Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Teachers Union reached agreement on a deal sure to send Chicago over the cliff.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board blasts Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for her deal with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The deal will further wreak havoc on the already insolvent school system.
16% raise over five years (not including raises based on longevity)
Three-year freeze on health insurance premiums
Lower insurance copays
Caps on class sizes
More than 450 new social workers and nurses.
New job protections for substitute teachers who going forward may only be removed after conferring with the union about “performance deficiencies.”
Chicago Public Schools will become a “sanctuary district,” meaning school officials won’t be allowed to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a court order.
Employees will be allowed 10 unpaid days for personal immigration matters.
Under the new contract, a joint union-school board committee will be convened to “mitigate or eliminate any disproportionate impacts of observations or student growth measures” on teacher evaluations.
Instead of student performance, teachers will probably be rated on more subjective measures, perhaps congeniality in the lunchroom.
The new union contract caps the number of charter-school seats, so no new schools will be able to open without others closing.
Get the Hell Out
The WSJ commented “Michelle Obama the other day complained that white people were leaving the city to escape minorities who are moving in. No, they’re fleeing Chicago’s high taxes and lousy schools—and so are minorities.”
Chicago Public School Bond Ratings
You can kiss those positive and stable outlooks goodbye. The system is insolvent and this contract will further weaken the outlook.
Bond Rating Comparison
S&P already has CPS bonds in the “highly” speculative area, five steps into its junk ratings.
Pension Spiking
A Chicago Teacher’s Pension is based on your years of service and a pension percentage (up to 75%), multiplied by your final average salary. Their union notes “There are ways to increase these factors to enhance your pension or meet eligibility requirements.”
The average retired CPS teacher already receives a pension of nearly $55,000 a year, according to a 2019 FOIA request to the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund.
However, looking at the pension of an average teacher far understates the true size of CPS pensions. The “average” benefit includes teachers who only worked a few years for CPS, which brings down the average.
To get a more accurate picture of what pensions are really worth, look at career teachers. Over half of all currently retired CPS teachers worked 30 years or more. On average, they receive a $72,000 annual pension and began drawing benefits at age 61.
In comparison, the average annual Social Security payment in Chicago is just $16,000 and the maximum benefit for someone retiring at age 62 is $26,500.
C-O-L-A Cola, la la la Payola
The average career CPS pension will grow by 3 percent, compounded annually, due to the COLA benefits teachers get. That will double a teacher’s annual benefit to over $140,000 in 25 years.
Teacher Contributions
Those projections were based on the proposed contract. The CTU held out for even more benefits and got them.
By 2023, Lightfoot must find an additional $989 million a year for pensions, according to the Tribune’s Hal Dardick and Juan Perez Jr. Thank you, former mayors and aldermen, for promising more pension benefits than Chicagoans could afford.
Who Will Pay?
That one is easy.
The kids will suffer because charter schools are reined in, grading standards lowered, and incompetents were given further projections.
Taxpayers will face higher property taxes, higher gas taxes, and higher sales taxes with every penny going to pensions.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) decried U.S. “genocide” and “western imperialism” in a speech at a Bernie Sanders rally in Minneapolis Sunday night at the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena. In her speech, Omar, who endorsed Sanders two weeks ago, accused the United States of “genocide” against Native Americans and said of Sanders, “I am beyond honored and excited for a President who will fight against western imperialism and fight for a just world. I am excited, I am excited for President Bernie Sanders!”
Sanders and Omar embraced on stage and then held hands aloft in solidarity before the cheering crowd.
Short excerpt from Omar’s speech:
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) says at Bernie Sanders' campaign rally that she wants a president that fights against "western imperialism"
In other words, she wants nations like China to go unchecked in their growing aggression and expansion which is a massive threat to the U.S. pic.twitter.com/IPuSt9WASA
The Sanders-Omar rally was moved to UM’s larger (14,625 seats) Williams Arena from the 2,700 seat Northrop Auditorium to meet demand. Sanders does not appear to have come any where close to a capacity crowd as the photo below shows the upper bowl completely empty.
The Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 posted a video it says was recently taken from social media showing a gang of teenagers and young men wielding handguns as they rapped and danced for a video recording in the street of a crime-ridden Baltimore neighborhood. One rapper is seen flashing a spread of money including hundred dollar bills. The FOP complained that this is what they have to deal with in a city so poorly run it can’t even control “squeegee kids” harassing motorists.
“This was posted to social media just days before a recent murder in the same O’Donnell Heights neighborhood. This is what our Cops are facing under the current administration. They can’t even find a way to resolve the squeegee issue let alone this! #CityinCrisis”
This was posted to social media just days before a recent murder in the same O'Donnell Heights neighborhood. This is what our Cops are facing under the current administration. They can't even find a way to resolve the squeegee issue let alone this! #CityinCrisispic.twitter.com/bK2yxV9X45
The people in the video appear to be all black with the exception of a lone young white male seen on the far edge of the gang toward the end of the video clip.
A 32-year-old man was shot to death Sunday afternoon in O’Donnell Heights in Southeast Baltimore, Baltimore Police wrote on Facebook on Sunday night.
Southeast District officers responded to a report of a shooting at the 6100 block of Boston St. at approximately 4:15 p.m. They located a man who was suffering from gunshot wounds to the body. The victim was transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital at Bayview where, police wrote, he was pronounced dead a short time later…
The “squeegee kids” problem the FOP mentioned was detailed in a local TV report earlier this year:
Baltimore Mayor Jack Young says he's asked new police commissioner Michael Harrison to develop a strategy to help control the number of "squeegee kids" on city streets.https://t.co/ogbERsDnW8pic.twitter.com/aOD1mnR17u
O’Donnell Heights is a neighborhood named for a public housing development in the far southeastern part of the city of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is located south and east of Interstate 95, just west of the border with Baltimore County, and north of the St. Helena neighborhood.
The community was built to house factory workers during World War II. Today operated by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the original 900 unit development was modernized in 1983. The neighborhood, which also contains privately owned and rented rowhouses, is separated from Highlandtown by highways, cemeteries, and industrial areas. It is in close proximity to the Point Breeze Industrial Park and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
Baltimore and Maryland have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. Excerpt from Wikipedia on Maryland gun laws relevant to the video:
Carrying a handgun, whether openly or concealed, is prohibited unless one has a permit to carry a handgun or is on their own property or their own place of business. The Maryland State Police may issue a permit to carry a handgun at their discretion and based on an investigation. In practice, very few applicants are granted carry permits, and approval typically requires the applicant to provide proof of a clear and imminent threat on his or her life…
A billboard being displayed in Times Square, New York shows President Trump hogtied and being tortured as part of yet another ‘woke’ advertising campaign.
The image, which shows Trump being held down by an angry female Marine Corps veteran, is a commercial for athletic clothing company DHVANI.
On the company’s Instagram page, DHVANI claims the image is a backlash to Trump having 26 credible accusations of sexual assault or rape against him (none of which are actually credible), as well as him having “no respect for the rule of law.”
“SICK: The president receives daily death threats,” tweeted Charlie Kirk. “Secret Service had to arrest an armed man outside his rally. And this is what is plastered in Times Square—a literal depiction of violence against him.”
Another image on the company’s Instagram page shows Trump on the toilet with his pants down having his phone swiped from him by a brown woman in skimpy camo gear.
CNN: The 2020 presidential candidates comment on the impeachment inquiry at the CNN/New York Times debate in Westerville, Ohio.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN MODERATOR: Since the last debate, House Democrats have officially launched an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, which all the candidates on this stage support. Senator Warren, I want to start with you. You have said that there’s already enough evidence for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office. But the question is, with the election only one year away, why shouldn’t it be the voters who determine the president’s fate?
WARREN: Because sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. And I think that’s the case with this impeachment inquiry.
When I made the decision to run for president, I certainly didn’t think it was going to be about impeachment. But when the Mueller report came out, I read it, all 442 pages. And when I got to the end, I realized that Mueller had shown, too, a fare-thee-well, that this president had obstructed justice and done it repeatedly. And so at that moment, I called for opening an impeachment inquiry.
