Tom Hagen:Well, I say yes. There is more money potential in narcotics than anything else we’re looking at now. If we don’t get into it, somebody else will, maybe one of the Five Families, maybe all of them. And with the money they earn they’ll be able to buy more police and political power. Then they come after us. Right now we have the unions and we have the gambling and those are the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. If we don’t get a piece of that action we risk everything we have. Not now, but ten years from now.
The Godfather 1972 Emphasis Mine
Boston Common 2018 leftist “anti-racists” mob a guy wearing an Israeli flag
There is an interesting piece at Hotair concerning Pittsburgh and change in (almost all) Democrats concerning the aftermath of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting titled: Is Pittsburgh still stronger than Hate? by Salena Zito. She talked about the unity against the slaughter of Jews and the Pittsburgh stronger than hate campaign which isn’t what it once was:
…seemingly everywhere you went, the Pittsburgh Stronger Than Hate logo, which cleverly had the Steelers’ distinctive mineral elements as part of the design, was on T-shirts, kippahs, lawn signs, hoodies and more.
Recently, however, Pittsburgh became the site not of strength and unity but of hatred and division. A group of over 300 far-left activists established a Gaza solidarity encampment on the private property of the University of Pittsburgh, and the community has not been the same since.
You see the Ghastly Tom Hagen Math has caught up with Pittsburgh and math being math it’s unrelenting:
Right now the left has the Gays and the Transgenders and the Hollywood elites & media in which they are overrepresented and they figure that’s the best things to have, but in America Islam is a thing of the future. In 20 years the children of Muslims now being raised on the tenets of Sharia law in America will be old enough to vote and Democrats going to make sure they get those votes when the time come, not now but 10-20 years from now.
And if that means more LGBT Americans have to live in fear during those two decades, well it’s small price to pay for power.
Given the rise of “Queers for Palestine” It seems the LGBT community has seen the tiger charging and decided their immediate goal is to run faster than the Jews in order to be eaten last.
Meanwhile Democrats with power can also do the math and with new math comes new priorities:
Both the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County leadership were noticeably mute in the first 30 hours, with both Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Chief Executive Sara Innamorato, the latter having her early political success as a member of the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists, saying absolutely nothing for over a day.
When Gainey finally did offer a statement, it was through the Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson who wrote that the “encampment/sit-in at the University of Pittsburgh is strictly taking place on private campus property.”
As one elected Democrat who asked not to be identified said to me in a fit of frustration, “If the KKK had been doing this at Pitt, private property or not private property, I can guarantee you Gainey would be there in a heartbeat.”
Jewish progressive Democrats don’t seem to get it:
“The swiftness of it when you think of it is head-turning,” DePasquale said. He said no matter what happens on social media, he will always stand up for what is right when it comes to any religious group.
“I am all for standing up for the First Amendment,” he said, adding that calling for the end of Jewish groups or intifada is beyond a bridge too far.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Abigail Salisbury, a Democrat, Jew and proud progressive, who Gainey, Innamorato and Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) recently unsuccessfully tried to oust in a Democratic primary, (emphasis mine) said on Facebook, “It seems that many people expect Jews to sit quietly with our hands folded and allow others to tell us what is antisemitic. We won’t.”
They don’t see the math behind all of this both those Democrats who denounced hate all those years ago who now wanted the pesky Jew defeated see Muslims who want Jews dead as the future of their party:
For every Frankel, Heisler, Salisbury and DePasquale, there were the posts or retweets by Lee, county Councilwoman Bethany Hallam and city Councilwoman Barb Warwick that cut to the heart of Salisbury’s post.
Warwick, who tried but failed to introduce a Pittsburgh City Council ceasefire resolution and represents Squirrel Hill, issued a statement that said in part that the words “intifada” and “from the river to the sea” hold different meanings to different groups.
Could you imagine Democrats supporting someone who defended the Confederate battle flag saying it meant different things to different people?
The truth is that this is all about timing. It’s likely true that Mayor Gainey would have acted if the KKK was behind the camps today, but I suspect if the KKK ran such a camp in say 1920-1950 when the KKK was a political powerhouse within the Democrat party then I suspect Mayor Gainey would have acted much as he did now. And it goes without saying if Gainey was mayor of a city in the deep south during that period he might have joined the encampment itself.
You see the Democrat party needs to explain to Jewish Democrats like Frankel and Salisbury the real mathematical and demographic principle that’s in play here and nationally among Democrats. This principle can best be expressed by rephrasing Lincoln famous speech concerning his priority being not abolition but union. It would go something like this:
Our Paramount goal is to elect democrats and is not to prevent or enable the slaughter and/or oppression Jews in Israel or America
If we can elect democrats by protecting Israel and Jews in America from slaughter or oppression we will do it
If we can elect democrats by enabling the slaughter or oppression of Jews in Israel and America we will do it.
and if we can elect democrats by enabling the slaughter and/or oppression of Jews in some places while protecting Jews from slaughter and/or oppression in others we will do that too.
Now there was a time when such a manifesto might have been unacceptable to Democrats and to some like Senator John Fetterman who was Lt. Gov of Pennsylvania at the time of the Tree of Life Synagogue slaughter such a position still is but to those more “pragmatic” democrats in a party that his largely secularized such position doesn’t pay any percentages. Islam is a thing of the future and the Democrats want those young voters from large families who are now calling for the slaughter of Jews in their camp.
