What’s changed since we marched for Black lives?

Taffy, I guess you missed the DJ article regarding the investigation that blows up the garbage reports about our great President Trump forcibly clearing protesters in front of the White House. Just another incident where TDS-infected folks perpetuate blathering fake news baloney written by lamestream media liars. Face it, you’ve been had. Yet again. I’m surprised the AP wrote about it, although they tried to add some lame left-wing spin. Maybe they’re trying to regain some credibility in political reporting. One can hope. BTW, here’s a link for your convenience: https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/national/federal-probe-protest-not-broken-up-due-to-trump-photo-op/article_fd5d87ec-c965-11eb-87f0-2fe6209baef5.html

Come on Taffy - that is totally unrelated. I never proclaimed Trump to be faultless as he certainly had his issues. But the BLM and the continued avoidance of folks like the Reverend concerning the Black on Black massacres have never been exposed or highlighted by her or the NAACP. That is my point. She and her organization affiliations never submit solutions. Just blaming white supremacy or the police is getting old and is not a feasible answer. She goes right along with the race baiters that finance her lifestyle.

Terence,

If Trump and his "best people" in his administration were not the greatest team of corrupt liars to ever hold any office, their explanation when it occurred may have been believed. Knowing how little they say is true, it would only be believed after a thorough report from another source is produced. If that is the case I am fine with it.

Good morning Dirk,

I don’t have a big disagreement with some of the points in your reply to Rev. Owens. I do disagree with your position that seems to imply that only the left lies and continues to lie. My point is for someone that favors the right wing side of things to talk about the left lying without giving due credit to the lies of the right is hypocrisy and is related, especially when the deposed leader of the right is the greatest liar to ever hold any office anywhere.

In your reply to me you mention the lack of submitting solutions. Another case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Republicans only solution to anything is NO. No matter what the problem is the answer is no. They had ten years to come up with something to replace “Obama Care” and what did they produce? For six years they said they would get rid of it the day they took office and then they had four years in office and still have nothing.

Hi, Tafhdyd

Trying to determine which Washington types are lying is a fool's errand. You have heard me say multiple times that Trump, when he was in the Oval Office, exaggerated, contorted facts and sometimes just created stuff out of whole cloth. That is a sword that cuts both ways, and it is more than a little annoying that DJ readers continually dodge the issue re: Joe's four pinocchios... like it didn't happen.

IMO while there is finger pointing from both sides of the aisle, there is more coming from the left. It's hard to argue against that position when you consider how much the left dominates newsrooms across the country. The left just has more fingers to point... and that same MSM media continues to report misinformation without bothering to investigate the veracity of ridiculous claims made by Trump haters.

The most recent example was exposed yesterday. The left reveled in a false report that the Donald ordered Lafayette Square protestors tear-gassed so he could take advantage of a photo op. It's just not true. Will we see any retractions?

The same ol' MSM reported in the past that Trump planned to invade Mexico, that he overfed and killed fish in the WH koi pond, that he wanted to rename Black history month, that Trump recommended bleach injections to fight COVID, and more. Stories invented by reporters who wanted to be first to break a story at the expense of being truthful. It goes all the way back Trump's first day in office... the media reported that Trump ordered the removal of a bust of Martin Luther King. Again, untrue.

I agree with points of view expressed in this section saying the left's current narrative advancing that police shootings are the greatest danger to Black lives is intellectually dishonest. It is.

Hello Ray,

I thought we beat that horse so many times he was buried a couple of months ago. I think we are the only two commenters that agree that both sides lie and are crooks, and yes, probably more from the left on lies, but, IMO, more from the right on crooks. You are going to have to find more to hang your hat on than Joe’s four pinocchios. How many four P’s has Joe received? How many forests did they clear cut to make pinocchios for Donald?

In your second paragraph, “…MSM media continues to report misinformation without bothering to investigate the veracity of ridiculous claims made by Trump haters.”, as you say the sword cuts both ways. Right wing media does the same with the garbage on the other side of the fence.

Lafayette Square. Just as Sidney Powell said that no one in their right mind would believe the stuff she said, no one in their right mind believes what Trump said. If he wasn’t a professional liar, (verified lies hundreds and hundreds of times), and had some credibility maybe some people would have believed him. I certainly didn’t believe it then but I will now after seeing the report. (Mark that down on your score sheet) It is a sad state of affairs when everything that came out of that administration has to investigated before it is believed.

As for the MSM reports of the past, you do remember Trump saying that maybe we should try bleach at the same news conference that he followed that up suggesting using strong lights inside the body to kill the virus don’t you? I didn’t hear about the koi pond but I would have believed it if I did. And finally, MLK statue on the first day in office. Zeke Miller of Time made the mistake because he didn’t see it. It was obscured by a door and a Secret Service agent. He jumped the gun but then corrected his tweet and apologized within the hour. Of course right wing media didn’t say anything about that. They just hyped the MSM error or lie if you want. Speaking of the first day in office, don’t forget Trump’s lies started then also. Remember the “Largest crowd in history to see an inauguration”?

