Thanksgiving Dinner For The Brain

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Cops Refuse to be the Thanksgiving Police

Via Front Page Magazine

After failing to deal with months of violent riots in Portland, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced that she instead wants the police to go after families celebrating Thanksgiving.

When asked whether Oregonians should call the police on their neighbors if they have more than 6 people in their homes for Thanksgiving, she replied, “This is no different than what happens if there’s a party down the street… they call law enforcement.”

Except law enforcement has no interest in replying.

The Marion County Sheriff’s office, whose jurisdiction includes the state capital, declined, stating, “We cannot arrest or enforce our way out of the pandemic.”

When Governor Cuomo of New York, whose order forcing nursing homes to accept infected coronavirus patients may have killed as many as 11,000 senior citizens, tried to enlist law enforcement in his crackdown on Thanksgiving, the sheriffs of New York also wouldn’t do it.

The Steuben County Sheriff’s Office assured that “the men and women of the Steuben County Sheriff’s Office will not be peeking in your window or attempting to enter your property to count the number of persons at your table on Thanksgiving.”

“I can’t see how devoting our resources to counting cars in our citizens’ driveways or investigating how much turkey or dressing they’ve purchased is for the public good,” the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office objected.

“This national holiday has created longstanding family traditions that are at the heart of America, and these traditions should not be stopped or interrupted by Governor Cuomo’s mandates,” the Erie County Sheriff’s Office declared.

“With regard to the Thanksgiving Executive Order, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office will NOT be enforcing it,” another office stated, “So don’t feel a need to hide cars, cover with leaves or walk 3 blocks so your house doesn’t become a target of the Governors EO.”

Democrats and their media have blamed this rebellion on Republican sheriffs in conservative areas, but Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr is a black Democrat and his office still opted out of the “enforcement of Thanksgiving gatherings”.

While Governor Cuomo fumed that this Irish Democracy was, “frightening to democracy”, a Buffalo print shop began selling stickers of Cuomo’s giant head peering into windows.

Next door in New Jersey, Governor Murphy threatened to be, “as all over it as we can be.”

Then he was caught on a viral video dining out with his family. Meanwhile, the Howell Township police chief stated, “I wasn’t going to have my police officers going knocking on doors and ruining somebody’s holiday just to check how many people are inside their house.”

The law enforcement rebellion wasn’t new in California. It had been going on for some time.

After Governor Newsom issued his latest curfew, the sheriffs of Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County, Sacramento County, Tulare County, Fresno County, El Dorado County, and others announced that they would not be enforcing it with either tickets or arrests.

And no one would be tampering with Thanksgiving.

“The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office will not be determining—including entering any home or business—compliance with, or enforcing compliance of, any health or emergency orders related to curfews, staying at home, Thanksgiving or other social gatherings,” the Sacramento County Sheriff stated. “We will not dispatch officers for these purposes.”

“From the very beginning, we have not enforced these orders. We are not going to make criminals out of normally law-abiding citizens,” Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said.

.In Ohio, some sheriffs were willing to be the Thanksgiving police, while others weren’t.

“It’s not knocking on people’s doors on Thanksgiving and saying, ‘You’ve had more than eight or 10 people,’ and it’s not to make criminals out of everyday working people,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said.

Read the entire article HERE.

Supreme Court blocks Cuomo’s orders against religious gatherings

Via The Post Millennial

The Supreme Court has blocked the restrictions imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York which restricted the number of people allowed to worship together.

“Even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten,” they wrote.

The suit was brought by Catholic and Jewish groups from New York, who railed against the limitations as violations of their First Amendment rights.

It was just before midnight on Wednesday night that the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, said that Cuomo could absolutely not enforce attendance limits at religious services.

The emergency application was filed against the Executive Order issued by Cuomo that said that in “red zones,” where COVID-19 cases are prevalent, “no more than 10 persons may attend each religious service.” There was a sliding scale of attendance based on the colour of the zone in which a house of worship was located, with 25 persons permitted to worship together in “orange zones.”

