Big Brother Is Watching

Mike Skater on Breitbart was interviewing a tech specialist this morning, discussing the pros and cons of technology, with the cons mostly related to privacy issues. The proliferation of Flock cameras, small automated license plate readers (ALPS), is troubling, as they are widely employed by law enforcement to scan passing vehicles and upload that information to a database. So at any given time, they can access where your vehicle has been and, in real time, where it’s going. Granted, a useful tool if your vehicle has been stolen, or a crime has been committed, and the perpetrator escaped in a vehicle. Unfortunately, the data is also being used to track movement across state lines to buy fireworks or marijuana that is illegal in the state of origin, allowing law enforcement to lie in wait for when the vehicle returns home. Kinda petty.  Unscrupulous law enforcement officers have also used it for personal use, such as tracking ex-spouses or girlfriends. Not cool. The other concern, particularly in anti-Second Amendment states, is that the data can be used to track vehicles that frequent gun stores or gun ranges, essentially providing de facto gun registration in states where it is illegal to keep a database of gun purchases and ownership. Also not cool, as the net is cast so wide that it ensnares significantly more law-abiding folks than the criminal element.  And down the rabbit hole we go: Vehicles present at a Trump rally, vehicles that go back and forth to Republican Party headquarters, vehicles at a Turning Point USA event, vehicles coming and going from a politician’s home or even the politician’s personal vehicle. You get the drift. And who exactly has access to this database? Then there’s human error. In one state, a murder was committed, and the getaway car’s license plate was incorrectly entered into the system. The mistake resulted in an innocent woman being aggressively pursued and stopped on the highway, removed from her vehicle, and arrested at gunpoint. The error was discovered, and she was sent on her way. Oops, sorry about that. But the original error was not corrected in the system, resulting in her being subjected to yet another traumatic traffic stop a week later. Yikes. Orwellian stuff. What could possibly go wrong? For any of you concerned that big brother is coming, fear not. He’s already here.

Welfare Where Art Thou

The WSJ editorial “Why the Welfare Debate Went Silent” is spot on and enough to infuriate all but the most liberal taxpayers. As Rush Limbaugh summed up in a more simplistic manner: “Why don’t we feed the bears?  Because the bears become dependent on us feeding them.” But in searching for that exact quote, I came across an article in the “Religious Dispatch” by some obscure author named Ian Reifowitz, looking to say something profound and outrageous, but ultimately an example of unhinged bias, who opined shortly after Rush’s death that his “race-baiting and gaslighting of Obama paved the way for Trump.” He goes on to theorize that Rush “tribalized” politics and used religion to divide us, suggesting Obama was a Muslim when he was “in fact” a Christian. The only mention of his association with the radical preaching of Reverend Wright was by name, with no explanation, using the association as another example of being a faithful Christian. Only a passing reference to Obama’s Muslim father, his distinctly Muslim name, his Indonesian youth, his practicing Muslim stepfather….all glossed over by the killing of Osama Bin Laden as proof of his allegiance to Christianity. So in essence, the treatise is based on Obama being a Christian with no reference to his politics. Whatever omissions necessary to make your flimsy case. But calling Limbaugh a “hateful… lying gaslighter” is beyond the pale. Just using “gaslighter, a favorite term of the pseudo-intellectual left, suggests which side of the aisle you’re on, and using divisive rhetoric has long been the calling card of the Democrat party. Andrew Breitbart leveled the divisive accusation at democrats years before this twit Reifowitz wrote this fluff piece in an obscure publication. And trashing a deceased conservative pundit who would have eviscerated you in a confrontation reeks of cowardice. An internet search revealed Reifowitz in his burrow, naturally a faculty member at Empire State University in New York, supposedly a professor of historical studies. Yet another example of our biased education system indoctrinating our youth. Apparently, the rest of the media horde was unimpressed… we haven’t heard anything of substance from him since 2021.   

Sublime To The Ridiculous

With each passing day, we see more evidence that the republic is crumbling. University of Michigan dropping grades for first-year students to stem their mental health crisis. Sure, let’s pamper them some more; that will definitely help them adjust to the real world. The Washington Post criticizing Trump for using a ruse to conceal his air travel plans returning from Turkey after threats from Iran. Heaven's no, let’s detail our president’s travel itinerary so our enemies know exactly where he can be targeted. Idiots. An actual communist is leading in the polls in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary after proposing a 17% state income tax, elimination of the right-to-work law, tax deduction on union dues, abolishing the police, abolishing the presidency, government confiscation of private businesses, government running grocery stores, abolishing Congress and opening our borders. All this from a woman who claims to be a chef and drove her Ramen noodle restaurant into bankruptcy. Sure, pick her to run your state. 

DSA Abomination

I can understand the youth vote trending towards the DSA candidates, given the current popularity of the class warfare, pay your fair share, redistribution, give me free stuff mentality that has pervaded the Democrat party messaging. As Andrew Breitbart opined, “they divide, they divide,” separating us into the haves and have-nots in this case, disregarding and minimizing that which we have in common. There has been no better target in the age of social media than disaffected youth feeling as though they have been shut out of the American dream after being promised upward mobility with a six-figure gender studies degree. But what I can’t understand is the embrace of….let’s call it what it is…..communism by the limousine liberals: those older, well-educated, financially secure white progressives that have embraced the radical leftist, anti-American policies of El-Sayed, Piker, Hong and their communist ilk. Do they realize that when these candidates talk about redistribution, government control of personal property, control of housing, and business seizures, they will not be immune to the economic catastrophe just because they virtue-signaled at the ballot box?  Not yet, apparently. But we can only hope that the motivated 20% of registered Democrat voters that cast their votes for this level of insanity do not represent the 80 percent that stayed home.  Polls however tend to show that Democrat voters are considerably more receptive to communist ideals than their conservative counterparts, that leads to a concern that when faced with the option of a Republican candidate, who will undoubtedly be immersed in the perfume of MAGA association by the media, or a Democrat, even one with unhinged socialist policies, anti-constitution rhetoric, anti-semitism and adhering to the communist manifesto, they will reflexively pull the lever without weighing the consequences. This embrace of Communism, and in some cases what could be more appropriately labeled as Islamo-Marxism, is a frightening development, and hopefully a brief fling that will be squashed at the ballot box when cooler heads will prevail this November. But midterm elections have historically been problematic for the party in the White House, and just as the Obama and Biden administrations swung the pendulum hard to the right, the Trump era may have the opposite effect, swinging it dangerously far left. These wild gyrations are not good for the health of the republic, and should the DSA gain a foothold in the midterms, this will not end well.