I missed the 5 o’clock in New York so I will catch up with the 5PM in Chicago.

So Taffy, you believe the fake news and lies from left-wing biased AP and all of a sudden when the AP comes out with a report showing the lamestream media made up their reports you no longer believe them? Um, sounds like you have the same cherry picking hypocrisy as another commenter I responded to. Did Democrats forget to make a protection payment?

Hi, Tafhdyd

So, let me get this straight... a little bit of lying out of the Oval Office is OK... is that what you're saying?

"I don't know anything about my son's business dealings... " Oh, yeah... just forgot about sharing an office with him which was also used by a Chinese energy company business partner with ties to the CCP.

C'mon, man! There's a huge cache of prevarications, dissembling, canards... in other words... lies connected with good ol' Joe. He even pulled out of a presidential race due to lying about authorship of his speeches (also known as plagiarism). Don't forget rejecting science to repay teachers unions for campaign contributions.

But here's the biggest lie and most critical lie from Joe... he wants unity. If that was the case, why is preaching to us that the US is a systemically racist country? It's not, but how else is Joe... Democratic Party leader... going to push the progressive agenda?

Check out the World Population Review's list of most racist countries in the world. They rank the top 25... see the US in there? Nope. But Joe's lie about systemic racism keeps the narrative going. It could not be more dishonest...

Almost three quarter of Americans want the border secure and voters to show IDs... not red state or blue state Americans... just Americans.

If you're a practicing Catholic, how can you endorse a political policy that supports abortion? Some recent PEW and Gallup polling asks if people feel that generally should first term abortion should be legal. Response... 60% or so say "yes." For third term abortion... same question. Do you feel that generally third term abortion should be legal? The percentage of "yes" responses drops to 10-15%. Yet, Joe is right there with all the other Democratic Party heavyweights saying "Abortion now, abortion tomorrow, abortion forever." How honest is that?

Yeah, Trump says some crazy things... no doubt. Your example re: the inauguration is a great example. But how does that ego boosting inveigling by Trump compare to ending the life of an unborn child and saying it's an OK choice? The unborn child didn't make that choice...

There's some Chardonnay tonight in my future.

Ray,

I won’t say lying is OK but every politician lies. Those that don’t think think they lie are either naive or unrealistic. I guess internationally a few lies are not a big deal compared to a lot of lies tied to a crook. The Pew study released yesterday seems to show that.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image-abroad-rebounds-with-transition-from-trump-to-biden/

Jumping down to the abortion issue. I am a opposed to abortion but it is legal under our laws and it is up to the lady with the baby. It is a decision she has to make between her and her doctor and her God if she has one. She has to live the rest of her life with the decision. The only thing banning abortion will do is make for higher prices on coat hanger stocks and higher medical bills for those that have them under unsafe conditions. Prostitution is illegal in most places, how is that working out? The problem with “right to life” people is that most are actually “right to birth”. They opposed programs for prenatal care and once the child is born they say your the one that got pregnant, you take care of it. If they were truly right to life they would all be against the death penalty and killing people with bombs and missiles around the world.

BTW, is lying about sharing an office better or worse than subverting the Constitution and abuse of power by using the Justice Dept. to do your dirty work on your political enemies as Trump was doing?

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/national/justice-dept-congress-probing-trump-seizures-of-dems-data/article_cc8117d5-26fd-5950-ab62-e57218db5f1a.html

Tafhdyd

You wrote, "I won’t say lying is OK but every politician lies." That's why I like you so much... you're honest and you look at things from different angles.

America's image rebounding? Well, if you poll left leaning countries, you will get a positive response to Joe Biden's ascendancy. Imagine that. And it's no surprise Merkel and Macron are highly rated in polls. Trump pulled out of the WHO (will Roger Daltry ever be the same?) and the Paris Climate Accords... for some, there is nothing more vile. That's OK. They're entitled to that opinion. Funny, how the countries that vilified the Donald were largely the same countries that the Donald told they have to pay more for their own defense.

You wrote, "I am a opposed to abortion but it is legal under our laws and it is up to the lady with the baby. It is a decision she has to make between her and her doctor and her God if she has one." First, thanks for writing "God" with an uppercase G... Next, we agree with a lot and I am smack in the middle of the data with respect to other aspects of this discussion.

Early on... it's the woman's decision. I still don't like the idea of ending a life, but I agree with that 60% that say "generally" it should be legal. But later on... especially if the child is viable outside the womb... I find myself in the 85% that say it should not be "generally" legal.

