On Willis Hart Lying About What The Black Lives Matter Movement Is Protesting About

The following from Wikipedia sums up what the focus of the Black Lives Matter movement is.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African American community, that campaigns against violence toward black people. BLM regularly organizes protests around the deaths of black people in killings by law enforcement officers, and broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system. (Wikipedia/Black Lives Matter).

I bring this up because the Libertarian blogger Willis Hart, while he has put up quite a few posts on his blog about BLM, CLEARLY does not understand why the movement exists.

Willis Hart: On Black Lives Mattering... There's never been an argument from me. IN FACT, being that the black murder rate is fully 6 times that of whites (17.5 per 100,000 versus 2.6 per 100,000) with the perpetrators being 93% other black people, I'm actually quite insulted that this bullshit is being placed not just at my doorstep but the law enforcement community's, too... STOP BLOWING YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT (much of it over foolishness; half-eaten Snickers bars, Air Jordan sneaks, some big-butted heifer, a slight, etc.), PEOPLE. BLACK LIVES MATTER!!!!!! (11/18/2015 AT 5:07pm).

What Willis claims is being "placed at his [and law enforcement's] doorstep" - IS NOT! The movement is not protesting in regards to ALL Black deaths, but ONLY Black deaths caused by law enforcement, you dolt! Although, calling Willis a dolt implies that he's simply being an oblivious White guy in not getting what the focus of BLM is.

The other possibility is that he's lying. A possibility I'm not ruling out. I mean, I think they've been QUITE clear that what they're protesting is the police killing Black people (as well as brutality directed against African Americans), and not Black (criminal) civilians killing other Black civilians. Sure, that's an issue as well, but law enforcement is supposed to enforce the law, not break it! Whereas criminals breaking the law is to be expected.

Yes, Willis is correct about the murder rate in the Black community being higher than in the White community, but I'd argue that is a symptom of the problem. That racism is the cause of the murder rate being higher, in that racism is a factor in that racism causes poverty which in turn leads to more crime.

BTW, Black criminals killing other Black people is (1) not something the Black community at large can be blamed for, and (2) something that makes perfect sense, as PolitiFact points out according to "experts... most people - whether black or white - are murdered by people in their own racial group, and that has held true for decades".

Black murderers mostly target Black victims JUST AS White murderers mostly target White victims. This is to be expected. And, in refutation of the point Willis thinks he is making, the BLM movement is NOT placing the blame for these murders on him or on law enforcement!

The ONLY "bullshit" the BLM movement is placing on the law enforcement community is holding them accountable for the Black suspects they kill (and brutalize). And I genuinely think there is a problem here, given the fact that a Black person is 300 percent more likely to be killed by a police officer than a White person.

Willis Hart, as an oblivious White guy (who flatly denies that White privilege even exists) is "offended" by the suggestion that cops killing Black suspects is a problem. In fact he lies (or misunderstands... yeah, right) about why BLM exists - which is something that OFFENDS ME!

I mean, if Willis wants to criticize BLM on a factual basis, that's one thing. But for him to put forward this lame strawman is pure bullshit, I think. Yet another example of how the strawman-loving Hartster is full of it.

OST #90

Willis Hart A Bald-Faced Liar & Ignoramus Re The Non-Fact Of Bernie Sanders Blaming ISIS On AGW

Bernie Sanders, due to him being a Democratic Socialist who is running for POTUS, has inspired the Libertarian blogger Willis Hart to author a number of commentaries. Most of them focusing on how much of a dumbass Sanders is for not being a Libertarian.

In this case Willis is outraged that Senator Sanders correctly links ISIS in Syria to AGW (man-caused climate change).

Willis Hart: On the Fact that Bernie Sanders Is Attempting to Blame ISIS on (Man-Made) Climate Change... This man is either a bald-faced liar or an ignoramus beyond belief. (12/8/2015 AT 3:57pm).

The existence of ISIS cannot be blamed on man-caused climate change (Anthropogenic global warming or AGW) and Senator Sanders has made no such argument. Willis lies about this. Or he's an ignoramus and his take on Senator Sanders' actual argument is based on 2nd hand criticisms (from Conservative/Libertarian sources that are lying).