Now, that didn’t happen. And look what happened as a result. Donald Trump broke the law again in the summer, broke it again this fall. You know, we took a constitutional oath, and that is that no one is above the law, and that includes the president of the United States.
Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences. This is about Donald Trump, but, understand, it’s about the next president and the next president and the next president and the future of this country. The impeachment must go forward.
COOPER: Thank you, Senator Warren. You’re all going to get in on this, by the way. Senator Sanders, do Democrats have any chance but to impeach President Trump? Please respond.
SANDERS: No, they don’t. In my judgment, Trump is the most corrupt president in the history of this country. It’s not just that he obstructed justice with the Mueller Report. I think that the House will find him guilty of — worthy of impeachment because of the emoluments clause. This is a president who is enriching himself while using the Oval Office to do that, and that is outrageous.
And I think in terms of the recent Ukrainian incident, the idea that we have a president of the United States who is prepared to hold back national security money to one of our allies in order to get dirt on a presidential candidate is beyond comprehension. So I look forward, by the way, not only to a speedy and expeditious impeachment process, but Mitch McConnell has got to do the right thing and allow a free and fair trial in the Senate.
COOPER: Vice President Biden, during the Clinton impeachment proceedings, you said, and I quote, “The American people don’t think that they’ve made a mistake by electing Bill Clinton, and we in Congress had better be very careful before we upset their decision.” With the country now split, have Democrats been careful enough in pursuing the impeachment of President Trump?
BIDEN: Yes, they have. I said from the beginning that if, in fact, Trump continued to stonewall what the Congress is entitled to know about his background, what he did, all the accusations in the Mueller Report, if they did that, they would have no choice — no choice — but to begin an impeachment proceeding, which gives them more power to seek more information.
This president — and I agree with Bernie, Senator Sanders — is the most corrupt president in modern history and I think all of our history. And the fact is that this president of the United States has gone so far as to say, since this latest event, that, in fact, he will not cooperate in any way at all, will not list any witnesses, will not provide any information, will not do anything to cooperate with the impeachment. They have no choice but to move.
COOPER: Senator Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that members of Congress have to be, in her words, fair to the president and give him a chance to exonerate himself. You’ve already said that based on everything you’ve seen, you would vote to remove him from office. Is that being fair to the president?
HARRIS: Well, it’s just being observant, because he has committed crimes in plain sight. I mean, it’s shocking, but he told us who he was. Maya Angelou told us years ago, listen to somebody when they tell you who they are the first time.
During that election, Donald Trump told us he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And he has consistently since he won been selling out the American people. He’s been selling out working people. He’s been selling out our values. He’s been selling out national security. And on this issue with Ukraine, he has been selling out our democracy.
Our framers imagined this moment, a moment where we would have a corrupt president. And our framers then rightly designed our system of democracy to say there will be checks and balances. This is one of those moments. And so Congress must act.
But the reality of it is that I don’t really think this impeachment process is going to take very long, because as a former prosecutor, I know a confession when I see it. And he did it in plain sight. He has given us the evidence. And he tried to cover it up, putting it in that special server. And there’s been a clear consciousness of guilt. This will not take very long. Donald Trump needs to be held accountable. He is, indeed, the most corrupt and unpatriotic president we have ever had.
COOPER: Senator Booker, you have said that President Trump’s, quote, “moral vandalism” disqualifies him from being president. Can you be fair in an impeachment trial? Please respond.
BOOKER: So, first of all, we must be fair. We are talking about ongoing proceedings to remove a sitting president for office. This has got to be about patriotism and not partisanship.
Look, I share the same sense of urgency of everybody on this stage. I understand the outrage that we all feel. But we have to conduct this process in a way that is honorable, that brings our country together, doesn’t rip us apart.
Anybody who has criticisms about a process that is making all the facts bare before the American public, that works to build consensus, that’s what this nation needs, in what is a moral moment and not a political one. So I swore an oath to do my job as a senator, do my duty. This president has violated his. I will do mine.
