Black Lives Matter
August 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Portland, Oregon recorded 15 homicides in July. That’s the most in one month in more than three decades, according to the police. As for shootings, there were 63 in July. In July 2019, there were 28, again according to the police. Police Chief Chuck Lovell noted that the department was forced to disband its 34-member Gun Violence Reduction Team at the direction of the City Council. According to this report,
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August 2, 2020 — John Hinderaker
The Left has abandoned all norms of civilized conduct. Check out this video of a Black Lives Matter “activist” screaming at normal citizens through a bullhorn. It was filmed in Austin, Texas: BLM now harassing and threatening restaurant patrons on the street pic.twitter.com/7snbtEyFN3 — Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) August 2, 2020 This sort of harassment is, or should be, criminal. Given the Left’s repudiation of all norms, can anything short of
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July 31, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The NBA resumed its season Friday night with two televised games. How were the ratings? Ethan Strauss of the The Athletic reports: After a four-and-a-half month absence, tons of lead-up media coverage regarding the bubble, with little competition on the airwaves and a schedule specially constructed to deliver us the draw of Zion Williamson, Pelicans-Jazz garnered 2.1 million viewers. For context, that’s roughly 400,000 fewer viewers than the average audience
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July 31, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Darren Wilson is the former Ferguson, Missouri police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, who assaulted him. The shooting was a wholly justified act of self defense. Yet, it triggered the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s fitting that a phony justice movement originated with a phony claim of police misconduct. Wilson has been cleared of any criminal conduct by a grand jury and by the Obama-Holder Justice Department. But
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July 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The NBA resumes its season tonight. Some players will be wearing BLM-related “social justice” slogans on their shirts, where their names normally appear. In addition, “Black Lives Matter” is printed on all three courts where games will be played. On top of that, some broadcasters will likely offer their views on race in America. This article in the Washington Post strongly suggests that one or more of the Washington Wizards’
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July 19, 2020 — John Hinderaker
I suggested a week ago that Minneapolis might have surpassed Portland in the race for the title of America’s Worst-Governed City. That apparently spurred Portland residents to redouble their efforts, and today that city stands unchallenged as America’s worst. Consider that Portland has now experienced 51 consecutive days of violent riots. Minneapolis had, what? Six? Last night violent mobs under the banners of Antifa and Black Lives Matter attacked the
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July 14, 2020 — John Hinderaker
We’ve seen it over and over: when activists make war on the police, and politicians sell them down the river, police officers respond as one would expect. They pull back. They respond to 911 calls but do as little active policing as possible. Inevitably, that is happening in Minneapolis. The Free Beacon has the numbers: Official data released by the [Minneapolis Police Department] show that cumulative stops fell 36 percent
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July 11, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, demonstrators took to the streets of Anacostia, an area in Southeast Washington, D.C. where I was born, to protest the taking of black lives. But they weren’t protesting police misconduct. They were protesting the killing by gang members of an eleven year old boy and the lax policing of their neighborhood. The boy, Davon McNeal a budding football star, was gunned down as he was leaving a Fourth
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July 7, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Roger Clegg offers seven thoughts for 7/7. One of them is this: Some statues will come down, and some will stay, and the impact on black lives will be precisely zero. The Left has gotten people’s attention about (fictive) “systemic racism,” and its agenda turns out to be defunding the police and tearing down statues — what more do we need to know about how silly it is? I agree
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July 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Daniel Horowitz writes: Sadly, fireworks were not the only munitions shot over the July 4 weekend. Statues weren’t the only things felled by anarchists and criminals roaming free in the streets. This weekend was a bloody one across the country, with endless shootings in America’s cities, including New York City, which was considered the safest American city for a generation. Once again, African-American victims, including a number of young children,
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July 5, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
There was a deadly shooting in Atlanta on Saturday. It occurred less than a mile from the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by a police officer after he violently resisted arrest. This time the victim was innocent. In fact, she was an eight year-old girl. The girl was riding in a car with her mother and an adult friend on I-75/85 when they exited onto University Avenue,
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July 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Heather Mac Donald documents the increase in violent crime that has accompanied the decrease in policing resulting from the denunciation, without evidence, of American police forces as racist, after an officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. She shows that the recent increase in violent crime has come with a speed and magnitude that makes the Ferguson effect — the spike that occurred after a police officer killed Michael Brown —
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July 1, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
According to this report, the NBA will allow its players to replace the last name on the back of their jerseys with a statement on “social justice.” To me, this is more offensive than permitting a one-time gesture — kneeling, a clinched fist, whatever — at the beginning of an athletic contest. Watching some ill-educated 20-something who attended a basketball factory university for a year or two run up and
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July 1, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Tucker Carlson Tonight drew record ratings for FOX News in the quarter just concluded. Breaking the record previously held by Sean Hannity, Tucker had the best quarter ever for a cable news program. Variety covers the story here. Last night’s show suggested to me why this may be the case. Tucker had on Brit Hume for a blast of truth about the noxious Black Lives Matter crowd. BLM is a
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June 29, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Atlanta’s interim Police Chief Rodney Bryant was about to address the City Council on the unrest plaguing the city when a councilman informed Bryant: I was just notified there was a young man who was just shot and killed at 377 Westchester Boulevard. Can you get a unit out there? He’s been on the ground and there’s no police who have come. He’s dead already,
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June 28, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The relationship between the former slave Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln provides deep insight into both men. Douglass’s recollection of his first meeting with Lincoln — “I shall never forget my first interview with this great man” — is a highlight of the 1892 version of Douglass’s autobiography (The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass). In the Claremont Review of Books celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth in
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June 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that South Carolina BLM protest organizers will postpone future demonstrations, or move them online, now that at least 13 people who took part in previous protests have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus. Those known to be infected include four organizers, six protesters, and three photographers. The organizers urged everyone who participated in their protests, held between May 30 and June 17, to get tested for
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