Friday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Thank God it’s FRIDAY!

Tulsa Mayor Declares a “Civil Emergency” – Orders Immediate Shut Down Curfew Around Trump Rally Venue…

By Sundance/The Conservative Treehouse

When this story started exploding on social media, I thought it was a joke… but it is not.

Tulsa Oklahoma Mayor G.T. Bynum has declared a “civil emergency” and signed an executive order (outlined below) creating an immediate curfew and locking-down a six block area in and around the BOK Center venue for the Trump rally in the city. Any MAGA rally attendee who does not immediately vacate the area is subject to arrest.

(Tulsa, Oklahoma) In a Facebook post Thursday evening, Tulsa police announced that an area of downtown will be off limits from 10 p.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Saturday ahead of the rally. The curfew will again take effect after the rally until 6 a.m. Sunday.

The curfew is the result of an executive order from Mayor G.T. Bynum, which cites both local and nationwide unrest in recent weeks as the rationale for the curfew.

“I have received information from the Tulsa Police Department and other law enforcement agencies that shows that individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive or violent behavior in other states are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally,” the order states.

The curfew affects the area from Archer Street to Sixth Street between Houston Avenue and Boulder Avenue. The people camped outside the BOK Center waiting to get into the rally were being moved out.

Police posted information about the curfew about 45 minutes before it took effect. Those found in violation who refuse to leave will be cited or arrested, according to the Facebook post. (link)

Perhaps there is a legitimate domestic terrorism threat, a “civil emergency”, which requires the curfew approach….

However, one would think if this were not a politically motivated decision, the prudent approach would be to place police in the area as a security precaution.  After all, the maintenance of a curfew perimeter will require a significant police presence to ensure compliance.  So regardless of whether there are people peacefully assembled to attend the rally, a significant police presence is required by the order itself.

…And so the control mechanisms to block President Trump’s 2020 campaign officially begin.

Read the entire article HERE.

This “White Privilege” Collectivist Crap And The Proper Response To It

Via The Hayride

Here at The Hayride, I have mostly remained somewhat quiet about this ridiculous moment in American history, in which we are required to accept a certain ideological perspective as fact or else suffer the consequence of the current cancel culture. It’s a rare sight to land on a website belonging to an entity of corporate America without being assaulted by messaging proclaiming that said corporate entity is on board with Black Lives Matter, and is thus donating x-amount of dollars to some outfit which purportedly furthers the cause of promoting racial equality, or the elimination of or amelioration of “white privilege.”

It doesn’t take a detailed examination to understand what any of that really is. These are corporations who are paying protection money to Democrat entities in order to insure that, in the event that Joe Biden wins the presidential election in November, they are the ones the crocodile eats last. And the entire narrative involves an ethnocentric narrative of the United States which demands that you accept the idea that race is the primary driver of the American experience, when this is a country that from its founding is explicitly not founded on race, but rather an idea – the idea that regardless of your ethnicity or your ancestry, you are entitled to the same intellectual and legal patrimony that all of us within these shores are entitled to.

You can get angry about this rhetorical atrocity if you want. You won’t be wrong if you do. I’m disgusted as well, because it’s the same old story that’s been the case for 100 years or more; there are people who like to flirt with the devil. Remember, it was Lenin who first noted that a capitalist will sell you the rope by which you hang him.

It’s uncomfortable for normal folks to look at a moment like this, or any of the previous moments in human history in which the Hard Left was coming for regular people with an eye toward disrupting and destroying private property and individual freedom, particularly when you recognize the full menu of horrors on the table. Few people want to react to statist activism with the same vigor the radicals offer, especially when capitalism is loath to respond with death squads or street-brawlers.

The problem is, it’s 2020, and we have the unfortunate benefit of human experience.

Thanks to the recent societal moment, with all its hard-core idiocy, we’ve seen it in technicolor.

Read the entire article HERE.

The statue-smashers won’t stop there — unless we stop them now

Via The New York Post

Columbus sailed the ocean blue — and then got beheaded in Boston’s North End. Local governments should arrest and prosecute “protesters” who are attacking statues all across the West. Otherwise, they’re setting a precedent for the wanton destruction of art.

From Boston to Bristol, England, latter-day vandals are decapitating, spray-painting, smashing and throwing into the sea statues of fallen idols. In the South, Confederate leaders are a target; in Britain, anyone to do with the slave trade. But Columbus is the commonest trophy, largely due to his likeness’ ubiquity in town squares. The most famous, in Columbus Circle (or just plain Circle?), now has a heavy round-the-clock police guard.

To be clear: We should continue to reconsider who gets pride of place in public spaces. When I lived in New Orleans 25 years ago, I thought it was strange to ride down highways named after Jeff Davis.

All the monuments, though, had a double meaning: They were a reminder that the legacy of slavery still oppressed the country. Sure, rename the highway, but don’t erase history. Confederate statues belong in museums, with explanation, not destroyed and graffitied.

As for Columbus: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is right. Columbus was an imperfect man, to say the least. Anyone who went to elementary school in the past 40 years has heard the enlightened view. This isn’t new. But as the governor said last week, Columbus statues are as much a symbol of 20th-century Italian-American heritage as they are of Columbus.

Though, in hindsight, we’d all like to rewrite elements of the last, say, 20,000 years of human development, we are where we are. We are all products and shapers of harsh history.

