Violent Crime Down in DC in 2011 - Experts Have Difficulty Explaining Why

A few days ago, I saw an article in the news with the above title. I'm not an "expert" but I do follow the news and I can put two and two together. There is an obvious connection but the so called experts are blinded to it by their ideology. Every time a State or city repeals gun bans or allows their law abiding citizens to obtain concealed weapons permits and thus exercise their 2nd Amendment rights, the liberal left makes dire predictions of a resulting "blood bath." And every time, they are proven wrong.

In 2010, the US Supreme Court overturned DC's strict gun ban and suddenly, law abiding citizens of the District could no longer be guaranteed to be defenseless prey for the city's criminal predators. You see, criminals being, well criminals, amazingly didn't comply with the gun ban law. After all, they needed their weapons; call them their tools of the trade. However, they also needed the reasonable assumption that their potential victims would be unarmed. This made the "work" much safer, more productive and I'm sure a lot more enjoyable. Then that pesky Supreme Court had to go and ruin a good thing.

I'm sure eventually the "experts"  will determine the "true" cause of the drop in violent crime. They will probably cite their extensive research that shows that, global warming, the thinning of the ozone layer,  Wall Street greed, racism, "Big Oil"...blah, blah, blah caused the economically disadvantaged to just give up on their chosen profession. Fortunately, the rest of us have a far better grasp of the obvious.

Why Can't Hip Hop Sing "Songs About Me?"

L.Z. Granderson is an opinion writer on CNN.com that my wife and I occasionally read. Today he wrote a piece called “Why can't country music deal with race?” It’s an interesting question. But is it a valid one? I really don’t think so. As a matter of fact, I believe Mr. Granderson errs on several levels and his column reveals some prejudices of his own.

Granderson recounts how he learned about a particular battle in Vietnam, not in school or from a textbook but rather from a country song by Big and Rich. He lists several popular artists that he enjoys but laments, “…that so few artists will sing about the one glaring aspect of life in the country that greatly defines how many Americans view the genre -- and that is race.”

As I read Granderson’s words, the lyrics to the Brad Paisley song “Welcome to the Future” immediately came to mind.


     I had a friend in school,
     Running-back on a football team,
     They burned a cross in his front yard
     For asking out the home-coming queen.

     I thought about him today,
     Everybody who's seen what he's seen,
     From a woman on a bus
     To a man with a dream.

     He-e-ey...
     Wake up Martin Luther.
     Welcome to the future.

     He-e-ey...
     Glory glory hallelujah.
     Welcome to the future.


Then a few minutes later, I received an email from my wife with a link to the column. She wanted to make sure that I had seen it. We discussed it later when I got home and she said that she had also thought of the Paisley song.

Granderson argues the point that it would be very useful for country music to find the courage to take on the issue of race. He writes,


     I've met some amazing people in the country
     music field: Good folks without a racist bone in
     their body. But they have seen and heard and
     lived through some disturbing things. They, too,
     have a point of view, a story. I wish the music
     would tell it. Not just for the sake of the artists,
     but for the millions of white Americans who come
     from small towns, listen to country music and
     should not be viewed as social pariahs by the rest
     of the nation because of it.

     Acknowledging racism does not perpetuate it but
     rather exposes the disease where it festers and
     hides. And just as "The 8th of November" taught
     me something about the Vietnam War, country
     music can remind people not to allow the
     stereotypical few to unfairly define the whole.

Unfortunately for Granderson, he is guilty of the very thing of which he accuses country music. Apparently he holds some significant stereotypes of his own regarding the South, small town America, and country music. Country music fans are “…viewed as pariahs by the rest of the country…” Really? What an elitist thing to say!

The problem is that today’s country music artists are young and, unlike Mr. Granderson and others who continue to view the world through the prism of race, they have moved on. They feel no need to atone for sins that they didn’t commit.

In his chart topping hit, Songs About Me, Trace Adkins answers the question “Whatever makes you want to sings stuff like that?” by saying, “Cuz they’re songs about me. Songs about lovin’ and livin’ and good-hearted women, and family and God. Yeah they’re songs about me.” Instead of asking why country music doesn’t discuss race and racism, I think L.Z Granderson’s considerable talent as a writer would better serve African Americans and indeed the nation as a whole by asking the question, “Why won’t rap and hip hop artists sing about the things Trace Adkins sings about?”

Reader's comments are welcome and automatically enter you in a drawing to win an all expenses paid trip for two to beautiful Bayonne, New Jersey. - Just kidding!