The two applications were filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and by Agudath Israel of America, respectively.

The ruling read: “Citing a variety of remarks made by the Governor, Agudath Israel argues that the Governor specifically targeted the Orthodox Jewish community and gerrymandered the boundaries of red and orange zones to ensure that heavily Orthodox areas were included.

“Both the Diocese and Agudath Israel maintain that the regulations treat houses of worship much more harshly than comparable secular facilities. And they tell us without contradiction that they have complied with all public health guidance, have implemented additional precautionary measures, and have operated at 25% or 33% capacity for months without a single outbreak.”

The ruling stated that “The applicants… have shown that their First Amendment claims are likely to prevail, that denying them relief would lead to irreparable injury, and that granting relief would not harm the public interest.”

The Court noted the hypocrisy that was obvious in Cuomo’s orders, which allowed many other gathering places to remain open while restricting houses of worship. They wrote:

“In a red zone, while a synagogue or church may not admit more than 10 persons, businesses categorized as ‘essential’ may admit as many people as they wish. And the list of ‘essential’ businesses includes things such as acupuncture facilities, camp grounds, garages, as well as many whose services are not limited to those that can be regarded as essential, such as all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities.”

They wrote that “The disparate treatment is even more striking in an orange zone. While attendance at houses of worship is limited to 25 persons, even non-essential businesses may decide for themselves how many persons to admit.

“These categorizations lead to troubling results. At the hearing in the District Court, a health department official testified about a large store in Brooklyn that could ‘literally have hundreds of people shopping there on any given day.'”

This is a triumph for religious liberty advocates and all of those who believe in the security of their First Amendment rights.

Read the entire article HERE.

A Totally Racist Thanksgiving

By Jim Goad

I’m not much of a holiday-celebratin’ guy, but if I had to pick my favorite, it would probably be Thanksgiving, and merely for the basic gustatory pleasures it provides. I could eat turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes three times a day for the rest of my life and never tire of it.

But as with everything these days, there are legions of carcinogenically bitter social-justice scolds who have made it their fundamental project to squeeze the fun out of everything as if they wake up every morning hoping to choke a baby piglet to death.

Instead of living and letting others live on Thanksgiving, a killjoy named Professor Robert Jensen of the University of Texas recommends a day of guilt and self-imposed starvation:

“One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.”

If “moral progress” involves an endless spiral of self-imposed misery, I’d like to morally revert to the Stone Age — please pass the racist cranberry sauce.

In an essay titled “TEN WAYS TO MAKE YOUR THANKSGIVING ABOUT SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE,” a certain Eve Bratman likewise urges a no-fun, no-food day of self-flagellation:

“Let’s face it: white supremacy is actually deeply embedded in Thanksgiving. . . . I want to make this Thanksgiving more deeply anti-racist, ecologically rooted, and anti-imperialist. . . . Consider a national day of atonement to mark the holiday. That might involve some fasting, instead of feasting.”

That sounds like a great idea, Eve. But I’d like to up the ante for you: You won’t prove to me that you’re completely committed to social justice until you fast for five years straight. That’s right — not even a crumb or morsel of food until Thanksgiving 2025. If you refuse, you are complicit in the genocide of Native Americans.

If you search the words “racist” and “Thanksgiving” in tandem, you’ll be able to suffer through hundreds if not thousands of similarly miserable revisionist accounts. Instead of Thanksgiving, many dour redskins celebrate a “Day of Mourning,” which sounds like a real humdinger of a time. Out on Alcatraz on the fourth Thursday of every November, the benighted descendants of indigenous yam-diggers honor “Un-Thanksgiving Day,” which seems like a slap in the face to the white man for not stomping out every last one of these ingrates.

