for inter-racial violence?

Do these guys even care ONE BIT how their callous disregard for ratings impacts these hosts?

OK, in the case of Mr. Noble, there’s little he could’ve done. If he’d shot a white teen, well that would've been no big deal to the likes of Ms. Costello or Ms. Burnett. In fact, they’d probably have framed their stories around the white teen “deserving it,” or “bringing it on herself,” all the while arranging for carefully chosen guests to undermine their own arguments on behalf of the traditional media meme – “black victim, white abuser.”

BUT Mr. Reeves really messed up! WHY couldn't he have targeted a black texter? Or, absent that, WHY couldn't he have missed the actual texter and shot a black theater-goer by mistake...even then, I’m sure Carol and Erin could’ve argued that somehow he meant to shoot the black victim, because after all, he’s both white and a former cop (a/k/a “racist”).

Seriously, I DO feel bad that things have broken so badly for Ms. Costello and Ms. Burnett. They’re going to have to largely ignore these two most recent national crimes, or resort to excoriating guns because there’s just no race angle to play here.

Wait a minute! I know! They could instead focus on Conrad Alvin Barrett (here’s CNNs own report: http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/26/justice/texas-knockout-charge/) the WHITE Texas teen who punched a 79 year-old BLACK man playing “the knockout game.” Barrett remains the ONE person the grossly incompetent Eric Holder DoJ has charged with a “hate crime” over this virulently racist “game.”

I’m glad I thought of that. I hope it’s NOT too late and I sure hope that Ms. Burnett and Ms. Costello get the memo so they don’t have to suffer those nasty race-obsession withdrawal symptoms.
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Post Script: The sad thing is that you cannot possibly shame these smug, sanctimonious, race-obsessed people because they are convinced they're motivated by righteousness. Unfortunately Hitler, Mao, Stalin and virtually every serial killer that ever lived have all felt they were motivated by some form of "righteousness" too. I KNOW all his, but I STILL can't help noticing it and finding the smell repugnant.

The TEA Party Goes Global?!

Kiev, Ukraine - February 2014

One of the more amusing, albeit pathetic observations of a lot of left-wingers is the inane idea that the call for smaller, less intrusive government (“anti-government”) is uniquely American.

Never was and never will be.

People the world over revile tyranny...especially that of “do-gooder” politicians and government workers looking to restrict their liberties “for their own good.”

The ONLY difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world is that the people of the USA are LESS capable of the kind of rigid conformity and allegiance to a central authority than those in places like Russia, Germany, Japan. It is impossible, for instance, to “copy the conformity and centralized authority that works well in such places,” here. Although there is no evidence that the conformity and allegiance to a central authority ever worked better in ANY of those places than even outright anarchy would have.

I once lauded the former USSR’s auto industry as an example of a “Command economy that works,” that is UNTIL I found that the entire Soviet auto industry was pretty much built by Ford Motor Company and that Western industrialists like Armand Hammer and others set up a Corporatist economy with veritable government sanctioned monopolies within that state.

In other words, Adolph Hitler, once regaled as “the greatest true socialist that ever lived” (probably thanks to ideals like, “We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." - Adolf Hitler...Speech of May 1, 1927. 

Of course, Hitler too abandoned the Command economy (because it COULD NOT work) and opted for the SAME sort of mercantile Corporatism that Stalin and the USSR did, along with the liberal use of slave labor...SAME as Stalin and Mao both did.

However, Hitler DID, however, gain the gratitude of the working classes in German by reducing the work week to 40 hours (the first 40-hour work week anywhere) and the work day itself to a tolerable norm of eight hours. The forty-hour week in Europe, was first initiated by Hitler and beyond that legal limit, each additional hour had to be paid at a considerably increased rate. As another innovation, work breaks were made longer - two hours every day in order to let the worker relax and to make use of the playing fields that the large industries were required to provide.

Prior to Hitler’s socialist government, workers' rights to job security were virtually non-existent. Hitler saw to it that those rights were strictly spelled out. The employer had to announce any dismissal four weeks in advance. The employee then had a period of up to two months in which to lodge a protest. The dismissal could also be annulled by the Honor of Work Tribunal.

What was the Honor of Work Tribunal? It was a council with one of the seats occupied by management, another by labor and the final seat by an appointed government official, it was also known as “the Tribunal of Social Honor,” and it was the third of the three great layers of protection that were to the benefit of every German worker. The first was the Council of Trust. The second was the Labor Commission and the third was the Honor of Work Tribunal.

Few today would argue that Hitler’s socialism was “to the good.”

People the world over deeply distrust the political class and for good reason. EVERY single large scale mass murder was conducted by governments and the political classes, every war was arranged and conducted by the SAME political classes.

Today we see large scale violent protests in both Kiev in the Ukraine and in Venezuela AGAINST government tyranny and abuse.