Either way there is lying involved, because, as we know (and perhaps Willis would agree with this) it was events put into action by former preznit gwb that lead to an environment where the formation of a group like ISIS was inevitable (the power vacuum created by the Iraq war/removal of Saddam and the dissolution of the Iraqi military).

Senator Sanders agrees with this read of the facts (as does the Libertarian-Republican Rand Paul).

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on [10/12/2014] told CNN host Candy Crowley that it was easy to criticize President Barack Obama's fight against ISIS in Iraq, but he reminded her that it was President George Bush's "disastrous blunder" that allowed the extremists group to get a foothold in the first place. [According to Sanders] "...We are here today because of the disastrous blunder of the Bush-Cheney era, which got us into this war in Iraq in the first place, which then developed the can of worms that we're trying to deal with right now" (Bernie Sanders reminds CNN host: You can slam Obama, but Bush's blunder created ISIS by David Edwards. RawStory 10/12/2014).

This claim that "Bernie Sanders Is Attempting to Blame ISIS on Man-Made Climate Change" is just another of the Hartster's infamous strawmen. Bernie Sanders blames ISIS on george bush's Iraq invasion.

As for the ACTUAL statements Senator Sanders has made in regards to the link between climate change and terrorism (and YES, he has made such statements)...

Bernie Sanders appearing on the 11/15/2015 edition of Face the Nation: ...we are going to see an increase in drought and flood and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that peoples all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources... what happens in, say, Syria... is that when you have drought, when people can't grow their crops, they're going to migrate into cities... And when people migrate into cities and they don't have jobs, there's going to be a lot more instability, a lot more unemployment, and people will be subject to the types of propaganda that al Qaeda and ISIS are using right now... So where you have discontent, where you have instability, that's where problems arise, and certainly, without a doubt, climate change will lead to that. (Sanders doubles down: Climate change causes terrorism by Bradford Richardson. The Hill 11/15/2015).

ISIS can't be blamed on man made climate change. There is a link, however.

U.S. military officials refer to climate change as a "threat multiplier" that takes issues like terrorism that would pose a threat to national security and exacerbates the damage they can cause. A 2014 Department of Defense report identifies climate change as the root of government instability that leads to widespread migration [and] can create an avenue for extremist ideologies and conditions that foster terrorism"... ...a paper published in the academic journal PNAS earlier this year argues that climate change helped create instability and fighting in Syria. The Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS, arose in the country in large part due to that instability. (Why Climate Change and Terrorism Are Connected by Justin Worland. Time 11/15/2015).

Senator Sanders did not, by the way, "double down" and say "climate change causes terrorism". What Senator Sanders is saying is the SAME THING the Department of Defense and PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is "one of the world's most-cited and comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals") reports say... that climate change will (and has) made terrorism worse.

But the fact that Sanders is 100 percent correct on this did not prevent him being ridiculed in the media. By climate change deniers on the Right (like Willis) as well as others such as PolitiFact... which says Sanders' statements on the link between terrorism and climate change is "mostly false". But (in this case) PolitiFact is as full of shit as Willis.

But even PolitiFact didn't lie about Sanders saying climate change is TO BLAME for ISIS. PolitiFact reports that Sanders said "climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism". Climate change contributes to the growth (not creation) of situations that lead to more people becoming radicalized.

One such situation (as Senator Sanders points out) is the Syrian drought which has lead to the the refugee crisis. Refugees that US Republican politicos are demonizing by suggesting some might be ISIS infiltrators. These are people who are fleeing the conflict (between the Assad government, the so-called moderate rebels and ISIS).

For the record, the Syrians that joined ISIS (due to the instability caused by the conflict and made worse by the drought) could find easier methods to infiltrate over a multi-year vetting process (which the refugees are going through) [1]... such as via a tourist visa [2].