Hopefully Less Than 1% of the 99%

If you watch the mainstream media or listen to what the Occupy Wall St (OWS) protestors say about themselves, OWS is the 99% as opposed to the riches %1 of Americans. They would also have you believe that they are more representative of ordinary America than the Tea Party Movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Left’s main accusation against the Tea Party is that they are racist. Unfortunately, we either have to believe the opinions of such “notables” as Janeane Garofalo and Sean Penn or blindly accept the interpretation by liberals that any sign that opposes the policies of President Obama is due to the fact that he is an African American. A poster depicting Obama as Hitler or The Joker is unmistakably racially motivated, right? Likewise, liberals tell us that when Tea Partiers say they are for lower taxes and less government, what they really mean is, “We want this black man out of the White House.” Then there was the infamous gauntlet incident where African American representatives were reportedly spat upon while walking through the Tea Party crowd on their way to a meeting on Capitol Hill. Amazingly, despite ubiquitous cell phone cameras and a $100,000 reward offered by blogger Andrew Breitbart, not a single picture or video has ever been produced to prove the charge. Lucky for us, we have an easier time knowing the nature of the OWS crowd because we know who is behind the protest and the protestors themselves tell us in their own words.

On the surface, we might be tempted to simply write this group off as nouveau-hippie and anti-banking types. We might even feel the need to interpret their anti-Wall St banker rantings as code words for “Jew.” However, there is no need since the original organizer of the protest, Adbuster Media Foundation, has a well-documented history of anti-Semitism and several OWS protestors have made it clear in taped interviews that they believe Wall St, banking, and the Federal Reserve are controlled by the “Jews” who send their money back to Israel. Additionally, one of the self-identified leaders in Zuccotti Park said his goal is the violent overthrow of the US government. Nice huh? And what about the appearance that this group are the average folks against the rich? Well ironically several of the protestors have revealed on video that they are actually well-to-do. Some are Ivy League graduate students while others have “Come into quite a bit of money.” Just average “Joes”, right? One of the truly amusing aspects of their demands is that they want government paid tuition and they rail against Wall St for making unfair profits. What they don’t seem to have a problem with is the fact that their schools’ endowments made on average 20+% last year. Funny how it is a problem for Wall St to make big profits but they don’t have a problem with their Ivy League universities doing the same thing. Apparently, it has never occurred to them to demand free tuition from their schools.

Another endearing quality of the Occupy Wall St protestors is their hygiene practices which include not bathing and relieving themselves outdoors, occasionally on the hood of a police car. Just like the Tea Party rallies – not!

Last but certainly not least is the respect the OWS has for the law. Just like the Tea Party, none of the OWS protestors have been arrested. Well that’s half true. The Tea Party has had no arrests. On the other hand, the OWS has had hundreds. And both groups have been completely non-violent. Though this is true, OWS sympathizer groups overseas have rioted.

So who is actually the 99%? Is the OWS crowd really like the average American? Are they like you or are you more like the Tea Party rally attendees? My guess is the latter and the Occupy Wall St crowd is less than 1% of the 99%. For the future of America, I really hope so.

Insight From Guido the Killer Pimp

Following the shooting of Congresswoman Gaby Giffords, President Obama implored the nation for a return to civility. Liberals will try and make the argument that since the President's call to tone down the rhetoric, both the Left and the Right have been equally guilty of less than civil language, however, the speech from the Left has been far more extreme. Here are just a few examples. At a community summit in her district, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." Speaking at a Labor Day address to union members, Vice President Biden, told the AFL/CIO audience, "You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates." So, in VP Biden's mind, anyone who is in favor of "Right to Work" laws is a barbarian. While speaking to a group of Hispanics, the President urged them to "Punish their enemies." He was referring to their "fellow Americans" who want immigration laws enforced.  At a Labor Day union event prior to President Obama addressing the crowd, Teamsters President, Jimmy Hoffa said, "President Obama, this is your army, we are ready to march." and referring to Tea Party supporting lawmakers, Hoffa also said, "Let's take these son of a bitches out." Did the President remind Hoffa to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric? Well no. As a matter of fact, when Republicans called for Mr. Obama to denounce Mr. Hoffa's words, the White House released a statement later saying, "The President isn't going to be the language police." Maybe Hoffa merely meant take out as in, "to a nice suburban Detroit steak house like the one where his father was abducted and never seen again." Um, no wait that's no good.  Lastly, Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN) said, “Some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement would love to see you and me — I’m sorry, Tamron — hanging on a tree.” Carson is an African-American.

