Thursday, September 29, 2016

A Hard Rain Is Going to Fall

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This summer, President Obama was often golfing. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were promising to let the world be. The end of summer seemed sleepy, the world relatively calm.
The summer of 1914 in Europe also seemed quiet. But on July 28, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip with help from his accomplices, fellow Serbian separatists. That isolated act sparked World War I.
In the summer of 1939, most observers thought Adolf Hitler was finally through with his serial bullying. Appeasement supposedly had satiated his once enormous territorial appetites. But on Sept. 1, Nazi Germany unexpectedly invaded Poland and touched off World War II, which consumed some 60 million lives.
Wars often seem to come out of nowhere, as unlikely events ignite long-simmering disputes into global conflagrations.
The instigators often are weaker attackers who foolishly assume that more powerful nations wish peace at any cost, and so will not react to opportunistic aggression.
Unfortunately, our late-summer calm of 2016 has masked a lot of festering tensions that are now coming to a head — largely due to disengagement by a supposedly tired United States.
In contrast, war, unlike individual states, does not sleep.
Russia has been massing troops on its border with Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently believes that Europe is in utter disarray and assumes that President Obama remains most interested in apologizing to foreigners for the past evils of the United States. Putin is wagering that no tired Western power could or would stop his reabsorption of Ukraine — or the Baltic states next. Who in hip Amsterdam cares what happens to faraway Kiev?
Iran swapped American hostages for cash. An Iranian missile narrowly missed a U.S. aircraft carrier not long ago. Iranians hijacked an American boat and buzzed our warships in the Persian Gulf. There are frequent promises from Tehran to destroy either Israel, America or both. So much for the peace dividend of the “Iran deal.”
North Korea is more than just delusional. Recent nuclear tests and missile launches toward Japan suggest that North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un actually believes that he could win a war — and thereby gain even larger concessions from the West and from his Asian neighbors.
Radical Islamists likewise seem emboldened to try more attacks on the premise that Western nations will hardly respond with overwhelming power. The past weekend brought pipe bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey as well as a mass stabbing in a Minnesota mall — and American frustration.
Europe and the United States have been bewildered by huge numbers of largely young male migrants from the war-torn Middle East. Political correctness has paralyzed Western leaders from even articulating the threat, much less replying to it.
Instead, the American government appears more concerned with shutting down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, ensuring that no administration official utters the words “Islamic terror,” and issuing warnings to Americans not to lash out due to their supposedly innate prejudices.
Aggressors are also encouraged by vast cutbacks in the U.S. defense budget. The lame-duck Obama presidency, lead-from-behind policies and a culturally and racially divided America reflect voter weariness with overseas commitments.
It would be a mistake to assume that war is impossible because it logically benefits no one, or is outdated in our sophisticated 21st century, or would be insane in a world of nuclear weapons.
Human nature is unchanging and remains irrational. Evil is eternal. Unfortunately, appeasement is often seen by thugs not as magnanimity to be reciprocated but as timidity to be exploited.
Someone soon will have to tell the North Koreans that a stable world order cannot endure its frequent missile launches and nuclear detonations.
Someone could remind Putin that the former Soviet republics have a right to self-determination.
Someone might inform the Chinese that no one can plop down artificial islands and military bases to control commercial sea lanes.
Someone might make it clear to radical Islamic terrorists that there is a limit to Western patience with their chronic bombing, murdering and destruction.
The problem is that there is no other “someone” (especially not the United Nations or the European Union) with the requisite power and authority except the United States. But for a long time America has done more than its fair share of international policing — and its people are tired of costly dragon-slaying abroad.
The result is that at this late date, the tough medicine of restoring long-term deterrence is as almost as dangerous as the disease of continual short-term appeasement.
Obama apparently assumes he can leave office as a peacemaker before his appeased chickens come home to roost in violent fashion. He has assured us that the world has never been calmer and quieter.
Others said the same thing in the last calm summer weeks of 1914 and 1939.
War clouds are gathering. A hard rain is soon going to fall.

