Reparations redux

When the topic of reparations comes up, as it seems to when Democrats get frisky, I wonder how that will work.

Approximately, 300,000 Africans were imported to what became the United States by Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and English slavers, who purchased them from Arab slavers who got them from African tribal leaders whose cultures had used slaves as currency for centuries. Sort of messy to know who owes what.

But on top of that, about 1,000,000 Africans come to the USA as eager, hopeful immigrants in a decade, far more than ever came unwillingly in the 18th century. To add to the complexity, a considerable number of slaves either earned or were given freedom and they themselves used and owned slaves. Dr. Gates of PBS and Obama fame estimated the rate of slave ownership was higher among freed blacks than whites in the south, since so few whites were wealthy enough to own even one slave.

Where is the tribunal that is going to sort all that out? It would mean former President Obama would not be eligible since his only American family were white, and his African father and his family were Moslems, perhaps descendants of slavers. But his daughters would be eligible. Kamala Harris the daughter of two immigrants, a Jamaican and an Asian Indian would not be eligible. What about the descendants of the black slave owners. Would they be eligible? 

And how far back do you want to go? The Vikings were cruel slave masters, stealing women and workers both, leaving their culture and seed on every culture they took over. It was a slave economy, just as many areas of Africa and the Middle East. Just look how they got around (based on a cruise map).

NO. HATE CRIMES ARE NOT INCREASING—down in the last decade

NO. Hate crimes are not on the increase, and shame on the MSM for repeating that lie. "Our data sets keep expanding. We have higher numbers of incidents, but we also have more and more police agencies participating in the voluntary reporting system. In 2016, there were 271 more incidents deemed hate crimes than in 2015, with 257 more law enforcement agencies reporting. As I pointed out when those data came out, "the number of hate crime classifications was higher in 2016 than in any of the four preceding years" but "lower than in 2011 and significantly down from 2006-08." There were also fewer victims in 2016: 7,615, down from 9,652 in 2006." You won't get that from CNN.

https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/22/hate-crimes-and-human-trafficking?

Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans

Harvard violates the law by discriminating against Asian Americans.  If unbiased standards were followed their Asian American incoming class would be about 43% instead of 19%.  The Left's desire to balance everything by race doesn't seem to apply to basketball and football, does it.

https://www.prageru.com/video/is-harvard-racist/

Brazilian immigrant attacks man in MAGA hat in Mexican restaurant

President Donald Trump is not a racist, sexist, homophobic xenophobe. That’s the media’s narrative.  He’s protecting our borders, and not ignoring lines in the sand that his predecessor did.    But we have a lot of strung out, on the edge, crazy people in this country.

A Brazilian immigrant attacked a man in a Mexican restaurant who was wearing a MAGA hat and after the police were called, she tried it again.  Admitting she’d had a little to drink, she claimed she was the victim.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/woman-assaults-man-maga-hat?

A recent Republican has been surprised

Heard a black woman, about 60, on the radio this morning. She said no one better give her flak about wearing her MAGA hat. She said Trump was the first Republican she'd ever voted for because the Democrats had made so many promises they couldn’t or wouldn’t keep.  She was just furious and disgusted with the Republicans in Congress. I know, I know. When I changed parties in 2000 I just could not believe the spaghetti spines among the Republican "leaders." Things haven't changed much. Trump stirred a hornets' nest in both parties by shaking up the Washington DC games, but Republicans have never had much stick 'em their bond. John McCain defeated the efforts to repeal Obamacare, one the major reasons Trump was elected. Trump had not been kind to him, and he never forgot it. He put his anger and animosity ahead of his concern for the American people. Democrats did the happy dance. It's amazing what Trump has been able to accomplish without help from his party.

What's in a kiss on the cheek? A lawsuit?

I heard today that a woman is going to sue the President for a misplaced kiss on the cheek. I think they were being introduced.  Not sure of the details. That's a pretty standard greeting these days, especially in the entertainment world (he wasn't yet the president), but there's never anything too minor for which to attack the President. Imagine if all the women Biden has fondled or kissed decided to sue him.  In public and on TV!

About 2 weeks ago I was introduced to a Muslim woman at the gym.  I started to put out my hand, but she said, "This is how we do it," and she kissed me on both cheeks.  I wonder if I should sue her for sexual harassment?

Prescott, Arizona

We're planning a trip to Prescott.

Elizabeth Warren’s minimum wage scam

Looking at the excellent stats in this article, I see I might have been making close to minimum when I worked in high school and saved enough to pay for my first year in college. But it was a gift, not a wage. I wasn't worth it. Someone had to take a chance. And I could get a 25 cent tip for a 10 cent cup of coffee in those days.

