It’s difficult to say what’s more striking about President Obama’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation:its breathtaking radicalism, the refusal of the press to cover it, or its potential political ramifications. The danger AFFH poses to Democrats explains why the press barely mentions it. This lack of curiosity, in turn, explains why the revolutionary nature of the rule has not been properly understood. Ultimately, the regulation amounts to back-door annexation, a way of turning America’s suburbs into tributaries of nearby cities.
This has been Obama’s purpose from the start. In Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities, I explain how a young Barack Obama turned against the suburbs and threw in his lot with a group of Alinsky-style community organizers who blamed suburban tax-flight for urban decay. Their bible was Cities Without Suburbs, by former Albuquerque mayor David Rusk. Rusk, who works closely with Obama’s Alinskyite mentors and now advises the Obama administration, initially called on cities to annex their surrounding suburbs. When it became clear that outright annexation was a political non-starter, Rusk and his followers settled on a series of measures designed to achieve de facto annexation over time.
The plan has three elements: 1) Inhibit suburban growth, and when possible encourage suburban re-migration to cities. This can be achieved, for example, through regional growth boundaries (as in Portland), or by relative neglect of highway-building and repair in favor of public transportation. 2) Force the urban poor into the suburbs through the imposition of low-income housing quotas. 3) Institute “regional tax-base sharing,” where a state forces upper-middle-class suburbs to transfer tax revenue to nearby cities and less-well-off inner-ring suburbs (as in Minneapolis/St. Paul).
That’s a lot of lawn cutters, roofers, and dishwashers.
“Where L.A. goes is where the rest of the state goes and where the rest of the country goes.We announce, demographically speaking, the future for the rest of the country.” –Roberto Suro, director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC.
I find Cornel West, a black professor, complaining of White Supremacy, which he believes our black President needs to remedy. Obama, he says, is “niggerized.”
“A niggerized black person is a black person who is afraid and scared and intimidated when it comes to putting a spotlight on white supremacy and fighting against white supremacy,” West said.
I would like to explain to Professor West a few things about this dread supremacy:
We have White Supremacy, Professor, because for 2500 years we, whites, have produced the best minds on the planet, the greatest flourishing of the arts and sciences ever seen, the most complex and organized societies. We have White Supremacy, whatever exactly it may be, because we have been the earth’s most successful race. No other has come close. Deal with it.
With all the recent troubles we’re again being invited to an honest and open conversation about race, or said differently, the browbeatings will be resumed. Try this for honest and open: many of us, probably most of us, are tired of your whining, your so-called grievances, your violence and crime, your insults and threats, your witless blather and pornographic demeanor—all of it. You’re not quite 13% of the population yet everything has to be about you, all day, every day. With you, facts aren’t facts, everything’s a kozmik krisis, and abusive confrontations are your go-to.
Here’s the thing: some of us despise you, although fewer than you believe, but most of us plain don’t care about you or your doings. There was a time when we did care, but you betrayed our good will and played us for fools. We laugh about it now, but we actually believed you wanted equal opportunity and mutual respect and to live in harmony—all that stuff. Ain’t it a hoot? Imagine our embarrassment.
We talk among ourselves just like you do. It’s true, we have “frank and open discussions” when you’re not around. Why? Partly because it’s exhausting to tippy-toe around you. Partly because you think it’s your celestial right to tell us what we can say. And partly because you’re alarmingly aggressive or painfully dim-witted by turns. We never know which “you” will pop out of the box, or when. But mainly because you’ve revealed yourself as grasping opportunists without honor or principle. There’s your deal-breaker. There’s more.
During the recent riots you expected us to believe heisting snack food then torching the place was “standing up for justice”. When we didn’t buy it, you told us the looting and arson wasn’t done by the rioters after all, no, all the bad stuff was done by rioters from out of town. Apparently you think it makes a difference to us. And if we don’t fall for that one, you tell us you’re the real victims, you’re the ones “hit hardest” because the neighborhoods you looted and burned are, um, looted and burned.
Breitbart: A white man in Baltimore was sitting in his car when two female er, teens got into a fight. To continue this enterprise they climbed atop his car, perhaps mistaking it for a tree. He got out and asked them to take their dispute somewhere else, whereupon fifty er, teens beat him nearly to death, leaving him with $200,000-$400,000 in medical bills. The daily grind. Life as usual. If fifty whites similarly beat an er, teen, cities would burn and the media would go crazy. In this case, silence will prevail. American-Africans can do no wrong. But something is wrong in America..
