No gym membership could ever be as convenient as rolling out of bed, dragging my lazy carcass into my garage, and - still in my PJs (I'm not exaggerating) - lifting weights. It's not for everyone. For some people, the gym is a big part of their social life. Or, they feel the need for the accountability of working out with a group of friends.
But, if - like me - you're a busy curmudgeon, you might benefit from the convenience of a home gym. Obviously, mine is not the only way to build a home gym. Far from it. Very far from it. But it's a good way, and it might give you some ideas that you can customize to your own situation.
THE THOUGHT PROCESS
I don't have a lot of room. I basically have most of one corner of the garage. Consequently, I decided to only use the most versatile equipment possible. Everything has multiple functions. I plan to add more equipment in the future, but - as sparse as this setup may look - I really don't need anything else, other than more plates (more weight). All the things I have in mind for phase 2 are nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves.
Equipment that has multiple uses also saves money.
THE SUPPLIERS
I bought most of my equipment from Rogue Fitness. Some of it I've had laying around for a while, like the bench, and the adjustable dumbbells in the corner. I don't even remember where I got those.
Rogue is one of my two favorite fitness equipment suppliers. The other is Again Faster Equipment. They're about equal in price and quality, but Rogue has gotten a lot bigger over the years, because they're the official equipment suppliers of the CrossFit Games. These days they sponsor strongman, Olympic weightlifting, and power lifting events.
You can't go wrong with either of them. The reason I chose Rogue is that I live a lot closer to Ohio than Florida, and that makes shipping from Rogue a lot less expensive. Either way, their equipment isn't cheap, but it isn't cheap, either. You get what you pay for.
In this case, Rogue's customer service was outstanding, their employees were knowledgeable and helpful, both on the phone and over email, and the delivery prompt. I have no complaints. I wish every company was that good.
The platform is made from plain, old 3/4" plywood from Home Depot and horse stall mats from Tractor Supply.
I made the bar hanger from scrap lumber I had laying around the garage.
The chalk bag hanging from the pull-up bar is for rock climbing. I bought it at a place called The Pathfinder in Manhattan, KS back when I was stationed at Fort Riley, but you can find one - and chalk - at REI or Amazon. You'll want chalk. Trust me.
The black-and-blue things are my knee sleeves, turned inside-out to dry. You may or may not want those.
In part 2, I'll cover the most important equipment in the gym, the bars and plates. Please commend with any questions or suggestions you may have.
Apparently, some people are gullible enough to believe that the ATF has been "defunded" by the Republicans, and "decimated" by the NRA.
No... seriously.
Apparently, these same people are too lazy to type the words "ATF budget" into google, because that's exactly what I did, and this is what I found on the ATF's website.
Back in 2011, thousands of dirty (literally) Communists called themselves Occupy Wall Street and began squatting in their own filth in public parks in major cities all over the country. From there, they committed a long litany of crimes, including destruction of public and private property, rioting, looting, assault, rape and murder.
Describing the protests as “serious” and “encouraging,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) praised the sentiment motivating Occupy Wall Street and called for Congress to take heed. “It’s got a clear message, and that is frustration with the way that business is being done, the way that wealth is tilting towards the high end and the middle class is shrinking. And that message needs to be given,” Welch, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told me on Wednesday. What’s more he added, “it’s a real grassroots, citizens-led initiative. It’s not a top-down effort, it’s bottom up. In that sense, I think it’s very similar to the tea party.”
Other progressive Democrats are even more enthusiastic. “I’m so proud to see the Occupy Wall Street movement standing up to this rampant corporate greed and peacefully participating in our democracy,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY). The co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus, Reps. Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva, issued a joint statement to express “solidarity” with the movement, describing themselves as inspired by the mass movement. “We join the calls for corporate accountability and expanded middle-class opportunity,” they wrote. “The silent masses aren’t so silent anymore. They are fighting to give voice to the struggles that everyday Americans are going through,” added Rep. John Larson in his own statement supporting Occupy Wall Street.
