Sleepless in Midland

Mark J. Perry celebrates Milton Friedman's 104th birthday with some great quotes

My favorite living economist celebrates my favorite dead economist. Go to Happy 104th birthday, Milton Friedman to share the festivities and see some great quotes.

Samples:

1. There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program. ...
4. Sloppy writing reflects sloppy thinking. ...
7. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property. ...

These are just a few teasers. See the whole list to more fully appreciate his genius of articulating brilliant concepts in concise, understandable sentences.

Let's hope American socialists are learning the right lessons from Venezuela

The only candidate who actually admitted to being a socialist was the defeated Bernie Sanders. But Hillary Clinton, who aspires to a third Obama term, certainly bumps up against socialist principles with her own promises. You know the ones: free college tuition, free medicare and more entitlements in general. If some Americans want it, she promised it to them to get their votes.

The sad news from the socialist world of Venezuela is that President Maduro may order citizens to work on the farms to alleviate food shortages. This provides a good example of the famous lesson that socialism works just fine until you run out of other people's money.

Will Democrats learn from that? If those person-on-the-street interviews we see on TV are any clue, it's doubtful that many even know what's going on there.

But hey, maybe it will work here. I don't mean socialism, I mean citizens working on the farm. Nah, probably not. Unfortunately, these may be the jobs that Americans won't do. Americans have become too accustomed to demonstrating in the streets to get what they want. If it isn't forthcoming, then the demonstration becomes a shelf clearing riot. Good times ahead, for sure.

Guns in New York City -- 1932 nothing unusual

The reliable VCR captured a 1932 movie the other day titled The Tenderfoot starring Joe E. Brown. It was about a laughable Texan visiting New York City who caught the eye of some theatrical producers who thought they could con him out of his savings. (Spoiler alert: They did, but he got the last laugh.)

But here's what got my attention. The character played by Brown was Calvin Jones from Beesville, Rawhide County, Texas. Funny enough for olden days, but what makes it hilarious today was that he bought his guns to town, and no one gave it a second thought.

Here he is retrieving his two six-guns from the hat check girl at a lunch counter and boasting that he could put a hole in a plum at 200 paces without making a wrinkle.

What a contrast with today. Mayor de Blasio would have a cow -- a Texas longhorn, for sure. Mr. Jones would be doing felony time, his lawyers would have his savings, and the town would be no safer.

Mix Sharia law with national healthcare and Sharia comes out on top

Carol Brown has an eyeopening article at Americanthinker.com. See Creeping Sharia in Health Care. Opening paragraph:

Islamic supremacy is arriving in medical settings using stealth means, or what is often referred to as creeping sharia. Common themes include Muslim health care workers refusing to uphold infection control protocols, Muslim medical students refusing to study topics they deem forbidden according to Islamic law, Muslim visitors in hospitals ignoring hygiene guidelines to protect patients, and hospitals bending over backwards (or is it forwards?) to accommodate Muslim demands above and beyond anything done for members of any other religious or demographic group. Also covered are outright acts of violence perpetrated by Muslim men who attack hospital personnel.

And when they don't get their way, they sue.

They've had an easy time in Canada, Britain, and Europe with a welcoming government which happens to be in charge of healthcare. But it's creeping up on us here in the U.S.A. where millions of Muslim immigrants have settled in communities that are barely distinguishable from the communities they left behind.

Call me old fashioned, but the way of life in American is just fine without huge chunks of people believing that their religion is supreme when it bumps up against the Constitution, the rule of law, and common sense healthcare guidelines.

Texas voter photo ID law itself is not so bad, but it is hard to get the ID

Democrats like to use the South as the whipping boy about race -- perhaps it's a way of cleansing the part about the Democratic party being the party of the slave owners. In any event, the Texas law requiring photo IDs to vote now serves as the whip. And we end up with 5th Circuit decisions like the one in Veasey v. Abbott which has put the law on hold based on the possibility of racial discrimination. If there is any justice in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court should overrule that holding, but as Richard A. Epstein says about that, the odds are 4-4.

