A new low in identity politics
The big shocking news this past week was that Donald Trump, the most hateful man in America, running for president on the Hate Party ticket with the slogan "Make America Hateful Again," hatefully spoke hate speech about how much he hates the Jews. What horrible effluence of hatred emerged from the Donald’s Twitter feed this time? This hatefully anti-semitic hate picture of Hillary Clinton:
If you’re having trouble finding the anti-semitic hate speech in that picture, kindly observe that the language declaring Hillary Clinton the "most corrupt candidate ever" is enclosed in a six-pointed star. That’s right, friends, modern civilization has apparently decayed sufficiently that the mere presence of a star-shaped object with six points is enough to support a charge of anti-semitism, even when the image in question makes no mention of Jews whatsoever. It escapes your humble narrator’s grasp altogether what the anti-semitic message in this image possibly could be in the first place — Unlike Donald Trump’s favorite daughter, Ivanka, Hillary Clinton does not appear to be Jewish, thereby neatly undercutting the ability of goofballs to pretend that Trump is claiming she’s corrupt because she’s a Jew, rather than the obviously correct reason: the mockery of justice that was the Clinton e-mail scandal. Not that this has so much as slowed down the goofballs, mind you:
"That was a turning point for many," said Lisa Spies, a veteran Republican fundraising consultant and former staffer of the Republican Jewish Coalition. "It forced people to say, ‘I’m going to hold off right now’ or to say, ‘I just can’t vote for this guy.’ "
Added Bethany Mandel, a conservative writer who has gained attention for past criticisms of the ties between some Trump supporters and hate groups: "This past week has been really scary as a Jew in America."
Unless American Jews are the most unbelievably cowardly people in history, there’s no possible way Donald Trump’s retweet of an image with a star in it was "really scary." Making matters even worse, of course, the Donald outrageously refused to apologize, stating that "no, that’s not a Star of David. That’s just a star." The social justice war is unwinnable by any means, of course; Trump’s not having done anything is no defense, and his pointing out that he didn’t do anything is an aggravating circumstance; this statement was leapt upon as an attempt to "defend his anti-semitism," which is so insane people must be saying it.
The empire strikes back
Last week, we were pleased to break the news of the world’s first robot lawyer, which has helped hundreds of thousands of people escape from government looting. This apparently sent up red flags at all levels of government — all government officials read Last Week in Weird, after all — as not even a week later, the Dallas police department sent a police robot to murder a crime suspect.
Singer added that the use of mobile robots — commonly known as MARCbots — to detonate explosives had been observed during the early days of the Iraq War, but never in domestic policing.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Friday that his department is capable of using similar technology.
"In light of what Dallas was facing, I’m fully supportive of it," Bratton said. "An individual who kills five police officers — why put more officers’ lives at risk? So God bless them."
I suppose it falls to me to be the killjoy who has to point out that this was a summary execution of a man who had not been convicted of any crime. This sort of behavior is expected (if no less abominable) in a war zone, but is entirely counter to what we’ve all been led to believe is the fundamental principle of the American justice system: that the government is not to deprive anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The say-so of a group of cops does not constitute due process of law in this case any more than it did when the cops in San Bernardino executed Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik on their own initiative.
At a press conference Friday, Dallas police chief David Brown said authorities deployed the EODrobot after negotiations with the suspect — identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, — failed.
"We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," he said. "Other options would have exposed our officers to great danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb."
Yes, he sure is.
Check your privilege
Meddling leftist busybody Bill Gates is constantly concocting new schemes to remake the world in his image — recall, of course, that Gates is one of the luminaries behind the utterly disastrous "Common Core" standard for the government indoctrination camps. One of his most recent brilliant plans was to send a hundred thousand chickens to third-world countries:
"It’s pretty clear to me that just about anyone who’s living in extreme poverty is better off if they have chickens," wrote Gates in a blog post. "In fact, if I were in their shoes, that’s what I would do — I would raise chickens." He says that the animals are easy and inexpensive to raise, empower women ("because chickens are small and stay close to home"), and can help feed children in poor families.
It’s pretty clear to me that just about anyone who can’t even solve pronoun usage is not equipped to micromanage the lives of millions of people. Isn’t the hubris here just charming? Not only can Gates’ meddling improve everybody’s life, it can also "empower women," and lord knows that the primary concern of poor people in the third world is half-understood 1970s feminism sloganeering.
The punchline, of course, is that Bolivia — one of the countries Gates targeted for his chicken bombardment — has refused his interference, labeling it "offensive" and instructing Mr. Gates to "stop talking about Bolivia, and once he knows more, apologize to us."
Bolivia’s government, led by anti-imperialist president Evo Morales, says the South American nation already produces 197 million chickens annually, and has the capacity to export 36 million. Bolivia’s pride is justified: the country’s economy has nearly tripled in size over the last decade, with its GDP per capita jumping from $1,200 in 2006 to $3,119 in 2015. The IMF predicts that Bolivia’s economy will grow by 3.8 percent in 2016, making it the best performer in South America.
Only socialist government flacks care what the IMF says, but, if it’s true that Bolivia produces hundreds of millions of chickens annually, it certainly does not appear that Mr. Gates’ meatwitted generosity is barking up an appropriate tree. Here’s a thought: if you want to help people, Bill, stop interfering with their lives.
Through the looking glass
We’ve already discussed the undeniable true fact that star-shaped iconography is the height of hate, so, in closing, we’ll consider something that is absolutely, definitely not hate, which is: assaulting someone at random in the street and punching out one of her teeth while screaming "I hate white people."
Disagreeing with the prosecution’s recommendation for a 12-15 month sentence, Judge Harry Van Harten decided that the six months Crowchief had spent behind bars was equivalent to a 9 1/2-month sentence, and that Crowchief should go free on 12 months probation, with orders to get psychological, psychiatric, and substance abuse counseling.
Harten twisted himself into a pretzel, arguing that the attack was no the result of racial bias, dismissing the prosecution’s charge that the action was a hate crime.
Instead, Van Harten theorized, insufficient evidence existed that the attack was racially motivated; the perpetrator’s curse before the attack was simply ambiguous. Van Harten wrote, "There is no evidence either way about what the offender meant or whether… she holds or promotes an ideology which would explain why this assault was aimed at this victim. I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this offence was, even in part, motivated by racial bias."
I’m certainly no fan of the idiotic idea of "hate crimes," but it’s hard to imagine anything that’s more clearly "motivated by racial bias" than this. Other than the plain meaning of words, what evidence is necessary to determine what the offender meant? "I hate white people" is a rather unambiguous statement. Indeed, if Donald Trump’s horrible hate image had a six-pointed star embossed with the legend "I hate Jews," even I would be willing to agree with the inquisition on that one.