"The minimum wage prevents some of the least skilled, least educated, and least experienced workers from participating in the labor market because it discourages employers from taking a chance by hiring them. In other words, workers compete for jobs on the basis of education, skill, experience, and price. Of these factors, the only one on which the lesser-educated, lesser-skilled, and lesser-experienced worker can compete is price."

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-minimum-wage-shouldnt-be-family-wage?

I had many advantages as a low wage teen that others less fortunate might not have. My employers knew my parents; they knew my sisters;  they had known me since I was a toddler; they knew what our family values were, that I had been taught by my parents to be responsible, on time, and how to treat adults; they knew I was an A student (honor roll was published in the town paper) and could probably be trusted at the cash register (they didn't know how bad I was at math); they knew I could walk to work in snow or rain; they knew my school schedule including social events because their son was the same age; they felt a sense of responsibility to the community, their customer case. And I knew there were 10 other teens who wanted that job.

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/your-first-job-real-costs-minimum-wage

Economic freedom

The U.S. economy is roaring like no other time in recent memory. The job market is hot, unemployment is down to record lows, and small business optimism is soaring. Wages are rising for the first time in two decades, with an overall unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, matching the lowest rate in 50 years. 

https://www.heritage.org/international-economies/commentary/under-trump-us-economic-freedom-rises-significantly

So why are the Democrats so mad? Why are all the 2020 candidates pushing socialism? Well, in my opinion, they hate Trump more than they love the American people.

Smollett, Harris and Lynch, inc.

Sounds like a law firm, but it’s only a conspiracy. Before this hoax, I’d never heard of Jussie Smollett or Empire. Have no idea what it is about.

Jussie Smollett appeared in a documentary "America Divided" as host of a segment on lynching. Kamala Harris sponsored a bill on lynching (this came up in early 20th century sponsored by Republicans when people really were being lynched, but Democrats voted it down). She used it as sort of strange publicity for her campaign, and then was right out of the box to accuse the country and Trump supporters when the Smollett hoax included a noose. It’s sort of odd because she has no ties at all to the “black experience.”  Her parents were both immigrants.

Smollett earlier campaigned for Harris. Maybe he was campaigning for her bill--and her? Collusion? I wondered, but of course, I checked it out first before putting fingers to keyboard. I found out someone had already published this idea on Feb. 18 and it had been tweeted by Tariq Nasheed, a black film producer, on the 17th. Nasheed posted photos of them campaigning together, and even Smollett with the Obamas.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/was_kamala_harris_part_of_the_jussie_smollett_hoax.html?

“Up until now, it appeared that politicians such as Harris (and Booker) couldn't have known much about the phony plot and probably just glommed onto the controversy for political advantage the way a lot of politicians do. But Nasheed has pictures of them campaigning together, and even more important, notes that Harris and Booker brought out an anti-lynching bill just coincidentally timed ahead of the attack, as if to ensure passage as the momentum built from public outrage (until the attack was exposed as phony). With Smollett a black and gay supposed victim and everyone slathing sympathy on him, who could refuse to vote for the anti-lynching bill, which just happens to have had some gay language inserted at the last minute? Trump lynchers were simply everywhere, according to the narrative, even in zero degree Chicago cold weather, lurking and looking for someone black and gay to assault and of course it was a national problem just waiting for Harris to pass a law as the person who "fixes problems" which is how she is repeatedly identified herself to voters.”

Poetry and music—how the schools and churches fail us

Although this is a challenge for Catholic schools and churches, it applies to all worship leaders and educators: poetry and music. Even when I was in school 60 years ago, my mother complained that we didn't have enough poetry in our curriculum.

"First, get rid of the lousy poetry and lousy music. Stupidity is always a vice, says Maritain. Nobody says, “It doesn’t matter what movies my child watches, so long as he watches movies,” or, “It doesn’t matter what my husband drinks, so long as he drinks.” Get rid of it. Nobody but the church performers enjoys it anyway. Replace it with real hymns. Don’t think you can get those from the big presses, OCP and GIA and such, because they have mangled the texts and dragged them through the mud. Sing the poems, as they were composed.

Second, return to poetry. The time is short, and the reward immense. Fifty lines of Tennyson can be committed to memory; five hundred pages of Dickens, not so fast. Have every student in your schools learn, say, twenty poems by heart. And their elders, too, might join in – have a Poetry Night in your parish, with the stipulation that every poem be written in meter.

We are suffering from cultural dementia, muddied and dulled by the strokes of the modern. It is time, little by little, for recovery."

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/02/23/recovering-from-cultural-dementia/?

Not being Catholic, or even musical, I didn't know what OCP and GIA were, so I looked it up. The comments from the musical directors are hilarious.