The bottom line is that climate change does act as a "threat multiplier" as the Department of Defense (in agreement with Senator Sanders) acknowledges. Sanders tells tells the truth in regards to this matter and Willis Hart is the ignorant liar. Although the Hartster's perfidiousness in regards to the very real link between climate change and terrorism isn't "beyond belief" given his long history of AGW denialism and hate for democratic socialism (his preference being for economic policies that favor the oligarchs).

Footnotes
[1] ...refugee applicants are subject to the highest level of security checks of any type of traveler to the U.S. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees initially chooses which refugees to refer to the U.S. after doing its own check. U.S. officials then conduct multiple in-person interviews and verify a refugee's story with intelligence agencies and by running background checks through several government databases, including DHS and the National Counterterrorism Center. (Can Terrorists Really Infiltrate the Syrian Refugee Program? by Russell Berman. The Atlantic 11/18/2015).
[2] It's much easier for a would-be terrorist to fly to the U.S. on a tourist visa. ...it makes little sense for an aspiring terrorist to apply to enter the United States as a refugee. Passing through the process often takes at least 18 months, and sometimes much longer. ... Overall, refugees are unlikely to be resettled at all - the UN Refugee Agency says that only about 1 percent of the world's refugees end up being taken in permanently elsewhere. Stephen Legomsky, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said... "No competent terrorist would choose the U.S. refugee process as a preferred strategy for gaining entry into the US". (Here's Why You Should Stop Worrying About Terrorists Entering The U.S. As Refugees by Roque Planas. HuffPo 11/18/2015).

OST #87

On Willis Hart's Uproariously Ludicrous Notion That Anyone Says The Earth's Climate Is Safe But Humans Make It Much More Dangerous

This recent commentary from the climate-change-denying Libertarian blogger Willis Hart is proof that instead of "Take No Prisoners" his tagline should instead be "I Love Strawmen".

Willis Hart: On the Uproariously Ludicrous Notion that the Earth's Climate is Safe and that Humans Make it Much More Dangerous... I'm sorry but anyone with even a scintilla of gray-matter (a scarce resource in the White House and on Capitol Hill) knows that the exact opposite is true and that the data bears it out; the fact that climate related deaths have plummeted by over 95% during the past century, the fact that rich countries survive extreme weather events (which even the IPCC says HAVEN'T gotten worse or more prevalent as the result of CO2 increases) much better than developing countries do, etc. (not that those who are hard-wired into thinking that humans/human progress are evil and that life on the farm and dying at 40 were the cat's meow can ever be convinced, mind you). And it's just such damned common sense, for Christ. (10/28/2015 AT 5:28pm).

Everything Willis says regarding the data bearing out the fact that climate-related deaths have gone down in "rich countries" sounds accurate to me (without looking anything up), and I seriously doubt anyone would dispute these facts. (The text in purple).

Everything else Willis writes is total bullshit. The notion he finds "uproarious" is NOT a notion! There is, therefore, absolutely no reason for him to be "sorry". Nobody in the White House or on Capitol Hill has ever said that the earth's climate is safe and that humans make it much more dangerous - via anthropogenic, or human influenced, global warming (AGW).

What those who acknowledge the fact that empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming exists (due to the research of the 97 percent of climate experts who agree it's real) are saying is that AGW is making severe weather events MORE dangerous (not that they were SAFE and now they aren't due to AGW).

Skeptical Science: Whenever there is an extreme weather event, such as a flood or drought, people ask whether that event was caused by global warming. Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer to this question. Weather is highly variable and extreme weather events have always happened. Detecting trends takes time... An increase in extreme weather is expected with global warming because rising temperatures affect weather parameters in several ways. Changes in the frequency of extreme events coinciding with global warming have already been observed, and there is increasing evidence that some of these changes are caused by the impacts of human activities on the climate. (Is extreme weather caused by global warming?).

Also false is Willis' claim that the IPCC says severe weather events have not gotten worse or more prevalent as the result of CO2 increases.

Factcheck.org: ...the "worsening-storms scenario" has not... been debunked. ...[While] the IPCC did find that there is "low confidence" regarding "increases in tropical cyclone activity" over the past 100 years... evidence is stronger regarding increases in the strongest storms in certain regions. According to the... IPCC report, there is evidence for a "virtually certain" — which means between 99 percent and 100 percent probability — "increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s" in the North Atlantic basin. (The Extreme Weather-Warming Connection).

