Vegas Massacre: Americans At Their Best…Politicians At Their Worst

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While the evil massacre of 59 people in Las Vegas was immediately politicized by those wanting more gun control legislation — despite the reality that everything the killer did was already illegal — average Americans continued to shine in the crisis.

Just as Americans did in killer hurricanes in Texas and Florida. Just as we always do.

As the psychopath continued to fire on the defenseless crowd from the nearby Mandalay Hotel high rise, dozens and dozens of stories have emerged about ordinary people turned heroes in the midst of the deadly chaos.

Repeatedly, concert-goers stopped to help others, went back into the field of fire from safety to aid the wounded — consistently risking their own lives to save others, often strangers.

“There were so many people out there that you wouldn’t think they would be helping others at a time like that, but it wasn’t an ‘every man for himself’ kind of situation,” said Tiffany Michelle, who witnessed the massacre. “Everybody just sort of grabbed somebody around them and tried to do everything they could to get others out.”

Off-duty California firefighter Steve Keys was bent over a shooting victim and performing CPR when he was shot in the back. He is expected to survive.

Retired teacher Mike Cronk told ABC 13 that many concert-goers with and without first-aid training, worked together to help victims get to first-responders — often carrying them. Cronk said he used his shirt to stop the bleeding after his friend was shot three times. He and another woman helped him push his friend under the stage to safety. “I’m no hero,” he said. “But there’s a lot of heroes out there.”

A 29-year-old nurse from Tennessee, Sunny Melton, was at the concert with his wife. When the shots began, Melton stood behind his wife, sheltering her as he guided her toward safety away from the gunfire. He was fatally shot in the back as they neared safety. His wife survived.

Off-duty firefighter Kurt Fowler from Arizona was also protecting his wife by using his body as a shield and was shot, but is expected to recover.

Los Angeles firefighter Mark McCurdy was at the concert with his wife and her sister when the sister was shot. McCurdy carried his sister-in-law to the safety of their hotel room, and once his wife was also safe, he turned around and went back out into the killing field to help others.

In the middle of the night, just a few hours before the politicians climbed out of bed to begin tweeting and issuing statements dividing Americans, regular Nevadans began flooding blood donation centers because of the critical need for blood with more than 500 people wounded.

Las Vegas shooting victim Thomas Gunderson with POTUS and FLOTUS

Blood centers were jammed full by 4 a.m. Through the night, throughout the next day and the following, Nevadans kept giving blood.

A GoFundMe account was quickly established for the victims and within a day had gained more than $2 million. More than 30,000 people contributed, including the Oakland Raiders professional football team, which will be moving to Vegas.

And states jumped in to help, just as they did during the hurricanes.

Drawing on the hard lessons learned after the Pulse nightclub massacre last year in Orlando, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and members of her office are heading to Las Vegas at the request of the Nevada Attorney General to practically help victims of the nation’s latest mass killing.

“Sadly, (in) Florida we know what we’re doing after the Pulse nightclub,” Bondi said. “So many of the victims who died don’t live in Nevada, so help with burial and helping them get back to their respective states…We need to help them work through the legal process, connecting with their families and by getting them services.”

This is America. Not the sleazy, grandstanding politicians. Not the divisive National Anthem protests. Not Antifa or white supremacists. Not the rancor and division that is so prevalent now for political gain.

White, black, Hispanic, male, female were all at the concert, were all helping others and were all lined up at blood banks to help others. Let’s remember this America.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.

Tell Your Kids: Bring Your Bible To School Tomorrow – October 5th

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There’s a movement across America that is growing larger and larger since its inception just 3 short years ago. It doesn’t require money or a large venue or a famous celebrity spokesperson to get it trending. Last year, 356,000 students participated in hundreds of schools across the nation in a simple concept with a big message: Bring your Bible to school for the day.

Focus on the Family, a Christian ministry, began the Bring Your Bible to School Day initiative as way to empower students in public schools and universities to share their faith and bring God back into the public square. As parents and youth ministers, you can take the first step and sign your students up today at BringYourBible.org. This is a tremendous opportunity to bring the message of Jesus Christ to others who would normally never hear about it. It’s also a way to help your child feel like they are truly making a difference by sharing a positive message in a world where negativity and despair make the headlines.

According to BringYourBible.org: Students can simply bring their Bibles to school and share verses with friends. Or, they can include more free-speech activities, such as wearing T-shirts or stickers, putting up posters and hosting discussion forums before or after class. Last year, the event went viral with students posting pictures of themselves online with #BringYourBible.

After they sign up on the website listed here, students are given some simple tools to use to help guide them through the day. There is a newsletter, flyers they can print out and share, and most importantly, knowing their legal rights as students.

The First Amendment protects the rights of students to bring their Bibles to school, engage in private prayer during the school day, and even share their faith with classmates.  The United States Supreme Court has recognized the private religious rights of public school students, stating that  “nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday.”  Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 313 (2000) (emphasis added).  This is consistent with the Supreme Court’s recognition that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969).  Students should be encouraged to “be bold” in exercising these God-given rights that are protected by the Constitution.

Today, the religious freedom of Christians is under attack by the ACLU and the rise of secularism. According to Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family: “The big idea behind Bring Your Bible to School Day is to help kids feel empowered to share what’s most important to them, and what makes them who they are – their faith.”

We are in a spiritual battle. As your children take their Bible with them to school, the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans could be a scripture verse they reflect upon as they head out the door, ready to become ambassadors for Christ:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”- Romans 1:16

Pentagon severs all ties with Southern Poverty Law Center — Stops using SPLC Hitlist

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This is most welcome and long overdue. The SPLC’s training materials on “extremism” wouldn’t point the Defense Department toward jihad terrorists and Sharia supremacists, but toward foes of jihad terror and others that the SPLC classifies as “extremists” along with the likes of the KKK and neo-Nazis. This hard-Left moneymaking and incitement machine’s latest dossier on “Islamophobes” says: “Before you book a spokesperson from an anti-Muslim extremist group or quote them in a story, research their background — detailed in this in-depth guide to 15 of the most visible anti-Muslim activists — and consider the consequences of giving them a platform.”