COOPER: Thank you, Senator Booker.
Senator Klobuchar, you have — what do you say to those who fear that impeachment is a distraction from issues that impact people’s day-to-day lives, health care, the economy, and could backfire on Democrats?
KLOBUCHAR: We can do two things at once. That’s our job. We have a constitutional duty to pursue this impeachment, but we also can stand up for America, because this president has not been putting America in front of his own personal interests.
He has not been standing up for the workers of Ohio. He’s not been standing up for the farmers in Iowa. And I take this even a step further. You know, when he made that call to the head of Ukraine, he’s digging up dirt on an opponent. That’s illegal conduct. That’s what he was doing. He didn’t talk to him about the Russian invasion. He talked to him about that.
So I’m still waiting to find out from him how making that call to the head of Ukraine and trying to get him involved in interfering in our election makes America great again. I’d like to hear from him about how leaving the Kurds for slaughter, our allies for slaughter, where Russia then steps in to protect them, how that makes America great again. And I would like to hear from him about how coddling up to Vladimir Putin makes America great again.
It doesn’t make America great again. It makes Russia great again. And that is what this president has done. So whether it is workers’ issues, whether it is farmers’ issues, he has put his own private interests…
COOPER: Thank you.
KLOBUCHAR: … and I will not do that.
COOPER: Thank you. Secretary Castro, is impeachment a distraction?
CASTRO: Not at all. We can walk and chew gun at the same time. And all of us are out there every single day talking about what we’re going to do to make sure that more people cross a graduation stage, that more families have great health care, that more folks are put to work in places like Ohio, where Donald Trump has broken his promises, because Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania actually in the latest jobs data have lost jobs, not gained them.
Not only that, what we have to recognize is that not only did the Mueller Report point out 10 different instances where the president obstructed justice or tried to, and he made that call to President Zelensky of the Ukraine, but he is in ongoingly — in an ongoing way violating his oath of office and abusing his power.
We have to impeach this president. And the majority of Americans not only support impeachment, they support removal. He should be removed.
COOPER: Mayer Buttigieg, you have said that impeachment should be bipartisan. There’s been, obviously, very little Republican support to date, yet Democrats are proceeding. Is that a mistake?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, it’s a mistake on the part of Republicans, who enable the president whose actions are as offensive to their own supposed values as they are to the values that we all share.
Look, the president has left the Congress with no choice. And this is not just about holding the president accountable, for not just the things emerging in these investigations, but actions that he has confessed to on television. It’s also about the presidency itself, because a president 10 years or 100 years from now will look back at this moment and draw the conclusion either that no one is above the law or that a president can get away with anything.
But everyone on this stage, by definition, is competing to be a president for after the Trump presidency. Remember, one way or the other, this presidency is going to come to an end. I want you to picture what it’s going to be like, what it’s actually going to feel like in this country the first day the sun comes up after Donald Trump has been president.
It starts out feeling like a happy thought; this particular brand of chaos and corruption will be over. But really think about where we’ll be: vulnerable, even more torn apart by politics than we are right now. And these big issues from the economy to climate change have not taken a vacation during the impeachment process.
I’m running to be the president who can turn the page and unify a dangerously polarized country while tackling those issues that are going to be just as urgent then as they are now.
COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Congresswoman Gabbard, you’re the only sitting House member on this stage. How do you respond?
GABBARD: If impeachment is driven by these hyperpartisan interests, it will only further divide an already terribly divided country. Unfortunately, this is what we’re already seen play out as calls for impeachment really began shortly after Trump won his election. And as unhappy as that may make us as Democrats, he won that election in 2016.
The serious issues that have been raised around this phone call that he had with the president of Ukraine and many other things that transpired around that are what caused me to support the inquiry in the House. And I think that it should continue to play its course out, to gather all the information, provide that to the American people, recognizing that that is the only way forward.
If the House votes to impeach, the Senate does not vote to remove Donald Trump, he walks out and he feels exonerated, further deepening the divides in this country that we cannot afford.
COOPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.
Mr. Steyer, you’ve been calling for impeachment for two years. Does there need to be bipartisan support?