That said, photo IDs are somewhat hard to get in Texas. I was tasked with helping an elderly woman secure a photo ID so she could get a copy of her car title. And the documentation requirement is severe. A relative of hers was able to find a certified copy of her birth certificate, and without that we may not have been able to get the photo ID.

But here's the catch. She's a white woman. So the law really doesn't discriminate unless you apply the erroneous assumption that minorities have a harder time securing copies of their birth certificates than non-minorities. But I suppose that if you include illegal immigrants in the description of minorities, then yeah, there might be some difficulty.

This might be good news -- Trump's presidential plan includes turning the important stuff over to someone else

Jonah Goldberg probably did the most to get this story into the mainstream with Trump’s Inclination to Outsource Policy.

The most dramatic headline came from Greeleegazzette blog: Bombshell: Trump Would Delegate Presidency to Vice-President if Elected, According to Kasich.

But Dispatch.com got the scoop in Trump's offer to Kasich to be running mate: Be in charge of both domestic, foreign policy.

If the anonymous sources can be trusted, Donald's son made overtures to John Kasich's people to persuade Kasich to run as Trump's vice president. The "bombshell" was that Kasich would be expected to basically run everything while Trump jet-setted around the world making America great again.

The Trump building empire is impressive. And there had to have been some serious work involved in getting it done. However, Trump is the guy who hires the guy who hires the guy who hires the contractor who hires the subcontractors and on and on. Donald Trump probably never picked up a tool except for a photo op. That's OK. We haven't really expected to see hard work on a prospective president's resume in quite some time. And we don't really expect him to know where every nut and bolt went. But the Trump empire is there, nonetheless.

Goldberg thinks it's a bad thing that Trump wants to farm out the hard work. On the contrary, it's a good thing that Trump is contemplating with whom to surround himself to get the best ideas and advice. The alternative is Hillary Clinton who surrounds herself with people who are afraid to disagree with her.

Fiercely Conservative -- how Associated Press sees Texas

In the morning paper --
An AP article about the recent court decision invalidating Texas' voter ID law described Texas voters as "fiercely conservative." AP'a true color came through on that one (hint: Blue).

It's hard to imagine them describing some of the hard core Democrat states as "fiercely liberal." Perhaps it's because Democrats are less inclined to act for themselves than they are to rely on the government for everything. But that's mere speculation. Because they sure did demonstrate some ferocity in Minnesota when Scott Walker took away some of their government goodies.

Neither President Trump nor Clinton seem too inclined to tackle the entitlement issue, so we probably aren't likely to see much emotion from anyone other than the special interest groups who might get snared in one or more of those candidates' campaign promises.

In any event, I like it. "Fiercely conservative," as in, "Don't mess with Texas." The question on many of our minds is, "Will it last?" At least one famous commentator thinks it won't. See Will Texas become another brick in the Democrats’ blue wall? by George Will.

As for the Texas voter ID law, it's a tough law. Most of us have a photo ID and don't think much about it. However, I know first hand how difficult it is to secure a photo ID for someone who doesn't have one. More on that in the future.

Kids and pets aren't the only things we shouldn't leave in a hot car

Anyone who has had to leave his/her car out in the sun during this blistering 100 degree heat we've had out here in West Texas knows that the inside of vehicle can become an oven. Too often we see stories of cooked kids and pets. And of course, we all want to avoid that.

There are other hazards caused by the heat. Accuweather.com provides this list of 5 surprising items that can become dangerous when left in a hot car. Spoiler: Sunscreen, glasses, drinks, medication, and wet swimwear. (Most of these are obvious. As for the swimwear, wrap in a towel and grow your own bacteria.)

Finally, here's my favorite sunshine story. Seems this building in London -- called the Walkie Talkie building because of its shape -- had curved walls that reflected sunlight down below. Some poor guy parked his Jaguar on the street and ended up with warped plastic parts. See Reflected light from London skyscraper melts car.

Now it's true that some sports cars look like they've been left out in the sun too long. But in this instance, it wasn't the metal body that melted, just the plastic molding and mirror housing.

