Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.
THE PENDING DEMISE OF MINNEAPOLIS – With the killing of George Floyd came the idea of abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department. On Friday, the city council met, reading a three-page, single-spaced resolution containing a dozen “whereas’s” as they embarked on a year-long project to create a transformative model for cultivating safety.
The resolution begins with – “Whereas, police violence and the use of excessive force have led to community destabilization, a decrease in public safety, and the exacerbation of racial inequalities in Minneapolis; and …
“Whereas police use-of-force is among the leading causes of death for young men of color, and Black people, including Black women, girls, queer, trans and nonbinary folks, disabled people, American Indians, immigrants, and Latinos are killed by police at disproportionately higher rates than their white peers, and …”
The Council created a Future of Community Safety Work Group to report back on July 24, 2020 with a set of preliminary recommendations for engaging with specific cultural and stakeholder groups, the community at large and relevant experts that can partner with the city to help Minneapolis transition to a transformative new model for cultivating community safety, including budget and resource need estimates for the process.
IT COMES AT NO SURPRISE that real estate “for sale” advertisements in Minneapolis have risen by 18.6 percent in the past week.
(Courtesy of A.F. Branco)
THE NEW YORK TIMES continues to be an embarrassment to the journalism profession. In a decision seemingly in response to the uprising of young staffers at the paper over Sen. Tom Cotton’s op-ed last week, an op-ed advocating the abolition of the police appeared.
“We are not abandoning our communities to violence. We don’t want to just close police departments. We want to make them unnecessary,“ wrote Marianne Kaba, a leftist activist who was a fellow at George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.
“People like me who want to abolish prisons and police have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation,” Kaba writes. “What would the country look like if it had billions of extra dollars to spend on housing, food and education for all?”
IN SPRING LAKE, MICHIGAN a small tourist haven, Lee Patterson came up with the idea of tying blue ribbons around lamp posts in the village’s downtown to honor police officers. She bought blue fabric and fashioned 50 bows for the project. Her husband, Jim, is a 33-year veteran of the Muskegon Township Police Department.
The next morning, all of the ribbons had been taken down, on orders from the village manager, who had his public works staff remove them. They were considered as defacing public property.
Not deterred, Patterson and her friends baked 200 chocolate chip cookies and purchased doughnuts that they dropped off at local law enforcement offices.
SENATOR TIM SCOTT of South Carolina is the only black Republican senator, but inferring that “they” call him the party’s token, as did NBC’s black anchor Craig Melvin on Today, won’t provide you with a headline quote, according to Becket Adams of the Washington Examiner.
“There is a dirty industry secret at play here,” reports Adams, who says “Reporters often use the ‘some people say’ to level criticisms they generally agree with but do not want to state outright for fear of appearing biased.”
Scott calmly responded with “Well, I am the only person in my conference who has been racially profiled, driving while black. I’m the only one in my conference that’s been stopped seven times in one year as an elected official, perhaps the only one in my conference wearing this senate pin stopped from coming into the building.
“Frankly,” Scott said, “I think it helps to have someone who has been a victim of this situation and who still has a tremendous respect for where our country can go together. So I shrug those comments and criticisms off. But you’ve got to know, when you’re a black Republican, you’re like a unicorn.
“People are going to criticize you when you wake up, when you go to sleep. If you say you like apple pie and football, there’s a lot of critics for that, too. So, God bless their souls.”
Much to the consternation of Democrats, President Trump has been collaborating with Scott on his project involving opportunity zones.
CAMPAIGN SEASON RUMORS – The left is desperately placing stories intended to show President Trump has reelection problems, but it’s just more fake news.
(Courtesy of Chip Bok)
A week ago, the headlines were all about Mitt Romney and George W. Bush not voting for Trump in November. Soon after, Romney revealed that he thought Trump would win reelection. And Bush himself did not indicate how he would vote.
Then there’s all those polls showing Joe Biden leading in this state or that state, however, the latest 2020 Zogby Poll of 1,007 likely voters gave Trump a 51 percent to 43 percent edge over Biden.
Further, Trump generated more enthusiasm and was given the edge on the economy. Zogby reports that Trump remains very strong with his base and his winning middle age and older voters. And, what must surprise the Biden team, Trump is “crushing Biden among union workers.”
The president is in a virtual tie with women, Hispanic and suburban voters, according to Zogby.
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA lost the Republican National Convention thanks to the state’s Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, who will now see Republican Party spending go to Jacksonville, Florida.
Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against North Carolina and two of its counties for failing to clean their voter rolls. According to JW’s analysis of voter registration data, many of the state’s 100 counties have large numbers of ineligible voters on their rolls, believing there are nearly one million inactive voters on its rolls.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
