Thursday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, it’s Thursday and the weekend is in sight.

Are The New York Times And Corporate Media Putting Cops ‘In Danger’?

Via The Federalist

When the New York Times ran an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that argued President Trump should “send in the troops” to quell riots, dozens of Times employees tweeted, “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.” When the New York Post published an article headlined, “Call them the 1619 riots,” Nikole Hannah-Jones, the architect of the 1619 Project, tweeted, “It would be an honor.”

She later deleted the tweet, but three months later, the riots have resulted in more deaths and more destruction. Hannah-Jones, the self-described “Beyoncé of Journalism,” posted again to imply she didn’t agree with the Post’s description of protests as “riots.” In August she downplayed “the tiny fringe of people who decide to loot and burn things.”

The riots that keep popping up around the country are squarely the fault of leftist agitators. They are, however, boosted by the rapid mainstreaming of radical leftism assisted by legacy media outlets like the New York Times.

Constantly boosting the work of far-left thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, which the Times has done, normalizes their dangerous diagnoses. If the country is overwhelmingly comprised of racists and white supremacists perpetuating white supremacist institutions, including law enforcement, then rioting is much more easily justified. (And the corporate media will dutifully protect rioters by downplaying violence.)

Expanded definitions of bigotry are having real consequences, and the Times did its part to aid that effort. These broadened definitions raise the stakes of our politics, often purposefully. In the world of the radical left, which is increasingly just the world in which we live, efforts to reform law enforcement are not merely efforts to correct potential problems, they are efforts to overthrow the system of white supremacy in which any problems are necessarily rooted.

When Times staffers argued that Cotton’s op-ed put black employees “in danger,” they were operating on and contributing to the expansion of that term’s definition. It’s a game that often produces laughable results, as in Cotton’s case, but if they really want to play by those rules, they’ll have to take a look in the mirror.

Read the entire article HERE.

BLM Riots Are Officially the Most Costly Manmade Damage to American Property in History

Via Breitbart News

The domestic terrorists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter have accomplished one thing: the most costly riots in the history of our country, reports the far-left Axios.

Property Claim Services, a company that tracks insurance claims filed due to riots and the like, found that the left-wing riots that occurred between May 26 and June 8 of this year could reach $2 billion in insurance claims.

Obviously, because the left’s domestic terrorism extended well beyond June 8 and is still ongoing, the company acknowledges “this is still happening, so the losses could be significantly more.”

Most importantly, these estimates are all being compared based on 2020 dollars. Meaning, previous riots, like the 1992 Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles, cost $775 million in 1992 dollars. That adds up to $1.42 billion today, which is still lower than the $2 billion Black Lives Matter Riots estimate — which again only covers eight or nine days of rioting that has never really stopped.

Here’s a piece of perspective that shocked even me…

If you add up the insurance cost in 2020 dollars for all six major American riots during the turbulent 1960s, the total is a little shy of $1.2 billion — which means the terrorists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter caused more mayhem and property damage in a little over a week than this country saw throughout all of the 1960s.

To the surprise of no one, Axios still uses the term “mostly peaceful” to describe what’s happening.

There’s also this helpful non sequitur: “Yes, but: These losses are small compared with those stemming from natural disasters like hurricanes and the wildfires that are consuming the U.S. West.” [emphasis original]

So even in the face of all this murder, property damage, assaults, looting, and burning, the clown show at Axios proudly marches onward.

“Mostly peaceful.”

Man alive.

Another thing to keep in mind is that these estimates are based only on insurance claims, so near the bottom of the piece, we’re told: “U.S. companies have learned the hard way that their insurance doesn’t cover business interruption related to the coronavirus, most policies emphatically do cover riot-related losses.”

In other words, that astronomical number isn’t estimating total damage, just the damage that’s insured. So while the number is not helpful in estimating the total damage, it is still a good apples-to-apples comparison with past riots, since all the calculations are based on insurance claims.

If Trump wins re-election in November, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The rioting and terrorism will be off the charts.

The national media are not even being subtle in threatening more riots if Joe Biden loses:

A loss by Joe Biden under these circumstances is the worst case not because Trump will destroy America (he can’t), but because it is the outcome most likely to undermine faith in democracy, resulting in more of the social unrest and street battles that cities including Portland, Oregon, and Seattle have seen in recent months. For this reason, strictly law-and-order Republicans who have responded in dismay to scenes of rioting and looting have an interest in Biden winning—even if they could never bring themselves to vote for him.

The far-left Atlantic published that last week (I don’t link anything that blackmails voters using threats of violence).

Here’s another:

A landslide for Joe Biden resulted in a relatively orderly transfer of power. Every other scenario we looked at involved street-level violence and political crisis.

That unveiled threat came from the far-left Washington Post at the beginning of the month.

If Trump wins, the marauders will maraud like nothing we have ever before seen, and they will do so with the full support of the establishment media and the Democrats.

Read the entire article HERE.

Homeless Anarchy in Los Angeles

Via American Greatness

Police in Los Angeles, like in all cities run by progressive liberals, are up against a system that is failing. It makes their jobs nearly impossible.

Anyone thinking about blaming the police for the anarchy that grips America’s liberal cities is not paying attention. The police know how to do their jobs. The politicians, elected by progressive liberals, do not let them. And often enough, even when there are laws remaining on the books that might permit prosecution, activist prosecutors, also elected by progressive liberals, do not press charges.