Meanwhile, John Kerry wants us to turn off our air conditioners. HA HA! You first, Secretary Kerry.

Fat chance he'll demonstrate that particular bromide for us.

If that's what the KGB released on Hillary, is that their best shot?

The Wikileaks disclosure of the DNC emails is telling. Krauthammer says on FOX news this is the kind of intrusion into local politics that Russia does in the countries the West doesn't care about. Yet here it is in the USA. That's scary enough.

But if they're playing the email card against Hillary now. Are they telling us that's the best they can do considering what they must have purloined from that infamous private server?

Most of us thought they would hold the best stuff back until Hillary got elected then use it to blackmail her. That seems to be wrong. Those KGB guys are smart. So there has to be something they think would serve them better with a Trump administration.

Krauthammer thinks it's the diminution and possible dissolution of NATO. Boy. This international intrigue is so much more entertaining when it's a trained CIA agent up there on the TV screen wrecking havoc all over the Russian empire.  Instead we've got a sloppy former Secretary of State more concerned with FOIA than the KGB.

More evidence Trump played Cruz, but why?

Donald Trump allowed Ted Cruz to deliver a pre-planned speech. But Trump's people orchestrated a booing campaign near the end of the speech. So for Cruz it ended on a down note. Next thing you know Trump is excoriating Cruz on national TV.

Ben Shapiro has the skinny in a blow by blow account at EXCLUSIVE: Cruz Camp: Trump Campaign Approved Speech, 'Orchestrated' RNC Blowback To 'Make Cruz a Pariah'.

As for Trump's claim that Cruz added words to the pre-planned speech, see those words at Trump is right, Ted Cruz DID add a line to his speech. Those added words seem rather innocuous. About all they did was change the total word count. Apparently, that's all it took to bring Trump to a boil.

But why did Trump go ballistic on Cruz? Here are some possible reasons:

-Cruz will be a force to be reckoned with in the Senate.
-Trump will try to increase presidential powers with executive orders and heaven knows what else. Cruz will attempt to halt or slow him down.
-We don't know what kinds of judges Trump will appoint. Cruz will try to block the squishy ones in favor of those who support the Constitutional.
-Cruz isn't afraid to filibuster.
-Finally, Cruz requested that voters vote their consciences. Team Trump must believe that voters will be violating their consciences if they vote for Trump.

Trump really must feel threatened by Cruz.

War on terror -- learning from General Wm. Tecumseh Sherman

There's an informative and thought provoking article at atimes.com titled Nice attack: Why the terrorists are winning the intelligence war — Spengler.

There, David P. Goldman informs us that a common tactic used by French anti-terror squads is to grab a common criminal who is Muslim and turn him into an informant against terrorists. So far so good. But it seems that the radical Islamists are good at finding out who they are then turning them again. The caught spy is given an opportunity to redeem himself by becoming a suicide murderer, taking as many infidels with him as he can to martyr himself for the prophet.

The truck driver/terrorist who plowed down all those innocents in Nice a week or so ago reportedly wasn't a full bore Islamist, i.e., he was an ordinary criminal who missed prayers, didn't know the Koran, drank alcohol, etc. So this explanation certainly seems plausible in his case.

Be that as it may, the most intriguing part of Mr. Goldman's post was his suggestions for ending terrorism. It's very simple, and many of us have thought it, read it, or heard of it before. And that's to make the Muslim population more afraid of us than they are of the radical Islamists.

Learn from Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Phil Sheridan and their scorched earth tactics that defeated the Confederacy in the Civil War. There was no political incorrectness about their tactics as they were "on the right side of history." Besides, political correctness hadn't yet been invented. Goldman explains how to put it into present day practice:

The way to win the war is to frighten the larger community of Muslims who passively support terror by action or inaction–frighten them so badly that they will inform on family members. Frightening the larger Muslim population in the West does not require a great deal of effort: a few thousand deportations would do. Western intelligence services do not even have to deport the right people; the wrong people know who they are, and so do many of their neighbors. The ensuing conversation is an easy one to have. “I understand that your nephew is due for deportation, Hussein, and I believe you when you tell me that he has done nothing wrong. I might be able to help you. But you have to help me. Give me something I can use–and don’t waste my time by making things up, or I swear that I’ll deport you, too. If you don’t have any information, then find out who does.”