Even Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, agreed that there were similarities between the protesters’ message and Democratic priorities. “Certainly, there is an overlap in terms of jobs and economic opportunity, which they want and we want,” Hoyer told me. Though he didn’t go so far as his Democratic colleagues in embracing the movement wholeheartedly, he said that one “positive aspect” of the protests is that they’re “raising issues and raising concerns and asking policymakers to focus on it.”
Sanders is a decades-long Communist apologist who thinks so highly of Communism that he spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union (clearly a romantic vacation spot), praised Communist Fidel Castro and the Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and to this day states on his Senate website that...
These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger.
Sure, incomes are more equal in Venezuela. They're so equally bad that people are starving. The exception, is, of course, Venezuela's Socialist leadership, whose income is dong just fine. I took a screen shot, just in case he removes that travesty, but so far he seems quite proud of it.
Communism is the most murderous ideology in history. Communists murdered over 100 million people in the 20th Century alone, and the body count continues in North Korea, Cuba, China and Venezuela.
Communists are just as evil as Nazis, and their body count dwarfs that of the Nazis, so imagine if American politicians embraced and praised "protesters" who wore Hitler tee shirts...
Would American politicians who expressed "solidarity" with violent Nazis ever be elected?
What if an American politician loved Nazism so much that he spent his honeymoon in Nazi Germany while the US was at war with Nazi Germany? Would such a politician take second place in a major party's presidential primary?
I'm not trying to change any politician's mind here. Politicians are - for the most part - cynical, amoral opportunists. Instead, I'd like to address those who voted for the politicians who praised violent Communist "protesters".
Would it be morally reprehensible to vote for a politician who praised violent Nazi "protesters"? If so, then why is it morally acceptable to vote for politicians who praised violent Communist "protesters"?
Let me make this as clear as I can for my "liberal" friends. By rewarding (with your vote) politicians who praised violent Communists back in 2011-12, you helped normalize political violence in the US. You're part of the problem.
Now, we've had riots at the presidential inauguration. That's now the norm.
Thanks to you, violence against political opponents is now the norm.
As Stanger, [Charles] Murray and a college administrator left McCullough Student Center last evening following [Murray’s speech] they were “physically and violently confronted by a group of protestors,” according to Bill Burger, the college’s vice president for communications and marketing.
Burger said college public safety officers managed to get Stanger and Murray into the administrator’s car.
“The protestors then violently set upon the car, rocking it, pounding on it, jumping on and try to prevent it from leaving campus,” he said. “At one point a large traffic sign was thrown in front of the car. Public Safety officers were able, finally, to clear the way to allow the vehicle to leave campus.
“During this confrontation outside McCullough, one of the demonstrators pulled Prof. Stanger’s hair and twisted her neck,” Burger continued. “She was attended to at Porter Hospital later and (on Friday) is wearing a neck brace.”
You threw out the old rules of civil discourse, "liberals". You passively stood by - or even applauded - while violent Leftists shut down free speech on college campuses and political rallies, rioted, looted, vandalized and burned. Then you rewarded politicians who praised the violent mobs by voting for them.
What you don't seem to understand is that the old rules were there to protect you just as much as everyone else, and that others can - and will - follow the new rules you created. And when they do, you won't like it.
Pastor Doug Wilson recently wrote an article titled 7 Reasons Why Submission is not a Dirty Word. The usual, predictable protestations ensued. I won't address most of them, only the ones I assume to be offered by people who sincerely desire to obey the Word of God. Here we go.
1. "Yeah, well, Ephesians 5:21 says, 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.' You're taking the commandment to wives to submit to their husbands out of context!"
Of course Ephesians 5:21 says what it says. No one denies that. In fact, those who fixate on Ephesians 5:21 take Ephesians 5:21 out of context.