Clinton Promises Malaise in the Name of 'Fairness'

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A look at Hillary’s plan for taxes and the economy.

Hillary Clinton used a fair portion of her awful debate appearance Monday to sell America on her economic vision. Though she framed taxes as the typical leftist issue of “fairness,” whether or not she openly admitted she is going to raise taxes on the middle class, her plans for this country’s fiscal future mean dark days for everyone.
It’s not as if we’re in a robust economy right now. The Census Bureau would have us believe that we’re in good shape. After all, median household income rose 5.2% in 2015, the first jump since 2007, and the biggest since 1968. That should be good news, but it’s really just manufactured good news.
The Census Bureau changed its reporting methods to measure income, the result being that reported income actually appears more than actual income. And in time for election season, too. What a coincidence. This explains the supposedly mysterious question as to why Americans are making more money but don’t feel like they are getting ahead. Answer: they are not making more money.
This gimmick, along with the economic fantasies being spun by Barack Obama to shore up his legacy and put Clinton in the White House, have the electorate confused. That’s just how the Left wants it.
That is also why Monday night’s debate moderator Lester Holt was able to get away with his opening statement: “There are two economic realities in America today. There’s been a record six straight years of job growth, and new census numbers show incomes have increased at a record rate after years of stagnation. However, income inequality remains significant, and nearly half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.”
The very premise was part White House press release, part Bernie Sanders stump speech.
Clinton also trotted out the usual lie that George W. Bush’s tax cuts “for the wealthy” caused the recession. That’s baloney. First of all, Bush’s tax cuts were for everyone, not just the wealthy. Second, and more important, it was Hillary’s husband who set the stage for the financial crisis with his home lending policies.
As for Clinton’s tax plan, there should be no confusion about its true nature. She spoke wistfully Monday night about the great 1990s when “Bill” was president. And there were some good economic years during that period. The trouble is she isn’t going to come remotely close to achieving those budget surpluses and strong business and investment sector with the policies she wants to implement or expand.
On the contrary, Clinton doesn’t even consider capping the growth of federal budget deficits, and calls for $1.8 trillion in new taxes to fund new projects. She isn’t looking to rein in the size of the government as Republican policies of 1990s did. She wants to push the federal government into more areas of our daily lives while refusing entitlement reform and spending cuts, and our reward will be to pay through the nose for it.
Hillary is nothing if not thorough in her tax plan. No one will be spared. Sure, the $350 billion income tax hike and the $275 business tax hike are meant to target the top earners, as is a $400 billion “fairness” tax, which is about as arbitrary a tax as one might conceive.
Clinton calls to raise the capital gains tax (which millions of middle class Americans pay), taxes on stock trading, and implement an “exit tax” on income earned overseas. And she wants a 65% death tax for the largest estates, with jacked up rates for estates that fall into lower income categories. This would crush small businesses that even she admitted Monday create most of the jobs in America.
The problem with all these taxes is that they will stifle growth. Donald Trump spoke frequently Monday night about how American business is in apocalyptic shape. Clinton just shook her head and smiled. But that’s all she could do. She’s never worked in the private sector, so she cannot truly relate to what a majority of American taxpayers are experiencing. After all, she just funnels her income into the Clinton Foundation.
It makes perfect sense that Clinton is the Democrat nominee for president. She is the poster child for statist, centralized policies in which every citizen really works to fund the government so that it can become larger and more intrusive. And her central message Monday was that the government under her direction will spend your money better than you will. She says her tax policies will help our economy. What she really wants to do is continue the transformation of America that Obama started.