I like this part:

We prefer to think about winning hearts and minds. Winning the hearts and minds of a people, though, isn’t difficult once they fear you.

He's basically saying that the French anti-terror squads are on the right track, they just need to be able to make threats that produce fears substantial enough to allow the subject to resist getting converted back into radicalism.

Here in the U.S., President Trump's threat to shut the door to Muslims from suspect regions was a good start.

Ted Cruz got played

It's looking more and more like Ted Cruz got played by Donald Trump. He was invited to speak at the convention. Trump got an advance copy of the speech. Trump made an entrance around the time Cruz pleaded for a vote of the conscience. And some in the crowd erupted in "spontaneous" booing.

Thursday the talk shows were all about how Ted Cruz shot himself in the foot. Well, he did. But it was well orchestrated by a reality show impresario. Cruz pulled the trigger, but the way it was set up it was like accidentally pushing over a stack of dominoes.

Cruz got played by Donald Trump. No question here of who is the better politician. The question of who would make the better president won't get answered.

BLM should hope for a Trump victory if they expect to exist after election

Remember Code Pink? Cindy Sheehan? The anti-war movement that got so much media coverage during the Bush administration? After the election they vanished from our TV screens. They didn't go away, they just lost their coverage and as a result, their funding and momentum. Code Pink is trying for a comeback, but there's no place for them in the current election cycle.

That's the route Black Lives Matter is on. Once they've served their purpose -- getting a Democrat elected president -- they're done. The media and Democrat biggies won't need them. They'll lose the TV coverage, and they'll become has-beens.

If they want to avoid that fate they should hope for a Trump victory.

Candy-gram for Mongo -- robot bomb delivery for Dallas shooter

The active shooter situation in Dallas -- in which five police officers were murdered -- was resolved when the shooter was dispatched with a fist full of C4 delivered by remote control robot.

According to one TV report, CNN I think, the robot carried the explosive up to the opposite side of a cinder block wall against which the killer was leaning. The explosive was discharged, and the killer was killed.

For some reason commentators are concerned about what they perceive as an ethical issue. Apparently, they think a killer shouldn't be killed unless the police officer puts him/self at risk. Some ethical issue.

News flash: By ambushing his opponents, the killer essentially waived the gentleman's rules of dueling. Or more to the point, violate the rules of decency and all rules are off.

Meanwhile, long time readers of Sleepless in Midland will remember our fondness for police robots. See previously:
Fire in the Hole;
The 1st annual MPD Open House; and
MPD Open house.

Shepherd Smith as Fox News gap filler is doing a lousy job

Mike Rowe once described the test he had to take for a job as a host on a TV shopping show. He was handed a pencil and asked to talk about it, indefinitely. That's what the job entailed, and that's what an applicant had to be able to do.

Apparently, TV news channel hosts have to do the same thing, and it must not be that easy as Fox News Channel always assigns the job to Shepherd Smith when there's day long coverage of a single event. Problem is, since he doesn't have a script and isn't required to promote any product, he makes it a Shepherd Smith opinion piece.

We probably remember how bad his reporting was during the hurricane Katrina coverage. Now we have him trying to cover the murders of the police officers in Baton Rouge. Turns out he felt entitled to criticize Bobby Jindal for saying "All lives matter." Not everyone was thrilled. See ‘Shepard Smith is a damn idiot!’ Unforgivable fight with Jindal after ambush has people calling Fox News!.

John Ziegler provided a clue for why the networks do that in By the Way, I Am Right About the News Media Being Afraid to Offend Blacks With the Truth.