STEYER: Well, Anderson, this is my first time on this stage, so I just want to start by reminding everybody that every candidate here is more decent, more coherent, and more patriotic than the criminal in the White House.
(APPLAUSE)
But I also want to point out that Anderson’s right. Two years ago, I started the Need to Impeach movement, because I knew there was something desperately wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that we did have the most corrupt president in the country, and that only the voice and the will of the American people would drag Washington to see it as a matter of right and wrong, not of political expediency. So, in fact, impeaching and removing this president is something that the American people are demanding. They’re the voice that counts, and that’s who I went to, the American people.
COOPER: Mr. Yang, do you think there’s already enough evidence out there to impeach the president? Please respond.
YANG: I support impeachment, but we shouldn’t have any illusions that impeaching Donald Trump will, one, be successful or, two, erase the problems that got him elected in 2016. We’re standing in the great state of Ohio, the ultimate purple state, the ultimate bellwether state.
Why did Donald Trump win your state by eight points? Because we got rid of 300,000 manufacturing jobs in your towns. And we are not stopping there. How many of you have noticed stores closing where you work and live here in Ohio? Raise your hands.
It’s not just you. Amazon alone is closing 30 percent of America’s stores and malls, soaking up $20 billion in business while paying zero in taxes. These are the problems that got Donald Trump elected, the fourth industrial revolution. And that is going to accelerate and grow more serious regardless of who is in the Oval Office.
The fact is, Donald Trump, when we’re talking about him, we are losing. We need to present a new vision, and that even includes talking about impeaching Donald Trump.
COOPER: Congressman O’Rourke, on impeachment, please respond.
O’ROURKE: You know, I think about everyone who’s ever served this country in uniform. We have two examples here on this stage tonight in Mayor Buttigieg and Congresswoman Gabbard, those who have willingly sacrificed their lives to defend this country and our Constitution. We are the inheritors of their service and their sacrifice.
And we have a responsibility to be fearless in the face of this president’s criminality and his lawlessness. The fact that as a candidate for the highest office in the land, he invited the participation, the invasion of a foreign power in our democracy. As president, he lied to investigators, obstructed justice, fired James Comey, head of the FBI, tried to fire Mueller, head of the investigation, then invited President Zelensky to involve himself in our politics, as well as China, in exchange for favorable trade terms in an upcoming trade deal.
COOPER: Thank you, Congressman.
O’ROURKE: If we do not hold him to account, if there is not justice, not only have we failed this moment, our Constitution and our country, but we have failed everyone who has sacrificed and laid their lives down on the line.
A host of Trump supporters were violently assaulted by antifa mobs on Thursday night but Minnesota’s largest newspaper’s main concern is whether President Trump’s visit made Somali refugees feel “welcome.”
“Trump supporters are literally fleeing the event after it ended as protestors are waiting around attacking attendees as they leave the arena,” Blaze TV’s Elijah Schaffer commented after capturing one of the mob’s assaults on film. “It is not safe in Minneapolis any longer for Trump supporters.”
Trump supporters are literally fleeing the event after it ended as protestors are waiting around attacking attendees as they leave the arena
It is not safe in Minneapolis any longer for Trump supporters. Please stay away from the vicinity and do not come out with branded gear pic.twitter.com/BLsJbtct0k
Whether Trump supporters were made to feel “welcome” wasn’t a question the Star Tribune felt was worth asking, but whether Trump made Somali refugees feel “welcome” is a question they’ve asked twice now in three days.
Abubakar Abdi skipped his usual after-work stop to visit friends at the local Somali mall on Thursday, heading to his Minneapolis home instead to catch President Donald Trump’s speech.
As he watched, the 22-year-old IT specialist said he was taken aback by the loud boos at the packed campaign rally when Trump mentioned Somalis.
“As you know, for many years, leaders in Washington brought large numbers of refugees to your state from Somalia without considering the impact on schools and communities and taxpayers,” Trump said at the rally. “I promise you that as president, I would give local communities a greater say in refugee policy and put in place enhanced vetting and responsible immigration control, and I’ve done that since coming into office.”
