Perspective

Chatting with New Wife about this and that on the way to the liquor store  gun store  supermarket;  and it appears that in South Africa, people running charity missions to deliver food parcels to the elderly and incapacitated were being robbed and their parcels taken by roving gangs of “teenagers”.

So the Government stepped in and had police officers take charge of the deliveries… wait, wait, don’t spoil the punchline…

whereupon the police officers stole the food parcels for themselves.

New Wife was tut-tutting about the lawlessness of the people supposedly tasked with maintaining law and order, whereupon I added:

“Over Here, we had senior officers in the FBI — supposedly, one of the most ethical police forces in the world, whose motto is Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity — cooking up evidence to spy on a political campaign, intending to overturn a president elected in a fair and lawful election.

“Compared to that, nicking a couple of food parcels is minor-league stuff.”

And it is.

RCOB Moment

Somebody explain to me whose side these pricks are on:

Local Fox affiliate KTTV 11 captured the action live on television as the shopkeeper and his son, who were armed with shotguns and bandoliers, had just finished explaining to a reporter how they had chased away a group of looters, who had fled the scene with police in hot pursuit.
A member of the local community, whose relatives were helping the shopkeeper and his son stand guard at the store, told KTTV’s Christina Gonzalez that the store had been in the area for decades, and that the shopkeeper’s family had helped everyone in the community.
Moments later, however, another group of looters arrived in a convoy of vehicles. When the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrived, too, however, they ordered the armed shopkeeper and his son to surrender their weapons, and they handcuffed three community members who had been helping in the standoff with looters.
Meanwhile, the looters ran away, and some apparently escaped altogether, with other officers in pursuit.
Gonzalez pleaded with one LAPD officer to release the three community members, while the others arrested one looter.
Eventually, the three community members were released. Police nearly arrested another woman who arrived on the scene to pick up one of them, who was apparently her mother.

What a fuck-up of a police force.  That’s right, Keystone Kops:  disarm the people who are doing the job you’re supposed to be doing but aren’t, and then arrest Yossarian, not Aarfy.

You rat bastards.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Let’s see if I’ve got this right.  The list of cities that are being besieged and set aflame by rioters includes the following:  New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis.

Quick:  what do these cities all have in common?

  • Their mayors are incompetent Leftist Democrats who have continued to go soft on crime, making petty theft the equivalent of jaywalking and encouraging the spread of homelessness on the streets;
  • They have a history of lawlessness, of hampering and undermining the police while coddling criminals;
  • They are “safe haven” cities for illegal immigrants;
  • They following social policies which create mini-welfare states;
  • They have terrible public school systems, entrenched by feral teachers’ unions;
  • They’re broke, and have no means of financial recovery other than handouts by their (mostly) near-bankrupt state governments or by the equally-insolvent federal government;
  • Even their wealthy citizens are neo-Socialists, and their middle-class hipsters support bullshit like anarchy, Black Lives Matter and anarchy;
  • Feel free to add your observations, if you think I’ve missed anything major.

In other words, these shithole cities embody absolutely everything that is un-American about modern society and government;  and yet we are supposed to feel some kind of sympathy or outrage that these cities are burning themselves to the ground?

Suck on it, assholes.  Reap that liberal / socialist whirlwind, good and hard.

And somebody let me know when the carpet-bombing begins, so I can get some popcorn supplies in beforehand.

Oh, and by the way:  this includes Dallas.  Just don’t come too far north of I-635, assholes.

Insiders

I see that the Fibbers are investigating a U.S. Senator on suspicion of insider trading:  good.

Burr drew the attention of lawmakers after it was revealed he sold off thousands of dollars worth of stock on February 13—less than a week before the stock market sharply dropped because of the coronavirus pandemic. Most of the shares were in companies like Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and Hilton that took an especially hard hit as coronavirus travel restrictions went into place. Burr’s timely decision to sell netted him between $628,000 and $1.72 million.
More troubling is that Burr’s decision to sell came as his committee was receiving daily briefings on the threat posed by the virus. As such, many speculate the senator may have acted on insider information to protect his assets. If true, Burr could be found in violation of the STOCK Act, which prohibits the use of non-public information for private profit by lawmakers.

