Punishing Pop-Tart Gun Kid

Apparently the mass hysteria gripping school officials has swayed a presiding judge—three years later—to also confuse a Pop-Tart as a “dangerous” weapon.

Back in March of 2013, then 7-year-old Josh Welsh ran afoul of school bureaucrats when he supposedly chewed his strawberry breakfast pastry into a “gun” and allegedly wielded it saying, “Bang, bang,” to a fellow student. This “boys being boys” behavior earned the second-grader a two-day school suspension from Baltimore's Park Elementary School. Today, this ludicrous decision has been upheld by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ronald A. Silkworth. (Or is that Silkworm?) This authoritarian Wonderland Queen of liberal bleeding hearts wrote: “[A] suspension was appropriately used as a corrective tool to address this disruption, based on the student’s past history of escalating behavioral issues.” How is this lily-livered judge not obviously drunk with a fascist's power? Did he cower behind his bench when ruling against the now ten year old?

In America, “land of the free, home of the brave,” this pronouncement is anti-American madness. During the original incident, Josh's father said, “I would almost call it insanity. I mean with all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school, real threats, bullies, whatever the real issue is, it’s a pastry.” Even the Florida legislature added to the lunacy by passing a bill that “protects” against the act of “brandishing a partially consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or weapon.” If these radical responses aren't “1984” style thought-crime—punishing children for their imaginations—what is?

The real issue here is the systematic emasculation of boys by progressive statists: it's fascism run amok in the public school system. Last time I checked, the purpose of educators is to enlighten, not to engage in radical beyond-the-scope hard left social engineering. This situation exactly depicts the irrational intention to punish typical, masculine “tough guy” behavior in favor of that of the wussy, subservient pajama boy: an archetype that has defined the disastrous Obama years.

As the Sandy Hook massacre tragically and definitively demonstrated, schools as gun-free zones facilitate danger while promising the illusion of safety. The zero tolerance policy should not be directed at boys' and their pretend “weapons of war,” it should censure kangaroo court judges for punishing them for normal “manly” conduct.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

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Deconstructing the Trump phenomenon

From the perspective of all of us “average Joes,” I think it is fair comment that virtually anyone running for U.S. president these days is, by definition, a shameless self-promoter—with something of a God-complex—or a loose screw.  With the multitude of problems in the world, who would want the pressures that come to bear or that fish bowl existence?

Although likely to flame out as shooting stars are wont to do, Mr. Trump is channeling the very real “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore” sentiments of the unhinged UBS news anchor Howard Beale (a fictional character played to Oscar glory by Peter Finch in 1976’s Network).  And the political powers-that-be on both sides of the aisle better take heed: it is not the first time a long-shot political neophyte has caused a populist phenomenon that has led to the White House.   

That being said, the MSM is squarely taking aim at “The Donald,” busy crafting another superficial bogeyman of a monopoly comb-over caricature (only minus the mustache and the monocle).  This is the same playbook effectively used to pigeonhole Romney as an out of touch/white/rich/Republican elitist.  Sound familiar? However, unlike Mr. Romney (who was too busy playing the gentlemanly elder statesman to take the gloves off and fight for the presidency), Mr. Trump gives as much guff as he gets. 

Whether viewed as good, bad or indifferent, Donald Trump is the genuine article, himself: a colorful, bombastic creature of Capitalism—and the fundamental American principles of freedom, self-determination, free-speaking and respect for law—rather than a bowing apologist traveling the world on bended knee (Obama) or the blasé blamer of Benghazi (Hillary) on the nonsensical, a video.

I don’t know if the scribe of “The Art of the Deal” is truly electable—only time will tell­—but there is no doubt more than six years in that the American people have gotten a raw deal at every turn with the disastrous Obama administration.  Mr. Trump has the skill set to do much better: in the true Machiavellian fashion of exaggerating one’s hand, outright lying or otherwise outmaneuvering one’s opponent across a bargaining table, Mr. Trump excels.  And unlike the leading Democratic nominee (who has likely bartered favorable government influence to cronies to amass a personal fortune known as the “Clinton Cash” scandal), “The Donald” has a legitimate and undisputable track record of success.  After all, one’s name doesn’t end up on the side of Manhattan skyscrapers for nothing.

Detractors of Mr. Trump criticize him for his brashness (as if plain-speaking is some kind of Orwellian thought-crime in the Democrat’s politically correct nomenclature), because of his willingness to shoot from the hip by call things what they actually are.  An important example: border-jumpers are an underclass of illegal alien “invaders,” not misunderstood immigrants.  That is precisely what is causing “The Donald’s” surge in the polls.  It turns out Americans find refreshing people who take the common sense approach (little seen inside Washington’s elitist beltway bubble) of forcefully articulating what the suffering, silent majority of average citizens, like me, is thinking.  The surprise here is one needn’t have the warmth or charisma of a Ronald Reagan; one resonates to the truth of the message even while remaining unsure about the caliber of its speaker.

