Progressive Policies Are Making America Black and Blue

“You know what encourages this [Milwaukee riots]? The growth of the welfare state. These are underclass behaviors. Seventy percent of the kids born in Milwaukee are born without an engaged father in their life. So I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They push them to the side and say ‘you’re not needed.’ Uncle Sam is going to be the dad, he’s going to provide for the kids, he’s going to feed the kids. Uncle Sam has been a horrible father. Uncle Sam does not love these kids. He might keep a little food in their mouths and that is about it. But we all know the importance of an intact family, what it can do to shape the behavior of kids.” – Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke

Sheriff Clarke, who is African-American, is speaking directly to the abject failure of Lyndon Baines Johnson's wasted 22 trillion on the “War on Poverty.” Of its damaging consequences, he adds:

“These progressive policies have hit the black community like a nuclear blast and until we reverse this government dependency, that’s what creates all of this [rioting] and it encourages it by the way, along with some questionable lifestyle choices.”

50 years on, LBJ's ironically named Great Society policies have destroyed the basis of the nation—the family unit—especially in minority communities. By insidious progressive design, a father in the home virtually disqualifies a mother from collecting government assistance. In this way, federal programs promoted to “help” actually poison society’s lifeblood—the heterosexual, two parent household—by encouraging men to abandon their children. In actuality, these “helpful” measures have subsidized and spawned whole generations of illegitimate children in broken, impoverished single-parent homes with little or no male influence.

Since the onset of these Democratic policies in the mid-1960s, illegitimacy nationwide stood at 7.7 percent; for Afro-Americans 25%. Today, by comparison, out-of-wedlock births for blacks are over 72 percent; Hispanics over 50 percent and whites (from 3 percent in 1960) to 36 percent at present. So, in essence, the State via broken homes and a failed, progressive public school system “raise” children, badly. Given the subsistence living—and the lack of moral guidance—is it any wonder that many fall through the cracks into wrongdoing and the criminal justice system? Thus the liberal snare of a 'school-to-prison pipeline' in which anyone else (read: whitey) is blamed, and individual responsibility for poor choices is never acknowledged. This is precisely why Sheriff Clarke advocates soul-searching reflection:

“Until the black community does a self-evaluation and until they begin to self-criticize about some of the lifestyle choices they are making, this [bad] stuff is going to continue to fester.”

From decades of despair comes this generation of acting out disaffected youths with no stake in the American Dream. So, this faceless, lawless mob populates today's Black Lives Matter movement. For them, everything is “burn, baby, burn”: in Ferguson, MO; Baltimore, MD and most recently in Milwaukee, WI.  For example, one will not find them assisting residents in catastrophically flooded Baton Rogue.  An outspoken voice speaking Mr. Clarke's unvarnished truth is Charlene Realegeno-Molina who said:

“What is BLM doing for Louisiana? Y'all are good at getting together to protest, well why haven't y'all gotten together to help out? I guess BLM only when convenient.”

Despite their Orwellian name, immoral Black Lives Matter doesn't care about life (of any shade, black or blue). America remains a vulcanized melting pot, where cultural differences in modern times have been respected under the color-blind righteousness of law. American society either rises on the basis of MLK's advocacy of individual character, or falls under the jackbooted heel of anarchist, mob violence.

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Contrast Cincinnati and Baltimore moms

“Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them” - Proverbs 13:24

Monica Crowley knows the family unit is a microcosm of American society. Her Washington Times column “Surprising heroines who wield authority” commemorates Baltimore's Toya Graham's “moma bear” behavior reining in her wrongdoing son. Imagine if she had been that parent at the Cincinnati zoo. Mindful Mother Graham would have kept her kid safe. No dangerous plummet into the deadly clutches of a gorilla for him.

Let's compare the MSM's biased portrayal of these two mothers. “Zoo” mom's obvious neglect is lamely excused as an innocent, “human” mistake. Yet, Ms. Graham's public swats were demonized as wrongful shaming and child abuse. Rationally, who is the “better” mother here?

All children need a loving family, necessities like a home, and a fully belly. Beyond that, every child needs to learn the boundaries of appropriate and safe behavior. In eras long past, the most terrifying statement made to any errant youth was “wait 'til your father gets home!” That was before LBJ's Great Society. His “welfare” programs continue to reward single motherhood, and the resulting generations out of wedlock births. Now, absentee fathers are often the rule rather than the exception. Therefore, “lost boys” run rampant in rioting cities like Baltimore. Such a chaotic environment is what drew Ms. Graham's boy into the fray.

