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MAY 23,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

A STEP FORWARD – FROM FOX:   A bill that would increase penalties for protestors blocking roads and obstructing emergency vehicles is on the way to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.  And the two term GOP governor, who’s running for re-election next year, says he’ll sign the measure into law.  "I will sign soon," Abbott tweeted this weekend. "Peaceful protest doesn’t include blocking roadways & preventing emergency vehicle access. That chaos won’t be tolerated in Texas."  The governor sent his tweet soon after the Texas Senate voted 25-5 to pass the bill, which would toughen penalties and calls for jail time for protestors who purposefully block emergency vehicles from passing through a roadway, or obstruct a hospital entrance.  Abbott has been a great governor of Texas, and would fit comfortably on a national ticket.  In fact, the Republican Party has a number of great governors.  This new law will make Texas even better than it already is.

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS – FROM FOX:    Hall of Famer Charles Barkley spoke out after the league announced that Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James would not be suspended after he violated the NBA’s health and safety protocols earlier this week when he attended a promotional event with rapper Drake and actor Michael B. Jordan.  ESPN reported on Saturday that the NBA did not intend to suspend James after he attended a photoshoot for Lobos 1707 tequila, which is a brand that he is an investor in.  Barkley, who is as outspoken as anyone in sports media, shared his thoughts on the NBA’s decision.  "The NBA ain’t got the XXXXX to suspend Lebron James. Zero." Barkley said during a virtual interview with Yahoo Sports.
Barkley admitted that he started to laugh when he heard the news of the league’s decision.  "The NBA, they ain’t got no chance of suspending Lebron James. If it was a nobody, they would put him in health and safety protocols," Barkley said. "Ain’t no XXXXXXX way LeBron James is going to be sitting out because of health and safety protocols."  Barkley said when he read that, he started laughing and said: "Lebron James is playing Sunday. Guaaaaranteeed."  Wait.  Isn't this the same NBA which has become so ultra-sensitive to political correctness?  And isn't that the same LeBron James who puts on the self-righteous face and lectures us all on our racism?   Guess when you're a godlike figure you don't have to play by the rules.

May 23, 2021       Permalink

DEATH OF A CITY – AT 10:08 P.M. ET:  St. Louis, once the happy subject of songs like "Meet Me in St. Louis," now is the crime capital of the United States.  What an accomplishment.  But, not to be outdone, its woke mayor is determined to make things worse.  From Fox: 

In St. Louis, Mo., the worst-in-country murder rate is at a 50-year high, the police department has nearly 100 unfilled jobs, and the mayor wants to defund the department and shut down a city jail.

St. Louis's Tishaura Jones, who became the city’s first Black female mayor last month, had campaigned on a promise to enact progressive criminal justice reforms.

The head of the city’s corrections department is also on his way out. Jones announced his resignation last week, saying she hadn’t requested he step down but making clear she wasn’t satisfied with how he ran things.

Whatever the old administration was doing clearly wasn’t working – but it remains to be seen if police cuts are the answer.

In 1990s New York City, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani did the opposite, hiring more police, stepping up enforcement and locking away more felons – dramatically cleaning up crime in the Big Apple.

Yup.  It worked.  And thousands of lives, mostly black, were saved.  You'd think other cities would want to copy the example of policies that actually do the job.   But, those policies aren't genuinely WOKE, and WOKE is the fad these days.

St. Louis had 87 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2020, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the worst rate in the country.

It’s now at its highest rate in 50 years – even as the population has dwindled in that same time period.

Some city officials have blamed the spike in violence on the coronavirus pandemic – which would follow the national trend, except St. Louis also led the country before COVID-19 in homicides per 100,000 in 2019 with 65.

A city that will not be beaten in the race to the bottom.

For comparison, Baltimore saw the second-worst rate and also its highest on record in 2019 – with 57 per 100,000, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Interim City of St. Louis Director of Public Safety Daniel Isom explained the mayor's plan this way:
"Funding a comprehensive approach to violent crime is the best approach to reducing murders. This requires both police and partnering agencies adequately funded to support victims and hold offenders accountable. It also requires target arrest and prosecutions to get murderers and shooters off the streets and not filling jails with nonviolent offenders."

And Jones told the UK newspaper The Telegraph Tuesday that "more police doesn't prevent crime."

COMMENT:  Properly deployed, as in Giuliani's New York, more police do in fact prevent crime.  It's been shown repeatedly.  You get the feeling that many of these woke mayors are more interested in keeping criminals out of jail to satisfy their families than in protecting the public. 

May 23, 2021       Permalink

MAY 22,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

(Editor's note:  Because of a technical problem we're printing Short Takes very late, with only one entry.  Problem will be resolved in time for our next edition.)

ON HER WAY OUT? – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police issued a vote of no-confidence in Mayor Lori Lightfoot Wednesday, citing poor work conditions and the cancellation of a march for fallen officers due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The vote by the police union, as well as police Superintendent David Brown and First Deputy Eric Carter, was unanimous among as many as 200 active and retired rank-and-file officers, the Chicago Tribune reported.  Reasons cited for the move reportedly include officer burnout and the department’s decision to cancel off days for cops on several occasions — as well as a move from 8 ½-hour shifts to 12-hour work periods in preparation for possible unrest in the city.  The symbolic action also followed the second consecutive year that the Chicago Police Department canceled its annual St. Jude Memorial March for the city’s fallen cops while citing the COVID-19 pandemic.  This is the mayor who announced that she would only give interviews to minority reporters, somethting that has already created an uproar among Chicago journalists.  Her departure from office is overdue.

May 22, 2021       Permalink

GEORGIA SCHOOLS TO RETURN TO NORMALCY – OVERNIGHT:  Some states are trying to radicalize their school systems as kids return, following the pandemic.  Georgia is not one of them.  From College Fix: 

The University System of Georgia is requiring for next school year’s round of admissions either ACT or SAT test scores from all applying students.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Get Schooled Blog reports that this is part of a larger push by the system to firmly return Georgia’s schools to the pre-COVID status quo.

The system said in a statement that it had “asked all campuses to plan for resuming normal operations for the Fall 2021 semester.”

Further, Get Schooled’s Maureen Downey points out that the system has declined to require incoming and returning students to show proof of vaccinations to be educated at Georgia’s public higher educational institutions, “despite calls by faculty” for just that.

Get Schooled notes that “In August [2020], USG followed most of its peer systems and waived test score requirements for spring, summer and fall 2021 admission to its 26 campuses. However, the waiver was only for one year.”

The fact that the system is now returning to testing as usual appears to incense Robert Schaeffer, executive director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

“The politically appointed University System of Georgia Board of Regents, most of whom are not educators, are bucking a strong national trend by refusing to extend ACT/SAT optional policies for at least another year,” Schaeffer said in response to the decision.

COMMENTS:  Parents must be on guard against attempts to dumb down their schools.  The reopening of the schools provides just the kind of distraction that the left uses to introduce "reforms" that aren't reforms at all.  It is in the schools that one of the greatest battles against socialist indoctrination is being waged.  Eliminating tests and replacing them with a rigged system that advances "equity" is part of that battle.

May 22, 2021      Permalink