What's Happening?

Since the forced lock-down for the COVID-19 Pandemic, the closest Julie and I have come to travel was a trip to visit our son Jay and his lovely bride Sasha in Brentwood Village, just north of the Santa Monica Freeway near UCLA.

That little Mother's Day celebration also introduced us to their new puppy, Jo Jo Snubs, a mix between a Beagle and King Charles Spaniel.

We were less formal than the dog's pedigree might require, casually eating chips along with some some beers and wine, first hanging out in their condo's dog park and then by the pool while Jay and Sasha took a hot tub.

After that sunny afternoon, it was back in the bunker to hunker down, but it has been nice to have the beaches re-opened so that we may walk along those beautiful shores.

Stores were just about to re-open from the Dempanic when a new crisis erupted with violence to the streets of Los Angeles County, though fortunately our little beach community has thus far been spared due to poor access to the freeway which makes quick escape problematic for criminals.

As such, any demonstrations around us have not been infiltrated by domestic terrorists like Antifa or street gangs, as has the misfortune in many big cities.

Presumably as a precaution, two Target Stores near our home were among 23 stores closed in Southern California, so we drove the short distance to our former home town, Manhattan Beach.

We found a sign on Target saying they wouldn't open until 10 AM, so we took that as an opportunity to revisit that beautiful stretch of coastline.



Walking down Manhattan Beach Blvd., the village looked very much to be preparing for a hurricane, which would be quite a rarity in Los Angeles County.

Of course, this was just part of the new abnormal, where store owners who had recently been informed they might be allowed to re-open soon were now boarded up to protect them from looters and arsonists who might accompany peaceful demonstrators as in Hollywood and Santa Monica.

Unfortunately, well-intended protests have been used as cover by domestic terrorists who bash in windows, loot stores and burn buildings to the ground.  These are the same terrorists who use seemingly unrelated crises to do the same, not unique criminal activity organically splintering from this latest cause célèbre.

Those who loot and set fires are not sincere advocates of the cause or generally from the communities they attack, bringing up an old adage about not leaving the stink in your own bed.  They're hardened criminals who will be selling most of those shoes, televisions and cases of whiskey, just as they do regardless of when and where they steal their loot.

As it turned out, the demonstration in Manhattan Beach was peaceful, and the focus could remain on the truly reprehensible incident that kicked it all off.

The cop who ruthlessly pressed his knee on the windpipe of George Floyd, asphyxiating him, has been fired and arrested for murder.

No one believes that cop's actions were justified as far as I can tell.  That bad apple will in all likelihood be found guilty in a court of law and imprisoned for life.

If he is given the death penalty, then I dare say that would be an easier end than he will face in prison as a man notorious for killing an unarmed black man and then subsequently triggering race riots nationally.

The balance of his life will be a living hell, though in fact, if you believe in hell, then perhaps you think his immediate death would be far worse.  Either way, he is not riding off into a beautiful Hollywood Riviera sunset.

The American system of law, which had its basis in British Common Law, does not proceed from arrest directly to the death penalty, even for murder.

Lynchings before trials are not unprecedented, as old westerns and black history can attest, but God save us from becoming a country that kills without legal due process.

We should never accept the choking of anyone with a rope or a knee, or further death by lethal injection, bullet to the brain, or any other method, without the procedure of a trial that includes the right to a robust defense which ultimately leads a guilty verdict and conviction for a capital crime.

Forgery is certainly not a capital offense.

Neither is walking through the wrong neighborhood.

We all agree the cop caused the death of George Floyd and should be punished, but that is already in process.  At the risk of being too repetitive, he's been stripped of his livelihood and charged with Second Degree Murder.  He's already being held in a maximum security penitentiary.

At this point, however, I don't know of anything short of immediately guillotining the Minneapolis cop at mid-field of the Minnesota Vikings, broadcast live internationally by all the networks and streamed on all social media platforms, that would prove he is being punished to this Instagram generation.



The other cops on the scene of Mr. Floyd's death should have forced that cop to back off and then at most handcuffed the suspect while they checked to see if he was actually some kingpin in forgery or an innocent dupe who had been passed a counterfeit bill, but they didn't.

As a direct result, they were all immediately fired and have now been charged with Aiding and Abetting in Murder in the Second Degree.

I can see how an argument can be made for First Degree Murder, although it is very hard to find "malice and forethought" in a situation like this.

Putting them under the blade on mid-field would wrap up the issue, or would it?

We all know the catalyst, but what is the underlying backstory of this crisis?

Obviously, that would be black people being killed by police, right?

In the last full year, there were 236 black people killed by police in 2019, according to the Washington Post.

Unlike the heinous choking of Mr. Floyd by knee as he lay face down, most were killed in pursuit rather than while in custody.

We may say even one is too many, and there were a total of 1,004 people of all races and genders killed by police in 2019.  Three-fourths of those were not black.

By comparison, consider black-on-black crime in inner cities.  Baltimore is a city of about 602,000.  In 2019, 325 black people were killed in Baltimore, and the overwhelming majority of those were not at the hands of police.  That's more than were killed by police nationally.  And that is just one relatively small city.

If protesters truly are concerned about black lives, shouldn't they be pressing police departments and Democratic Mayors who run these cities to find and incarcerate those gangs killing black lives in far greater numbers?

Instead, some peaceful protesters actually advocate "police-free" cities, and rather than following directions from police as most of us learned from our parents as children, instead obstruct police as they try to do something as simple as clearing a park as curfew approaches.

Or is it that "Black Lives Matter" only if the deaths fit a particular political agenda?

If statistics don't back up the stated back story for mass protests, what accounts for it?



You may recall that at the outset of President Trump's term, very similar protesters marched around in pink "pussy hats," with the Material Girl herself, Madonna, among other celebrities and activists who said they fantasized about killing the President or burning down the White House.

These "Post-Modernists" have hi-jacked the peaceful protests over Mr. Floyd, just as surely as the domestic terrorists have used them as opportunities for their own evil ends.

The underlying reason is that they truly hate President Donald Trump to the core and will do anything to destroy his administration's good works, even if in the process that destroys the country.

They may get their wish this time, coming on the heels of the COVID-19 lock-downs, which have been devastating and laid the groundwork for civil unrest.

What they may not fully realize themselves is that it is not because of his policies so much as because he is an individual who stands for individual rights rather than collectivism.

Trump is simply the perfect prototype of individualism to be targeted by a globalist movement.

The alternative they seek without understanding is essentially a return to serfdom in a feudal system, where your "betters" can tell you how you must live your lives in order to serve your lords and masters, though of course as in communist countries, doublespeak will say you are serving the collective good.

After three and a half years attempting to undermine the policies of our duly elected President, Democrats have begun parroting the new talking point that what we really need is a leader who can unite the country, though from what I can tell, far too often that translates as abandon what you believe as an individual to do what my side wants rather than working together to find the best possible solution.

Surprise, surprise.  That "uniting leader" phrase turns out to be Joe Biden's campaign cry on the heels of emerging from months of self-quarantine.  In about his last podcast interview before going physically out in the world again, Joe said that if you don't vote for him, then "you ain't black," which in Trumpian fashion became a lightning rod for free publicity.  Coincidence?