For people who can’t understand how politicians can come to Washington as “thousand-aires” and leave as millionaires after getting only a Congressional salary:  this is one of the ways they manage it.

And I don’t care that he’s a Republican, although I wish the Fibbers would go after all these dishonest pricks with the same zeal, regardless of party.

Yeah, I know:  I should be using the word “alleged” and “suspicion of” all over the place.  Let’s just say that I hold elected officials to a higher standard — they should behave circumspectly to avoid even the suspicion of wrongdoing.

What gets me is the stupidity of the action.  Had Burr, or anyone else for that matter, bought the hotel stocks after the price plunged (to be sold later at a profit when the share price rebounded), he’d have made just as much money.  But no:  let’s avoid losses, even paper losses, at all costs.  Greedy fucker.

And if the Fibbers find that Burr’s phone records show that he’d placed the sell orders last year and not right after he had a committee briefing, then I’ll apologize for all the above.  Somehow, though, I don’t think I’ll be apologizing.

Pigs

I never fell for that “counter-culture” trope of referring to all police as “pigs” because I thought it was unfair.  An old Dave Berg cartoon in MAD  Magazine encapsulated my opinion perfectly:

Protesting hippies:  “Off the Pigs!”  “Pigs Off Campus!”  etc. etc., all screaming at a tubby police officer standing in front of them.  Suddenly, a bunch of hard-hat construction workers dive into the group and start kicking the shit out of them.
Hippies:  “Help!  Police!”
Policeman (smiling):  “Ain’t nobody here but us pigs…”

However, it is an undeniable fact that under this lockdown insanity, many police forces have let their enforcement mandate get out of control (arresting lone paddleboarders, snooping into people’s shopping bags for evidence of “non-essential” purchases, and so on).  Then we have bullshit like this:

The New Jersey woman who helped organize and film a protest in the state capitol of Trenton against Governor Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home orders was charged by the state police with violating the emergency decrees.

…not to mention this little injustice:

Artur Pawlowski was feeding homeless people in downtown Calgary when over half a dozen police officers surrounded him and issued him a cool $1,200 fine.
Apparently this gathering was in contravention of new coronavirus lockdown laws, but there were more police officers attending this “crime” than there were alleged offenders.

…not to mention this excellent use of state resources:

A skate park in San Clemente, CA, was filled with 37 tons of sand by local authorities to block skaters from using it during the coronavirus outbreak.

I would go on and on, but as Insty would put it, I’d probably need a bigger blog.

What worries me most about all this is not just that the (mostly Democrat) state governors are going apeshit over this golden opportunity to oppress and control the people who voted them into power.  That’s what socialists do, all the time.

What depresses me is that so many police forces are jumping right in and enforcing — in many cases over-stringently — the stupid and ineffective regulations.  Even stories like this depress me rather than inspire me:

Wisconsin’s Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling indicated in a statement on Friday he will not enforce the state’s stay-at-home order, which Gov. Tony Evers (D) extended through May 26.

While Wisconsin law gives both the governor and Wisconsin DHS “the authority to develop emergency measures and enforce rules and order to protect the public during a health crisis,” Schmaling emphasized that state law “does not have the power to supersede or suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens.”

Good for him, say I;  what saddens me is that every  sheriff should be saying and doing this kind of thing, but most aren’t.

So to all my law enforcement friends out there:  take your foot off the gas pedal, because at some point you’re going to start encountering increasing backlash from the people you’re supposed to be protecting — and nobody  wants that to happen.

Nobody, that is, except the socialist politicians who will respond, as statist authoritarians always do, by increasing  the level of oppression (e.g. by trying to pass more gun-control laws and imposing curfews) instead of ameliorating it.

Don’t make us start thinking of calling you “pigs”.