Another ludicrous strawman is Willis' claim that the climate change scientists (and those listening to them) view human progress as EVIL. He's referring to people who believe in SCIENCE and think we have PROGRESSED to the point where we can start aggressively moving away from dirty fossil-fuel-based energy toward cleaner renewable green energy. This is the next stage of humanity's progress and NOT a step backward.

The fact is that it's Willis Hart who wants us to stay stagnant and not move forward! Due to his love for the dirty energy oligarchs, I'm guessing. There is a lot of money to be made continuing down the path to making our planet more inhospitable for humans by conducting business as usual and continuing to spew CO2 into the atmosphere.

Scientific America, in a 10/26/2015 article, reveals that "Exxon knew about climate change almost 40 years ago [but] spent decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoted climate misinformation". Why? To protect their profits, of course.

And, speaking of evil, according to environmentalist Bill McKibben, "Exxon Mobil's decision to hide research that confirmed fossil fuels' role in global warming for decades amounts to unparalleled evil".

This is a statement I find myself agreeing with. I mean, the fact that they not only covered up what their own scientists were finding, but that they also funded "think tanks" that deliberately pumped out misinformation? IMO this crosses a line from self-preservation into evil territory. And Willis, with his continual strawmanning on this issue, aligns himself with this evil.

OK, so that does it in regards to my debunking of the Hart's AGW strawmen. There is, however, one last bit of misinformation from Willis that I'd like to refute. Which would be his claim regarding an average life span of 40 (prior to technological innovations of the 20th century).

According Livescience, "human lifespans [have been] nearly constant for 2,000 years".

Discussions about life expectancy often involve how it has improved over time. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy for men in 1907 was 45.6 years; by 1957 it rose to 66.4; in 2007 it reached 75.5. Unlike the most recent increase in life expectancy (which was attributable largely to a decline in half of the leading causes of death including heart disease, homicide, and influenza), the increase in life expectancy between 1907 and 2007 was largely due to a decreasing infant mortality rate, which was 9.99 percent in 1907; 2.63 percent in 1957; and 0.68 percent in 2007. But the inclusion of infant mortality rates in calculating life expectancy creates the mistaken impression that earlier generations died at a young age; Americans were not dying en masse at the age of 46 in 1907. The fact is that the maximum human lifespan — a concept often confused with "life expectancy" — has remained more or less the same for thousands of years. The idea that our ancestors routinely died young (say, at age 40) has no basis in scientific fact. Of course, infant mortality is only one of many factors that influence life expectancy, including medicine, crime, and workplace safety. But when it is calculated in, it often creates confusion and myths. When Socrates died at the age of 70 around 399 B.C., he did not die of old age but instead by execution. It is ironic that ancient Greeks lived into their 70s and older, while more than 2,000 years later modern Americans aren't living much longer. (article by Benjamin Radford, Live Science Contributor. 8/21/2009).

That the higher infant mortality rates of the past lowered "average life expectancy" is just such damned common sense, for Christ! Yet Willis buys into the myth that people were dropping dead at 40. That's in addition to his ludicrous notion that the climate change scientists (and those who trust that they aren't liars) are "warmists" or "alarmists".

So, while the Hartster may believe his climate change stoogery in service of the Big Oil oligarchs (which, as of 2010, was killing 5 million people a year) is the cat's meow, rational people (those of us who believe in science and realize that dirty fossil fuel energy should be left in the past) strongly disagree. And we might laugh uproariously at how absurd his denialism is (he's actually claimed that those on the side of science are "losing [the] argument and... losing it... badly")... if this kind of anti-science thinking wasn't so dangerous.

OST #78

Willis Hart Strawman In Defense Of Koch Plutocrats & Slander Of The Left

Yet another strawman from the strawman-loving Libertarin blogger Willis Hart. This one utterly amazing in it's stupidity.

