RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2020/08/31/exclusive-downtown-portland-resident-corrects-the-record-on-saturdays-deadly-shooting-n867760

In an exclusive interview with PJ Media, a black resident of downtown Portland gave an account of the deadly shooting on Saturday. He says the shooting of Jay Bishop, a member of Patriot Prayer, was not provoked by the pro-Trump rally—it happened two hours after the rally dispersed.

Gabe Johnson, who made national headlines in July for bringing an American flag to the riots in front of the Justice Center in downtown Portland, told PJ Media the shooting in Portland Saturday happened four blocks from his apartment building.

“I get done watching the Trump rally… and I made note of the time because you know, it seems like everything right now is under a microscope,” recalled Johnson. “And now the time that this rally ended was right around eight o’clock. KGW and LOIN TV went off the air. KATU their livestream went off the air about an hour and a half after the rally had gone through Portland.”

A short time later he heard gunfire near his home. A friend with Portland Police Bureau texted Johnson about the incident, so he decided to go out and see for himself what happened.

“I’ve been chatting with one of my buddies from DHS and PPD,” Johnson told PJ Media, “and they’re like, man, some guy got shot four blocks from your house. Immediately I’m thinking there’s no way that this is going to get a fair shake. I gotta go down for myself to see what’s really going on. I got to talk to people that are there because immediately what you see in the news is not what happened. I spent about two hours out [Saturday] night just trying to get as much information as I could.”

Johnson said he was disgusted by the reaction he saw from rioters. “The people were just elated and I saw that there were celebrating it,” he said. “It was disgusting. What they just displayed makes me rethink my personal values and who I align with, my [Democratic] political affiliation, because that’s not me, man. That’s not me and that’s not a lot of people. You can’t just blatantly label this man a fascist and Nazi and ‘he deserved to die’ bulls***.”

“But yeah, it’s the Trump rally that made this happen,” he said sarcastically.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-astronaut-jeanette-epps-joins-first-operational-boeing-crew-mission-to-space

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps will be making history in 2021 as the first Black female astronaut to become a crew member on a mission to the International Space Station.

The space agency announced on Tuesday that Epps would be joining Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada for NASA’s first operational crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Williams, who will be embarking on her third expedition, and Cassada, on his first, were assigned to the mission in August 2018. On Twitter, NASA’s administrator Jim Bridenstine said that Epps is a “fantastic addition.” Epps responded with a video sharing her thanks.

Epps was selected as a member of the 2009 astronaut class after earning her doctorate in aerospace engineering and working for the CIA. She was slated to join a June 2018 ISS expedition before the position was suddenly passed onto fellow female astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, who became the first Hispanic woman to live on the ISS.

At the time, Epps’s brother Henry claimed that racism at NASA was the reason for the switch — a sentiment that Epps has never commented on publicly. NASA didn’t immediately respond to Yahoo Life’s request for comment, but responded in 2018 to Henry Epps’s claims, telling the Washington Post, “Diversity and inclusion are integral to mission success at NASA and we have a diverse astronaut corps reflective of that approach.”

NASA confirmed to CNBC that six Black Americans have visited the space station in the past, although none for an extended period of time, making Epps the first Black woman astronaut to make a six-month expedition.

Epps has shared nothing but her excitement on Twitter, writing that she is “looking forward to the mission” and sharing that excitement with her crew members

https://www.theepochtimes.com/dems-blaming-violence-in-american-cities-on-trump-is-despicable_3481871.html

More and more Bertolt Brecht’s play “In the Jungle of Cities” is becoming an apt description of today’s America.

Murder, riot, arson, destruction, you name it—America’s cities have got it. Only a very few of our major urban areas have escaped the carnage, and almost all of those barely.

This weekend we have the fatal shooting of a Trump supporter in Portland (Jack Posobiec put it well on Parler: “Antifa killed someone again last night but media tells us they don’t exist”), cops being shot (one critically) in St. Louis and a Chicago shooting (yet again and as usual) outside a South Side restaurant with one killed and four injured plus some potshots at a Trump procession in Los Angeles’ Woodland Hills.

It goes without saying, as the night follows the day, these cities have Democrat mayors. Every single one of the centers of violence from Seattle to Philadelphia do.

And yet Biden & Co. are trying to make this Trump’s fault.

Besides the obvious—that they are terrified their failure at their convention to mention what was happening in the cities could cost them the election and are trying desperately (with a lie) to play catch-up—this reveals the real, underlying problem with today’s liberal and progressive: infantilism.