If only those talking heads could stick to reporting the news and quit trying to shape the news.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, politicians created a monster with BLM that they can't control

Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" certainly became an apt metaphor. Is that what she intended, or was that merely a byproduct?

In the story, Dr. Frankenstein was smart enough to create a monster, but he wasn't smart enough to control it. Destruction resulted.

The Black Lives Matter movement is the modern day Frankenstein, reaping havoc in its path with hardly a week passing without police officers being murdered. George Soros is supposed to have been an early funding source and is probably still feeding the monster.

Then there's President Barack Obama. Those supporters of his who thought he would bring some racial unity sure got it wrong. He has been egging BLM on for quite some time. And only recently has he actually appeared to be serious about reining them in. Does he really mean it? This is an election year after all, and if he wants to help Hillary he will want to mobilize black voters. The BLM movement probably looked like a pretty good vehicle for that. So it's hard to imagine that he wants to do anything other than get the killings off the headlines.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, he's trying to control the monster. And like Dr. Frankenstein, he's helpless against the momentum he helped create.

Worst president ever.

A cowgirl with a gun in Nice stopped the attack, who was that masked woman --- hey I can dream can't I?

Imagine this: There was a Texan in the crowd at Nice the day of the truck attack. She doesn't go anywhere without her Glock .40 caliber handgun, and somehow she got it into France for the Bastille Day celebration.

When the murderous Islamic killer drove his truck through the crowd of tourists in Nice our Texan jumped on the running board of the truck and pumped a few rounds into the driver. The truck came to dead stop with a dead driver and minimal casualties.

The Texan escaped into the night because she knew she would be prosecuted if she were caught.

Who was that masked woman? I'll never tell.

The fruits of prohibition -- bathtub gin and synthetic marijuana

The first episode of season 2 of The Making of the Mob was on the other night, and looks like it will be about the Chicago mob -- season 1 was about the NY mob.  Anyway, that episode contained some interesting tidbits about Al Capone. But it ended as Capone and his mentor bought a brewery after alcohol prohibition commenced.

Most of us know some or all of the story already, and one unfortunate part of the history of prohibition repeated itself the other day. Seems that several people collapsed around the same time after consuming some synthetic marijuana. See 33 people suspected of overdosing on synthetic marijuana over 11-hour period in Brooklyn.

Did that remind anyone of bathtub gin? According to the legend, entrepreneurs attempted making alcohol at home. The name suggests it was gin made in the bathtub. At any rate, according to the legend, it not only tasted bad, it sometimes caused blindness or death.

The small lesson should be that people shouldn't experiment with stuff like that. But the bigger lesson is that if you prohibit something people want, many will seek a way around it in spite of the risk to their health.

Is that all they've got? FBI agents' outrage over Clinton non-prosecution certainly was tepid

I forget which Fox legal commentator promised that agents in the FBI will be outraged and that there would be mass walkouts if Hillary Clinton escaped prosecution. That certainly did turn out to be wrong.

Now we learn that some FBI agents are leaking their opinions to the NY Post. If it's real and not a hoax, it certainly is a mild protest. See Report: FBI Agents Privately Believe Lynch, Clinton Struck ‘An Inside Deal’:

The Post cites anonymous sources in the FBI who claim that agents investigating Clinton were subject to higher-than-usual scrutiny. Agents had to sign “Case Briefing Acknowledgment” forms, non-disclosure agreements keeping them from speaking to anyone about the case unless called to testify. As a result, agents cannot go public with their opinions of the case, whether they agree with the final result or not.

Some of those agents privately tell the Post that they are “disappointed” with FBI director James Comey‘s decision not to recommend charges. Some were even more vocal: “FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” said one source.

Yeah, that's really socking it to them, agents. You sure gave Clinton and company a thing or two to think about. You betcha.

But you know what? We called it. See previously: So FBI agents are livid, huh? Just what are they going to do about it?.