Willis Hart: On the Fact that the Hard Left Goes Bonkers Even When the Koch Brothers Spend Their Money on Good (AKA, Nonpolitical) Things; $100 Million to New York's Presbyterian Hospital, $15 Million to Weill Cornell Medical Center, $30 Million to Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, $25 Million to the Hospital for Special Surgery, $100 Million to Lincoln Center, etc... How small and spiteful that the new left has become... Now, if only they, the Kochs, had spent that money toward ginning up racial animosity, pushing a discredited narrative, etc... (7/11/2015 AT 8:20pm).

First of all, WTF is Willis talking about? I'm guessing he read some unidentified news story about Koch Brothers charitable contributions and some Leftists criticism of it? Who knows. As usual the idiot assumes that anyone reading his blog consumes the same media he does and will therefore know what the hell he's talking about.

That, or he thinks this is a huge story that everyone should be aware of. Well, I have no effing clue what he's referring to... but I can tell you this - that the Koch brothers donate money to worthy causes is a good thing... although I'm sure they do it to aggrandize themselves as well as to buy good will. And as a tax write-off, of course. Another reason for the donating might even be them viewing themselves as good people and liking doing good things with their money.

I know that one aspect of Willis' worship of wealth is his great admiration for wealthy individuals doing just this sort of thing. He'd much rather wealthy benefactors bequeath a portion of their wealth for the charitable causes of their choice than We The People deciding these priorities (and paying for what We think is important with our tax dollars).

Of course, as a Progressive, I view this reliance of society on the largess of wealthy benefactors to address societal needs as both anti-democratic and a sign of oligarchy (and therefore at least a little troubling). But Willis takes the opposite view. According to him, this is the preferred method by which to accomplish good (and he has written a number of commentaries on his blog praising wealthy people's charity... both past and present).

The reference to spending money "ginning up racial animosity" and "pushing a discredited narrative" is a call back to another commentary on his blog in which he claims that it's a fact that "George Soros has purportedly spent $33 billion million financing protest groups in Ferguson, Baltimore, and Other Racially Charged Hotspots". And that in Ferguson we ALL KNOW that "hands up, don't shoot" was a "damned lie".

To which I say BULLSHIT. We do NOT "all know" that "hands up, don't shoot" was a "damned lie". This "lie", as I understand it, came from his friend Dorian Johnson. Several other witnesses say Brown raised his hands briefly. Frankly I think it is more likely that Johnson, in shock from seeing his friend murdered in front of him, wrongly remembered what happened. Witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. This, IMO, is an example of this, and not a "damned lie".

And, in any case, I do not think it matters whether Brown had his hands up in surrender or not. The fact is that Brown was 148 f*cking feet away from Wilson. Something the cops lied about, claiming the distance was only 35 feet. While Brown was running away Wilson should have ducked behind his car and called in the incident. Instead he shot Brown in cold blood, murdering him [1].

Willis' focuses on the "damned lie" to distract from this fact. Just as he distracts from the fact that the Koch plutocrats are attempting to buy the next presidential election by pointing to some worthy causes they are throwing money at (not necessarily for altruistic reasons).

And Willis present ZERO proof that the "hard left" is going "bonkers" over these donations. NONE. He saw or read it somewhere (presumably), but WHERE? How am I supposed to know if this happened or not if Willis is not clear WTF he's talking about? And notice that first he says the "hard left" went bonkers, then that changes to the "new left".

Which is it Willis? And who the hell is he talking about with this reference to the "new left"? Seems to me that the "new left" is anyone who identifies with the Left of today. The Left of the present and not the Left of the past. Which would include ALL Democrats and ALL Progressives, as well as everyone else who identifies with a left-leaning political ideology (Greens, Democratic Socialists, Socialists, etc).

Which is a TOTAL strawman. For example, I watched a segment on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman the other day in which a man working for the Koch brothers and Van Jones appeared. Seems they are joining forces to do something about the fact that the United States prison population is one of the largest (if not THE largest) in the world. Van Jones (who I am POSITIVE Willis would consider a part of the "hard left") was not going bonkers.

Mr. Jones noted that people on his side of the fence normally have problems with MOST of what the Koch Brothers do, but that in this instance they were on the same side, and that working with the opposition when there are areas of agreement is a good thing (and that it should be done).

