What Biden's Cabinet Pick Signals, Kamala Rips off Playboy, Kenosha Riots 2.0?, Beef the GREENEST of Foods? (The Five for 01/06/20)
Hey,
Quite the world raging out there.
The Five was created to talk about the stories that mattered, not the stories that dominate the 48 hour news cycle. That being said, I’m going to share a couple of thoughts on (very) current events breaking right now. These don’t get their own section, because to make it onto The Five list, a story has to be mature enough for the facts to have settled.
That being said, I anticipate the following from a Democratic Supermajority across the POTUS/Senate/House:
People are going to start exiting the stock market.
Cryptocurrencies will continue to rise.
Biden is going to try to ram through the gun control measures Obama never got.
the dollar will weaken.
Regular people are going to find out that a weak dollar and weak market will slow job growth and hurt the most vulnerable.
Buy guns. Buy crypto. That’s my advice.
The second thing is that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer tweeted this picture, of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams…as Jesus, I guess.
This is purely anecdotal, but I’m guessing you’ve felt it to. As we move more towards putting national politics into the places in our lives where religion, civic engagement (Elks Lodge, Chamber of Commerce) and community involvement go…things will just continue to rot in the places we live.
Engagement at the local level, coaching a kids sports team, attending a city council meeting…those things are going down as people stay home and catch the play-by-play of national politics. It occurs on the left and the right (although the left seems to have the market cornered on creepy quasi-religious candles).
If national politics plays the role of religion and community in your life, you’re going to die a very empty, regretful person.
Put down your damned phone, walk out your front door and see how things are where you live.
On to The Five.
[one]
On one of the angriest political days of the year, I’m going to kick things off by praising a man who I didn’t vote for. President-Elect Biden’s pick for Attorney General is Merrick Garland, who was previously Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court in 2016. Mitch McConnel refused to call a vote in the Senate to confirm, and then Trump was elected and confirmed Neil Gorsuch to the open position.
What the Biden administration will stand for is a big question mark as a large number of prominent leftist voices call for packing the Supreme Court, adding new states (to ensure Republicans can’t win the White House in the future) and ending the filibuster, giving the ruling party more power.
It’s worth noting that Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all had a super majority (same party in the White House that controlled the House and Senate), so perhaps these young hard left/socialists should consider the consequences of ripping the guardrails off of democracy.
The best example of this is how Chuck Schumer changed the Senate rules on judicial confirmations for Obama to get one appointment through…and then Trump used those same rules to put three picks on the Supreme Court. In 2017, Schumer stated that he regretted the decision.
Biden has the run of the board. The question now is whether he’s going to call the plays of the Obama era or read from the disjointed strategy book of The Squad.
Garland’s nomination gives me cautious hope that perhaps we might steer away from extremism.
[two]
“Bush lied and people died.”
This was a huge anti-war rallying cry in the 2000’s after the news broke that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps the rallying cry of the 2020’s will be “Kamala lied…and MLK’s intellectual property was stolen.”
Ok, that’s not very catchy, but it’s true.
Check out Kamala’s story about falling out of her stroller at a march and then demanding “fweedom” as compared with a story MLK told in a 1965 interview with Playboy.
You may have already heard about this, since “fweedom” is such an easily parodied statement…but here’s what I wanted to connect.
Thirty years ago, this would have been enough to force Harris to step down as VP-elect. I know this because Biden had to drop out of the 1987 Democratic primary after stealing a speech from a UK Labor Party politician. You can see the similarities in the speeches on this Wikipedia page.
This fall, Biden was accused of plagiarizing deceased Canadian politician Jack Layton’s speech for his own 2020 DNC nomination speech.
This isn’t the “big news” of the day, but it’s incredibly consequential. If we can’t hold people accountable for blatantly lying and stealing ideas, our society has serious problems.
Well, our society has serious problems.
[three]
You might have missed the news that no charges were filed against the Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake this summer.
Officers were responding to a 911 call from Blake’s ex-girlfriend, who had filed sexual assault charges against him last year, resulting in a felony warrant out for his arrest.
Newly released audio proves Blake admitted to being armed with a knife.
For more on this, I would encourage you to check out the press conference held by the city of Kenosha explaining the decision.
A lot of clickbait type websites wrote misleading headlines about this story…and I suppose there’s not a lot of value in getting offended over every one of them.
It is noteworthy however, that the Washington Post completely butchered their coverage and was forced to issue this correction.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Jacob Blake as unarmed. While his family has said he was not armed when shot by police, prosecutors on Tuesday said video evidence depicts him holding a knife. The story has been corrected.
Uhh, the difference in whether or not a guy was armed with a deadly weapon is a pretty big detail to forget to include.
The Daily Wire has a pretty solid writeup of where the Post’s reporting went wrong, if you have time for a long read on this issue.
Fortunately, the National Guard has been called in to keep things peaceful in Kenosha. Last time, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers waited a week to send in the National Guard, resulting in $50 million in damages to city and private property from the riots.
[four]
Proud Boys founder Enrique Tarrio has been banned from Washington D.C. by a judge, in clear defiance of the Supreme Court’s past decisions. NBC reports:
A judge has banned the leader of the Proud Boys from the nation’s capital after he was accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic black church and found with high-capacity firearm magazines when he was arrested.
The order bans Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, 36, from entering the District of Columbia, with very limited exceptions to meet with his attorney or appear in court. It comes a day after he was arrested arriving in Washington ahead of protests planned by supporters of President Donald Trump to coincide with the congressional vote expected Wednesday to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory.
Tarrio was arrested Monday by the Metropolitan Police Department and accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic black church in downtown Washington last month. He was charged with destruction of property and is also facing a weapons charges after officers found him with the firearm magazines when he was arrested.
If you’re a smart person, you will defend the rights of those you disagree with. Proud Boys, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Communists, the KKK or Kiss Midget Cover Bands (there are 2 of those, not kidding) I don’t care who you are or what you believe, it’s my job as a person who believes in the Constitution to defend your right to peaceably assemble and speak.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1958 that “freedom of movement” (right to travel) was a part of the First Amendment in Kent vs. Dulles.
[five]
And finally…here’s something to shut up the vegans (as if vegans would ever shut up).
Beef and lamb are among the “greenest” foods according to a UK study that measured the greenhouse gasses of food production. Britain’s ITV reports:
Welsh lamb and beef producers have the potential to be some of the most sustainable meat farming systems in the world, according to researchers.
A study from Bangor University found Welsh sheep and beef farms using non-intensive methods have among the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of comparable systems globally.
They measured carbon emissions released through the production of lamb and beef at 20 Welsh farms, as well as the carbon absorbed from the air through the land management techniques they used.
Researchers found that beef cattle was responsible for a net 11-16kg of CO2-equivalent emissions per kilo on average. Previous studies have suggested a global average of around 37kg of CO2-equivalent emissions per kilo.
So, kick back and enjoy a nice steak. Or, if you want to stay vegan…save yourself money on the “Beyond Meat” trend and just pour yourself a nice bowl of…dogfood. Since fake meat and dog food are made up of many of the same ingredients.
Until the next one,
-sth