Black Lives Matter
June 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a crack offender is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act only if convicted of a crack offense that triggered a mandatory minimum sentence. Even Justice Sotomayor agreed with this result. It was a no-brainer. Yet, the Biden Justice Department refused to defend this result after it was reached at the court of appeals level. It went so far
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June 4, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
For almost a year now, soccer players in England have been kneeling just before kickoff to show support for Black Lives Matter. During almost all of this period, English fans weren’t present for the matches. Thus, we had no sense of how they felt about this gesture. But now fans are back, albeit in limited numbers. And earlier this week, fans in Middlesbrough (in England’s northeast) had the chance to
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June 1, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Rashad Turner was one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter chapter in St. Paul, Minnesota. He left that organization when he realized that it did not, in fact, do anything to help black people. He has now become an advocate for school choice, which BLM opposes in lockstep with its establishment patrons. Turner made this powerful video for TakeCharge Minnesota, which was founded by my friend Kendall Qualls:
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May 26, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Today’s Europa League final featured two contrasting teams: Manchester United and Villareal. Man U, which represents the red half of a city of about half a million, has won everything there is to win in soccer, and most things multiple times. Villareal, known for some reason as the Yellow Submarine, represents a Spanish city of around 50,000. Until today, it had never won anything. This year, Man U finished second
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May 24, 2021 — John Hinderaker
On Saturday, the State Department sent a memo to all diplomatic and consular posts regarding the celebration of the first anniversary of the death of George Floyd. The memo is embedded below; you pretty much have to read it to believe it. This is the Department’s summary: May 25 marks one year since the brutal murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Last year, the horrific video
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May 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Police officers in various jurisdictions are being disciplined, and even fired, for expressing negative views about the BLM movement and protests. Here, from the Washington Times, are a few examples: Two policewomen in New Jersey were fired [in one case] or demoted [in the other] for calling BLM protesters “terrorists”. . . . Another law enforcement officer recently got in trouble for his online response to basketball great LeBron James’s
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May 5, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Last year, the homicide count in Washington, D.C. reached a 36-year high. So far this year, D.C. homicides are up 38 percent from the same time last year. During the past weekend alone, at least 11 people were shot in D.C. Three of them died. D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser says she will respond by pouring extra police officers into six historically crime-ridden neighborhoods. The idea is to head off violence.
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May 3, 2021 — John Hinderaker
One of the Derek Chauvin jurors, Brandon Mitchell, has gone public, and it appears that he may have been less than honest during jury selection and is in fact a BLM activist. The Post Millenial reports: A juror on the Derek Chauvin trial who told the court that he had no prior knowledge of the George Floyd civil case was photographed last August wearing a shirt that read “Get your
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May 3, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I want to take note of two recent posts by Bill Otis at Crime & Consequences. The first post reports murder statistics in twelve major U.S. cities in 2020. In ten of them, murders increased by more than 30 percent — ranging from 74.1 percent in Seattle to 30.4 percent in Los Angeles. The other two cities, Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, also reported increases (19.4 percent and 14.3 percent,
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April 25, 2021 — John Hinderaker
David Horowitz brings his take-no-prisoners style to the jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin case. Brooklyn Center, Minnesota….not Tehran pic.twitter.com/d538mSMg0t — Logan Ratick (@Logan_Ratick) April 19, 2021 No one in his right mind could have been surprised by the verdict in the Minneapolis trial of Officer Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd. For 11 straight months cities have been burned, people have been murdered and billions of dollars
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April 17, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Brearley School is a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It costs $54,000 a year to attend and, according to Bari Weiss, prospective families apparently have to take an “anti-racism pledge” to be considered for admission. Brearley’s supposed commitment to anti-racism does not prevent it from discriminating on the basis of race in admissions and hiring. Nor does it stop the school from indoctrinating its
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April 10, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors calls herself a “trained Marxist” and is a bitter enemy of free enterprise, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t enjoy the finer things in life. The Daily Mail reports that she has bought herself a $1.4 million home in an exclusive section of Los Angeles that is almost entirely white: A Black Lives Matter co-founder and self-professed ‘trained Marxist’ has raised eyebrows by
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April 1, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Ever since shortly after the George Floyd’s death last May, soccer players in England have been “taking a knee” just before the kickoff of their matches. In my view, athletes should be free to take a knee (or not to) before a match. But why a Minneapolis cop’s excessive use of force, and the death it may or may not have caused, should prompt soccer players in Manchester to take
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March 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Oxford University reportedly is under pressure to stop, or at least curtail, the teaching of sheet music, musical notation, and even the classical music that was scored upon it. The rationale is that all of this is “too colonial,” and that Beethoven, Mozart, and music in general are “complicit in white supremacy.” It’s not just students and BLM groups that are pushing this insanity. In fact, professors seem to be
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March 5, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Gee—who could have predicted this (aside from me), from USA Today? Exclusive: Stark divide on race, policing emerges since George Floyd’s death, USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll shows Americans’ trust in the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen and their faith in local law enforcement has risen since protests demanding social justice swept the nation last year, according to an exclusive USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll. The debate over the intersection of racism and policing will
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March 4, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I discussed the crime wave in Montgomery County, Maryland. Homicides, carjackings, and armed robberies are all up this year. In January, there were seven homicides. According to the chief of police, that’s an all-time record for a single month. As for armed robberies, they have increased by 40 percent. How will the County respond? Its task force on “Reimagining Public Safety” is recommending fewer police on streets and the
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February 11, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Following the January 6 riot at the Capitol, Joe Biden had this to say about the police force that, at a great personal cost, prevented the rioters from completely overrunning the building and injuring members of Congress, as well as the U.S. Vice President: Not only did we see the failure to protect one of the three branches of our government, we also saw a clear failure to carry out
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