The SPLC wishes to silence those who speak honestly about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, blaming us for a supposed rise in “Islamophobia.” If they really want to stamp out suspicion of Islam, of course, they will move against not us, but the likes of Omar Mateen, Syed Rizwan Farook, Tashfeen Malik, Nidal Malik Hasan, Mohammed Abdulazeez, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the myriad other Muslims who commit violence in the name of Islam and justify it by reference to Islamic teachings.

The SPLC doesn’t do that because its objective is not really to stop “Islamophobia” at all, but to create the illusion of a powerful and moneyed network of “Islamophobes” whom can only be stopped if you write a check to the SPLC. That’s what this is really all about. It’s scandalous that the Pentagon ever took this seriously, and good that it has stopped.

“EXCLUSIVE: DOD Drops SPLC From Extremism Training Materials,” by Jonah Bennett, Daily Caller, October 2, 2017:

Richard Cohen, SPLC

The Pentagon has officially severed all ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) after previously relying on the group’s training materials on extremism.

Brian J. Field, assistant U.S. attorney from the Civil Division, stated that the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity removed any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), in an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation from the Department of Justice.

The DEOMI is a DOD school founded to fight segregation and inequality that teaches courses in racial, gender and religious equality, among other subject areas like equal opportunity and pluralism. The courses are available to DOD civilians and service members.

As part of a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Immigration Reform Law Institute, Field wrote in the email sent in late September:

Additionally, the DEOMI office informed me that, based on a previous FOIA request, DEOMI records concerning, regarding, or related to the preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes were forwarded … That 133-page document did reference the SPLC; however, based upon guidance from the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity, all references to the SPLC have been removed from any current training.

Interestingly, DEOMI still makes use of materials on “Hate Symbols” from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group similar to the SPLC. Students at DEOMI use the Hate Symbols reference on the ADL site to “learn more about gang colors or clothing; hate group tattoos and body markings associated with such gangs.”

As a matter of policy, the DOD does not have an official list of hate groups….

In February, The Daily Caller News Foundation published an exclusive piece indicating that the FBI, which formerly used the SPLC as a “hate crimes resource,” has also been distancing itself from the group….

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Kimmel to Clinton, Appalling Democrats Pounce on Massacre for Political Gain

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It happens. Every…single…time. Another mass shooting, another mass effort by Democrats to squeeze out some political gain.

In these circumstances, this is beyond the pale of normal ugly politics. It’s vicious, cold-hearted, self-centered, void of common decency, almost a sickness in part because of the rapidity of the response.

Literally within hours of a psychopath in Las Vegas slaughtering 59 people and injuring more than 600 others at a country western concert, leading Democrats in Congress, the media and entertainment everywhere were falling all over themselves to get their holier-than-thou positioning out to the masses — well, their masses anyway. They had one overarching goal: Turn an act of human evil to their political advantage.

It is as Democrat Rahm Emanuel, former Obama advisor and current Chicago mayor, infamously said: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Democrats’ endless efforts to limit gun ownership and interpret the Second Amendment as essentially rifle hunting, continually fail because they cannot get such laws through Congress. There are never the votes and the American people largely get the Second Amendment. Further, the policy prescriptions after each mass shooting are never related to the shooting or would have prevented it — from Sandy Hook to Orlando to Las Vegas.

There are no reflections on the condition of human nature, on the reality of evil, on the price of freedom. No, these killings are all simply opportunity crises not to be wasted.

Going through just a sampling of the responses, it is clear that this is not some responsible “gun control” measures, but pure political opportunism, because none of them propose anything that either can pass or is not already illegal.

Democrats could have joined with Republicans to donate blood and call for blood donors, as the mayor of Las Vegas immediately said blood was desperately needed right after the massacre. This humane response in the following hours would have been a uniting action and maybe opened the door for legislative actions. But it would not have been politically advantageous.

So we got this.

Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted: “It is long past time for Congress to take action on gun safety to save innocent lives.” Vacuous in content and relevance to the shooting; meant to score political points.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted a series of tweets: “Thoughts & prayers are NOT enough. Not when more moms & dads will bury kids this week, & more sons & daughters will grow up without parents. Tragedies like Las Vegas have happened too many times. We need to have the conversation about how to stop gun violence. We need it NOW.” But she doesn’t mean a true conversation, she means take guns away from Americans.

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey tweeted: “Let’s close the close the gun show loophole.” Yes, he was so anxious to get this out the morning after the night shooting, he fired off typos. But of course, when he tweeted this, he had no idea (and we  still don’t as of the writing of this) where the killer got his weapons. The “gun show loophole” isn’t any more real than me selling a gun to a friend “loophole” because all of the dealers in the gunshow must follow all of the normal laws. And there is no evidence that any mass shooting has been accomplished through this supposed loophole. Just gross opportunism.

Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden tweeted: “How long do we let gun violence tear families apart? Enough. Congress & the WH should act now to save lives. There’s no excuse for inaction.” Just as vacuous as Sanders. No thought for cause, motive, the reality of evil. It’s all about the gun.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin tweeted: “The notion that there’s no way to prevent gun violence is false — and without action to stop gun attacks, Congress is complicit in them.” This is the height of politicizing absurdity considering the level of violence in Chicago and the fact that it has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. No shame.

Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton is a special kind of ugly on this issue. After tweeting he would not participate in a moment of silence in Congress over the slaughtered Americans, he tweeted: “Thinking of everyone in #LasVegas, and praying Congress will have the courage to do more than stand in silence to commemorate them.” Using the word “prayer” to make a tasteless political statement while blood is still on the ground in Vegas is grotesque.

Moulton went on to say assault rifles “have no place on American streets.” Right. And they are already illegal. Machine guns, fully automatic weapons are illegal unless you have one grandfathered in from before 1986. Moulton knows this. Just egregious.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a statement: “…Congress refuses to act. I am more than frustrated, I am furious.” Again, empty political posturing.