Dredging ancient memories of what I was taught about Thanksgiving, it seems to portray the Injuns as selfless altruists who offered food and comfort to the bloodthirsty cannibal Pilgrims. It seems quite kind to the Indians — almost unrealistically so. Why would any modern meth-smoking red man who lives in a trailer on a reservation and receives government checks merely due to his race take offense to this narrative?

Read the entire article HERE.

‘Stand up’ to ‘racist family’ at Thanksgiving

Via Campus Reform

An opinion writer for the University of Virginia student newspaper encouraged her readers to “stand up” against “racist family.”

She argues that “hateful rhetoric, conspiratorial thinking and virulent racism, xenophobia and sexism” endure in broader American society.

One student commented on the opinion article, stating that by playing along with the “policing of white progressives, we grant them a position of superiority and false sense of accomplishment.”

An opinion columnist at the University of Virginia’s student newspaper encouraged her readers to “stand up” to “ racist family” at Thanksgiving.

Emma Camp, who writes a regular opinion column for the Cavalier Daily, asserted that “white progressives must privilege their principles over personal comfort” in conversations with family during the holiday season. In order to fulfill this mandate, they “need to stand up to their racist loved ones.”

Though Trump, who Camp defines as a “proto-fascist,” who has “been defeated,” she argues that “the hateful rhetoric, conspiratorial thinking and virulent racism, xenophobia and sexism he espoused during his tenure remain deeply entrenched in American political discourse.”

[RELATED: UVA prof: Architecture ‘part of the Western tradition of power’]

“When we sit silent over our uncle’s QAnon rants or our high school friends’ xenophobic comments,” she continues, “it shows that we value our own comfort over what we know to be our ethical duty.”

She again admonishes readers to prove that their “moral principles” are more important than their “relationship with racists.”

[RELATED: UVA to remove Revolutionary War general statue, ‘contextualize’ Thomas Jefferson statue]

“No matter the outcome, standing up for your principles disrupts the presumption of agreement so often assumed by bigots,” concludes Camp. “Hateful beliefs may continue — but at the very least you can make it clear that they are not welcome to at least one person at the dinner table.”

University of Virginia undergraduate Deven Upadhyay told Campus Reform that “calling white progressives to action at Thanksgiving turns social activism into a game, eliciting frivolous accusations and burning bridges with loved ones.”

“Today’s progressives have developed a savior complex that has become so sensitive, diluting the severity of real instances of xenophobia, sexism, and racism,” he added. “As this piece pins this task on white people, it seems that people of color need to be ‘saved’ by our white friends.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Why this scene in ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’ prompts allegations of racism

Via Yahoo Entertainment News

Charles Schulz’s A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is a classic Peanuts special from 1973 that airs during the holidays. But one particular scene has been stirring up controversy in recent years.

In the scene, Franklin, who is the only Black character, is sitting by himself on one side of a Thanksgiving table, while most of the other kids sit together on the other side (Linus is seated at the head of the table). Some people consider the scene problematic and even racist, arguing that Franklin is separated from the rest of the characters, who are white.

Read the entire article HERE.

LeBron James Says He’s Still Going To Travel This Year Despite CDC Guidelines

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

LOS ANGELES, CA—LeBron James announced today that he doesn’t really care what the CDC recommends, he’s still going to travel this year.

“Traveling is an important part of my game,” James admitted. “So I’m really hoping the league is still going to let us do it all the time even though the CDC says not to. Either way, I’m going to travel. I don’t care what dumb Adam Silver has to say about it!”

The NBA Players Association also put out a statement on the behalf of all players, saying: “A travel ban would give an unfair advantage to the defense, and we know nobody really cares about defense.” The union also noted that without traveling you’d have guys out on the court who play like Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, or even like Michael Jordan. And guys who play like that would run circles around the rest of the league because they don’t have to travel in order to make a basket.

LeBron James says if the league doesn’t let him travel this year he will move to China where President Xi has agreed to pay him double his current NBA wage to play in the Chinese league.

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

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