For an average teen, urban centers like Chicago (with its yearly record-breaking homicides) seem about as safe as that gorilla's lair. Is it any wonder that America in 2016 resembles a real-life “Lord of the Flies?”

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MLK's way, not Obama's or hatemongers

With the ever more violent and mutating 'Black Lives Matter' movement which began its faceless reign of terror by looting and burning American cities (Ferguson, MO; Baltimore, MD) to its latest permutation as an anarchist mob that incites targeting unprovoked police officers (NYC: Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos) because of their uniforms — and celebrates a cop's assassination (Houston, TX: Darren H. Goforth) — there is no doubt that the person directly responsible for lighting the racial powder keg back in 2009 was our first black, Sal Alinsky community-organizing president who mischaracterized Boston cops as “acting stupidly” in arresting a black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr. for the latter's belligerence.  Mr. Obama further stoked the flames of discontent in his knee-jerk sympathy (before all facts were known) with a violent perpetrator ('If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon') who reportedly uttered gay slurs at attack victim, neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman.  On the other hand, when the perpetrator is black (Roanoke, VA: Vester Lee Flanigan II) and/or illegal (SF: Francisco Sanchez) the victims white (Alison Parker/Adam Ward; SF: Kathryn Steinle, respectively), Mr. Obama atrocious public silence is deafening.  But when the "leader of the free world" declares public ignorance of events (and reportedly reads only half of  his presidential daily briefings) by laughably claiming he gets his information from the MSM, do you really expect a guy like that to be responsible for anything at all?

Zachary Wood is correct both in his support of the common sense sentiment that "all lives matter" and that every person must not blame his innocent neighbor for his troubles.  Indeed, his laser-like article, in most respects, shows a sensitivity and an instructive personal insight into the underlying problem in the black community from Mr. Obama on down: the widespread lack of the expression of MLK's definition of character that transcends superficial biological considerations. Put simply, that means accepting individual responsibility for one's behavior regardless of the feeble excuses of skin color, obliviousness of the law, common decency or youthful exuberance.  Where Mr. Wood unfortunately falls short is a critical reality he apparently is hesitant to fully disclose: the lion's share of deaths in the black community — approximately 90% per  2013 FBI crime reports are the result of black-on-black homicide.  While vague (but technically true), stating only that "more" (rather than the factually supported term that fits: "almost all") men are killed by other black men than by white police offers ultimately undercuts his other valid assessments.  Similarly, Mr. Wood rightly credits Democratic presidential hopeful, former MD governor Martin O'Malley for his inclusive "all lives matter" statement, but ignores the fact that Mr.  O'Malley   almost immediately publicly recanted his truthful statement with a spineless apology to an outspoken proponent of the before-mentioned 'Black Lives Matter' crew who obviously only values "black" lives to the ridiculous exclusion of all others.  In any case, when out-of-their-depth presidential candidates like he and Bernie Sanders (who fled a public forum so as not to offend, once again, belligerent 'Black Lives Matter' militants), how are either one of these guys to be trusted to handle any "real" problems that any U.S. president must face?

Above all, MLK knew that worldly success for the black community depends on the steadiness of individual good character, racial understanding between whites and blacks, and peaceful coexistence.  That is the polar opposite of what Obama and the 'Black Lives Matter' folks are doing: misusing their visible positions in our society to divide, manipulate, punish or instill fear.  This is an unnecessary reopening of ancient wounds that re-traumatize the American psyche of today for mistakes made in the past by one people upon another, all now long gone.  All lives do matter and the only way forward in dark days is together.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/2/zachary-wood-blaming-white-racism-for-violence/?page=all

Hillary and Obama's war on cops, civil society

These Democratic leaders have the blood of many innocents on their hands.  Mr. Obama lit the racial powder keg back in 2009 with his mischaracterization that Boston cops “acted stupidly” in arresting a black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., for being belligerent with law enforcement at the man's home. At the time, Mr. Obama said, “I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played.”  Indeed, Democrats never wait for the “facts” before making their rabble-rousing pronouncements.  In true Democratic fashion of politically “never letting a crisis go to waste,” Mr. Obama, at every opportunity, indulges his knee-jerk anti-cop and anti-American rhetoric.  In this, it is Orwellian that a U.S. president, charged with the principle duty to enforce the Constitution and the law, instead subverts that selfsame law in favor of promoting the politics of racial victimization and its direct consequence of faceless, mob violence. Hence the fiction that Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown are innocent targets of “white racism” and the tragic reality of burning cities like Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD.