A Reader Says That Cascade Mall Shooter Arcan Cetin (A Legal Alien From Turkey) Was REGISTERED TO VOTE

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rom: Merlin [Email him]
Prior to killing five Americans,  Washington State shooter Arcan Cetin  tweeted his support for Islamic immigration promoter, Hillary Clinton.
Looks like the Islamic mall shooter in Washington state is a non-citizen registered to vote.
How many millions more are voting and negating the votes of actual citizens?
Will we ever be able to have a reliably honest election again when our leaders and judges exhibit little or no interest in honest elections?
According to Breitbart he Cetin  a legal alien, not a citizen. [Burlington Shooter ID’ed as Arcan Cetin, Immigrant from Turkey, By Joel B. Pollak, September 24, 2016 ]
According to voter registration in Washington MyVote he is registered and has apparently voted:
Voter Registration Details
Personal Information
CETIN , ARCAN
08/20/1996
Residential Address
1353 ORCHARD LOOP
OAK HARBOR 98277
Mailing Address
Same as residential address
Registration Date
09/27/2014
Registration Status
Active
County
Island
Precinct Name
N WHIDBEY 03 (353.1)
County Information
Island County Elections


Hillary hate group beats Trump supporter for wearing MAGA hat

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DAILYKENN.com -- Assuming he is from the basket of deplorables, a Hillary hate group beat a Donald Trump supporter. 

The victim's offense? 


He was wearing a Make America Great Again hat. 


The attack occurred in El Cajun, California and was posted on Twitter September 29. 


Apparently Hillary doesn't want to make America great again. The far left — of which Hillary is a part — is adamant about turning America into a third-world hell hole. 


The victim was rescued by police. The incident was captured on video. 


Still, the far left insists that white Americans are the true haters. How tragic. 




Suspect Made Anti-White Statements Before Slashing At Chelsea Grocery Store, Police Say

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“Anti-White Statements” ? Oh they must mean “racist epithets”?

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A black man expressed anti-white statements before slashing another man with a knife inside a Chelsea grocery store, the NYPD said.
The attack happened at 6 a.m. last Friday inside Empire Grocery & Deli on West 25th Street and Ninth Avenue. 
“They started from outside, they got inside the store, the black guy with the knife tried to swing at him and tried to slice his face. So he’s swinging more than one time, and I think he hit him in his hand,” Sammy, a clerk who witnessed the attack, told 1010 WINS’ John Montone.
The suspect, described as a black man around 30 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall and between 200 and 240 pounds, fled on foot, but the slashing was caught by the store’s security cameras.
The 40-year-old victim suffered a cut to his wrist, police said.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident. However, the clerk told Montone that he did not hear the anti-white remarks.
Anyone with information regarding this incident has been asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) and entering TIP577. All calls will be kept strictly confidential.