Okay, I’ll be nice: immaturity. Today’s liberal/progressive (oh, how I abhor the desecration of the English language inherent in those terms) abjures taking responsibility for the actions in his/her city. In fact, he or she is terrified of so doing.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/31/in-racialising-everything-we-are-playing-with-fire/

The wave of protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd rolls on. Riots have erupted in Kenosha, Wisconsin after the shooting of a black man by police, and two protesters have been killed. The US seems as divided as at any time in its recent history. But is America really a ‘structurally racist’ country, and are its police truly oppressing black people?

Glenn Loury is an American economist, author and commentator. He was the first ever tenured black professor of economics at Harvard University, and is currently a professor of social sciences and economics at Brown University. He joined spiked editor Brendan O’Neill for the latest episode of The Brendan O’Neill Show. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. Listen to the full episode here.

Brendan O’Neill: One of the issues with Black Lives Matter is it has given the distinct impression to people around the globe that America remains a structurally racist country. There are clearly issues that impact on African-American communities. But one of the things you have written and spoken about incredibly well is the hollowness of the term ‘structural racism’. It seems to have become a mantra wheeled out to explain every single problem that faces particular communities or even particular individuals. If someone does not get a pay rise, for example, that must be down to structural racism. If there are not enough black people on a board of directors, that must be due to structural racism, too. Explain to us why you have an issue with that term and why its overuse makes it a meaningless way of understanding contemporary problems.

Glenn Loury: These days, I am given to saying the term ‘structural racism’ is both a bluff and a bludgeon. It is a bluff in the sense that it offers an explanation that is not really an explanation at all, and in effect dares the listener to come back with a response. For example, if someone says there are too many blacks in prison in the United States and that that is because of structural racism, they are daring you to say there are too many black criminals and that is why there are so many blacks in prison. They want you to say it is not the system’s fault, but the individual’s.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/30/whos-on-first-with-joe-biden/

Building back better means building back greener,” sounds like the latest bromide from the Democratic Party’s chief cellar-dweller Joe Biden. But the speaker is actually World Health Organization boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, back on August 21.

 The coronavirus pandemic, Tedros said, “has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change” and “given us a glimpse of our world as it could be: cleaner skies and rivers.” Yet “at the same time, we will not, we cannot go back to the way things were,” he warns. 

The millions suffering from the pandemic, particularly the unemployed, might wonder about the man who plagiarizes Joe Biden’s slogan. 

 Tedros is a veteran of the Marxist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), responsible for atrocities against the Amhara ethnic group in northwest Ethiopia. Tedros earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1986, but never completed medical studies to become a physician. During his tenure as Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 until 2012, Tedros purposely covered up cholera outbreaks in 2006, 2009, and 2011.

https://www.newsmax.com/us/coronavirus-covid-twitter/2020/08/30/id/984567/

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report late last week showing that just 9,683 Americans, or 6%, died with only having COVID-19 listed on their death certificates, leading to a social media trending topic on the issue.

The other 94% of deaths were listed as having at least one additional medical condition linked to their death.

Some of the underlying diseases listed by the CDC include influenza and pneumonia, respiratory failure, hypertensive disease, diabetes, vascular and unspecified dementia, cardiac arrest, heart failure and renal failure.

Twitter proponents on both sides of the issue made their case that the data either proved that CDC had been wrong all along or that that health officials have said from the start that comorbidities were more likley to cause a person to die from COVID-19 anyway. 

At least 182,885 people have died from coronavirus in the United States, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The CDC has long said that pre-existing health conditions can cause people to experience more severe COVID-19 symptoms.

Many health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have rejected claims that coronavirus deaths are being exaggerated.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/democrat-violence-takes-life-portland-daniel-greenfield/

Mayor Ted Wheeler recently told Oregon Public Radio that his only strategy for dealing with the violence in Portland is to let it “burn itself out.”

The admission came after he falsely claimed that Federal law enforcement’s presence was “leading to more violence” only to see the leftist violence continue to grow after the pullout deal.

On August 28, Mayor Wheeler tweeted a letter that he wrote to President Trump turning down his offer of federal law enforcement aid while insisting that, “There is no place for looting, arson, or vandalism in our city.”

That was and is an obvious lie.

Several days earlier, Wheeler had let slip his now infamous “burn itself out” line while suggesting that the so-called ‘non-violent’ protests “won’t end for quite some time.”