We read over and over of the Culture Wars, and the War between the Sexes, of Red States and Blue States, as if these were amusing disputes between parents and adolescents in a sitcom. Methinks something far uglier and more dangerous brews.
Almost daily, friends send me links to accounts of what seem to them, and to me, lunacy, usually accompanied by notes expressing incredulity and—this will matter one day–anger. The stories deal with things utterly repugnant to much of the country, especially the South and West, the blue collar, the military, and much of the Mid-West:: racial lawlessness, glorification of every sexual weirdity anyone can imagine, hostility to Christianity (but not to Judaism or Islam), phony charges of rape, compulsory Ritalin-ingestion, grotesque affirmative action in the hiring of cops and firemen, attacks on academic standards, little boys dragged from school in handcuffs for drawing a soldier, the anti-gun crusade, the truffle-hound search for “stereotypes” and discrimination, and the denigration of masculinity and every aspect of white European culture.
And, always, always, the suppression of news of the unending vicious attacks by er, teens, on whites. This latter goes beyond bias into undeclared censorship. Er, teens can loot, burn, and rape, and not much happens to them, but if you are white and say “nigger” in an email, you lose your job.
We have two countries that do not like each other at all.
There was a protest yesterday in Philly. The organizers surely don’t sense the irony of their slogan for the rally – PHILLY IS BALTIMORE. They are right, but for reasons they refuse to acknowledge or comprehend.
The march started at 40th street in University City and proceeded down Locust Walk through the University of Penn campus. I wonder why these protestors weren’t at work in the middle of the afternoon. I guess they all used vacation days to protest the death of Freddie Gray and let us all know that black lives matter.
It’s funny, because a black cop was gunned down in cold blood by two black thugs a month ago in North Philly and there were no protests. Not a peep from the black community. It’s funny, because a white man walking his dog was slaughtered by two black Overbrook High honor students in West Philly a month ago and there were no protests. White people didn’t burn down their CVS as retribution. Black people are murdering other black people on a daily basis in Philly, but there are no protests. But an incident that took place 120 miles away in another city is reason for protest in Philly?
Marketwatch posted an article this week titled Why the American Dream is Unraveling, in 4 charts. As usual, the MSM journalist and the liberal Harvard academic can create charts that reveal a huge problem, but they completely misdiagnose the causes and offer the typical wrong solution of taking more money from producers and handing it to the poor, with no strings attached. This has been the standard operating procedure since LBJ began his War on Poverty 50 years ago. Do these control freaks ever step back and assess how that war is going?
The poverty rate had plunged from 34% in 1950 to below 20% before LBJ ever declared war. It continued down to 15% just as the welfare programs began to be implemented. The percentage of people living in poverty hasn’t budged from the 15% range since the war began. This war has been just as successful as the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. Any time a politician declares war on something, expect a huge price tag and more of the “problem” they are declaring war upon.
The Federal government runs over 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. Over 100 million Americans received benefits from at least one of these programs. Federal and state governments spent $943 billion in 2013 on these programs at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient (not including Social Security & Medicare). That is 27% of the total Federal budget. Welfare spending as a percentage of the Federal budget was less than 2% prior to the launch of the War on Poverty.
In the 50 years since this war started, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution. In terms of LBJ’s main goal of reducing the “causes” rather than the mere “consequences” of poverty, the War on Poverty has utterly failed. In fact, a large proportion of the population is now completely dependent upon government handouts, incapable of self-sufficiency, and enslaved in a welfare mentality that has destroyed their communities.
The powers that be can’t wait for another round of Ferguson upheaval to distract the masses from the ongoing economic debacle. They love these race events that get whites and blacks fired up and not focused on the true enemies on Wall Street and K Street.
Religious leaders speak to police officers during a demonstration at the Ferguson Police Department in Ferguson, Missouri, October 13, 2014. (Reuters/Jim Young)
Gun shops near Ferguson, Missouri are reporting a surge in sales as residents wait to hear if a local police officer will be charged in the death of an unarmed teenager. State Gov. Jay Nixon has vowed a strong response to potential protests and violence.
Retailers like Metro Shooting Supplies in Bridgeton, MO have seen gun sales triple in recent days, KMOV News reported this week, and similar shops throughout the region are reporting that items are flying off the shelves, apparently amidst fears that the impending grand jury decision concerning Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson may rekindle violent demonstrations.