The biggest bogeyman in the Democratic failure to restrict gun rights for law-abiding Americans is the National Rifle Association.

So Hillary Clinton tweeted just a few hours after the shooting: “Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again,” Clinton wrote. Later in the day, it had 172,000 likes.

It’s important to remember in all of this rush for more gun control, the killer was apparently using a weapon that is already illegal. So…what exactly are they saying?

It’s not just Democrat politicians. It’s celebrities, who are overwhelmingly Democrat and far more unhinged.

Late Night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who has become hyper-partisan on health care and now gun control (guaranteeing his ratings will drop) smeared vast swaths of America telling his audience that Congressional Republicans “should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country because it’s so crazy.” Sure, that will result in positive change. But Jimmy feels good about himself.

Singer and noted political commentator Lady Gaga tweeted: “Prayers are important but @SpeakerRyan @realDonaldTrump blood is on the hands of those who have power to legislate. #GunControl act quickly.” Sigh.

Alyssa Milano, who gets an awful lot wrong, tweeted: “Sensible gun control NOW.” Because it would have stopped this, or Orlando or Sandy Hook?

Singer Sheryl Crow, a light thinker among light thinkers, tweeted: “Can we discuss the loss of rights of people going to a concert because of the lack of assault rifle regulations?” Again…assault rifles have been banned since 1986.

Actress Sophia Bush tweeted:

“Dear Donald.

Fuck you for this.
Truly.
Sincerely,
America”

Reaching for the Clinton bogeyman, House of Cards creator Beau Willimon‏ tweeted: “Don’t bring politics into the Las Vegas shooting? Okay, we’ll stop with the politics as soon as politicians stop taking money from the @NRA”

It’s not newsworthy but requires pointing out that, of course, the mainstream media immediately went all in on gun control with their Democrat allies. Before motive, cause, gun type, legality of ownership — before any facts were established — the media hammered every Republican and White House spokesperson possible on gun control.

And of course, throughout all of these, the vitriolic Trump hatred is right at the surface. CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny inexplicably said in his post-Trump speech “analysis:” “Something else, I think, to keep in mind — a lot of these country music supporters are likely Trump supporters.” Wow. Just wow.

The problem with this is threefold:

  1. Going partisan political within hours of the massacre to play on raw emotion is repulsive behavior.
  2. Seeking policy changes before any information is known on which to base policy changes inevitably results in bad policy.
  3. These actions immediately polarized Americans again when there could have been a moment of unity. When there might be opportunity to reach out and make whatever changes Democrats think are good, they instead went into high dudgeon attack mode, guaranteed to turn off anyone who might have considered working with them.

And this means among the politicians anyway it was all aimed at political gain. Period.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.

VIDEO: Gender Identity — Why All the Confusion?

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Are male and female one and the same? Or are there real male-female differences rooted in biology?

Ashley McGuire, author of “Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female,” explains.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse

The Humanitarian Hoax of Transgenders in the Military: Killing America With Kindness

The Demonic Nature of the Transgender Movement: The Devil, You Say

Here’s the Truth About Gun Control and Crime

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Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to call for gun control shortly after a mass shooting took place in Las Vegas.

“The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get,” Hillary Clinton tweeted.

“Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again,” she added.

The horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas began around 10 p.m. local time, or 1 a.m. EST. Eight hours later, Clinton dropped her tweets.

And she wasn’t the only one to quickly promote gun control in light of the terrible news about the shooting, which has left at least 58 dead and another 500 wounded.

While the facts are still entirely unsettled as of this writing, that didn’t stop gun control activists from immediately jumping to conclusions or answers on how to fix everything.

And while too little is known about the Las Vegas shooting to make judgments about what could or could not have prevented it, the reality is that gun ownership does not lead to more crime in the United States.

Yet, in the chaotic wake of the horrific mass shooting that took the lives of at least 50 in Las Vegas, proponents of gun control quickly turned the event to fit their agenda.

For instance, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., accused those who didn’t act on shootings of “cowardice.”

And there were numerous other hot takes from nonelected politicos and celebrities that veered into various levels of blaming gun rights supporters for allowing events like Las Vegas to happen.

And all of this before even the most basic facts have been ascertained. The Associated Press reported that ISIS claimed responsibility for the shooting, but the FBI says there is no connection. The details of the case are simply a confusing mess and it is difficult to ascertain the shooter’s motives, how he acquired the firearm(s), or even what firearm(s) he used to conduct the attack.

While it is unwise to draw too many conclusions about what happened in Las Vegas, in the face of the relentless assault on gun rights and misinformation it is important to note some false narratives that have been spread in the last 24 hours.

Take Clinton’s claim about silencers. She was immediately denounced for this statement as being “ignorant” of how suppressors work. Even a Washington Post reporter wrote that the debate over silencers “isn’t really relevant” to what happened in Las Vegas.

And both The Washington Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler and conservative pundit Dana Loesch pushed back on Clinton’s claim:

A study released earlier this year by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives found that while there were 1.3 million registered suppressors in the country last year, there were only 44 suppressor-related crimes recommended for prosecution.

The details about the weapons the shooter used are still not clear, but some have called for a ban on automatic weapons—basically machine guns—on top of other gun control measures.

However, federal laws dating back to the 1930s already on the books strictly regulate the sale and purchase of these kinds of firearms.

Sean Davis at The Federalist did an excellent job of explaining how tightly controlled automatic weapon sales are in the United States:

Only licensed entities are permitted to manufacture, sell, or own [fully automatic weapons]. Private civilian ownership of machine guns is illegal unless the individual has been explicitly permitted by the federal ATF to own them. All fully automatic weapons must be registered with the federal government in a central registry with no exceptions.

There is also a tax on these items—and they’re not cheap since only weapons produced before 1986 are allowed to be sold.

Of course, with the right tools and skills, it is still possible to create a fully automatic weapon, which some experts say may have been what the Las Vegas shooter did to carry out his murders.

