What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Eric Holder thinks all cops are racists, they just don’t know it. I think he’s projecting again.
From TheNYPost “Following the Eric Garner verdict, New York cops can look forward to having their heads examined for “unconscious bias” by federal thought police unleashed by Attorney General Eric Holder.
The NYPD can expect to undergo the same kind of “de-biasing” training that Holder put departments in Seattle, New Orleans, St. Louis and several other cities through while investigating them for alleged civil rights violations.
Federal trainers teach cops not only to think twice about stopping or questioning suspects of color, but also to ignore signs of criminal behavior and threat indicators they’ve gleaned from years of street experience. That puts their own lives in danger — and risks the safety of residents.
The Justice Department’s unprecedented shift from prosecuting intentional discrimination to investigating unconscious or “implicit” bias began long before Ferguson, Mo. It’s part of a “racial justice” movement launched by the Obama administration to “reform” the criminal justice system.”
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2. This is what happens when the Dept. Of Justice becomes the Dept. of “Social Justice”.
From NationalReview “When Department of Justice officials arrived in Ferguson, Mo., one day after the death of Michael Brown, it wasn’t just to conduct an investigation on potential civil-rights violations. In fact, officials from one Justice Department office were conducting meetings with Ferguson residents to educate them on subjects such as “white privilege.”
The DOJ’s Community Relations Service arrived in Ferguson purportedly to lessen the tension between protesters and city officials. But sources who attended the DOJ’s private gatherings with Ferguson residents tell NRO that the Justice Department also sought to educate and question the community about the issues of white privilege and racism. The political nature of the Justice Department’s intervention in Ferguson may not be exclusive to its interactions with residents; it also might have affected its ongoing investigations into the Ferguson Police Department and officer Darren Wilson.
As investigators combed through Ferguson, DOJ’s Community Relations Service began holding the town-hall meetings, which excluded press and everyone from out of town. Ferguson resident Audrey Watson, 47, attended one of the meetings. She says federal officials organized the attendees into small groups and asked questions such as “What stereotypes exist in our community?” “How does white privilege impact race relations in our community?” and “Is there a need for personal commitment to race relations?”
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3. Don’t see the need for such interventions by the DoJ yet? Well it’s probably because you’re racist too.
From TheWashingtonPost “Most white Americans demonstrate bias against blacks, even if they’re not aware of or able to control it. It’s a surprisingly little-discussed factor in the anguishing debates over race and law enforcement that followed the shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers. Such implicit biases — which, if they were to influence split-second law enforcement decisions, could have life or death consequences — are measured by psychological tests, most prominently the computerized Implicit Association Test, which has been taken by over two million people online at the website Project Implicit.
Based on this data, it appears that whites in some states may exhibit higher levels of implicit bias than those in other states. The following map, courtesy of Project Implicit, shows the states with the highest level of implicit bias (high number, red) and lowest level of implicit bias (low number, blue). Gray represents states with a middle amount of implicit bias; Michigan is the median state. Overall, the map reflects the scores of 1.51 million individuals, ranging from a high of 99,660 test takers from California to a low of 1,722 test takers from Hawaii.
A cautionary note: The people who have taken the IAT at the Project Implicit website are not a random sample of Americans, either nationally or on a state-by-state basis. Rather, they’re people who, for some reason, chose to take an online test measuring their implicit biases — which may actually mean they are less biased than average. (After all, at least they wanted to know how biased they are.)
“Please keep in mind that this map describes volunteers for the online IAT,” says psychologist Anthony Greenwald of the University of Washington, who created the Implicit Association Test in 1995. “These volunteers are younger, more educated, more politically liberal, and more female than the U.S. population as a whole.””
That’s called stacking the deck.
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4. Pass the popcorn. Then again, he probably takes the 5th.
From TownHall “MIT professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber will testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday about his role in selling the 2010 healthcare law to “stupid American voters” through deception and non-transparency. The hearing will be held by the House Oversight Committee and Gruber will have to field questions from Chairman Darrell Issa and angry lawmakers about the legislation.
Gruber became infamous just a few weeks ago after a Philadelphia financial consultant and citizen blogger started pulling and publishing multiple video clips of him at various events discussing Obamacare. During those events, Gruber admitted the redistribution of wealth in the legislation was purposely covered up along with the fact that Obamacare is indeed a tax.
Meanwhile, the White House has distanced itself from Gruber in the wake of his controversial comments and Health and Human Services sent a letter to Issa last week asking that officials from the Department, who will also testify tomorrow, be seated separately from Gruber. More from The Hill:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is asking lawmakers not to seat ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber next to Medicare’s top official when the two testify on Capitol Hill next week. “
They found a nicer seat for him under this bus over here……
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5. Good. Now let’s hope the judge does his job.
From TheWashingtonTimes “The states challenging President Obama’s deportation amnesty have already won the first round in court after the case landed in the lap of Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a Bush appointee who issued a scorching rebuke to the Department of Homeland Security last year, accusing it of refusing to follow border security laws.
It could hardly have been a worse outcome for Mr. Obama, who, in order to preserve his policy, will now have to convince a judge who is on record calling his previous, less-extensive non-deportation policies “dangerous and unconscionable.”
Led by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the 20 states challenging the new policy filed their case in Brownsville. It could have gone to one of two judges — the other a Clinton appointee — but it landed in the lap of Judge Hanen last week, putting Mr. Obama on the defensive early.”
“Analysts on both sides of the issue said Mr. Obama’s opponents were fortunate to draw Judge Hanen, who has already shown a deep distrust of Homeland Security officials, questioning both their policies and their legal arguments.”
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Wandering Views 
#5. I suspect it doesn’t matter what the states or courts say. It’s a done deal.
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Obama has two years. His course of destruction is set.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
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Call me naive, but I look at the fact that just two years remain for this presidency as the glass being half full at this point. 🙂
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But will the American people give us someone just as bad for the next four years?
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I don’t know why my new computer is posting as anonymous. This is kBells.
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Not even Hillary hates America.
It makes a difference.
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At the risk of being thought a closeted Liberal (which I’m not, but I am a coming-out-of-the-closet Libertarian 😉 ), I have to say that I don’t find it too hard to believe that many police officers, as well as many whites in general, do have at least somewhat of a subconscious bias against blacks, at least against young black males. A friend mentioned recently some kind of test or study that showed that when shown pictures of black men & white men in the same kind of stance & facial expression, most whites tended to rate the black men as more menacing or dangerous than the white men. I’m afraid I would do the same, even though I wouldn’t want to.
There have been an awful lot of young unarmed black men gunned down by police, & it should make us pause & wonder why. (I hadn’t realized how many until reading a recent article.) DWB (Driving While Black) is something even middle class & richer black men experience.
As for “white privilege”, I hate-hate-hate the term, but I think there is some merit to the underlying premise. In a nutshell, a white person can walk into almost anywhere in the country or apply for any job, & not have to be concerned that his color may negatively influence the opinions of those around him. (Yes, a white person could have that feeling going into a place that is predominantly black, but it is much easier for a white person to avoid that kind of situation than it is for a black person.)
Unfortunately, the term “white privilege” has been attached to this, which only serves to alienate & offend many white people, effectively shutting down communication. If that term had never been used, I think more whites would be open to considering the premise.
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Here’s an article about the change in attitude in law enforcement since 9/11.
“We Are the Enemy: Is This the Lesson of Ferguson?”
The “We” in the title refers to all of us, not only blacks…
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/we_are_the_enemy_is_this_the_lesson_of_ferguson
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Here in PNG, I can leave a store without being patted down to see if I have taken anything.
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