The last couple of days my rants have probably sounded like a guy who is despondent and without hope. If I’m being honest, there’s some truth in that assessment — I am greatly discouraged over the condition of the United States, and I am losing hope that there’s a chance to pull us out of the nosedive we’re in.
However.
I’ve written before that, ultimately, my hope in this life is not in politics, a president, a change in culture, or even in the people who populate these United States. My hope is in God, who measures out justice and retribution as he sees fit.
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. —Acts 17:26
So while I’m not at all joyful and hopeful about the future of these United States, I do rest assured in the future because of the one who is sovereign over all.
Having said that, there are some interesting developments taking place in the last few weeks that ought to give us some hope that people are starting to wake up to the realities that are being forced on us by the ideological demagogues on the Left. Before I share those with you, however, I need to issue a LOUD DISCLAIMER SO THAT NO ONE MISSES IT: I DO NOT TAKE PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF ANYONE.
Even God Himself takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (see Ezekiel 33:11).
I REPEAT: I DO NOT TAKE PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF ANYONE.
I write that because I’m going to give you some examples of woke activists becoming victims of their own woke policies. And while I will be the first to shake my head with disbelief and say, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” in the end it’s a sad day when anyone loses their life for any reason, stupid or not.
Death is final. That life is over. It will never be repeated. It’s done. Extinguished. A terrible and sobering reality.
But sometimes people bring it on themselves; sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.
EcoMap Technologies CEO Pava Marie LaPere, a self-described “anti-racist” and Black Lives Matter supporter who spoke out against the “criminalization of Black bodies,” was allegedly beaten to death in her own home in Baltimore on Monday by a black male who was released early from prison under the criminal justice reform policies she championed.
Video shows that the 26-year-old let her alleged assailant into the building because he pretended to be fumbling for his keys according to this report, which says,
So he was acting “as if he had forgotten his keys,” which convinced Johns Hopkins University graduate Pava LaPere to let the convicted sex offender — a fugitive suspect wanted on charges of rape, arson and attempted murder — into her building. Because it’s about a “building a deeply inclusive culture,” see? Virtue-signalling can get you killed.
So can naïveté, which plays into almost every one of these examples.
Over in Philadelphia, Josh Kruger was a freelance journalist and advocate for gay rights, homeless people, and drug abusers.
Kruger, 39, was killed Monday after police say someone entered his home just before 1:30 a.m. and shot him multiple times at the base of his stairs. The shooter fled, police said, and Kruger ran outside seeking help. Officers found him collapsed on the sidewalk on the 2300 block of Watkins Street, and rushed him to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, where he died a short time later.
According to this report, “Kruger had a long history of downplaying violent crime in the city, often openly mocking those who expressed concerns about homicides in Philadelphia.”
Hostile condescension may make a person deaf to reason.
Enough of Baltimore and Philadelphia. What’s happening in New York?
A stabbing took place early Monday morning in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, claiming the life of poet and far-left activist Ryan Carson. The 32-year-old was walking down the sidewalk with his girlfriend when he was attacked by a stranger.
As usual, Andy Ngo digs up the truth:
Here’s the kicker from Kevin Downey Jr.:
In a disturbing but not shocking move, Carson’s “loving” girlfriend, Claudia Morales, seen here wearing an Antifa “ACAB” shirt, (an anagram for “All Cops Are Bastards”) reportedly refused to give police a description of the man who killed her boyfriend. The revolution matters more.
That’s three people murdered in three different cities that have become dumpster fires because of the woke policies they supported.
In Minneapolis, Shivanthi Sathanandan survived a carjacking but is a victim of her own idiotic policies.
As Kevin Downey Jr. again writes:
Sathanandan is the leader of the Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party and a big cheerleader for the “defund the police” crowd. Or she was until four lads with guns beat the potato salad out of her in her driveway as her two young kids screamed for help.
In Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser also called for defunding the police and actually commissioned a street painting that read, “Black Lives Matter. Defund the Police.” Now she’s complaining that the city is 400 officers short and carjacking and other crime is on the rise.
Unfortunately for those involved, actions do have consequences, and Mayor Muriel Bowser is learning that the hard way. Amidst a growing crime wave, including a car-jacking epidemic that victimized a U.S. Congressional member on Monday evening, the mayor of the nation’s capital is complaining that she can’t fill the ranks of her police department.
“We have policies” is a passive phrase that eliminates personal responsibility. Just how is it that you “have policies that make it difficult to recruit new officers”?
Over in Chicago, IL, Gov. JB (for “Jelly Belly”) Pritzker has all but accused the Biden adminstration of ruining his city.
“Unfortunately, the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government. Most critically, the federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois.”
Says Pritzker. Who also defiantly said this:
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is similarly perturbed and said so.
The governor, up to her eyeballs in migrants, this week pointed the bony finger of blame at Biden administration border policies — and this was a very hopeful sign.
Could she be coming out of her coma?
Probably not.
For the governor then effectively endorsed the root cause of New York’s border-crosser crisis — Gotham’s completely insane, prohibitively expensive and totally unsustainable “right-to-shelter” policy.
You know, the one that says if you can make it to New York, you’ll have it made in New York — now and forever, no questions asked, until the tax base breaks.
To be sure, Hochul called out Washington’s abandonment of those states and localities shellacked by America’s shameful — and exceeding dangerous — border breakdown.
“This crisis originated with the federal government,” she quite correctly noted in an Albany speech Thursday, “and it must be resolved through the federal government.”
Of course she went right back into her coma when the blowback came.
The problem, she said, is the border itself: As in, “It’s too open right now.”
Which it obviously is. The consequences — societal, fiscal and cultural — also are obvious, and becoming more so.
But Hochul’s candor — aimed squarely at Washington, and at Joe Biden in particular — clearly has had consequences too.
On Monday, she was warbling a different — far more deferential — tune. To wit:
“With respect to what was said about the border, I have called for a more thoughtful, balanced national immigration — federal — immigration policy.”
Translation: “Oops, I sure stepped in it this time. Please don’t hurt me.”
And now, much too late—as in closing the barn door after the horse has bolted—Biden closes the barn door. Well, 20 miles of it, anyway. And he’s waiving 26 federal laws to do it.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas,” read the public notice produced by DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s office this week. The plan is to build at least 20 miles of new border barriers along the Rio Grande — an area Congress, in 2019, designated as a vital crossing point and appropriated $1.38 billion for the construction of a border wall to close.
The Biden White House is waiving no fewer than 26 federal laws — including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, among others — to construct the additional miles of wall with all due alacrity. Given the administration’s sensitivity to criticism from its left flank, this is not an initiative this White House would pursue if it had a choice. Moreover, the administration’s decision opens it up to the charge of hypocrisy, given the president’s categorical denunciation of the very concept of a border wall.
“It’s imperative that we secure our borders, but ‘build the wall’ is a slogan divorced from reality,” Biden wrote in a 2019 op-ed condemning the Trump White House’s “racist” policies toward the “Latinx” population. Building the wall, he wrote, was a waste of time and money. It would not “stop asylum seekers fleeing” north, nor would it reduce the undocumented population, “most of whom overstay legal visas.”
Delicious. Biden and the Dems are building a wall that they called racist, xenophobic and ineffective. Logically, that makes them racist, xenophobic and poor stewards.
Nah. That makes them hypocrites.
Scripture says that “a man reaps what he sows” (Gal. 6:7).
Have a good weekend.