The baby bust -- it was bound to happen with easy abortions

More people, more households, more dogs, but fewer children. This is a scary phenomenon to demographers. It means that if the population is increasing, it isn't because of babies being born. Joel Kotkin tells us about it in The Meaning of the Baby Bust. Other high income countries have experienced this, and now it's happening in the U.S. How will that affect us? Here's Kotkin:

Shifts in child bearing will profoundly affect our geography, politics and economic future. Children, after all, define our future society, and provide the primary motivation for parents and grandparents. Without a strong familial structure, we will be facing a rather grim future, as an expanding older population grows ever more dependent on a shrinking base of young working-age people. Demographer Sami Karam notes that the 1980s Reagan boom benefited from demographics of that period, with a rising proportion of working people to retirees. With trends headed the opposite way, he suggests, no such expansion may even be possible today.

The recession is probably the greatest factor causing this baby bust. And easy abortions certainly must contribute to it. But look at this. Birth Control Leads to More Births, Economists Find:

Talk about your unintended consequences. A new working paper by two Notre Dame University economists, Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman, issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that making condoms available in high schools, rather than preventing teen pregnancy, serves instead to promote it.

I've always thought that one of the most thankless jobs a person could do was try to prevent young people from having sex. That it's not working was entirely predictable.

P.S. Open borders would reverse the trend in no time flat, although finding a place in the economy for all newcomers would be a challenge.

Bad ad -- Direct TV's power to turn back time commercial

What we see in the commercial is a couple about to watch a TV program, but it has already started. Too bad they can't turn back time.

Turns out they can. A rock star shows up in their living room singing about turning back time, and he uses the remote to restart the TV show. Watch it at this Youtube video.

But he doesn't stop there. Time continues running backward as the guy on the couch grows back hair on his balding pate -- it's 70s style long hair. Then while the singer is restoring the past, the gal's former boyfriend pops up between her and the current boyfriend. She doesn't waste any time getting reacquainted.

So what's to like about this ad? The main point would seem to be that the TV viewer can restart a TV show. But in the commercial, the current boyfriend gets a major put down. Is the target audience single women yearning for the days when they actually had live men next to them? Men certainly aren't in the target audience.

Maybe a narrow audience is the goal these days. I'm not amongst the Mad Men of modern advertising, because I think it's a shame that they can't target their audience -- single women -- without alienating men who would seem to be half of the general TV audience.

On the other hand, these days maybe ads really are aimed at narrow audiences. After all, we learned just the other day that Subaru's ads target lesbians in such a subtle way that straight people don't even notice the badges of lesbianism.

Badges? DirectTV don't need no stinking badges.

NAACP chief erases any doubt -- Black Lives Matter movement is election year partisan politics

We've suspected this, and many have assumed it from early on. That would be the theory that the whole Black Lives Matter movement is about black lives only tangentially. It's really about getting Democrats elected.

Barack Obama has never missed an opportunity to politicize something to Democrats' advantage. And that becomes painfully obvious when he eggs on the protesters by comparing them to abolitionists.

Now we have the NAAACP head announcing it to TV news viewers. See NAACP chief: 'Ensure every demonstrator is a vote':

"To bring about the kind of change that we need, we need to ensure that every demonstrator is a vote and that we to show up en masse and in the millions at the polls in November," NAACP president Cornell William Brooks said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday morning.

Should we suppose those voters would be pushing the button for the candidate who promises to make America great? HA HA! Sorry, I had to do that.

Maybe the MSM shouldn't be let off the hook for its part in the racial mayhem

Colin Flaherty is no stranger to the issue. He has been writing about race issues for years.

His latest is Media Ignore the Tsunami of Black Violence against Cops in which he catalogs examples of how the media present the violence between police and black men as racism by police against black men. Unfortunately for anyone wanting a balanced look, they ignore violence perpetrated by black people against police.

Here's one anecdote:

In Syracuse on Father’s Day in the ghetto, 500 black people were blowing some weed and shooting some guns when a female cop showed up.

The videos show the crowds fleeing the gunfire as the officer runs towards it. When her backup arrived, they found the cop on the ground, surrounded by a large group of black people beating and kicking her and trying to steal her gun.

One black man was running around, pleading for a gun to shoot the police.