After a pro-Trump activist was shot by one of the leftist rioters whom Mayor Wheeler had enabled, the Democrat boss began his comments on the shooting by denouncing President Trump and his supporters who had traveled in a caravan flying Trump 2020 flags.

“It’s you who have created the hate and the division,” Mayor Wheeler ranted. “And now you want me to stop the violence you helped create. What America needs is for you to be stopped.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-portland-clashes-11598829099?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The violent protests of the last three months in Portland, Ore., escalated on Saturday night into a right-left confrontation that resulted in one man shot dead in the streets. This is what happens when political leaders fail to perform the most basic responsibility of government to protect innocent lives and property.

The main failure here lies with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Gov. Kate Brown, who have consistently indulged the rioters. Every night for more than 90 days, Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters have demonstrated in Portland. Many are peaceful, but a hard core have repeatedly attacked police and burned buildings.

When President Trump sent federal law enforcement agents to Portland this summer to protect federal buildings, the mayor and Governor blamed Mr. Trump for the violent clashes. But when federal agents stood down, the violence continued against Portland police and property. On Friday Mr. Wheeler issued an open letter rejecting Mr. Trump’s latest offer of federal help to restore order.

“We don’t need your politics of division and demagoguery. Portlanders are onto you. We have already seen your reckless disregard for human life in your bumbling response to the COVID pandemic. And we know you’ve reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to reelection,” Mr. Wheeler wrote.

Yet his city is the one burning and where someone has now been killed. Mr. Wheeler, Gov. Brown and state lawmakers have hamstrung police by limiting anti-riot tactics. At a Sunday press conference the Portland police chief said his department lacked the resources to separate the fighting factions, but the feckless Mr. Wheeler offered little more than a plea against violence and rhetoric about reform to address racial injustice.

That hasn’t stopped Democrats from blaming Mr. Trump for the violence, as they did all day Sunday. Democrats spent their convention never mentioning the urban violence, but after the Kenosha riots and the GOP convention, this has become a political liability. So they’re pivoting to blame Mr. Trump and claim that “his America” is causing it. As if Trump supporters belong to Antifa and dominate U.S. cities.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/29/blake-sexually-assaulted-victim-in-may-defied-restraining-order/

According to news reports, Kenosha police were responding to a 911 call related to an existing warrant on Jacob Blake for felony sexual assault, trespassing, and domestic abuse before Blake was shot on August 23. The Kenosha Professional Police Association issued a statement on Friday that detailed the May assault; police filed charges against Blake in July.

Blake allegedly broke into the bedroom of the victim, an ex-girlfriend, in the early morning of May 3 and sexually assaulted her while one of her children slept beside her. The victim told police that Blake attacks her “around twice a year when he drinks heavily,” the New York Post reported August 28. A 911 call from that same residence triggered Blake’s encounter with police, which sparked looting and rioting in Kenosha, a city located on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin, that spread to other cities across the county.

Police also confirmed that Blake had a knife in his possession; video taken during the incident supports that claim. Blake resisted arrest and ignored officers’ commands before he was shot in the back. He remains in stable condition at a Milwaukee hospital.

Political leaders, celebrities, and athletes have rallied to Blake’s defense. In a video message taped at his home, Joe Biden said Blake’s shooting was another example of “systemic racism” and fretted about what Blake’s children watched unfold. “Our hearts are with his family, especially with his children,” Biden told the camera. “It’s horrible what they saw.” (Blake, 29, has six children under the age of 8.)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/28/us-tech-stocks-are-n

U.S. tech stocks have been pushing the stock market to record highs, and now the sector has now become more valuable than the entire European stock market for the first time in history, according to the latest research from Bank of America.

KEY FACTS

The bank said in a note that the total market capitalization of U.S. tech stocks reached $9.1 trillion, eclipsing that of the entire European market—including the UK and Switzerland, which is now valued at $8.9 trillion.

In 2007, by comparison, the European market was four times the size of the U.S. tech sector, the firm said.

The news comes as no surprise as big tech names continue to play a large role in leading the market to new record highs: The S&P 500 has rebounded over 55% from its low point in March.

But the growth has also led to rising concerns about the U.S. stock market becoming increasingly concentrated in a handful of megacap tech stocks.

The five biggest companies—Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google-parent Alphabet and Facebook—account for 23.8% of the S&P 500, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. 

KEY FACTS