Autonomous Weapons Are Already Here

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Whether or not lethal robots already exist is a matter of definition as much as anything else. Land mines, immobile explosives that go off when a human steps on them, are autonomous and lethal, though no one really thinks of them as killer robots. A new study by the Arizona State University Global Security Initiative, supported by funding from Elon Musk’s Future of Life Institute, looks at autonomous systems that already exist in weapons, creating a baseline for how we understand deadly decision by machines in the future. And it poses a very interesting question: what if autonomous machines aren’t informing how humans make decisions, but replacing them?
This matches the overall theme – autonomy is currently not being developed to fight alongside humans on the battlefield, but to displace them. This trend, especially for UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], gets stronger when examining the weapons in development. Thus despite calls for ‘centaur warfighting,’ or human-machine teaming, by the U.S. Defense Department, what we see in weapons systems is that if the capability is present, the system is fielded in the stay [meaning instead of] of humans rather than with them,” notes Heather M. Roff, the author of the report.
Consider the simple homing missile. First developed in the 1960s, homing missiles aren’t typically what people think of as an autonomous, lethal machine. A human points the missile at the target, and a human decides to launch it. Well, mostly. Roff, the paper’s author defines homing as “the capability of a weapons system to direct itself to follow an identified target.”
Of all the targeting technologies, homing emerged earliest. The danger posed to humans by homing is that, because it’s so well-known and widespread, it’s possible to fool. Roff writes:
This makes sense from a technical standpoint, as the underlying technologies are relatively simple (radar, thermal imaging) and form the basis for many of the other technologies (e.g. Target Identification, Target Image Discrimination). As an autonomous technology, Homing’s main danger is in following an unintended target, and much of the technological development of the past five decades in this field have surrounded making it less likely to be fooled.
Trusting the machine to find the right target can have horrific human consequences. In the summer of 2014, Russian-backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine shot down several Ukrainian military transports. It’s possible that the human responsible for shooting down flight MH-17 over Ukraine misread the missile launcher’s radar, imagining another troop transport instead of a commercial airliner full of innocent non-combatants. The homing targeting system used by the Buk missile launcher is good at finding airplanes in the sky; it is less good at distinguishing between large transports and airliners.
Future autonomous targeting technology will likely be better at not just finding their way to a selected target, but independently identifying the target before going in for the kill. Writes Roff:
The two most recent emerging technologies are Target Image Discrimination and Loitering (i.e. Self-engagement). The former has been aided by improvements in computer vision and image processing and is being incorporated on most new missile technologies. The latter is emerging in certain standoff platforms as well as some small UAVs. They represent a new frontier of autonomy, where the weapon does not have a specific target but a set of potential targets, and it waits in the engagement zone until an appropriate target is detected. This technology is on a low number of deployed systems, but is a heavy component of systems in development.
This is the vision of the future where robots fly over battlefields, scanning objects below, checking them against an internal list of approved targets, and then making a decision to attack. These weapons will most likely be designed to wait for human approval before they strike (“human in the loop,” as the Pentagon likes to say). Things happen on the battlefield incredibly fast and it’s just as likely that military leaders may find a weapon of which approval to attack takes too long to be of use--and will instead encourage full autonomy for the machine.
As the Pentagon and the international community wrestle with the problem of lethal autonomous machines, Roff’s study provides a wealth of sobering data.

Horrifying 9-1-1 Calls From Charlotte Motorists Under Assault by Black Lives Matter Rioters

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Yeah, it’s like a zombie apocalypse movie.