Life in California, as usual, epitomizes this dysfunction. In 2014, voters approved Proposition 47, which downgraded many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. In 2016, voters approved Proposition 57, which released thousands of “nonviolent” criminals. Back in 2006, the ACLU prevailed in the Jones v. City of Los Angeles case; the judgment prohibits arrests for vagrancy unless space is available in a homeless shelter.

The result has been predictable enough. California’s unsheltered homeless population is now more numerous than all the rest of the homeless in the United States combined. And why not? Along with great weather, there are no serious legal consequences for being intoxicated on methamphetamine or heroin, much less marijuana or alcohol, nor are their serious legal consequences for stealing to support your drug habit. And if you want to set up a tent, almost anywhere in a public space, nobody can make you move along until they provide you shelter.

The Crisis of Venice Beach
If California is ground zero for urban anarchy, Venice Beach is one of the epicenters. Well before the COVID-19 pandemic and preelection-planned rioting escalated the anarchy, Venice Beach was already occupied, and terrorized, by well over 1,000 homeless. Today, the homeless population in Venice Beach is estimated at least to have doubled. That is 2,000 homeless in an area of only three square miles. Several factors caused this increase.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in thousands of prisoners being released from the Los Angeles County Jail, and many of them headed for the beach. A new homeless shelter was opened earlier in the year in Venice Beach, and while it only has 140 beds (at a cost of $8 million), it serves meals to many more and has no requirements for sobriety or even a curfew.

Los Angeles officials’ response to the COVID-19 crisis had an even greater impact on Venice Beach.

For years, the streets would be cleaned once a week. This forced people living in cars or RVs to move them to allow trash and debris—including feces—regularly to get swept up and washed away. But there has been no street sweeping since March. Also suspended in 2020 by court order was a 2016 Los Angeles County ordinance that prevented homeless people from accumulating more than what could fit into a trash bin (about eight cubic feet). If that weren’t enough, since COVID came along, the police have greatly reduced enforcing the laws and ordinances still in effect that might regulate the number of homeless and their behavior.

Venice Beach residents are besieged as never before. When speaking with residents to prepare this report, one of them said “I feel like I have a house in the middle of a large homeless encampment.” Residents describe the mountains of trash that have begun to accumulate as a result of a breakdown in code enforcement, along with an explosion in the rat population. For those who have been assaulted or shot, of course, rats and trash are just a nuisance.

The degree to which civilization has receded in places where the homeless have taken over in Los Angeles is difficult to separate from the other epic distractions that have dominated the news in 2020. But these other distractions—COVID-19, economic hardship, mass rioting, and vandalism—have compounded the problem of the homeless.

For example, on one residential corner in Venice Beach, for the past few months a man has lived there, working on welding projects. Many of these projects involve converting scrap metal into knives, machetes, and axes. According to a neighbor, the man was approached by Antifa and offered marijuana in exchange for weapons. He refused, stating he only would work for methamphetamine. The entire operation, the generator, the welding torch, the hammering in the middle of the night, is hazardous and disturbing. But despite hundreds of calls to the LAPD, the man continues to ply his trade.

What Los Angeles needs to do is challenge the 2006 Jones ruling in federal court. Officials need to join with other California cities to put initiatives before voters that would repeal Prop. 47 and Prop. 57. But under pressure from progressive billionaires and Black Lives Matter activists, they are moving in the opposite direction.

Read the entire article HERE.

Joe Biden Promises Fewer Fires, Floods, and Hurricanes if He Wins in November

Via PJ Media

On Monday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden condemned President Donald Trump as a “climate arsonist,” predicting that if the president wins reelection in November, America will witness more “hellish” events like fires in the West, flooding in the Midwest, and hurricanes on the East Coast. He effectively promised that if he wins, America will suffer from fewer fires, fewer floods, and fewer hurricanes.

Although Biden excoriated Trump for “ignoring the facts” and “denying reality,” he focused his remarks on the wildfires ravaging California, Oregon, and Washington State — fires exacerbated by bad forest management more than any sort of climate change.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?” Biden asked.

“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires and record floods and record hurricanes, but if he gets a second term, these hellish events will continue to become more common, more devastating, and more deadly,” the Democrat insisted.

“Meanwhile, Donald Trump warns that integration is threatening our suburbs,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s attack on Biden’s plan to federalize local zoning (which poses a serious threat to local control of neighborhoods in the name of racial integration). “It’s ridiculous. But you know what is actually threatening our suburbs?”

“Wildfires are burning the suburbs in the West, floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the Midwest, hurricanes are imperiling suburban life along our coast,” Biden said. “If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned from wildfires? How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?”

Read the entire article HERE.

Google Rep Issues Heartfelt Apology For Anti-Conservative Bias While Wearing ‘Kill All Republicans’ T-Shirt

Via The Babylon Bee

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Google has released a video in which one of the company’s representatives apologizes for anti-conservative bias, as revealed in a recent video obtained by Breitbart.

The representative issued a heartfelt apology toward conservative Google users while wearing a “Kill All Republicans” T-shirt throughout the video.

“We are so sorry that you fascist, conservative ingrates had to see that,” he said. “We want Google to be completely free from bias, even against Republicans who need to die violent deaths for disagreeing with us. That’s what inclusivity is all about.”

“It’s our mission that everyone be included, even hopelessly backward conservative people that we’d like to exterminate from the planet,” he added, before confirming that the company is in fact close to a breakthrough on technology to do just that.

At the end of the video, the representative smiles warmly and assures Google customers that the company will continue to strive for unbiased products and services, before the footage cuts to him beating a Trump supporter to death with a Chromebook.

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

Be sure to subscribe to Def-Con News to get Breakfast For The Brain in your morning mailbox.