Nevertheless, these weapons are incredibly difficult to obtain.

The events that took place in Las Vegas on Sunday night were an atrocity. But it must be noted that wicked individuals have found ways to conduct mass murder and terrorism through a variety of means both legal and illegal: guns, knives, acid, planes, and trucks.

The list goes on and on.

As numerous studies have shown, gun ownership is not necessarily connected to crime rates, and in fact may make crime go down. A 2016 report from the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action noted that:

As gun ownership has risen to an all-time high, the nation’s total violent crime rate has fallen to a 44-year low and the murder rate has fallen to an all-time low. Since 1991, when violent crime hit an all-time high, the nation’s violent crime rate and its murder rate have decreased by more than half, as Americans have acquired over 170 million new guns, roughly doubling the number of privately owned guns in the United States.

Furthermore, concealed carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding of any demographic group in America.

For these reasons and many others, gun control has fizzled as an issue even as its proponents continue to push the narrative.

The fact is, a majority of Americans just don’t see gun control as the answer to crime, violence, and terrorism.

As Gov. Matt Bevin, R-Ky., put it on Twitter, we live in a fallen world and ultimately can’t regulate evil.

Sometimes, in the face of horror, there are no policies or prescriptions that apply besides the courage and sacrifice of those who are good.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Jarrett. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLE: I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise. – The Washington Post

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Dominic Chan/Sipa USA/Newscom.

VIDEO: List of Things that Don’t Add Up about the Las Vegas Massacre

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Before Its News published a list of questions that don’t add up about the massacre in Las Vegas on October 1st, 2017. They also posted a video listing their concerns.

Here’s the Before Its News list:

  1. Dozens of concert-goers reported the presence of multiple shooters
  2. Who warned concert-goers they were “all going to die” a full 45 minutes before the shooting started?
  3. The weapon you hear on videos was FULL AUTO, which is almost impossible to acquire through legal means
  4. Why were the exits blocked, trapping victims like rats in a maze?
  5. Why did the shooter have as many as 10 firearms in his room?
  6. Why is ISIS claiming responsibility for the Las Vegas massacre?

Click here to read the full Before Its News article titled “Vegas Massacre: 5 Things Don’t  Add Up About The Las Vegas Mass Shooting.”

Here’s their video:

VIDEO: President Trump’s full comments on the Las Vegas mass shooting

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TRANSCRIPT:

My fellow Americans, we are joined together today in sadness, shock, and grief. Last night, a gunman opened fire on a large crowd at a country music concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. He brutally murdered more than 50 people, and wounded hundreds more. It was an act of pure evil.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are working closely with local authorities to assist with the investigation, and they will provide updates as to the investigation and how it develops.

I want to thank the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and all of the first responders for their courageous efforts, and for helping to save the lives of so many. The speed with which they acted is miraculous, and prevented further loss of life. To have found the shooter so quickly after the first shots were fired is something for which we will always be thankful and grateful. It shows what true professionalism is all about.

Hundreds of our fellow citizens are now mourning the sudden loss of a loved one — a parent, a child, a brother or sister. We cannot fathom their pain. We cannot imagine their loss. To the families of the victims: We are praying for you and we are here for you, and we ask God to help see you through this very dark period.

Scripture teaches us, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” We seek comfort in those words, for we know that God lives in the hearts of those who grieve. To the wounded who are now recovering in hospitals, we are praying for your full and speedy recovery, and pledge to you our support from this day forward.

In memory of the fallen, I have directed that our great flag be flown at half-staff.

I will be visiting Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with law enforcement, first responders, and the families of the victims.

In moments of tragedy and horror, America comes together as one — and it always has. We call upon the bonds that unite us — our faith, our family, and our shared values. We call upon the bonds of citizenship, the ties of community, and the comfort of our common humanity.

Our unity cannot be shattered by evil. Our bonds cannot be broken by violence. And though we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today — and always will, forever.

In times such as these, I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness. The answers do not come easy. But we can take solace knowing that even the darkest space can be brightened by a single light, and even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope.

Melania and I are praying for every American who has been hurt, wounded, or lost the ones they love so dearly in this terrible, terrible attack. We pray for the entire nation to find unity and peace. And we pray for the day when evil is banished, and the innocent are safe from hatred and from fear.

May God bless the souls of the lives that are lost. May God give us the grace of healing. And may God provide the grieving families with strength to carry on.

Thank you. God bless America. Thank you.

Opelousas Massacre: When over 150 Black Republicans were hanged by White Democrats

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On September 28, 1868, Democrat Judge James Dickinson led a mob that killed over 150 black residents in Opelousas, Louisiana. The event is known as the Opelousas Massacre.

It started when local blacks expressed outrage when a white newspaper publisher, Emerson Bentley, was severely beaten. Bentley was beaten because he published an article that criticized white democrats for beating and removing black Democrats from the local party.

Dickinson, and a small army of heavily armed white supremacist members, converged on the city to wipe out its black population. The above photo is of the remaining blacks being hung for speaking out against the Democrats for beating Emerson Bentley.

According to BlackPast.org:

The Opelousas Massacre occurred on September 28, 1868 in Opelousas, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. The event is also referred to as The Opelousas Riot by some historians. There is debate as to how many people were killed.  Conservative estimates made by contemporary observers indicated about 30 people died from the political violence.  Later historians have placed the total as closer to 150 or more.

While most Reconstruction-era violence was sparked by conflicts between black Republicans and white Democrats, the initial catalyst for the Massacre was the attempt by some Opelousas blacks to join a Democratic political group in the neighboring town of Washington.  White Democrats in Opelousas, mainly members of the Seymour Knights, the local unit of the white supremacist organization Knights of the White Camellia, visited Washington to drive them out of the Party.   In response Emerson Bentley, an Ohio-born white school teacher and editor of The Progress, a Republican newspaper in Opelousas, wrote what many local whites thought was a racially inflammatory article which described the violence that the Seymour Knights had used against the African American Democrats in Washington.  Bentley argued that such violence should persuade the blacks to remain loyal to the GOP.