But the strawman-loving Hart condemns everyone on the Left (or the undefined "new left"), calling everyone in this group "small and spiteful". All while NEVER revealing a source or identifying who, exactly, went bonkers. Or even what these people going bonkers entails. Were these people protesting? Did they issue a statement? What did they say?

I say that Willis can stuff his condemnation sans meaningful details. This post by Willis is nothing but hot air. Him expressing his hate of the Left/Progressives (or the "hard left" or "new left") with a commentary completely devoid of any facts to back up his accusations.

BTW, in regards to Willis' commentary "on the fact that George Soros has purportedly spent $33 billion million financing protest groups in Ferguson"... I say, which is it? Is this a "fact" or is it "purported"?

According to Snopes this rumor is a mixture of True and False. Snopes points out that "a grantmaking network founded by George Soros provided funding to some groups that engaged in Ferguson-related protest activities" but that Soros did NOT give "money to various groups for the express purpose of promoting Ferguson-related protests and riots".

So Willis lies, and that is a FACT. I am not alleging it, I am proving it. You can not call protesting a police shooting of an UNARMED Black man "ginning up racial animosity", you racist piece of shit!

Even if you disagree with the protestors... they still have the right to protest. And they were protesting what they saw as an unjust shooting, NOT "ginning up racial animosity". The "racial animosity" Willis refers to is his own (as well as the animosity of other racists).

But these people ginned it up themselves - when they viewed people legally protesting and (as Willis might put it), "got all butt hurt" at these (as Willis might put it) "assholes" having the nerve to not agree that the shooting was justified.

Footnote
[1] IMO the police lying is more of a "damned lie" than Dorian Johnson (after seeing his friend murdered in front of him) saying Michael Brown had his hands up and was surrendering. 1st, I'm not 100 percent convinced this isn't exactly what happened. And 2nd, if it did not, I'm even less convinced that Dorian Johnson did still not recount the incident - as he remembered it.

OST #60

Another Willis Hart Minimum Wage Strawman (One That Serves The Evil Idea Of Keeping Workers Impoverished)

Willis Hart, a Libertarian blogger who hates low wage workers and loves strawmen, recently posted the following on his blog.

Willis Hart: Some Minimum-Wage Perspective... One of my friends at work posted this [see picture below] on her Facebook page and I really think that it hits the mark. The fact of the matter here is that if people want to earn more money, they have to get better skills first. And, yes, the jobs are there, hundreds of thousands of good jobs. (7/11/2015 AT 8:20pm).

Willis thinks this strawman "hits the mark" because he LOVES strawmen. The strawman here being that those who think the minimum wage should be $15 also think nobody else's wage should rise. That the EMT in the image should continue to work long hours at an extremely difficult job... while making the same amount as someone "flipping burgers".

The first individual pictured, which I am guessing is an EMT (due to the image giving a job description but no job title) has a harder job and deserves higher pay. However... the minimum wage sets a floor, and if "burger flippers" got a raise, so would the EMT (or he absolutely should, in any case).

What this Libertarian/Conservative strawman overlooks (on purpose) is the fact that the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation.

Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.54 (in 2014 dollars). Since it was last raised in 2009, to the current $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum has lost about 8.1% of its purchasing power to inflation. The Economist recently estimated that, given how rich the U.S. is and the pattern among other advanced economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "one would expect America... to pay a minimum wage around $12 an hour". (5 facts about the minimum wage by Drew Desilver. Pew Research Center 5/20/2015).

The reason people like Willis ignore this reality is because they are wealth-worshiping stooges who are using ugly rhetoric like this (demonizing service industry workers) to distract from the fact that CEO pay and profits continue to rise (much faster than the rate of inflation) while wages for these workers are falling behind where they would be if adjusted for inflation.

These workers are greedy and lazy, so say these stooges/dupes. They are even "immoral".

Dennis Marks: One gets money by working for it. The other hopes to get money not by working for it, but by begging for the government to force a company to give it to them. Immoral. (7/12/2015 AT 2:44am).