Abetted by the hard left MSM, the anarchist elements in our society have been whipped into a frenzied, lawless horde.  Over the weekend, the Black Lives Matter protesters spewed their hate-speech “Pigs [cops] In A Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon” just hours after Harris County, Texas sheriff's deputy Darren H. Goforth was ambushed and executed by a black assailant, suspect Shannon J. Miles, at a Houston-area gas station.  Similarly, last December in New York, two uniformed police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, sitting in their marked squad car, were assassinated gangland style by lone gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley.  Once again, “black lives matter“ advocates had also demonstrated, chanting “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!”  Mr. Brinsley's rationalization for his unprovoked, barbarous acts: revenge killings for Eric Garner (who died in police custody) and the before-mentioned Michael Brown. Of this, Brinsley wrote: “I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” and “They Take 1 Of Ours . . . Let’s Take 2 of Theirs.”  In reaction, Police Commissioner William Bratton said, “No warning, no provocation—they were quite simply assassinated, targeted for their uniform.”

Therefore, the “white hat elements” of our society—lawmen, the law-abiding, legal gun owners, conservatives and tea party proponents—have been outrageously and nonsensically demonized by Mr. Obama as domestic terrorists.  Drawing from the same “divide [society] and conquer” Democratic political playbook, Hillary Clinton implies pro-law enforcement Republicans are “boxcar Nazis” for wanting to impose legitimate immigration laws and expel illegal aliens from our sovereign nation.  Ironically, the “black lives matter” folks even heckle black, Democratic leaders who promote common sense, anti-crime measures, as DC Mayor Muriel Bowser recently did in response to 105 slayings in the District of Columbia so far this year (a 43 percent increase over this point last year matching all of 2014).  This statistic is no surprise: why should cops actively do their jobs in dangerous parts of town when they are constant targets of ill-founded racial blame, bureaucratic second-guessing and random, unprovoked threats to life and limb because they wear a badge?  As any civilian accused of a crime is “presumed innocent,” don't rank-and-file police officers deserve that same consideration?

It seems that everyone else, except for Obama and Hillary, pays the price for the divisive, political whirlwind they have wrought. Notice the philosophical hypocrisy: Mr. Obama doesn't order the Secret Service to disarm yet he actively strives to restrict legal gun-ownership and undermine the Second Amendment.  After all, if firearms are so terrible, why does he allow himself and his family to be surrounded by them 24/7/365?

Any reasonable person who objects to this insanity is marginalized by Democrat's word-burning political correctness and wrongly smeared by them as a racist, misogynist or Uncle Tom.  Indeed, this societal nerve has been rubbed so raw for the last 6 years as an expedient political distraction to Obama's multitude of domestic and international failures, we now have the emergence of a true bogeyman in the form of former reporter Vester L. Flanagan II, who vented his paranoid, mentally unhinged, homicidal rage on two innocent colleagues.  Even the heavily partisan Washington Post begrudgingly acknowledged that Mr. Flanagan's older colleagues tried to mentor him and even his harshest critics wanted him to succeed.  Further, his unfounded complaints of discrimination were taken seriously by management and his two lawsuits claiming racism, sexual harassment and wrongful termination ended quietly with undisclosed terms.   As this scenario does not fit the false straw-man narrative of the white, racist, rich (read: Republican) caricature, notice the deafening silence of Democrats and the Black Lives Matter crowd whenever the situation is black-on-white or nine times out of ten, black-on-black murder.

America cannot be defeated by forces outside of herself.  Our greatest difficulty isn't the Democrat's “weather” or the Republican's legitimate fear of Iranian nukes.  Her fundamental problem is an insidious cancer much closer to home: the lawless, lying, big government, anti-American Democratic Party.  Aided by their fawning humpback, blind-eye creature, the liberal MSM intentionally blows up unfortunate and otherwise isolated human tragedies into full-scale black-white societal crises.  Obama, Hillary and their ilk have also spawned a  21st century Frankenstein monster: the radical Black Lives Matter movement which cares nothing for non-black lives (or lives not taken by white hands regardless of mitigating  circumstances).  While Obama and Hillary “lead,” as American cartoonist Walt Kelly famously wrote, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

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Feeding at Democrat’s poverty plantation