First, let's look at the definition of the word "submit". The word translated "submit" in Ephesians 5:21 is hupotassó (ὑποτάσσω). Its definition is:
to place or rank under, to subject, mid. to obey From hupo and tasso; to subordinate; reflexively, to obey -- be under obedience (obedient)
Now let's look at the root words: hupo and tasso.
hupo (ὑπό): properly, under, often meaning "under authority" of someone working directly as a subordinate (under someone/something else).
tassó (τάσσω): properly, arrange (put in order); to place in a particular order, appoint. Commonly used in ancient military language for "designating" ("appointing, commissioning") a specific status, i.e. arranging (placing) in a deliberate, fixed order.
Got that? To submit is to obey, to be under obedience, to work directly as a subordinate to someone else after having been placed in a particular order, arranged in a deliberate, fixed order, analogous to a military unit.
Given the definition of the word hupotassó (ὑποτάσσω), and its military roots, it's obvious that Ephesians 5:21 precedes a set of verses (Ephesians 5:22 - 6:9) that establish a deliberate, fixed order that explains which members of the Church are supposed to submit to which other members of the Church. Wives submit to their own (i.e., not someone else's) husbands (Ephesians 5:22, 24, 33). Children obey (submit to) their parents (Ephesians 6:1). Servants obey (submit to) their masters (Ephesians 6:5-6).
Why does Paul begin with wives? Because the family is the foundation of everything else. Rebellious wives raise rebellious children who become rebellious adults.
Obviously, Paul wasn't stupid, or unrealistic. In fact, he wrote the best treatise on human nature in his Epistle to the Roman Christians. He knew that it's human nature to abuse ones authority. He therefore (inspired by the Holy Spirit) tempered the commandments to submit to authority by commanding those in authority to love their subordinates. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 5:25-33). Fathers, don't exasperate your children (Ephesians 6:4). Masters, treat your servants well (Ephesians 6:9).
2. "But... but... but... what about when we submit to our friends? What about the kind of submission between equals that we would characterize as amiability and good manners?"
That isn't submission. It's not hupotassó (ὑποτάσσω). It's a form of loving ones neighbor.
3. "But... but... but... what about Jesus washing his disciple's feet? Wasn't that an act of submission? Didn't he teach that we should all submit to one another by washing each other's feet?"
No, and no. Let's look at John 13, the scripture that details that event.
John 13:3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power [note the hierarchy and authority in that statement ~ O], and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” 10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
to place or rank under, to subject, mid. to obey From hupo and tasso; to subordinate; reflexively, to obey -- be under obedience.
Who was the disciple (hupo [ὑπό]: under authority, subordinate) and who was the teacher in that scenario? Who obeyed whom? Under whose authority did God the Father place all things?
Clearly, Peter was the disciple, the subordinate, the one under authority. Just as clearly, Peter obeyed Christ, not the other way around. Christ wanted to wash Peter's feet. Peter didn't want Christ to wash his feet. Christ told peter that unless Christ washed his feet, Peter had no part with Christ. Peter, then obeyed - submitted (hupotassó [ὑποτάσσω]) to - Christ, and Christ washed his feet.
Christ did not submit (hupotassó [ὑποτάσσω]) to Peter. Peter submitted (hupotassó [ὑποτάσσω]) to Christ. When Christ washed His disciples' feet, it was an act of service and love, not submission. They're not the same thing.
My two-year-old daughter is potty training. She still has potty accidents. Sometimes she wants Mom to wipe her poopy butt when Mom is busy with our six-month-old baby, so I have to wipe my daughter's poopy butt even though she wants Mom to do it. My daughter, then, obeys - submits (hupotassó [ὑποτάσσω]) to - me and I wipe her poopy butt.
Wiping another person's poopy butt is just about the lowliest, most servant-like act one human can perform for another, yet when I wipe my daughter's poopy butt, it's not an act of submission on my part. It's an act of service and love on my part. It's an act of submission on her part. They're not the same thing.
Love and service are not submission. Obedience is submission.
Christians who claim that Ephesians 5:21 commands all Christians to submit to all other Christians misunderstand the definition of the word submit (hupotassó [ὑποτάσσω]), or they confuse love and service with submission, or they're simply not thinking logically.