The next night, the cops returned and received similar scorn, hostility and violence.

The local papers pretended they had never heard of anything like that before, when, truth is: That is a regular part of life in Syracuse.

Maybe the media ignore it, not because it goes against what they are convinced is the narrative, but because to do otherwise would not portray them in the politically virtuous light they seek.

It's no help when the President of the United States encourages a false narrative. One wonders what, if anything, the next president will do.

See excerpt from Heather Mac Donald's book at Freebeacon.com

Disclosure: I haven't read the book. However, it certainly has received some good praise, and it's about as timely as humanly possible.

The name of the book is "The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe." There's an excerpt at Freebeacon.com which addresses Obama's embrace of the false media narrative of the Ferguson, Missouri, encounter Michael Brown had with the police. Here's a brief excerpt from the chapter excerpted there:

This kind of misinformation about the criminal-justice system and the police can only increase hatred of the police. That hatred, in turn, will heighten the chances of more Michael Browns attacking officers and getting shot themselves. Police officers in the tensest areas may back off of assertive policing. Such de-policing will leave thousands of law-abiding minority residents who fervently support the police ever more vulnerable to thugs.

Obama couldn’t have stopped November’s violence in Ferguson with his address to the nation. But in casting his lot with those who speciously impugn our criminal-justice system, he increased the likelihood of more such violence in the future.

President Obama didn't pull the trigger on those police officers in Dallas. But his racial divisiveness certainly didn't do anything to quell the violence. It's as if he wants a certain segment of the population fired up and ready so he can use that force for political will.

Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter paused to take a breath after the "lone gunman" killed the police officers in Dallas. Then they carried on as usual. War on cops, indeed.

Return of kill whitey

*How many shooters were there in ambush of police officers in Dallas Thursday night? Only one has been identified. He's now dead. Another person was taken in but released -- he was legally carrying a firearm.

But also, "Three people were said to be in custody and not cooperating with authorities." Source.

Is no-one asking "why do they hate us?" Here's a clue. Suspect in Dallas police shootings targeted white officers.

"Kill whitey" was a phrase popular in some circles back in the 60s when the progressives of the era saw racism everywhere and rationalized violent hate groups like the Black Panthers. And it certainly is discouraging to think we are returning to those days.

Most white people these days bend over backwards to try to be non-racist. In fact, they're so serious about it that the avoidance of the appearance of racism might in itself be a form of racism -- the racism of low expectations. Ideally, we could treat everyone the same without regard to the person's race. But that too, is racist.

In any event, the violence against the Dallas police officers is certainly discouraging. The racial angle just makes it worse.

*UPDATE: They're saying the shooter acted alone even though others were brought in under suspicion of participating in the murders. Most people in the situation of those suspects would be shouting their innocence at the top of their lungs. By remaining silent they certainly exercised some extraordinary self control.

Profs sue to block guns on University of Texas campus

The last time this topic came up it was after a UT professor left the state because of the campus carry issue. His issue was an irrational fear that his own students would pull their guns on him.

Now along come three University of Texas professors who filed a law suit to block handgun license holders from bringing guns into classrooms. See Three University of Texas professors are suing to block a state law that allows guns in classrooms. Here's why, according to the businessinsider.com article:

"Compelling professors at a public university to allow, without any limitation or restriction, students to carry concealed guns in their classrooms chills their First Amendment rights to academic freedom," according to the lawsuit, whose defendants include the state's attorney general, the school's president and university's board of regents.

The professors argue that they discus controversial and emotionally laden subjects such as reproductive rights and it would be inevitable for them to pull back at important junctures because of a cloud of gun violence hanging over the classroom.

That's a joke, right? "A cloud of gun violence hanging over the classroom" will chill their First Amendment rights -- what a hoot.

The conventional wisdom is that present day college campuses exist in liberal bubbles that choke out any conservative viewpoints. That they think the existence of guns would change that is the type of irrational thinking we expect from university professors these days. Maybe they bully conservatives so much they fear some form of equalizer in the room. Hmm. Campus carry might not be such a bad thing after all.