Abdi, born and raised in Minnesota, said the president’s words and the crowd’s reaction left him wondering: “What if my former classmates were among the ones booing? What if it was my former teachers booing?”
“I didn’t know we were hated like that,” he said. “Donald Trump is one man, but what scares me is the amount of support he has.”
Minnesota is home to the nation’s largest Somali population, numbering 57,000 in the latest census, though the current number is believed to be higher. Trump’s remarks about refugee resettlement and about U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom he called “a disgrace to our country” during his speech, stung and angered many Somali-Minnesotans, with some using words such as “dangerous,” “disgusting,” and “racist.”
The negative portrayal of people of Somali descent is making it harder for some to go about their lives without fear […]
Try walking down the street in a Trump hat.
By Faiza Mahamud
[…] Trump’s visit also spurred anxiety and fear for many Somalis here.
The nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group and local Somali-elected leaders were sounding the alarm about the long-term implications of Trump’s visit, suggesting it could spark a fresh surge in hate crimes in Minnesota — home to the nation’s largest Somali community.
“We’re also definitely concerned about his anti-Muslim and anti-Somali language,” said Jaylani Hussein, who leads the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which had urged Muslim-Americans to join protests Thursday.
[…] State Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, said it’s one thing dealing with Trump’s anti-Somali slurs and his hateful posts on social media about immigrants and refugees. But his visit to Minneapolis struck fear close to home, Noor said.
[…] State Rep. Hodan Hassan, DFL-Minneapolis, said she opposed Trump’s visit, asserting that it could have negative blowback on the community.
Hassan and Noor, both Somalis, said they had been going around the community to ease people’s fears. The two now plan to hold community conversations.
“Trump, his hate and his bigotry is not welcome in Minnesota,” Hassan said. “The Somali community here is strong. We know who we are, we know we are a valuable community here and we just want to make sure everyone is safe and protected.”
To address the fear and anxiety in the community, Minnesota Somali leaders said they are working with the FBI, have hired armed security guards to patrol Somali-owned businesses and are urging people to stay vigilant, particularly Muslim women who wear a hijab.
You gotta love how they explicitly say Trump is not welcome.
Mainstream media are outraged over a meme video depicting President Donald Trump shooting his critics – but they absolutely loved the movie it was based on, and think nothing of actual violence committed against Trump supporters.
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again, as the media mob pursues rage clickbait. This time, the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching is over a meme – excuse me, “fake” and “doctored” – video shown during the American Priority Conference at Trump Doral in Florida this weekend.
Reactions to the video go way beyond what cartoonist Scott Adams has described as seeing “two movies on the same screen.” One liberal comedian – entirely seriously – zeroed in on Trump “killing powerful black people” to lament the “cancer that is Trumpism.”
Actress Kathy Griffin – who once thought it was a great idea to do a photoshoot with a fake severed head of Trump – now claimed she was the real victim, as the video shows her “being murdered” by the president.
“Waiting for Donald Trump to condemn the video of him committing mass murder that was shown at his resort to his supporters, and to apologize to the families of those targeted,” anti-gun crusader Shannon Watts tweeted unironically.
One possible explanation is that none of the people getting worked up over the video have ever watched ‘Kingsman:The Secret Service,’ that the meme was based on. The 2015 “action spy comedy” revolves entirely around over-the-top cartoonish violence juxtaposed with English gentility – such as the protagonist of that specific scene going berserk inside a church, along with everyone else, due to the effects of an electronic weapon.
Movie critics and audiences alike – 74 percent and 84 percent, respectively – loved the movie and had no problem with American churchgoers getting massacred in that scene, as journalist Lee Stranahan pointed out.
More to the point, the same people shrieking now have not bothered to notice the video since it came out in July 2018. So why now? Was there nothing else at the conference they could object to, so some outrage had to be manufactured, and memes were it?