Controlling a citizen’s belly is an insidious mechanism by which to subtly coerce—and consistently predict—that person’s vote.  That’s why Democrats use it (and why Mitt Romney failed in his 2012 White House bid despite correctly enumerating the objective facts related to Mr. Obama’s multitude of well-known domestic and international failures).  For the 6 plus years of the Obama presidency, his job-killing, anti-Capitalist—tax, spend, redistribute; repeat—fiscal policies have keep key voting demographics—people of color, the poor, the young and the generally alienated (the Occupy movement)—on the Democrat’s economic plantation.  Specifically, under Obama, 93 million willing and able Americans cannot find full time work.  Similarly, 18.2 million more people are currently on food stamps since January 2008.  Moreover, per 2013 official poverty statistics, 45.3 million people are consistently living at or below the poverty line or 14.5 percent (compared to 36.5 million people or 19 percent in 1964 which began Democrat President Johnson’s Great Society and costly—and largely failed—welfare programs and “War on Poverty.”)  That’s 1 trillion (1,000 billion and counting) spent resulting in 46.2 million in poverty per 2011 figures: as a percentage of the populations, 18.8 and 14.7 respectively, the rate of overall improvement of 4.1 percent isn’t exactly huge progress given the enormous expenditure.

Despite all factual evidence to the contrary, Obama’s big government, progressive economic policies have repeatedly double-downed on historical failures most tellingly with his own failed 840 billion stimulus: money funneled to pro-Democrat unions that, for example, took over GM; bankrupt companies like Solyndra run by political cronies or wasted on seemingly imaginary, “non-shovel-ready” jobs.  Examples all of Democrat’s Orwellian policies that articulate a noble intention, but achieve its “real world” opposite.  At these all too frequent moments, Democrats shrug their shoulders, make a clever quip (“Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive”) and quickly change the subject from continuing deficit spending and an ever-mounting 19 trillion dollar debt.

50 years on, Johnson’s ironically named Great Society policies (like Obama’s  Affordable Care Act—which is anything but—and has pulled the financial guts out of America’s healthcare system) have destroyed the basis of the nation—the family unit—especially in minority communities. This package of initially well-intentioned government programs designed as a temporary stop-gap measure has instead subsidized and raised whole generations of illegitimate children in broken or single-parent homes with little or no male influence.  In point of fact, a father in the home virtually disqualifies a woman from collecting her government assistance.  In this way, a federal program designed to “help” actually poisons society’s lifeblood—the heterosexual, two parent household—by encouraging men to abandon their children.  Since the onset of these Democratic policies in the mid-1960s, illegitimacy nationwide stood at 7.7 percent; for Afro-Americans 25%.  Today, for comparison, out-of-wedlock births for blacks are over 72 percent; Hispanics over 50 percent and whites (from 3 percent in 1960) to 36 percent at present.  From such unstructured homes comes a similarly chaotic culture.

In the same vein—for better or worse—there is no longer a social stigma related to teenage pregnancy or illegitimate births.  More importantly, there are no dire economic consequences for the unwise decision to have a child without the advantages of a stable and prosperous home.  This path tends to lead to poverty and similarly poor life choices reflective of the mother’s example.  In a very real way, these inherent life limitations cause the school system to become a pipeline to criminality and jail.  For instance, 72 percent of adolescent murders indicate they grew up in fatherless homes.  This clear sociological trend, out of Democratic political correctness, is ignored by policymakers who favor superficial non-fixes like dumping more money into already failing public school systems.  Unfortunately, no amount of money can impart a healthy value system, responsible decision-making or a work ethic.  That duty, for good reason, should always be the purview of mature parents rather than ill-suited nanny state institutions.

On a related issue, despite feminists’ unrealistic super-woman pretenses, an unstable or nonexistent relationship with a father or father-figure deeply wounds a boy’s psyche.  When women rule the roost in the absence of a man, boys find destructive male role models in gangs of their lawless, also fatherless peers.  This dynamic further explains 2013 FBI crime statistics which indicate that black-on-black murder accounts for 90% of deaths in the Afro-American community.  Therefore, Democratic leaders, like Mr. Obama, race-bait and foster chaos when promoting the wrongheaded delusion that white people in general—and white police in specific—act “stupidly” and are the guilty party.  So, wrongly demonized law enforcement personnel who have a difficult job under typical circumstances, have the added threat of becoming the target for generalized rage.  Under this political microscope—coupled with greater risk to life and limb—is it not understandable that they would be reticent and thereby less effective?  Consequently, violent protests like those in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD become more and more likely.  Indeed, economically depressed, violence-ridden, Democrat-controlled urban cities like Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit are now societal powder kegs: one interracial incident away from the abyss.  The thin blue line is fraying.

Abetted by the water-carrying mainstream media, these societal truths have been successfully diminished, twisted or obscured by the propaganda of divisive Democratic politics: mostly blaming the “haves,” whitey or “the other guy” (historically “rich” Republicans—and the most recent fiction—“racist” cops.)