What is EVIL here is that these stooges think they can get away with demonizing lower wage workers by implying that a desire for a wage that (at least) keeps pace with inflation is "immoral".

Evil, in my opinion, because, instead of a raise - when the minimum wage does not keep pace with inflation - every year low wage workers are actually getting a pay cut! And that money is going straight into the pockets of the plutocrats that people like Dennis and Willis worship (or "celebrate", as Willis sez).

Evil also is the desire of these people to do away with the minimum wage completely. Because without a minimum wage, low wage workers will be subject to the iron law of wages, which says that "that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker". Note that "sustain the life" means that the worker does not die, or that all of them don't die. People can live in miserable abject poverty without dying. Or without ALL of them dying, at least.

THIS is what those who wish to do away with the minimum wage desire for low wage workers. And they also wish to depress the living standards of all other workers (because, as I said earlier, the minimum wage sets a floor and contributes to higher wages for many more workers than just those who earn the minimum).

And if that isn't evil, then I don't know what is.

Image Description: "You're not worth the explanation" you waste of skin!

OST #59

Another Example That Points To Willis Hart Being Racist? Or Is He Just Stupid?

Libertarian blogger Willis Hart claims that he watches Fox Nooz (for the hotties, the misogynist sez). So, is it is possible that he missed it when various Fox Noozers discussed the racially motivated terrorist attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston SC on 6/17/2015?

Willis Hart: On Leftists Like The Young Turks Charging that Conservatives Are Attempting to Deny that that Piece of Shit Murderer Down in South Carolina Was Motivated by Racial Hatred... Where do they come up with this shit? (7/1/2015 AT 6:05pm).

Where does Willis come up this shit? I have not watched the Young Turks since Al Gore cashed out and sold Current, but I have certainly heard that Fox Nooz (at least initially) denied that the attack was motivated by racial hatred.

When news broke that a young white man had gunned down nine people in a historically black church in Charleston... most people quickly seemed to infer that racial animus was a likely motivation for the attack... Not the cast of Fox & Friends. This morning the show brought on E.W. Jackson, a black pastor... known for referring to... President Obama as a "radical anti-American". Without mentioning the possibility that the killings were racially motivated, Jackson explained that he was worried about the fact that the attack happened at a church. [Jackson said] "...I'm telling you, I'm deeply concerned that this gunman chose to go into a church, because there does seem to be a rising hostility against Christians across this country because of our biblical views. I just think it's something that we have to be aware of and not create an atmosphere in which people take out their violent intentions against Christians". From there, Jackson urged "pastors and men in these churches to prepare to defend themselves" by arming up with guns. (How Fox News Tried to Spin the Charleston Shooting as an Attack on Christianity This Morning by Jordan Weissmann. Slate 6/18/2015).

Is Willis denying reality here because this story does not fit with his narrative that, while both Fox and MSNBC are biased, "It isn't even a contest at this point, folks. MSNBC is significantly worse"?

No, Willis... suggesting a obviously racially motivated shooting was actually an attack on Christianity? That is "significantly worse", you liar. And, what a stooopid thing to lie about, as anyone who pays attention to the news has likely heard about this bullshit from Fox Nooz.

This guy is so much of a stooge that it makes my skin crawl. For instance, Willis is still going on about how this shooting is an "anecdote" and absolutely does not prove that America still has a very real problem with racism.

Five predominantly black Southern churches burn within a week; arson suspected in at least three. ... Since the shooting, lawmakers and civil rights leaders have been focused on the backlash as people have been calling for the country to stop waving the Confederate flag. Now authorities are looking into the recent church fires at predominantly black churches, which the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that tracks hate crimes, reports "may not be a coincidence". (6/20/2015 Washington Post article by Lindsey Bever).

I do not believe for one second these church fires are a coincidence. I believe that those responsible for these fires were almost certainly motivated specifically by the Dylann Roof church shooting - or the hubbub concerning taking down the Confederate flag. Even if a coincidence, arson at a church points very clearly to racist hate as a motivation. Which utterly destroys Willis' claim that "partisan schmucks [have] taken this one isolated incident and attempted to extrapolate from it the conclusion that America is still a racist country".