So where does all this vitriol come from? A keen bit of insight comes from an unlikely source - Guido the Killer Pimp from the movie "Risky Business." In the movie, Guido, a Chicago pimp, (played by Joe Pantoliano) gives aspiring Princeton University student, Joel, (played by a young Tom Cruise) some sage advice: "Let me give you a little advice so you know. In times of economic uncertainty, never ever f**k with another man's livelihood." And there you have it! We are definitely in times of economic uncertainty and by pushing for lower taxes and limited government, the Tea Party is messing with the livelihood of liberal Democrats and their paid for constituents.

Democrats of course would counter that conservatives and Republicans who mainly make up the Tea Party give tax breaks to the "rich" and "big business" so they also have their paid constituency. Here is where the comparison falls apart. In the case of Democrats, they pay-off their voters with government largess which mainly means other people's money - the socialist redistribution of wealth from the so-called rich to those they believe deserve it more - past and future Democrat voters. Republicans, on the other hand, want Americans to keep more of their own money - the money they earned. Understanding the difference is critical to the survival of our nation.

In the end, socialism will fail as it always has because the Democrats, like all the others who have tried it before them, will eventually run out of other people's money. Given our current debt situation, eventually is already here. Conservatives and Republicans must take back the White House and the Senate in 2012 in order to put a stop to the Democrat Party's socialist agenda and force them and their hand-out constituents to find a new livelihood.

Reader's comments are welcomed.

Junk News; Junk Science

Doctors are scientist so I was troubled when I saw a video clip of Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the NBC chief medical editor, discussing the recent study that rated the United States 41st in infant mortality rate - behind Cuba. It was, to say the least, very short on science.

A somber-faced Snyderman told the equally somber-faced NBC anchor Brian Williams that despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country in the world, our infant mortality rate is worse than that of Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Poland and even Cuba. Further, she reported than the US dropped from 29th place just five years ago. She went on to say that while some states like Washington, Iowa, and Vermont (which she pointed out has universal health care) are doing pretty well, other areas like DC, Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina are not. So the only metrics this scientist discusses are per capita health care spending and the infant mortality rate. Does she go on to explore other potential factors such as drug and alcohol abuse among pregnant women in the US, American women giving birth later and later in life (which is more risky), more multiple births with corresponding premature delivery and low birth weights as a result of infertility treatment? These are just a few that came to mind to this non-medical scientist. No, she just went on to talk about how we have "taken our eye off the ball" when it comes to newborn health and how intervention is so important. These are both very nice platitudes but hardly science. What she does do is imply that American medicine is bad because we spend too much money and based on this one particular measure, get poor results in return.

So if we "read between the lines" Snyderman believes: 1) All of America should be like Cuba or the state of Vermont and have universal health care; we would spend less money and be so much better off. and 2) The solution to poor performance of a private system is to convert it to a government run system. Using this type of analysis and logic, since we spend the second highest amount per capita of any country on education (behind Switzerland) and our public school students score at the bottom of the list of developed nations in math and science, the solution should be to privatize all primary and secondary education in the US. In neither case would I argue that per capita spending and any one particular outcome are sufficient to draw clear conclusions nor would I propose a 180 degree change of course as a solution.

Dr. Snyderman is a smart woman and she certainly knows that this situation is far more complex than she lets on from her report. This is junk news; junk science and purely political - not something worthy of the chief medical editor of a major news organization. With journalism like this, is it any wonder the public is watching less and less evening news and viewing other scientific news reports from the major media outlets on topics like man-made climate change with an increasingly jaundiced eye? I think our public understands science a bit better than the test scores would have you believe. 

Reader comments are welcome.

The Misconception of Compromise

There is a troubling misconception being propagated by the press and politicians lately that compromise is always a desirable goal and that it is the American way. As a result, many Americans have voiced their opinion that they want the government to work together to get things done. They say they want compromise and that the government is dysfunctional when it can’t come to an agreement. The negotiations over raising the debt ceiling brought these complaints to a crescendo even to the point where Cokie Roberts implied on ABC’s “This Week” that somehow our Constitution is flawed because it makes it difficult for Congress and the President to accomplish anything. I would make the exact opposite argument. The Constitution was precisely crafted to make it difficult to do things and the checks and balances were established for that very purpose.



First, our federal government only has a limited number of Constitutional powers which are referred to as the enumerated powers. According to the Tenth Amendment, everything else is left up to the individual States. Therefore, anything that isn’t one of the enumerated powers or that is controversial is supposed to have a difficult time becoming law due to the checks and balances. Compromise has made it possible to circumvent the checks and balances and enact legislation that Congress has no business acting on. As a result, look where we are today. Instead of the powerful but unobtrusive central government envisioned by the Founders, we have a meddling government that imposes itself into nearly every aspect of the lives of the citizenry and threatens our sacred liberty.