Shortly after the article appeared, Bentley was assaulted by a group of whites while he taught his class.  He was severely beaten and whipped although he survived the assault.  In response he fled the town, literally running for his life for nearly three weeks before escaping back to the North.

Meanwhile numerous reports circulated that Bentley had been killed in retaliation for his news article. His mysterious absence was enough to support rumors of his death.  Now black Republicans urged retaliatory violence on the Knights, who in turn viewed this as the beginning of the long anticipated, and inevitable, “Black Revolt” and race war.  The Knights of the White Camellia mobilized thousand of members. Both sides were armed and prepared for conflict as they gathered in Opelousas.

It is unclear as to who initiated the battle that began on September 28.  What is clear is that the white Democrats had the overwhelming advantage in numbers and weapons.  By the afternoon of September 28 the battle had become a massacre.  A number of blacks were shot and killed or captured and later executed.  Those who were not captured were chased into the swamps and killed on sight.  Twelve leaders of the black Republicans who surrendered were executed the next day on the edge of town.  Those executions seemed to encourage a wave of anti-black violence that spread throughout the parish.  No one will ever know how many people were killed but the best estimate is that the number was at least 150 and may have exceeded that total.

Sources:

Ted Tunnell , Crucible of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); John Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in Louisiana (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1910).

VIDEOS: Mass shooting at music festival on the Las Vegas strip

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“Right-wing extremists”? Or…?

“Mass shooting at music festival on the Las Vegas strip,” by Chris Perez, New York Post, October 2, 2017:

A gunman opened fire during a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night — shooting multiple people with a high-powered assault rifle before fleeing the scene, according to reports.

At least 24 people were shot, including two fatally, according to Reuters.

Las Vegas police responded to the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino at around 10 p.m. after receiving calls about an active shooter targeting concertgoers at the Route 91 country music fest.

About an hour later police confirmed at least one suspect is down.

“This is an active investigation,” they added.

Cops were urging people to avoid the area as SWAT teams searched for the gunman.

Witnesses reported seeing a police officer down, but authorities couldn’t immediately confirm this.

University Medical Center spokeswoman Danita Cohen said the local hospital had taken in “several” people with gunshot wounds. She didn’t offer any more details.

One Las Vegas hospital reported treating at least 20 victims with gunshot wounds, according to KABC.

Professional poker player and Instagram star Dan Bilzerian, who was at the concert, said on his IG story that he saw the shooting unfold and witnessed a girl getting shot right in front of him.

“Holy f–k this girl just got shot in the f–king head,” Bilzerian said. “So f–king crazy…So I had to go grab a gun, I’m f–king heading back…Some kind of mass shooting…Guy had a heavy caliber weapon for sure…Saw a girl f–king get shot in the face right next to me, her brains f–king hanging out.”

Another witness, who spoke to News3LV, recalled how “bullets were flying everywhere” and concertgoers were running….

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Living by the Sword

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Brad Miner notes that Islamist rage about the Crusades is a Muslim fantasy that actually comes from Christian liberals.

Sixteen years after the attacks of September 11, it’s probably the case that the “excuse” of the Crusades as a motivating factor behind the violence of al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups has somewhat diminished in plausibility.

Of course, the Islamofascists may well aver that events of more than 900 years ago still burn in Muslim consciousness, but that doesn’t make it so. Osama bin Laden made reference to the Crusades as, no doubt, has Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS. But the truth is they abhor the West because their understanding of Islam demands hatred of and war against the infidel: then, now, always. This is the only “root cause” that matters.

In any case, most of us will never have occasion to debate a terrorist on the matter. Indeed, we’re much more likely to go toe-to-toe with a jihadi liberal about the Crusades and their impact, which is what makes Thomas F. Madden’s new primer invaluable.

The Crusades Controversy: Setting the Record Straight is a 50-page broadside against the serial stupidities and half-truths of those who believe, in Professor Madden’s words, that the Crusades were “the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general.”

In fact, they were “a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslim armies had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world.” The armies that marched and sailed from Western Europe into the Byzantine Empire and on to the Holy Land came in response to pleas from Christians in the East to save them from the weaponized religion of Mohammed.

Those Christian warriors summoned by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 were not a rabble of “lacklands and ne’er-do-wells” spoiling for a fight wherever they could find one. They were a cross section of European society that included many of the wealthiest, most powerful men in Europe, not a few of whom lost fortunes – and their lives – in the struggle to liberate the original homeland of Christianity, which had been established not by the sword, but through peaceful conversions half a millennium before the birth of Islam.

Click here to read the rest of Mr. Miner’s review . . .

Brad Miner

Brad Miner

Brad Miner is senior editor of The Catholic Thing, senior fellow of the Faith & Reason Institute, and a board member of Aid to the Church In Need USA. He is a former Literary Editor of National Review. His new book, Sons of St. Patrick, written with George J. Marlin, is now on sale. The Compleat Gentleman, is available on audio and as an iPhone app.

Finns Aren’t Breeding Taxpayers Fast Enough for the State

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Redistribution programs only work if there is a large enough supply of new taxpayers to finance handouts.

Daniel J. Mitchell

by  Daniel J. Mitchell

The world’s best welfare state arguably is Finland.

Yes, the burden of government spending is enormous and the tax system is stifling, but the nation gets extremely high scores for rule of law and human liberty. Moreover, it is one of the world’s most laissez-faire economies when looking at areas other than fiscal policy.

Indeed, depending on who is doing the measuring, Finland ranks either slightly above or slightly below the United States when grading overall policy.

The Problem

Yet even the best welfare state faces a grim future because of demographic change. Simply stated, redistribution programs only work if there is a sufficiently large supply of new taxpayers to finance promised handouts.

And that supply is running dry in Finland. Bloomberg reports that policymakers in that nation are waking up to the fact that there won’t be enough future taxpayers to finance the country’s extravagant welfare state.