Partisan schmuck? F*ck you Willis! That is (almost) exactly what I have concluded, as this is what the facts show to be the case. Although I would not say we are a "racist country". I would only say that our country still has a very real problem with racism. The "racist country" framing by Willis is another of the strawmen he is famous for. Nobody has used this framing, you strawman-loving racist schmuck.

Yeah, you got that right... Willis' denial of this story (Fox Nooz spinning the church shooting as an attack on Christianity) plus his denial of our nation's continuing problem with racism is another example of Willis Hart's problem with racism (in my strong opinion).

By the way, in regards to the Hartster's LOVE of strawmen... get this: Willis thinks he's refuting a claim (from the Left?) that there are "vast armies of white people going around slaughtering black folks".

Even if you do not agree that Willis' ignorance of the Fox Nooz story plus his strawman framing points to racism, you absolutely have to agree that it points to him being a total dumbshit. If not, then I think you might be a dumbshit yourself.

Video Description: Video from Fox & Friends that proves Willis Hart is completely full of shit.

OST #52

On People Who Insist That Anyone Advocates For "Make Work" Given The Fact That There Is Actual Work That Needs To Be Done

These people are total morons/idiots and/or liars. Will "Take No Prisoners" Hart is one such person. In a recent commentary on his blog the Libertarian said "make-work advocacy... is only advocated by those who fail to understand the text".

So, WTF is "the text"? Damned if I know. I do know, however, that make work is really just a phrase used to push the concept of the government putting people to work when jobs are scarce. You've heard of it. Supposedly Person A digs a hole and Person B fills it. But there is actual work that needs doing (and this idiotic hole digging and filling scenario has never actually happened).

Yet the Willises of the world who hate the idea of Government stepping in and (in order to put money in people's pockets and jumpstart the economy) hiring unemployed folks to participate in worthwhile and needed public works projects (etc), vilify it. And lie, or buy into the fable that anyone has actually ever been hired to dig a hole and another person hired to fill it (or other similar pointless work).

Although the Hartster may actually be stupid enough to think this has ever actually happened. Or is a huge liar and spinning another of the strawmen he loves so much. I suspect he falls somewhere in between the two (he's a stupid liar).

Out of work Americans could be work on needed infrastructure projects right now, if not for the obstruction of the Republican Congress (which got worse after the last midterm). These would not be pointless hole digging and filling jobs, but needed work, given the state of this country's infrastructure.

Infrastructure is vital to our country's economic growth and development. It's the fundamental system we rely on to move people, goods, and services. Every business, large and small, depends on it... Infrastructure includes the essential pieces of our transportation network like roads, rails, and ports, and it also includes water facilities, our electrical grid, and high-speed broadband networks. There is no part of the economy that infrastructure does not touch. World-class, state-of-the-art infrastructure can boost growth, create opportunities, and spark innovation. Crumbling, outdated and inefficient infrastructure can be a serious drag on the economy, creating barriers to success and mobility. Unfortunately, whereas once the US could easily boast of having the most sophisticated, modern infrastructure in the world, today we are rapidly falling behind. We simply have not been making the kinds of investments that are required to even maintain the system we have now, let alone improve and update it. Instead of maintaining and investing in a more efficient and effective system, our infrastructure has deteriorated because of insufficient funding... (Repairing Our Infrastructure Senate Budget Committee. Bernie Sanders, Ranking Member).

And as economist Robert Reich points out...

Robert Reich: ...it's cheaper than ever for the United States to borrow. Deferred maintenance is taking a huge toll. ... Now connect the dots. Anyone with half a brain will see this is the ideal time to borrow money from the rest of the world to put Americans to work rebuilding the nation's infrastructure. (Why This is Exactly the Time to Rebuild America's Infrastructure 9/26/2011).

There is no need to "make" work. Work that needs to be done exists, which is why nobody is advocating we "make" any, you idiot Willis! But it's entirely possible that Willis is one of those who does NOT have "half a brain", which might explain why the deluded fool buys into Libertarian nonsense as strongly as he does.

OST #47