Indeed, Americans are beyond fatigued with the “don’t trust your lying eyes” mantra of hell or high water agenda-driven progressive Democrats.  The electorate is starved for truth-telling leaders who will level with them, especially when most circumstances in the future are likely to be quite dire.  That’s not Barack Obama and it’s certainly not Hillary Clinton: Democrats who have gotten a complete pass for every equivocation, every outright lie and every sleazy scandal thus far.  

Similarly, the MSM attacks Mr. Trump for his social status, but largely ignores the fact that “public servant” Hillary is also famous and fabulously wealthy, living in mansions, riding in private planes and limousines.  Certainly, Mrs. Clinton’s lavish lifestyle does not disqualify her from her obsessive presidential ambitions.  However, the difference between the two is as Mr. Trump is already a self-made  billionaire—possessing all the money, fame and power of perhaps an incorruptible Midas—while Hillary (and her aptly named former president hubby, Bill) have repeatedly attached dollar signs to their self-serving loyalty.

In many ways, Mr. Trump is the wild card in American politics.  But, so was Barack Obama when America took a terrible gamble on him, twice.  Yet, “The Donald” is not likely to be the petulant, empty-suited, dilettante of a joker Mr. Obama has turned out to be or the entitled, greedy, “queen of mean” that is Mrs. Clinton’s reputation.  If elected, maybe Mr. Trump will actually work for the greater good of the average American.  If so, that’s more than most currently in public office are doing.

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Thug: a four-letter thought-crime?

It seems no one in American society is neutral about four-letter words.  Some are admirable and all encompassing like "love," others are curses uttered in the throes of passion.  Today's watchword is "thug": an accurate term used to describe the lawless, rioting street mob who not incidentally are looting and otherwise trashing politically-controlled Democratic urban centers like Baltimore.  It is not difficult to read the cultural tea leaves when even America's first Afro-American president deigns to finally call a thing what it actually is (a true rarity for him) and gets criticized by the black community for committing a "verbal assault."  First Amendment protections guaranteeing free speech aside, the assertion of a "verbal assault" for unpopular language is the accusal of Orwellian "thought-crime" right out of the no longer so fictional "1984."
      
This fundamental transformation of America is the direct consequence of Barack Obama's "chickens come home to roost" (to borrow a popular phrase of 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.")   Six years in, through the smoky chaos that cannot obscure the truth, the American people see that Barack Obama's anti-American, anti-Establishment and anti-Law and Order policies mean "Burn cities burn."  

Perhaps Mr. Obama's greatest political sin—among a multitude of failures like an anemic American economy, a war torn Middle East and a soon to be nuclear Iran—is his refusal to lift up his own community who have suffered dismally under his administration.  Specifically, he has abandoned his political hometown of Chicago and completely ignores the weekly death toll of black young men (who would look like his sons if he had any) by their Afro-American fellows.  Per the Black Youth Project, there were more than 500 murders in Chicago in 2012: 108 of those victims were 19 or younger.  While Mr. Obama takes seemingly endless multimillion dollar vacations on Air Force One to tropical locales with ocean-front golf courses,  the bankrupt, Democratically controlled city of Detroit lies fallow; a shrunken dilapidated shell of its former automotive glory.  Though Mr. Obama took credit for the General Motors bailout that lost American taxpayers $11.2 billion, he has no plans to visit there or Baltimore; mere minutes away via Marine One, the presidential helicopter.  No, Mr. Obama has sent his point man on Ferguson, another reverend famous for race-hustling and unprosecuted tax evasion, Al Sharpton, to further fan the flames of unrest.

Baltimore, per the Daily Caller, eighth on the list of America's 10 poorest and 10 most violent cities run by the Left for decades—today's Ferguson MO— glows from burned out buildings and the artificial glare of mainstream media cameras.  To make matters even more volatile comes foot-in-mouth Democratic mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake who had the temerity to side with the "thugs:" “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 criminality.  

Naturally, (per the three-year American Community Survey for the years 2011-13), the high unemployment rate of  37 percent for young black men between the ages of 20 and 24 and the 25% poverty rate in Baltimore isn't helping matters.  Given the widespread Democratic political race-baiting coupled with these woeful statistics, is it any wonder that the young, black and disaffected are fueling the continuing violence?

In a moment of clarity, Mr. Obama and Ms. Rawlings-Blake called these perpetrators "thugs."  But it remains to be seen whether they will actually do anything constructive about it or leave the heavy-lifting to the very capable and even-keeled Republican governor Larry Hogan.  Republicans like Hogan are private sector problem-solvers and have no use for four-letter words or to pontificate on the meaning of the word "is."  On the other hand, Democrats exploit or exacerbate societal problems—for political distraction and personal gain—that they have no intention of solving.  Political correctness and its latest iteration "thought-crime" demonize words and repress truths that make Democrats uncomfortable.  Hopefully, all of the Left's blaming, unfounded political finger-pointing is finally catching up with them.  In any case, Mr. Obama should not hypocritically denigrate others with four-letter words considering his own longstanding record of ultra-Constitutional thuggery.

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