Schneider is right -- Voters lean toward Trump but remain silent

Matt Schneider is probably right. There's a good probability that there are millions of potential Trump voters out there who won't speak up. They'll vote, but anticipating the inquisition that would follow any overt support of Trump, they remain silent. See Matt Schneider's October Surprise! Why ‘Silent Majority’ Won’t Reveal Trump Support Until Last Moment!:

In a media environment that every day finds new ways to report on “trumped-up” allegations that Trump is racist, misogynistic, homophobic and any other unflattering characterization one could imagine, is it any wonder that most people in polite society rush to publicly declare their disdain for the Republican presidential candidate? What they believe privately, I’d argue however, is an entirely different issue.

I'd argue that Hillary Clinton's supporters should be the ones who have a right to remain silent. Strangely, they don't seem to be phased by any public exposure of her shortcomings. The rallying cry is that there were no indictments. Maybe that's the way of the left. Let nothing interrupt the movement.

Government should apply the same standard of guilt they applied to Hillary Clinton to everyone

Aside from die hard Hillary Clinton fans, just about everyone who watched this unfold thought she was guilty of something. But now we learn that FBI Director James Comey has given her a pass because of lack of intent. We should all be so lucky.

Books have been written about the myriad of laws ordinary people violate without even knowing it. But Hillary Clinton was given a pass because there was no intent to harm the United States.

OK. She lacked a criminal mind. So let's apply this standard to all laws and do away with those that don't require intent.

P.S. Ms. Clinton seems to have pleaded ignorance of those complicated computers, servers, and all that confusing software and jargon. How many of her fans buy that? In particular, how many of those who will vote for her because she's a woman buy that? There's this pesky stereotype out there about women and computers. But surely most women know their way around technology these days. Hillary is the exception. Isn't she?

up in smoke -- Hillary's burn bag

Before you pile on me, yes, I understand there are more important issues here than the actual physical means of destroying evidence. That said, I didn't realize Secretaries of State had "burn bags."

Anyone who has ever worked in an office has seen those ubiquitous, locked, trash bins destined for shredding. But burn bags must be the province of the muckety mucks.

They're talked about in Huma Abedin admits that Clinton burned daily schedules. To wit:

“If there was a schedule that was created that was her Secretary of State daily schedule, and a copy of that was then put in the burn bag, that . . . that certainly happened on . . . on more than one occasion,” Abedin told lawyers representing Judicial Watch, the conservative organization behind the emails lawsuit.

Abedin made the surprising admission in response to a question about document destruction at the Department of State.

Whose job was it to toss those bags into the incinerator? Or were they pitched into a pile in the back yard at Chapaqua? Anyone having read Tim Weiner's excellent book, "Enemies: a history of the FBI," will be reminded of the line about the back yard bonfires that occurred immediately after J. Edgar Hoover departed the bureau. I can't see Bill or Hillary personally doing it, but it's very easy to envision some eager underlings doing it, knowing that's what the masters wanted.

We'll likely never get the answers to these questions, and admittedly, few besides me are really interested.  But it's fun to imagine.

British anti-war MPs still gunning for Blair

Partisans gotta fight. And our British cousins are doing it too. No this isn't Brexit, this is the Iraq war being re-fought in Parliament.

Here in the U.S. there's a movement to bring Hillary Clinton to justice for being so careless, and also breaking the law, with an email scheme to hide info from the public but in the process making it available to our enemies.

In Britain some members of Parliament are gunning for Tony Blair for what some perceived as lying about the dangers Saddam Hussein posed for the free world. Same as with George W. Bush, he relied on intelligence sources to determine that Saddam had more weapons of mass destruction than he really had. Hussein had done such a good job of bluffing that it got his country overrun and himself killed.

Anyway, Dailymail has the story at MP calls for Tony Blair to be 'stripped of all honours' after long-awaited Chilcot report into the Iraq War is published this week.

Good luck, Tony. Hopefully, your political enemies will turn out to be toothless.