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/8615/what-is-your-favorite-gia-or-ocp-hymnal-/p1

Let’s dump the hate crime category

I'd like to see the whole category of "hate crime" removed from the books. Assault, robbery, murder, mayhem and property crime ought to cover it. What if it's two guys fighting over a girl or a motor cycle and their ethnicities are different--someone's going to determine their mind set and decide it's race and not love?

The video of a white liberal attacking a white conservative on a college campus that's in the news today probably doesn't qualify because both are white males. With intersectionality and trans this and that, it's gotten ridiculous. And it appears to be OK to attack anyone wearing a MAGA hat, even a kid. What if a 1/2 black lesbian who wears a MAGA hat while campaigning for Trump attacks a privileged white Hispanic male who is transitioning so he can be on the girls' track team?

Even the stats about hate crimes being on the increase is questionable (aka fake) since many more law enforcement agencies are reporting who didn't in the past. Plus, of those reported, 50% of the offenders were white and over 25% were black, which are not the demographic make up of the country, and it's not reported when the MSM start giving us that preachy, holier than thou sermon they pass off as news these days.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2017

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2017-hate-crime-statistics

The Democrats and socialism

When I see AOC's bright red lips I think about fossil fuel products used in lip stick and cosmetics. I think you can buy lipstick without petroleum products, but don't know if you can get that slick, wet, ready for sex look. Also chewing gum, perfume, contact lenses, guitar strings, deodorants and toothpaste. She might want to rethink that green deal if she wants to keep the female vote.  I don’t like people making fun of her eyes, however,  She might have Graves’ Disease.  I wonder if she’s had her thyroid checked.

Kamala Harris, daughter of 2 immigrants—one Jamaican the other Indian--both well educated and upper middle class, claims other American blacks can't succeed because of slavery. They'll need reparations. She's above all that, having received her leg up in politics from her married boyfriend, Willie Brown.

All the socialists running for president in the U.S. are asking for money from capitalist billionaires. Bernie had $6 million in a few hours. What's up? They'll never have to pay those confiscatory taxes the socialists want--that's what lawyers and accountants are for--and they want more regulations which will affect their competition--i.e. the socialists in the Democrat party will help kill off or slow down their competition. These are the same guys who regularly visited Barack Obama who did zip nada for the poor. Helping socialists is just the cost of doing business for the big boys.

Chocolate pudding

I stopped using sugar from the bowl or canister about 2 years ago and changed to local honey. We haven't given up sugar, because we still eat restaurant and store purchased desserts. But today I made chocolate pudding from scratch using honey. It was quite good. Just milk, cornstarch, dark chocolate (cocoa, 100% cacao natural unsweetened), a little sprinkle of salt, honey, vanilla, and I added some butter which wasn't in the recipe. It was very good, more chocolate tasting than the box or store bought.

Boxed dry chocolate pudding mix (both Jello and Godiva) contains: sugar, modified cornstarch, cocoa processed with alkali, sodium phosphate and tetrasodium pyrophosphate (for thickening) contains less than 2% of natural and artificial flavor, salt, artificial color mono- and diglycerides (prevents foaming), red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1.

Sodium phosphate is a salt, but it is also what is used when preparing for a colonoscopy. Tetrasodium pyrophosphate is used as a buffering agent, an emulsifier, it’s more salt, and is used in toothpaste and cat food but can promote algae growth in water. Yuk. I won't even analyze the dyes, but I can assure you, that by using 100% cacao ( which has to have a lot of processing to make it useable) the dark color was richer than the box mix.

Is Booker buying votes?

"Sen. Cory Booker (D.-N.J.) is proposing a plan—the American Opportunity Accounts Act—that he calculates will provide $46,215 to every 18-year-old in the lowest income bracket by giving them annual subsidies in a federally managed savings account."

This ought to qualify Booker as a Presidential candidate buying votes.

If they are truly low income, and qualify for federal and state benefits, like SNAP, EITC, Section 8, Medicaid, TANF, negative income tax, home energy assistance, school lunch, breakfast and snack, going all the way back to Head Start, SSI, child care, grants and loans for college or trade school, plus about 100 other transfers, $46,000 would probably be a reduction.

Trump drives people mad

"For those whom Trump has driven mad, there is nothing he does that can be understood or appreciated. While we sane people glory in the sunshine of a president who works hard for Americans, who supercharges our economy, who strengthens our borders, who may have sparked peace on the Korean peninsula, who recognizes Iran as a place of terrible evil, and who generally seeks to extend true freedom at home and abroad, those in the grips of Trump Derangement Syndrome are forever mired in a dark, smelly stable, eating dirt." (Bookworm Room, one of the best conservative blogs you'll read)

 http://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/02/19/lgbt-crowd-driven-mad-by-trump-supports-irans-anti-gay-laws/

Time travel in church, “This is my Father’s world.”