Destruction of art is a common theme. In the late 18th century, the Jacobins took hammers to the kingly statues that adorned Notre Dame; today, the original heads, buried by sympathizers with posterity, are in a museum. The pharaohs encouraged the defacement of monuments to their predecessors (which is why many Egyptian artifacts are literally defaced).

Moving ahead a few years, the Taliban, 20 years ago, blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, which had stood for more than 1,000 years. ISIS destroyed Syrian edifices and artworks that had outlasted millennia. Al Qaeda attacked our architecture and what it stood for (inaccurately, since the World Trade Center was a symbol of central planning, not capital).

You would think our pluralistic society would be more sophisticated.

Read the entire article HERE.

FBI Quickly Capture “Floyd Arsonist” By Tracking Her Custom-Made Etsy T-Shirt…She’s Facing 80-Years in Federal Prison

Via The Daily Mail

A white woman believed to have set fire to two cop cars during protests in Philadelphia has been arrested after investigators traced her shirt to an Etsy page, ultimately leading to the woman’s social media accounts.

Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal, 33, faces two counts of felony arson for her role in setting ablaze two Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) vehicles ‘following peaceful protests’ on May 30.

FBI agents used Instagram posts of the burned cars, along with 500 photos from various photographers, to identify the wording on the woman’s shirt: ‘KEEP THE IMMIGRANTS, DEPORT THE RACISTS,’ the FBI agent explained in his affidavit, VICE reports.

Agents discovered that the shirt was custom made and sold on Etsy and found that a user – Xx Mv – had posted a review about purchasing the shirt. The URL belonging to the Etsy was ‘alleycatlore.’ The page listed Philadelphia as being where the user lived.

The FBI then Googled ‘alleycatlore’ and found a user named ‘Lore-Elisabeth’ on Poshmark. Agents then looked up ‘Lore-Elisabeth Philadelphia’ and found a LinkedIN page for a woman who works as a massage therapist for a company in the Philadelphia area.

Authorities then used videos from the company’s Vimeo account to identify tattoos that matched Blumenthal to the woman at the protests.

Authorities found a phone number on the website and then used it to identity the woman’s address and DMV photo.

While this occurred, Etsy provided purchasing records – following a subpoena – and confirmed that Xx Mv purchased a shirt. The subpoena also revealed that the items were sent to a Lore Elisabeth in Philadelphia.

Read the entire article HERE.

Montana police families targeted: Vandals spray paint homes, steal blue-line flags

Via WorldNetDaily

The right to protest and to ask for redress of grievances is guaranteed by our Constitution. We’ve seen plenty of protesting the past few weeks, particularly aimed at police conduct. It ought to be respected and listened to — as well as pushed back upon by those with dissenting views.

There’s a problem when rhetoric turns toxic, however, and we’re seeing examples of it play out all over the country. In Gallatin County, Montana, law enforcement is looking into several disturbing cases of vandalism against the homes of police families, including the theft of “thin blue line” flags and vulgar, threatening messages being spray painted on homes.

According to a KTVQ-TV report Tuesday, one homeowner with family members in law enforcement said he woke up to find “pig,” “ACAB” and “1312” painted on his garage door.

The last two phrases reference an anti-police slogan used by some protesters: “All Cops are B—ards.” (The numbers 1-3-1-2 refer to the numerical positions of A, C, and B in the alphabet.)

“It’s very disgraceful. We can’t protect our law enforcement,” one Belgrade, Montana, homeowner, who isn’t being identified, told the station.

The vandal, wearing a hoodie and a mask, was caught on video giving the middle finger as he ran away.

“They should keep their distance away from my house,” the homeowner told KTVQ. “It’s just hard to know about many law enforcement is getting the same thing.”

There are others who are getting the same treatment in Gallatin County, too.

“There’s no reason for it,” Sheriff Brian Gootkin told the station. “Like a safe protest from the last two weeks where people can go and vent their emotions and their concerns and do it peacefully, not spray paint somebody’s garage door or steal their flags. I mean it, what does that do?”

Read the entire article HERE.

Democrat Lawmakers All Retire Since Supreme Court Doing Their Job For Them

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Democrat legislators in Washington, D.C. retired en masse today as the Supreme Court is already doing their job for them.

As yet another law was written out of thin air by SCOTUS, Democrats suddenly realized they were redundant and could retire peacefully in the knowledge that their legislative agenda would be enacted entirely through the courts.

“Our job is to make laws, but the Supreme Court is writing the laws we wanted to pass much more easily,” said Nancy Pelosi in her retirement speech. “They just have to say some stuff and then bang that magic hammer down, and presto. New laws ex nihilo.”

When asked what they were going to do with their lives, Democrats’ answers varied. “I’m going to open a store where everything is free,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thoughtfully. “Like, a lot of stores charge money, but it seems like that would make you have less customers. The law of supplies and demanding, as discovered by economist Milton Keynes, says that the more free stuff you have, the more customers you have. It’s a great business idea. But capitalists are too greedy to do it.”

Pelosi said she is going to retire to her mansion and gnaw on some ice cream, while Cory Booker is strongly considering a career in acting. “I already had one audition for Spartacus 2: This Time It’s Personal. They said they would call,” he said as he checked his phone for any missed calls again. “Nothing yet, but I’m pretty confident I got the part.”

Kamala Harris said she might go back into her career in law enforcement and arrest some poor people to relax. “I’ve worked hard, and now that SCOTUS is doing my job for me, I’ve earned a little peace and quiet harassing parents of truant kids.”

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on politics and culture HERE.

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