Slave owners once argued that “freedom didn't fit the nature of the slaves,” and that “freedom would mean literally throwing them to the wolves into a market they didn't have the skills to compete in.” The political class makes the very same arguments today, that “freedom pits the poorly educated and unskilled against those with far greater abilities and advantages, so freedom is just NOT in the best interests of most regular people.”

I did the math on the Russian auto industry in 1974 and it shook me to the core. I've done the math on the claims of the political class today and can find absolutely NO EVIDENCE that abject economic freedom that would toss both the highly skilled and the unskilled into the SAME marketplace would place any significant disadvantage upon the less educated and unskilled. It’s been proven time and time again that literally ANYONE can learn to speculate very successfully on commodities and currencies.

Victor Niederhoffer (the man who ran George Soros’ Quantum Fund) was self-taught, as are many of the most successful commodities and currency speculators. In fact George Soros himself, who initially made his own fortune speculating on various European currencies after the Second World War, was entirely self-taught.

The idea that economic freedom (the free market) puts the poor and less well educated at any distinct disadvantage is NOT borne out by the facts.

Moreover, people the world over yearn for MORE freedom, NOT more protections and security.

America must tread carefully in dealing with this global upheaval, for our own record is not at all stellar, of late, in this regard.

CNN’s Obnoxious Hypocrisy

CNN's Carol Costello

Lately I’ve found CNN to be the most consistently interesting and amusing cable news station on the air.

Unfortunately it’s NOT because of Fareed Zakaria’s always interesting take on Sunday mornings, or the now departed Howard Kurtz’ media analysis, no, sadly it’s because of a couple of deeply disingenuous hosts – daytime’s Carol Costello and prime time’s Erin Burnett.

BOTH these anchors, like many in the media are seemingly obsessed with race, but unlike most in the media, they approach the subject in the most mottled, even dishonest way.

In fact, their coverage of the race issue in America has left me puzzled. I have to confess that what I saw of Michael Dunn, I DID NOT like. He couldn't help himself, but he came off as an arrogant, imperious, pompous jerk...much like the majority of those in the media, Ms. Costello and Ms. Burnett being two prime examples.

Is it possible that both hosts see a bit of themselves in Michael Dunn? I’d object only in that Michael Dunn (a software developer) is probably quite a bit smarter than anyone at CNN or most other media outlets, but personality-wise, yes, there are definitely some similar personality traits Dunn shares with most “on-air news talent.”

If so, perhaps that’s why both Carol Costello and Erin Burnett, in particular seem to go out of their way to undermine the accepted media meme on race – “black victim, white abuser.”

As an example, in discussing the trial of Michael Dunn (the most recent media race sensation), in response to the observation, “Michael Dunn, like many white Americans might have had an unreasonable fear of young black males,” one of Ms. Costello’s expert legal guests left this out there completely unchallenged, “All groups, not just whites have a very reasonable fear of young black males, because young black males commit such a disproportionate share of the violent crime in America.”

He then went on to quote the FBI’s crime stats and Justice surveys, which, among other things allegedly showed that;

— "Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against other blacks." Forty-five percent of the victims of violent crime by blacks are white folks, 43 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic.

— “Blacks are seven times as likely as people of other races to commit murder, eight times more likely to commit robbery and three times more likely to use a gun in a crime.

— "Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.

— “Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse.

- “Even the two most famous sexual assaults by white men on black women in the last two decades the Tawana Brawley and Duke rape cases — turned out to be hoaxes.”

He went on to say, “What do these statistics tell us? A message most will not report. The real repository of racism in America — manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder is NOT to be found in the white community, but the African-American community. In almost all interracial attacks, whites are the victims, not the victimizers.”

Perhaps the reason that wasn't confronted by Ms. Costello or ANY other CNN host is because it’s absolutely and unequivocally true. I looked those stats up AFTER that CNN broadcast and YES...they are all very true. They can all very easily be found in a report titled “The Color of Crime.” (http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf). CNN isn't the ONLY media outlet NOT to have challenged that report, so far as I know, it has NEVER once been challenged by anyone from any media outlet.

STILL, that begs the question, “Do these particular hosts deliberately bring on guests to undermine the very views that have been the staple of the American media to date, that “African-Americans are disproportionately victims of white racism”?

After all, CNN is the SAME channel that brought up the killing of David James during the Trayvon Martin trial, AGAIN, with at least one legal guest describing the murder of white Air Force Corpsman David James by black homeowner Trevor Dooley as “an out-and-out race murder,” without that assertion being questioned.

In that case, I’d never even heard of the David James murder in Florida, not Trevor Dooley’s failed “Stand-Your-Ground” defense, but AGAIN, after looking it up, it seems EXACTLY what that CNN guest relayed. (http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/09/david_james_air_force_veteran.php)

In this regard CNN has become the primary disseminator of a form of race realism.

Now I commend them on that, while I DO question the disingenuous way in which it is delivered, one that allows hosts like Ms. Costello and Ms. Burnett to remain above the fray, while giving no context to such assertions by their very carefully chosen “guests.”