The sermon theme this past Sunday was “Drinking Tea,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense, except the idea was to relax from our busy distracted life and take in the beauty and complexity of God’s creation with a cup of tea, or good music, or the smell of frying bacon (yes, Joe actually fried up some bacon during the service). One of the hymns we sang Sunday was, “This is my Father’s world,” and I was immediately transported back in time to the junior choir at the little Lutheran church my family attended (but never joined) 1946-1951 in Forreston, Illinois. Our neighbor in Forreston, Helen Vietmeier invited us to attend  (she died in 2010 and I last saw her at my mother’s funeral in 2000). The church welcomed us warmly and we children participated in everything, although we remained members at our home church in Mt. Morris.

This popular hymn by Maltbie D. Babcock was written in 1901, the year of his death, and wasn’t published as a hymn until later. But it’s probably in most Protestant  hymnals, and by the 1940’s even little kids could understand and gustily belt it out, particularly the “This is my Father’s world” line which is repeated 6 times. Franklin Sheppard adapted Babcock’s poem of 16 verses, to 3 verses of 4 lines each in 1915. So that’s only about 30 years for that hymn to become so popular even little kids could sing it and remember it years later.

Our pastor when I was belting out songs in the junior choir was Rev. Dr. T. B. Hersch (1871-1959) who was older than my grandparents, and was born and raised in Polo, Illinois. He retired to Polo after leaving the Forreston church in 1953 (as seen in the Freeport paper which you can find on the Internet).  I don’t remember him as an inspiring preacher in his black robe and white hair—but then, how much does a 7 year old remember?  Actually, a lot when his wife Alice got ahold of the children during Sunday School or VBS.  She was a dynamo, and you just kept your eyes glued on her and didn’t even whisper when she did those felt board Bible stories, moving Jesus and the sheep around the fields and mountains.  She died in 1970 at Pinecrest in Mt Morris. My mother volunteered there—wondered if she visited her?

If you kill

Duck and cover

There's never been a better, safer or more opportune time in America to be gay, minority or female. But by always screaming racism or homophobia, the left can cover for their real Marxist crimes and their own phobias and fears.

Race of victims and offenders in interracial violent crimes certainly gives lie to the "hate crimes" narrative that media and celebrities promote. Between 2012 and 2015, blacks committed more than 85% of interracial violent victimizations between blacks and whites.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rhovo1215.pdf

So why does the Left continue to promote the Smollett, the Covington Catholic, the Kavanaugh hate narratives when there is no truth, no evidence and they end up with egg on their faces? And it didn't start with Trump Derangement Syndrome--it was rampant in the Obama years, but existed on the campuses before that--even into the 80s and 90s. So they can't use that excuse. The reason is they have no economic plan, no tax plan, no trade plan, no education plan, no national security plan, and nothing good, positive, uplifting, life giving, or patriotic to offer the voters. Just hate, division, anger, mistrust and victimhood. It's never been different for those who follow Marx. No workers or peasants to riot and demand change? No problem. Just bring on the snowflakes and millennials led by near octogenarians.

On pundits, panderers and presidents, guest blogger Michael Smith

"All the pundits and Sunday show hosts are going the "Can you name just one time another president issued a national emergency order like Trump's order?" route.

It is a dishonest question.

Might as well ask, "How many presidents have issued a "Declaration of a National Emergency and Invocation of Emergency Authority Relating to the Regulation of the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels" (Clinton)?

The right question is this, "Is the issuance of a national emergency for the border crisis in accordance with established law and procedure?"

The answer to that question is "yes".

The next question should be, "Have any other presidents moved funds from one department to the other without the authorization of Congress to fund a pet program?"

The answer to that question is also "yes" - Obama did it to fund the provision of Obamacare that compensated insurance companies for losses associated with the law.

I don't like this type of governance - but to try to claim that Trump's declaration is wrong just because it was Trump issuing it is simply wrong. No president needs any act, agreement, permission or definition from Congress or anybody else to issue such an order under this particular law.”

++++++++++

"If the media can't see through hoaxes and misinformation like what BuzzFeed published, that Nathan Phillips perpetrated on the Covington Catholic kids or what Jussie Smollett just did, how likely is it they could spot some Russians trying to interfere with an election?

The freaking Russians and Chinese have the US media right where they want them. If either of these countries were running operations to disrupt the US and sow political discord, just exactly what would they be doing different to what the US media is doing?"