Demographics are a concern across the developed world, of course. But they are particularly problematic for countries with a generous welfare state since they endanger its long-term survival.…the Aktia Bank chief economist said in a telephone interview in Helsinki. “We have a large public sector and the system needs taxpayers in the future.” …According to the OECD, Finland already has the lowest ratio of youths to the working-age population in the Nordics. …And it also has the highest rate of old-age dependency in the region. …The situation is only likely to get worse, according to OECD projections.

Here are a couple of charts showing dramatic demographic changes in Nordic nations. The first chart shows the ratio of children to working-age adults.

And the second chart shows the population of old people (i.e., those most likely to receive money from the government) compared to the number of working-age adults.

As you can see, the numbers are grim now (green bar) but will get far worse by the middle of the century (the red and black bars) because the small number of children today translates into a small number of working-age adults in the future.

To be blunt, these numbers suggest that it’s just a matter of time before the fiscal crisis in Southern Europe spreads to Scandinavia.

Heck, it’s going to spread everywhere: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, the developing world, Japan and the United States.

Boosting Birthrates

Though it’s important to understand that demographic changes don’t necessarily trigger fiscal and economic problems. Hong Kong and Singapore have extremely low fertility rates, yet they don’t face big problems since they are not burdened by Western-style welfare states.

By the way, the article also reveals that Finland’s government isn’t very effective at boosting birthrates, something that we already knew based on the failure of pro-natalist government schemes in nations such as Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Japan.

Though I’m amused that the reporter apparently thinks government handouts are a pro-parent policy and believes that more of the same will somehow have a positive effect.

Finland, a first-rate place in which to be a mother, has registered the lowest number of newborns in nearly 150 years. …the fertility rate should equal two per woman, Schauman says. It was projected at 1.57 in 2016, according to Statistics Finland. That’s a surprisingly low level, given the efforts made by the state to support parenthood. …Finland’s famous baby-boxes. Introduced in 1937, containers full of baby clothes and care products are delivered to expectant mothers, with the cardboard boxes doubling up as a makeshift cot. …Offering generous parental leave…doesn’t seem to be working either. …The government has been working with employers and trade unions to boost gender equality by making parental leave more flexible and the benefits system simpler.

Sigh, a bit of research would have shown that welfare states actually have a negative impact on fertility.

The bottom line is that entitlement reform is the only plausible way for Finland to solve this major economic threat.

P.S. Since the nation’s central bank has published research on the negative impact of excessive government spending, there are some Finns who understand what should be done.

Reprinted from International Liberty.

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

Your House Does Not Need a New Roof at My Expense

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The moral and economic issues raised by government flood insurance ought to be obvious.

Lawrence W. Reed

by  Lawrence W. Reed

Pardon the pun, but I would like to discuss the subject of “sunk costs” in the context of hurricane-induced flooding.  Here’s the background, from a page one Wall Street Journal article on September 15, “Repeated Claims Flood Insurance Program”:

Brian Harmon had just finished spending over $300,000 to fix his home in Kingwood, Texas, when Hurricane Harvey sent floodwaters “completely over the roof.”

The six-bedroom house, which has an indoor swimming pool, sits along the San Jacinto River. It has flooded 22 times since 1979, making it one of the most flood-damaged properties in the country.

Government records show that between 1979 and 2015 the federal flood insurance program paid out more than $1.8 million to rebuild the house—a property that Mr Harmon figured was worth $600,000 to $800,000 before Harvey hit late last month.

“It’s my investment,” the 49-year old said this summer, before the hurricane. “I can’t just throw it away.”

On a house worth maybe $800,000, the government expended a total of $1.8 million—spread over as many as 22 occasions. What Mr. Harmon has personally spent (to build or buy, and later to improve or fix the house) is not stated, other than the $300,000 for recent hurricane repairs. It’s conceivable that this one single-family structure has sucked up a sum equivalent to five times its value, or more. And since it’s flooded 22 times in 36 years, it’s probably not done sucking.

Mr. Harmon says he “can’t just throw it away” but I as a taxpayer sure wish he would.

Loss Aversion

The moral and economic issues raised by government flood insurance ought to be obvious. Since its creation by Congress in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has lost money every year—about $25 billion to date, with this year’s deficit in excess of a billion.

Mr. Harmon’s reluctance to give up on his house seems motivated by what economists call “loss aversion,” the uneasy feeling people often have about wasting something they’ve invested in.

You buy a ticket to a movie but at the last minute a friend invites you to a sumptuous dinner at your favorite restaurant. That would be an easy decision if you hadn’t already bought the theater ticket; you could always see the film next week. But darn it, you paid for it and if you don’t go, it’ll be wasted. You may still accept your friend’s invitation, but with a tinge of regret. (To lessen that regret, you might pass the ticket on to someone else).

Nonetheless, economists caution us to recognize that a cost you’ve incurred in the past and which is unrecoverable is, in a word, “sunk.” The sooner you can put a sunk cost behind you—perhaps learn from it but otherwise forget about it—the better your future decisions will be.

Many times I’ve caught myself allowing a sense of loss aversion to overwhelm my knowledge of sunk costs. Here’s an example I shared often with students when I taught at Northwood University: I once bought a half gallon of butter pecan ice cream on sale for a mere 99 cents. “Such a deal!” I thought. When I opened it at home, scoop in hand, I discovered it was almost all ice cream (lousy to the taste, no less) and virtually no pecans! I suppose I could have angrily returned it to the store for a refund (minus the two dollars in gasoline it would have taken to get there), but I’m an easygoing chap. I just stuck the whole thing in my tiny freezer. For weeks thereafter as I tried to make room for other things, I would jam that half gallon of bad ice cream into a different corner.

Fixating on sunk costs is a major reason why a lot of small investors stay small.

Then it hit me. I’m never going to eat that stuff! It’s just taking up room I could use for something better. That 99 cents ain’t comin’ back. What am I keeping this junk for? Pleased that I was finally allowing my economics knowledge to inform me, I tossed that bad investment into the garbage can.