Next, some would argue that America has a long tradition of compromise. However, if you think back to your grade school history or research compromise in US history, you will find that there are really only 3 compromises that occupy a place of prominence in our 235 year history – The Great Compromise that established the two houses of our Congress; The Missouri Compromise which admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave State and Maine as a free State, and The Compromise of 1850 that established which new States added to the Union would be free and which would allow slavery. In these examples, two out of the three compromises were not good and to the contrary were arguably evil. Therefore, to maintain that we have a tradition of compromise and that compromise is a good thing is not supported by the facts.



Lastly, Congress continues to pass bills that are thousands of pages long that no one has read, regarding subjects that they are unqualified to make decisions about, or even have the capacity to anticipate the unintended consequences these bills may have. The most recent and perhaps most egregious example, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obama Care) should have been prevented from becoming law by the system of checks and balances but they were thwarted by compromise and ultimately parliamentary dirty tricks and pay-offs. Fortunately, the checks and balances may have the last word when the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of this legislation and it is overturned.



The ideas that compromise is an unqualified good or that the mechanism of checks and balances preventing bad bills from becoming law is a problem with our Constitution is supported by neither history nor current experience.

Liberal Ideology Undeterred by Reality

Why should we trust the president and the Democrat-controlled Senate when it comes to our current debt/debt ceiling situation? At every turn, Mr. Obama and his liberal allies in Congress place ideology ahead of everything …including reality.

In the depths of our recession, the president said we needed his spending package of nearly a trillion dollars in order to stimulate the economy and keep unemployment below 8%. The result? Today unemployment stands at 9.2% and economic growth is a weak 1.8%. Should anyone be surprised? No, since every time it has been tried, the Keynsian government spending approach doesn’t work. It failed under FDR during the Great Depression; it failed for Japan in the 1990’s and caused its “Lost Decade” and predictably it failed for President Obama.

Moreover, in 2009 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, with the president’s blessing, pressed to raise the minimum wage. Once again, the liberals’ ideology of fairness caused them to ignore warnings that even a first year economics major understands – raise prices (wages are simply the price of labor) above their equilibrium price and the result is a surplus i.e. unemployment. According the US Bureau of Labor, the youth unemployment rate (the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds) prior to the in July 2009 minimum wage increase was 18.5 percent. By June 2011, that had increased to 21.4%. And who suffered? The very same people the liberals wanted to help – young people and entry-level employees. Once again when ideology takes precedence over reality, the results are predictable. If they bother to report it, the liberal media usually accompanies news like this with the word “unexpected.” Is it really?

To be sure, we are in the midst of a crisis with regard to the debt ceiling but instead of working in good faith with the Republicans to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, the president has used the opportunity to frighten the elderly, demonize the so-called rich and continue to attack American business. Remember “Never let a crisis go to waste?” While the House Republicans have proposed 3 plans now that not only raise the debt ceiling but also help rein in spending in order to actually help solve the underlying problem, the president and the Senate have yet to put a plan on paper. Instead, Mr. Obama advocated a “balanced” approach that called for tax hikes now, an increase in the debt ceiling now and spending cuts in the future. There isn’t a single economic school of thought that prescribes raising taxes in the middle of a recession or during an anemic recovery. In fact, in 2009 President Obama himself said that raising taxes in a recession is irresponsible and come to think of it, while he was a senator, he also called raising the debt ceiling a failure of leadership. Nor does any serious person believe that spending cuts promised for the future will ever materialize. Additionally, the Democrats resorted to the same time pressure tactic that enabled them to push the stimulus package. They established an arbitrary August 2^nd date that the government would potentially have to default on its financial obligations. In order to heighten the anxiety in the country, the president implied that the government might not be able to pay social security benefits or make Medicaid and Medicare payments. Here he is either being deliberately disingenuous or unconsciously admitting that these are his lowest priorities since when forced to cut back, most Americans start at the bottom of their priority list.

Now that it appears that a compromise is unlikely by the artificial deadline, miraculously the Treasury announced tonight it has found enough money to postpone default until the 10th of August. Is it any wonder the public is losing confidence in Mr. Obama and his administration?

I agree with those who are calling for our politicians to act like adults. Where I disagree with liberals is when they contend that Obama is the adult in the room. Allowing one’s ideology to triumph over reality, trump the facts and lead one to deliberately exacerbate a serious situation are not what I consider hallmarks of grown-up behavior. On this, I guess my liberal friends and I will have to agree to disagree.