The left goes to the argument that young women will resort to back alley abortions. I'm not sure that would be the case for most women who carry a baby for eight months. Have the baby... put it up for adoption. This goes back to the Bush era... the Senate passed a bill banning partial birth abortion, but the courts... the liberal courts... struck it down. Boxer objected to the bill saying it needed provisions to ensure pregnant women got information about alternatives. Feinstein... went to the old standby... she said if partial birth abortion is prohibited then Roe v. Wade will be in jeopardy. This all happened almost 20 years ago. They tucked tail and ran. That's when I left the Democratic Party. No leadership... just leftist noise.

So, Barbara... let's get that info to pregnant women. Dianne... we can stop the slaughter of innocents without assailing the Holy Grail of progressives... Roe v. Wade. A huge majority of Americans don't believe late term abortion should "generally" be legal, and they are right.

Spare me the left's claims that Trump was a huge "existential" threat to out democracy. I have submitted a list of scandals and other issues from the Obama era to leftist DJ readers, and they just ignore them.

To be fair, you have heard me say that Hunter deserves the presumption of innocence even as he is being scrutinized by the feds. Has he benefited thus far from his father's position? I think so... but let's wait and see what happens.

Last of the last things... I resist playing the "what if this was a Republican who did the same thing" game. However, in this one instance... what would the MSM be saying about Trump's son if they uncovered emails from him using racial epithets? Would the full fury of the cancel culture be unleashed against him? Absolutely. Has that happened to Hunter? Absolutely not. Proof that if it wasn't for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.

Good morning, Rev. Owens

Thanks for such an articulate and well-reasoned response… and for staying up late to post your comments. You are a busy lady.

We are not only close in our feelings about some of the issues introduced in this op-ed piece; we share the same feelings about some of these issues. And I agree with your statement there is a glaring incongruity in the larger conversation if we “… say nothing about unarmed black people being killed by the few bad police officers out there, because more black people kill black people… “

Yes, we can learn from history, but neither the 1619 project nor the 1776 project can inform us sufficiently. Poverty does drive a lot of the crime in our inner cities, and that is beyond sad. However, it is too simple, and it stops the larger conversation to say race is driving that poverty. The white supremacists knuckleheads (I cannot identify them in stronger terms as the DJ filters would block such descriptions) who are out there are probably sitting around in their meetings and smugly taking credit for the poverty we see in our inner cities. They did not create it…

I voted for Barack Obama, once. The day after his election in 2008, I had a meeting with one of my supervisors who happened to be Black. We were alone and I turned the conversation to the election results. My supervisor, who is also a friend, began to weep openly and unashamedly. It was inspiring to see how much the election meant to him and by extension all Blacks. He said he thought he would never see the election of a Black person to the presidency in his lifetime… but it happened. I was also heartened because the elevation of Barack to the Oval Office brought with it the hope of real changes coming to impoverished communities… but that did not happen. During Barack’s term, our national debt was only somewhere in the 20 trillion-dollar range. Using history as a guide and going back 50 years before Barack’s election to the creation of the Great Society, the US spent about 20 trillion dollars on social and entitlement programs. That should have helped to lift many persons of color out of poverty. It did not.

I do not know if you are a socialist, and I guess it really does not matter if you are because racism transcends political affiliation. You can be Karl Marx or Adam Smith and still take a stand against racism. I do not think Jesus was a socialist… that is just my opinion. While he encouraged listeners to sell their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, he was not against wealth when it is used for good. The Lord tells us that he has plans to prosper us if we keep his commandments, and the accumulated wealth from such prosperity should be shared with the needy. Twenty trillion talents… er, I mean dollars. Yes, there were some lives changed and uplifted through social and entitlement programs in the 50 years before Barack’s election, but too many of those dollars were squandered not unlike the failed stewardship noted in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents.

Profiling… yes, it happens. Part of the drive to take badges away from rogue cops must include police training and the insistence that the law be applied equally to everyone regardless of color. Defunding the police is not a way to achieve that goal. There is an aspect to police contacts that may surprise you. In one peninsula city, there are several non-Black officers who just will not stop Black drivers. And if they do come across a Black driver by happenstance, they will give a warning and not a citation. Why do you think that happens? Well, regardless of the reason for stopping a vehicle, e.g., blowing through a stop sign, serious speeding, etc., those officers just do not want to hear, “The only reason you stopped me is because I’m Black.” So, it is easier to look the other way and avoid being accused of racism while trying to do your job. Is that fair to all the other non-Black motorists stopped and ticketed? Of course not. Do you think this reaction by officers is limited to one peninsula city? Of course not. You can find this reaction by police officers in towns and cities across America. I say again… across America.

I also agree with your statement, “Most police officers are good people who put their lives on the line daily to protect our communities.” We should not lose that focus, and your observation that officers have to deal with things they should have to handle is equally true, but it happens. They deal with families shattered by tragedies, abused children, and victims of violent crimes… they do so because it their way of serving our communities. A way regular folks… regardless of color… simply would not do.

Oops... a couple of typos. Sorry.

Last paragraph... "officers have to deal with things they should NOT have to handle" and "it IS their way of serving our communities."