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We heard both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump talk glowingly about the black community during the first 2016 Presidential Debate, as if black individuals collectively form one of America’s greatest assets.
The opposite is true.
The black community is America’s greatest liability.
Case in point: after a black police officer shot a gun-toting black suspect (who refused to comply with the officers request for Keith Scott to “put down the gun”), black people rioted/destroyed property value/looted/attacked whites on behalf of the latter.
Keith Scott WAS carrying a stolen gun, police say – and his wife filed for a restraining order against him saying he was armed, violent and had threatened to kill her
1.     Keith Scott’s gun had been reported stolen, authorities said on Monday
2.     A breaking and entering suspect told officials he had sold him the gun
3.     His wife Rakeyia got a restraining order in October last year, records show
4.     She wrote: ‘He carries a 9mm black’ and said he had hit her and a child
Sounds like a nice guy worthy of rioting over!
Today, we also learned exactly why you can’t rely on police officers to protect both your property and your family: this chilling story from the riots in Charlotte shows just how fragile civilization is, and why relying on a 9-1-1 call to restore order is no longer an opposition in a nation held hostage by Black Lives Matter terrorist and a government bowing (worse, enforcing) their every demand. [Charlotte motorists trapped in standstill pleaded for rescue from protests, Charlotte Observer, September 26, 2016]:
Huddled in gridlocked cars as a roiling street protest bore upon them in the darkness, motorists pleaded with 911 operators for help in the week’s first wave of violence early Wednesday.
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How can anyone believe the black community represents an asset?
Scenes of chaos were described in recordings released Monday by the city of Charlotte. Starting around 1:30 a.m., calls poured in to the emergency communications center as demonstrators angered by the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott flooded onto W.T. Harris Boulevard and Interstate 85.
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One of the first calls came from a woman in a Chrysler 300 stuck in traffic at Harris Boulevard and North Tryon Street when demonstrators began pounding on cars.
“I’m trapped,” she said. “They’re all in the street … Oh my God, they’re coming!”A scream can be heard outside.
he said no one appeared to have any weapons, but demonstrators were climbing on cars. About 50 vehicles were stopped around her, she said, and there was nowhere to go.
Someone had placed traffic cones in the travel lanes ahead, she said, and when motorists got out to move them, demonstrators would put them back up to block traffic.
“Now they’re trying to run over the cones and get home,” she said, and the call ended.
Siege of I-85
Calls then started coming in from nearby I-85.
A woman from Georgia traveling with her husband, two sons and their dog reported that a rock had shattered their windshield.
“I’m still stuck in this,” she said. “I would like to get out of it before I pull over.”Don’t, the dispatcher said.
“I don’t want you to stop there, period. Just follow traffic and get out of the area.”
He guided her to refuge in the IKEA parking lot near the highway.
Next came a call from a trucker on the side of the highway reporting that people were looting trailers.
“They are coming this way,” he said. “And I’m scared … Oh my God, there’s hundreds of them.”
Trapped in rig
A trucker at Exit 45 called in as people were stealing his cargo.
“They’re breaking into my truck, the mob out here,” he said calmly.
“I can’t move. There’s a whole mob of people, I’m not kidding. Yep, they’ve taken everything. They’ve got the whole road blocked.”
From another trucker whose trailer was being looted: “I’m so scared … They’re just taking stuff and running with it. They’ve got the doors of the trailer open.”
Another trucker, same location:
“Someone needs to get cops down here before these truckers start shooting some of these SOBs … Now they’ve started a fire … There’s just nowhere to go.”Smoke spread across the wide highway – thick, dark, and acrid, like burning rubber.
As word of the blockade spread by the news and social media, some northbound drivers on I-85 stopped short of the chaos, turned around and drove against traffic that was oncoming at speeds of up to 70 mph.
Don’t forget black rioters in Charlotte tossed rocks off of highway overpasses/bridges onto cars, missiles with only purposes: hurting innocent people merely trying to drive home.
The future is now, white Americans.
You are a prisoner in the nation your ancestors not only founded, but built.

NYT: Hey, White People, Stop Worrying About Homicides Increasing: It’s Just One of Those Black Slum Problems

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  Leftist media is struggling for a way to explain the spike in murders in our cities that doesn’t reflect badly on Leftist social engineering policies.