I’m sure that someone can be sent privately to Frankel, Heisler, Salisbury and DePasquale that none of it is personal, it’s strictly political business.
Closing thought #1: The real irony here is that many of these progressive Jewish democrats fought hard to secularize the nation and the laws to push Christian faith out of the public square and out of their party. In retrospect that might have been a bad idea.
Closing thought #2 One of the most interesting things about this development is how it crystalizes the Democrat’s war on the past. They were against anti-Semitic hate when it didn’t cost anything politically but now demur when it does. It’s very telling.
If you want to figure out which democrats would have stood against the KKK when it was electorally dangerous to do so (1920-1950) look at the ones who have stood against the anti-Semitic encampments all over blue states & universities and if you want to figure out which Democrats will be making excuses for those who who will be lynching Jews and throwing gays off the roofs of tall buildings in blue America in twenty years look at those who are not.
Closing thought 3: I personally saw all of this coming in Boston 6 years ago when organizers of an “anti-nazi” protest had to hold their people back from beating a person wearing an Israeli flag.
Now they don’t feel they need to so do anymore.
UPDATE: Here is an article title that nobody born in 1963 ever expected to read:
As you might know yesterday was a very good day for Boston Sports. The Red Sox came back from a deficit to defeat the 1st place Phillies to get their record back to .500 2 games behind the Twins for the last wild card spot. The Boston Celtics held on against a furious 4th quarter attack by the Mavericks to go up 3-0 against Dallas and put then one win away from a title.
And finally Tom Brady’s number was retired by the Patriots in a big event which competed with game 3.
The Brady event is very significant. Before the coming of Brady no Boston team had won a title since the days of Larry Bird. After Brady won that first title everything changed. Brady won six titles in Boston and in between those six titles the Celtics and Bruins both won titles when they had not won since the 1980’s and 1970’s respectively and the Red Sox who had not won a title since 1918 won four titles three of them on the back of David Ortiz who is the closest thing to Brady we’ve seen in Boston since Bird and Russell.
Brady won his last title in Boston (but not HIS last title) on February 19th 2019. That was the last title any Boston team has won in any major sport.
While some in Boston sports complained about the clash of this event with game 3 I think it’s very appropriate that it takes place when it did. As I noted Brady brought titles back to Boston and he furthermore won the last title that Boston has seen. It’s great to celebrate him as a team in on the verge of winning the first post Brady title for a team in Boston in the 21st century.
Although in fairness Dallas will have a say on if this happens or not.
One of the most alarming statistics reveals that U.S. soldiers were more likely to die by suicide than from combat industries. And it wasn’t by a small margin. Soldiers were nine times more likely to die in that manner.
Now maybe it’s just me, but if your soldiers are dying from suicide at a greater rate than by combat that means that you either:
Are not fighting large scale wars when heavy combat causalities
So effective at fighting wars that your troops are unlikely to get killed
I suspect that if you look at any major war from Vietnam back to the Revolution you won’t find a ratio like that.
What IS worrying is this figure from the same piece:
That still doesn’t come close to explaining the situation with the Army, however. Looked at based on per capita figures, the overall suicide rate for Americans went from 10.4 per 100,000 to 14.0 over the 21-year period measured. By comparison, the rate in the Army was 36.1 per 100,000 in 2021, and last year it reached 36.6. That’s not a minor difference. That’s more than two and a half times greater than what is seen in the general population. It’s also far more than should be written off as a coincidence.
If I may be so bold as to suggest I think this is yet another example of the costs of a post-Christian society. Once you remove the love of Christ from an equation, particularly a tough one and you’ll be surprised how a society, particularly a subset of a society engaged in dangerous work, reacts.
I bought my last new car the day after the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series.
For those not Philadelphia fans or baseball enthusiasts, that was 16 years ago.
Today, my Saturn Aura is no longer being made. The electronic gauges have mostly failed, and I’ve had to search for competent mechanics to keep the old car running.
A recent Wall Street Journal article confirmed that I was not alone in my lack of desire to buy a new car.
“It’s not just the political class. America’s fleet of cars and trucks is also getting long in the tooth. Last month a study by S&P Global Mobility reported the average age of vehicles in the U.S. was 12.6 years, up more than 14 months since 2014. Singling out passenger cars, the number jumps to a geriatric 14 years,” Dan Neil wrote recently.
“In the past, the average-age statistic was taken as a sign of transportation’s burden on household budgets. Those burdens remain near all-time highs. The average transaction price of a new vehicle is currently hovering around $47,000. While inflation and interest rates are backing away from recent highs, insurance premiums have soared by double digits in the past year,” Neil added.
Moreover, Neil reported that many buyers don’t like designs that include more technology, particularly electric vehicles. “But lately another, stranger element is showing up in the numbers: a motivated belief among consumers that automakers’ latest and greatest offerings—whether powered by gasoline, batteries or a hybrid system—are inferior to the products they are replacing,” Neil wrote. “I cast a wide net on social media last month, posing this question: Name a new car/truck/SUV that is not as desirable as the design it replaces. I got back a long and distinguished list, a roll call of the compromised: Toyota Land Cruiser; Mini Cooper; Ford Mustang; Toyota Crown (née Avalon); Ford F-150; just about every model of BMW you can think of.”
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