Patrician media et al. are raging over the stupid parody video at Trump Miami only because they can use it to attack him. It was part of a "meme exhibit" in a room next to the back kitchen that was entirely empty. It had nothing to do w/his campaign. pic.twitter.com/k00MNx99WK
Before long, Twitter was suspending Carpe Donktum, the pro-Trump memesmith who did not even make the video, but defended its display as part of a “meme exhibit.”
“The Kingsman video is CLEARLY satirical and the violence depicted is metaphoric. No reasonable person would believe that this video was a call to action, or an endorsement of violence towards the media,” he said in a statement on Monday.
Except that people who consider themselves special and above reproach or critique have stopped being reasonable long ago.
One does not have to be a conservative pundit to point out the obvious hypocrisy. The New York Times sponsoring a theatrical production of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’depicting Trump getting assassinated; Griffin’s ISIS stunt; music videos depicting Trump getting murdered – all fine in the media playbook, because free speech, First Amendment, and so on. But when some anonymous “peasant” in “flyover country” dares meme a video turning the tables? Red alert!
For all the media rhetoric about Trump “inciting violence” against journalists, actual political violence in the US has overwhelmingly consisted of Trump critics targeting his supporters – with the June 2017 shooting of Republicans training for the congressional baseball charity game being the deadliest example.
Throughout, the same media now shrieking about incitement have peddled conspiracy theories about Trump’s “treason” and “Russian collusion”and imminent threat to “our democracy” that have actually done more to sow discontent and division among Americans than anything they’ve blamed alleged “Russian trolls” for.
Not to mention that they were perfectly fine smearing and demonizing American citizens, living and working in the US, as “Russian agents” just because they worked at outlets like RT or Sputnik. Wasn’t that an attack on journalists, or is it different when they do it?
Honestly, I’ve had enough of this stone-throwing by inhabitants of glass houses – and I get a feeling a lot of my fellow Americans have as well. As Matt Taibbi observed just the other day, this country has been dragged into a state of perpetual coup, courtesy of the political establishment in Washington and their media enablers, out to get Bad Orange Man at any cost – even if it means destroying the country.
If you don’t understand memes, maybe journalism is not for you, and it’s time to find honest work.
“I don’t want to get into a [verbal] feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke,” James said to reporters before a preseason game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.
“And so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too,” James added.
When reporters asked James to explain his incomprehensible comments, he could not do so. He just continued to repeat what sounded like a script, which very well may have been prepared by his Chinese masters.
“I believe he was either misinformed or not really educated on the situation, and if he was, then so be it,” James said.
“I have no idea, but that is just my belief. Because when you say things or do things, if you are doing it and you know the people that can be affected by it and the families and individuals and everyone that can be affected by it, sometimes things can be changed as well. And also social media is not always the proper way to go about things as well, but that’s just my belief,” he added.
After James was destroyed on social media for his stunningly low IQ comments, he backtracked hours later – showing that he lacks a spine as well as a brain.
James’ embarrassing comments come at a time when the NBA is under fire for appeasing China while showing no regard for the values of free speech. Morey was forced to grovel publicly for offending China at a time when the NBA was celebrating its supposedly “woke” liberal opinions on social issues.
“I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives,” Morey said in a nauseatingly obsequious apology.
“I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention. My tweets are my own and in no way represent the Rockets or the NBA,” he added.
James had previously interjected himself into matters of U.S. politics as if he was some kind of an authority. He regularly criticized President Donald Trump, and voiced support for washed up former NFL QB Colin Kaepernick as he led his anti-American kneeling act for publicity.
“He doesn’t understand the power that he has for being the leader of this beautiful country. He doesn’t understand how many kids, no matter the race, look up to the president of the United States for guidance, for leadership, for words of encouragement…. The people run this country, not one individual — and damn sure not him,”James said about President Trump in 2017.
“I stand with Kap. I kneel with Kap. I feel like what he was talking about nobody wanted to listen to. Nobody wanted to really understand where he was coming from,” James said about Kaepernick in 2018.
James also tweeted this Martin Luther King tribute, which his seem at odds with his China commentary.
It turns out that James never had a real opinion of his own. He was just a propaganda puppet for Chinese communists this entire time.
Tom's Blog 