Opportunity Cost

As the author of this article explains, another example of this “sunk cost fallacy” would be to assume, “I might as well continue dating someone bad for me because I’ve already invested so much in them.”

Fixating on sunk costs is a major reason why a lot of small investors stay small. They can’t bring themselves to admit a mistake when the market moves against them. Rather than cut their losses short and move on, they hang on. Loss aversion then becomes loss accumulation.

Obviously, some people are quicker than others to learn from the errors arising from their loss aversion and the sunk cost fallacy. But one general lesson proves itself time and again—if it’s your own investment you’re playing with, and losses associated with it are all internalized (that is, it’s you who pays them), you tend to learn sooner rather than later. Your behavior changes as a result, so that you act less to “avoid” past losses and more to avoid future ones—the ones that are actually avoidable.

In the case of Mr. Harmon and his flood-prone home, his endless commitment seems akin to forgoing the better invitation to go instead to an inferior movie, or stuffing the lousy ice cream back in the freezer, or getting engaged to a bad fit because of all the gifts and dinners he previously bought her. So why does he do it? Because his sunk costs are only partially internalized; most of them are paid by other parties (taxpayers). From his vantage point, his decision to throw your good money after his bad money doesn’t seem nearly as irrational as it might to you and me.

There’s another concept of cost that’s being overlooked in the Harmon example—opportunity cost. If the federal flood insurance program hadn’t given Mr. Harmon $1.8 million for his house, what might those from whom it was taken spend that money on? Perhaps three or four houses. Or a whole lot of things, big and small, according to the personal choices of those very people who earned the money in the first place. That unrealized cornucopia is what Frederic Bastiat referred to as “that which is not seen.”

Lots of lessons here, some very obvious and others more hidden or implied: Don’t cry over spilt milk. Don’t let a past, unrecoverable cost hobble your future decision-making or forgo a better opportunity.

Failure to internalize sunk costs results in a waste of resources by short-circuiting market signals and creating the wrong incentives. (Unless you live in an infinitely bountiful Garden of Eden, this latter point should concern you.)

So now that we’ve learned these lessons, tell me which of the following proposals makes the most sense:

  1. Keep the federal flood insurance program in place. We’ve invested in it and can’t afford to kiss off those billions we’ve already spent.
  2. Kill the federal flood insurance program (or at least price it so that those who build in flood-prone areas pay the full costs of it). Anything less is just a welfare program, not insurance.

I think you know my druthers.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education and author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

Four Reasons the NFL is Dead Wrong on Protests [+Video]

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NFL football is the most popular American sport, so popular that only two days separate the end of one weekend on Monday Night Football and the beginning of the next on Thursday Night Football. The extension from formerly just a Sunday afternoon sport has meant the National Football League has become a giant money machine for players, owners and commissioners.

But the NFL has made what may ultimately become the fatal error of becoming an outward political entity. The NFL is now a full-bore politically liberal organization that — literally — bans dissent it disagrees with but allows protests its fan base disagrees with. It’s the classic modern liberal misreading of the American people.

The media establishment laughingly now wants to blame President Trump for the division in the country regarding the NFL, as though this all started last week. Trump certainly threw some gas on a fire, but all of us football fans have been watching with frustration the existing fire that was burning a divide in America.

The NFL, led by Commissioner Roger Goodell, could have doused the initial flames with a tiny tea cup of water. But it did not because it is now driven by a clearly manifested liberal ideology — and there is no better way to divide Americans and destroy a popular pastime than to do what it is doing.

Here are four reasons the NFL — from players to Commissioner Goodell — is dead wrong to be kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police killing black men.

1. NFL is overtly hypocritical in speech it bans

Remember, protesting is political speech. It is protected by 1st Amendment from government control and everyone cherishes that right. But it is not protected by private enterprises, such as sports leagues or businesses. The hypocrisy is clearly seen in what the NFL actually has stopped.

  • The NFL banned the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a decal last year on their helmets honoring the murdered Dallas police officers.
  • The NFL banned players from wearing socks with Sept. 11 on them in memorial of those killed in the 9-11 Islamist terrorist attacks.
  • The NFL forced Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III to turn his Christian T-Shirt inside out for a press conference.

Let’s not pretend this is free speech or protest. This is some free speech and protest. The NFL is more than happy to come down like a sledgehammer on speech that might, in the most general way, be considered right of center politically. But it then allows speech that might broadly be considered left of center.

This makes the NFL leadership a classic modern liberal organization acting in political ways to further an agenda with no adherence whatsoever to principles. They are closer to the anti-free speech codes on college campuses than they are to their fan base. This represents an ongoing problem for the League.

2. NFL is killing its ratings

Viewership and attendance at NFL games continues to decline as the protests continue to escalate. In fact, they cratered this past weekend in a way that ought to be shocking to League leadership.

The Associate Press reports:

“Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said on Tuesday. Nielsen said the games averaged 17.63 million viewers for the first three weeks of last season, and have dipped to 15.65 million this year.”

That is a drop of two million viewers year over year. The hugely popular Sunday Night Football game dropped 8 percent compared to just the previous week, when it was already down from last year.

3. NFL is killing its loyal fan base

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow prays after the Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime in the NFL AFC wildcard playoff football game in Denver, Colorado, January 8, 2012. REUTERS/Marc Piscotty

In response to the entire Pittsburgh Steelers’ team (minus one Army Ranger veteran) staying off the field for the National Anthem, a wave of long-time, hardcore Steelers fans have been burning Steelers jackets, hats and other gear. One fan since 1966 burned all of his Steelers’ stuff.

Season-ticket holders around the country burned their expensive and once-beloved tickets.

And somewhat eye-openingly, New England Patriots’ fans loudly booed players kneeling for the National Anthem. The boos just cascaded down onto the field in waves.