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From the New York Times:
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS SEPT. 27, 2016
The news from the F.B.I. crime data was alarming: The murder rate rose sharply last year, driven by jumps in several major cities.
Four urban areas — Baltimore [Freddie Gray], Chicago [Laquan McDonald], Milwaukee [Dontre Hamilton] and Washington — accounted for about a fifth of the increase in homicides in 2015. Those cities, however, make up only about 1 percent of the nation’s population.
For the cities with the 3 highest increases in homicide in 2015, I inserted the names of the black males shot by cops that spurred Black Lives Matter protests that led to big increases in murder.
But whether crime is up or down depends on what data is being looked at — and who is doing the looking.
The F.B.I. data showed that violent crime rose about 4 percent last year from 2014, and homicides increased 10.8 percent. Yet crime over all fell in 2015 for the 14th consecutive year.
Homicide is one of the rare crimes, along with kidnapping, that definitely gets a police response and statistical enumeration. Are people in Chicago at present bothering to call the cops over their bikes getting stolen? In 1986 right outside the Loop I got the back window of my hatchback smashed and my bike stolen. I don’t recall bothering to report it.
Property crime and armed robbery has been typically falling for the last 40 years or so. Individual physical pieces of wealth tend to be worth less than in the past. ATM machines have allowed me to take out a maximum of $300 for the last third of a century. Car stereos cost about, I don’t know, $300 back then and about $300 today, so they get stolen less today.
Plus, there has been massive target hardening over the decades.
Why should crime go down … unless we are screwing up?
Because crime is a bad thing, like infant mortality or airliner crashes. We invest a lot in reducing it. If we’re not reducing it, we’re probably doing something obviously wrong, like encouraging blacks to be angry at whites.
And the total number of homicides last year was fewer than 20 years ago even as the country’s population increased, criminologists said. There were 19,645 homicides in 1996 in a nation of 265 million; in 2015, there were 15,696 in a population of 321 million.
Swell.
Look, homicides should be falling perhaps 5% per year or things are getting worse.
What that data means, criminologists and police officials said, is that the decline in homicides has been so significant in the last quarter century that sudden increases in the number of killings in just a few cities can skew the entire national picture, even as the country has one of its safest periods on record.
“It isn’t a national trend, it’s a city trend, and it’s not even a city trend, but a problem in certain neighborhoods,” said Richard A. Berk, a professor of statistics and criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Certainly, people around the country should not be worried. People in Chicago shouldn’t be worried. But people in certain neighborhoods might be.”
Criminologists and police officials point out that homicides do not usually disrupt entire cities. Instead, they occur in particular neighborhoods — and on the same blocks — leaving much of the rest of the city relatively untouched.
So, when you go to vote, don’t worry about America becoming an increasingly homicidal nation. It’s not who we are. It’s just those people who live on particular blocks.
Explanations for the increase in homicides in certain American cities are largely guesswork. Criminologists acknowledge that the required analysis has not been done in the neighborhoods where killings are occurring — or even an agreement of what such a study should include — to arrive at any but the broadest conclusions.
“Why is there a rise? No one can possibly know that,” said Robert Smith, director of the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard Law School. “But crime statistics are most accurate when they are block by block, because even a neighborhood is too large.”
Still, attempts at explanations are numerous: battles over drug dealing turf; the dissolution of once powerful street gangs, resulting in violent crews that disband as quickly as they form; petty disputes that turn deadly because of the ready availability of guns; and a deepening economic and social isolation of the nation’s poorest.
Or maybe it has something to do with … Black Lives Matter?
I wouldn’t rule out some drug market effect, but I haven’t been able to find one in about a year of looking.
If you look at the history of homicide rates, there were three periods of upswing:
  • The Sixties, which ran from about 1964-1975, which was a combination of multiple drugs and political liberalism that reduced sentencing, discouraged cops, and riled up minorities and white hotheads.
  • The brief powder cocaine spike around 1980.
  • The big crack cocaine from about 1988-1994.
It could be that the last two years are caused by fighting over some drug, but, personally, I’m not down with the streets so I don’t know what it would be. The other huge possibility is it’s just a reprise of Sixties Liberalism.
Crime experts say that studying a single year of crime data — instead of a decade or 20-year periods — reveals little about crime, especially if a particular year runs counter to the current long-term trend of falling crime.
It appears to be at least a two year trend running from Ferguson in August 2014 at least through the first half of 2016.
“Crime rates are well known to be volatile, and year-to-year variation does not really tell you much,” Dr. Berk said. “The reasons are that crime rates are driven by many factors at the neighborhood and even interpersonal level that we do not measure and about which we have little understanding.”
Inimai M. Chettiar, director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan public policy group, said that the nation might have entered a period in which some types of crime, particularly homicides, would regularly seesaw from year-to-year in certain cities, but neither rise nor drop significantly.
“There have been predictions that as crime decreases, we will see more up and down movements, but that crime itself will stay relatively steady,” she said.
The patchwork that has emerged from the steep crime reductions over the past generation has meant that Baltimore, Milwaukee and Washington — where murders increased in 2015 — have had fewer homicides this year. Baltimore is on pace to have its murder rate drop 9.7 percent this year, and Washington by 12.7 percent, according to a study by the Brennan Center.
Or Freddie Gray didn’t get killed in 2016 in that region, he got killed in 2015.
Slate’s article is a little better:
Depending on your politics, the FBI’s new stats can look scary or meaningless. Here’s a more honest reading.
By Leon Neyfakh
But the author can’t gin up the courage to mention Black Lives Matter, either.