The nefarious political end game: Obama’s perpetual campaign of lies, lip-service to real cultural problems and vague, pretty-word speechifying supported by little action (or the wrong action). Its underlying purpose: to keep the rest of us stirred up and distracted by trivialities, enabling them—an incompetent Democrat elitist in-crowd (beholden only to the Party and their allies)—to stay in power.  This is achieved by keeping the country in a constant state of distress; by constant fear-mongering and intentionally dividing the country along its societal fault lines of class, race, gender and sexual orientation.

Despite their liberal friends in mass media and their strangely rosy accounts of the state of the union (and politically correct spin which stems the flow of independent thought and dissention), Democrats are fundamentally vote-panderers: not truly advocating for the “common man,” only for themselves.

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Baltimore mom: momma bear not abuser

As a helicopter mom who frets over the risks of her own son playing football, Lonnae O'Neal, of all people, should understand—and appreciate—Toya Graham's righteous effort to rein in her son from the potential dangers of his own actions.  The Mother Graham of Baltimore did not, per Ms. O'Neal's skewed language, "beatdown" her son which implies the intention of abuse, domination and humiliation.  

Though I gather that Ms. O'Neal is not a regular church-goer, her historically rich column neglects to reference Proverbs 13:24 ('Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them') to glean the actual meaning and value of Ms. Graham's "moma bear" behavior.  To clarify, Ms. Graham's slaps were not borne out of repression, fear or violence, but out of a loving desire to literally "wake him up" to poor choices that the boy intuitively knew were wrong.  Why else would her son wear a hoodie and face mask to obscure his identity?

Beyond the standard things that every child needs like a loving family, a home, and a fully belly, every child needs to learn the boundaries of appropriate and safe behavior.  Indeed, that is one of the fundamental responsibilities of being a parent.  In psychological terms, children lack a development called the "internal parent," an invisible mechanism of the psyche that governs a mature adult's actions and ideally curbs his wilder or darker impulses.

Walking in Ms. Graham's shoes, in search of her wayward child among a potentially violent street crowd, this mother's act was wholly appropriate—even instinctual—to "slap some sense into him."  It was because she cares and never about causing pain or doing bodily harm.  This is the confusion that causes the columnist O'Neal her ambivalent stance on the matter.  In any case, the column concludes correctly that Toya Graham should not be demonized for what we can all agree was, in a moment of extreme stress, a very human reaction.

Re. "The Baltimore mom slaps her son for the ages," Lonnae O'Neal's Column, The Washington Post

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Barack Obama: The Great Agitator

Six years in, the American people definitively know that Barack Obama means "Burn, baby, burn," by the "fundamental transformation of America."  Like the virtually ignored weekly death toll of black young men by their Afro-American fellows in Mr. Obama's political hometown of Chicago; like the bankrupt, Democratically controlled city of Detroit where large sections of the city lie fallow and abandoned; like the Baltimore of today, enflamed with the same unchecked social chaos that plagued the streets and burned Ferguson, MO to the ground, the consequences of Barack Obama's lawless Saul Alinsky community-organizing are crystal clear.  
 
The Reverend Jeremiah Wright—Barack Obama's pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years who from the pulpit advocated that black people should sing "God damn America"—undoubtedly must feel, per his prophetic words, that "America's chickens are [finally] coming home to roost."  Barack Obama's point man on Ferguson, another reverend famous for race-hustling and unprosecuted tax evasion, Al Sharpton, is en route to Baltimore to further light the racial powder keg.
 
The fact that America's 10 poorest and 10 most violent cities have been controlled by the Left for decades is no surprise.  Per the Daily Caller, Eighth on the list—and unfortunately rapidly ascending—is Baltimore run by Democrat mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a woman now instantly infamous for publicly siding with faceless criminality: “It was a very delicate balancing act because while we tried to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on — um — we also gave those who wished to destroy, space to do that, as well,” she said in all seriousness.  As a lawyer and a public servant, Ms. Rawlings-Blake should know the difference between lawful protest and mob violence.  
 
As there is no racial black-white dynamic to exploit for political gain, Mr. Obama is not surprisingly mum.  He, as the great agitator, does not want to highlight the fact that Baltimore is yet another Democratically controlled urban center run by a black mayor, a black police chief and a black city council president.  In addition, many other prominent city and civic leaders are Afro-American as is half of Baltimore’s 3,000-person police force.  
 
It is time for the residents of these cities—and generally the American taxpayer who pays the bills—to realize that the boilerplate Democratic "tax-and-spend" policies of ever bigger government bureaucracy, the dependence of the welfare state, and failed social and economic policies that strangle economic growth and job creation have caused the very problems liberals pretend to object to.

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