It’s one thing for fans from a blue-collar, rust-belt flyover city like Pittsburgh to do this. But in elite, liberal coastal Boston? Yes. Because football fans are on average to the right of center politically, and certainly when it comes to patriotism and national symbols.

The NFL seems unaware of this.

One Steelers player now famously stood in the tunnel with his hand over his heart during the National Anthem. Starting offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva was an Army Ranger before entering the NFL, serving three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

Last season, he made comments critical of San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose anthem protest lit the fire for other players to follow suit. “I don’t know if the most effective way is to sit down during the national anthem with a country that’s providing you freedom, providing you $16 million a year … when there are black minorities that are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for less than $20,000 a year,” Villanueva told ESPN.

By last Monday afternoon, the largely unknown offensive lineman’s jersey was the best-selling jersey in the NFL, beating out Tom Brady and other household names.

That is fans openly communicating in clear terms to the League that they do not support what it is allowing. The NFL apparently has forgotten that there is no NFL without the fans. But the fans have not forgotten. And they are putting the League on notice.

4. Last but not least, the actual issue being protested is a myth

We are told that there is an epidemic of cops killing unarmed black men. This storyline is the genesis for Black Lives Matter, but more to the point, it is the initial issue driving the kneeling or sitting during the National Anthem.

But it’s not true.

The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley, a black columnist, explains through facts and data — not anecdotes and perceptions — what most of the media refuses to.

“In New York City, home to the nation’s largest police force, officer-involved shootings have fallen by more than 90% since the early 1970s, and national trends have been similarly dramatic.

“A Justice Department report published in 2001 noted that between 1976 and 1998, the teen and adult population grew by 47 million people, and the number of police officers increased by more than 200,000, yet the number of people killed by police “did not generally rise” over this period. Moreover, a ‘growing percentage of felons killed by police are white, and a declining percentage are black.” A separate Justice study released in 2011 also reported a decline in killings by police, between 1980 and 2008. And according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate at which police kill blacks has fallen by 70% since the late 1960s.”

Heather MacDonald, of the Manhattan Institute, is a foremost researcher on the issue and reports stunning facts opposite of the media/Democrat narrative. For instance, 12 percent of white and Hispanic homicide victims are killed by cops. But only 4 percent of black homicide victims are killed by cops. A police officer is 18 times more likely to be killed by an armed black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer. You can see many more of her stats at this Prager U video:

These are facts, not emotions or perceptions or Youtube videos. It’s understood that Democrats do not use contextual facts that actually tell the full truth because dividing by race has been a political ploy for three generations now. The media, essentially Democrats with press credentials, also doesn’t report contextual facts. Social media is social media.

So here’s another fun fact that can be used even on Twitter: A black person is more likely to be hit by lightning than to be killed by a cop in the United States of America. That’s how rare it is.

Yet because of social media and unconscionable hyper media coverage of individual events, blacks now think that if they are pulled over by a cop there’s a good chance they will be shot. This is the alleged “social injustice” that has brought NFL players to disrespect the flag, the National Anthem and the country that has given them freedom and wealth and hope.

NFL fans understand this, at least at the gut level. If the NFL doesn’t get its act in line with its fan base — which represents an awful lot of Americans — it will stop being the most popular sport in the nation. And it will do so for no sound reason but partisan politics.

Just the worst.

RELATED ARTICLE: Boycott the NFL on Veterans Weekend, Sunday, November 12th

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Cuban doctors tired of ‘being slaves’ sue Cuban Government

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As former Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy stupid!” For the Cuban people it truly is the economy, stupid.

Perhaps a few of my first hand experiences during my visit to Cuba will help those who favor big government understand where “socialismo” leads.

One of the things some people, many of whom have never visited Cuba, tout is their “excellent” healthcare system. Let me explain about the Cuban single payer government healthcare system. First, every visitor to Cuba must purchase health insurance from the Cuban government. For example, the cost of my health insurance was automatically included in the price of my plane ticket. So how much does the Cuban government pay its doctors to provide universal healthcare? The salary of a doctor is $30 a month.

In 2013 Brazil hired 4,000 doctors from Cuba to “work in areas where medical services and physicians are scarce.” These Cuban doctors were to be paid approximately $30,000 a year to provide medical services to remote areas of Brazil. According to U.S. News & World Report, “Analysts say the export of medical services adds about $6 billion a year to Cuba’s economy.”

How does this work? Brazil paid the Cuban government the $30,000 annual salaries of the Cuban doctors and the Cuban government then paid the doctors $30 a month or $360 a year. This equates to an 83% profit for the Cuban government. Not surprisingly many of these Cuban doctors sought asylum in Brazil to be paid what they actually earned, $30,000.

In socialist governments the “minimum wage” inextricably becomes the prevailing wage.

Ernesto Londono in his New York Times article “Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’” reports:

RIO DE JANEIRO — In a rare act of collective defiance, scores of Cuban doctors working overseas to make money for their families and their country are suing to break ranks with the Cuban government, demanding to be released from what one judge called a “form of slave labor.”

Thousands of Cuban doctors work abroad under contracts with the Cuban authorities. Countries like Brazil pay the island’s Communist government millions of dollars every month to provide the medical services, effectively making the doctors Cuba’s most valuable export.

But the doctors get a small cut of that money, and a growing number of them in Brazil have begun to rebel. In the last year, at least 150 Cuban doctors have filed lawsuits in Brazilian courts to challenge the arrangement, demanding to be treated as independent contractors who earn full salaries, not agents of the Cuban state.

“When you leave Cuba for the first time, you discover many things that you had been blind to,” said Yaili Jiménez Gutierrez, one of the doctors who filed suit. “There comes a time when you get tired of being a slave.”

Read more.

What I observed is that the Cuban people have great potential if they are unleashed and allowed to earn what they are truly worth.

As one Cuban man put it to me, “the people have no love for their work.” They have no love for their work because Cuba needs a change in direction. This change in direction will only come when there is a change of the socialist regime.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Twelve Reasons Why Cuba Is A Terrorist Nation And Is A Security Treat To The USA