Sales on Friday were at a “fevered pitch,” Metro’s Steven King told KMOV, with the store selling over 100 guns in only three days instead of a more routine 30 weapons or so.
“This is very abnormal,” King told the station. “With all the rumors on the internet, they are saying every neighborhood is unsafe, there is a possibility of a strike in any neighborhood.”
According to CNN, similar shops in the Show-Me State are experiencing the same type of uptake as a grand jury gets closer to deciding if Wilson will be indicted over the officer-involved shooting death of Michael Brown, 18, earlier this year. A shooting range in Bridgeton visited by the network, for example, said sales there had surged by up to 50 percent within recent days; Dan McMullen, a local insurance man, told the station that he brings an “extra gun” with him to his Ferguson office now after demonstrations in town during the last few weeks left businesses looted or, worse, burned to the ground.
“So maybe I get trapped here or something and have to have a John Wayne shootout,” McMullen told CNN with a smile. “That’s the silly part about it: Is that going to happen? Not a chance. But I guess, could it? I’m the only white person here.”
The August 9 incident that left Brown dead quickly spawned protests not just in Ferguson but around the world as anger grew among Americans outraged over the absence of charges filed against Wilson, 28. Those demonstrations, which at times became violent, attracted not just thousands of demonstrators, but a gauntlet of highly armed police officials who garnered attention in their own right, not over the potential case against Wilson, but rather the law enforcement response than has largely been labeled as overly excessive.
Now with a grand jury reportedly days, if not moments away from announcing whether or not Wilson will be charged, Missourians seem fearful that a similar showdown may soon erupt.
“Every time that door opens, we’re seeing new faces,” John Stephenson of the Metro Shooting Range in Bridgeton told CNN, citing specifically what the network described as concerns over the grand jury response.
With respect to home defense shotguns sold at Metro, Stephenson told CNN, “We’ve sold tons.”
But Sgt. Brian Schellman of the St. Louis County Police Department warned the network that the influx of weapons in Ferguson could prove problematic, even if just one person perturbed over the grand jury verdict acts out their frustration.
“It only takes one in 10 with bad intentions to make the entire situation spiral out of control,” he said. “A few protesters take it above and beyond not just aimed at police anymore, but sometimes these threats are going against police officers’ families.”
Indeed, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles even went as far as to warn local media this week that authorities must “prepare for the worst“ as the city awaits a new series of demonstrations that may rival what was seen after the Aug. 9 killing.
“I think you have to prepare for the worst, but I think we all hope the best out of people,” Knowles said. “I don’t believe that there is even a small fraction of residents in the city of Ferguson who want to do any damage or harm to any other residents or to any businesses…the concern would be who comes (from) outside the area.”
Previously, King from Metro and other area gun retailers said they saw a similar spike in gun sales in mid-August and the Ferguson protests began to take hold. On Tuesday this week, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said over 1,000 officers have received specialized training in crowd control since the last major round of protests, and said “Violence will not be tolerated” when the Darren Wilson decision is finally made, which may come as early as this week.
Missouri Gov.: past ‘ugliness’ cannot be repeated
Meanwhile, Governor Jay Nixon announced on Tuesday that the state would be ready to quickly respond to any reports of violence that may occur in the wake of the grand jury decision. The National Guard will be on standby and ready to intervene, if necessary, he said.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
Nixon added that 1,000 officers have taken part in new training procedures specifically intended to deal with protests. So far, they have logged some 5,000 hours learning new procedures and preparing for whatever may happen when the decision is revealed.
Referring to clashes between protesters and police that occurred in the weeks after Brown’s death, Nixon said it would be unacceptable for similar events to unfold again.
“That ugliness was not representative of Missouri and it cannot be repeated,” Nixon said, as quoted by Reuters. “These measures are not being taken because we are convinced that violence will occur, but because we have a responsibility to prepare for any contingency.”
While Nixon did not delve into specifics, he emphasized that the civil rights of protesters will not be violated should they take to the streets. Previously, a federal judge ruled that officers did violate the rights of demonstrators when they threatened arrests if people did not move after a few seconds.
Nixon reiterated that protests would be permitted so long as they are peaceful.
“This is America,” he said. “People have the right to express their views and grievances, but they do not have the right to place their fellow citizens and property at risk.”