How can two objects be simultaneously "placed under" each other? How can two peers "rank under" each other? How can they be "under authority" to each other? How can they "work directly as a subordinate to" each other? How can they "obey" or be "under obedience" to one another? What if they take turns submitting to each other? Doesn't that violate the concept of working directly as a subordinate to someone else (hupo [ὑπό]) after having been placed in a particular order, arranged in a deliberate, fixed order (tassó [τάσσω])? In fact, isn't that the opposite of a deliberate, fixed order?
One has to perform some serious mental gymnastics to misconstrue Ephesians 5:21 as a commandment for all Christians to submit to one another.
4. "But.. but... but... isn't wifely submission just a cultural construct? Couldn't one argue that this is the position of the culture at the time and therefore Paul's admonishing so that the word of God may not be blasphemed was how the outsiders would have understood the ideal household?"
Sure, one could argue that it's a cultural construct, but that doesn't make the argument valid.
1 Cor 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Is that hierarchy - which includes God the Son and God the Father - an eternal, God-created deliberate, fixed order, or a temporary, man-made cultural construct?
Why do sincere Christians go to such absurd lengths to deny that the Bible says what it so obviously says? Because what the Bible says violates their feminist sensibilities, and therefore embarrasses them. Lest you think that conservative, Bible-believing Christians can't be feminists, remember the quote I keep repeating.
“Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society, the way that a child catches the measles.” ~ Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
American culture is thoroughly feminist, and has been for decades. The vast majority of modern American Christians - even conservative ones - have marinated in feminism their entire lives, and don't even realize it. They're fish who don't know they're wet.
Let's stop pretending that the Bible says something other than what it actually says. And let's stop being ashamed of it.
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
In "honor" of the impending release of the live action version of Beauty and the Beast, I'll address an issue that has bothered me since the first time I watched the animated version in 1992. Belle is a stuck-up snob. Watch this.
Belle patiently and graciously tolerates her neighbors' boring doltishness with little more than a sigh, a roll of the eyes and a shake of her head, but in case we didn't catch her contempt for them, she makes sure to refer to them as "provincial".
pro·vin·cial: prəˈvin(t)SH(ə)l/adjective
1. of or concerning a province of a country or empire.
"provincial elections"
synonyms:nonmetropolitan, small-town, nonurban, outlying, rural, country, rustic, backwoods, backwater;
2. of or concerning the regions outside the capital city of a country, especially when regarded as unsophisticated or narrow-minded.
"scenes of violence were reported in provincial towns"
synonyms:regional, state, territorial, district
In case we still didn't catch the film makers' contempt for rural, blue collar people, they beat us over the head with it during the song, "Kill the Beast".
We don't like what we don't understand
In fact it scares us
And this monster is mysterious at least
Bring your guns, bring your knives
Save our children and our wives
So save our village and our lives!
Let's kill the beast!
Got that? Rural, blue collar people (particularly married fathers with children and wives) are narrow minded, prejudiced, bigoted, paranoid, easily manipulated and prone to violence. Why, some might even call them "deplorable".
Sound familiar?
It should.
It's exactly the prejudiced, bigoted opinion that America's coastal and big-city elites hold of their rural, blue collar countrymen in flyover country.
That's not to say that the film makers deliberately set out to indoctrinate children with an animated blockbuster, nor is that out of the realm of possibility. It's likely that the film makers simply projected their own prejudices onto the screen. They probably see themselves as Belle surrounded by American Idiots. After all, writers often write themselves (or facets of themselves) into their stories' heroes.
If you doubt me, check out Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech, in which she manages to aggrandize herself and her and her fellow, rich, powerful Hollywood elites, while simultaneously making them all out to be victims. That's quite a feat to pull off. Or, check out David Harbour's (of Stranger Things) even crazier speech at the SAG Awards. Theirs is the standard thought pattern of Hollywood elites, and that group includes the people who made Beauty and the Beast.
Back to Belle: her contempt for her neighbors is ironic, considering that their lives would go on just fine without her, but hers is impossible without them. Her neighbors include bakers, butchers, tailors, farmers, fishmongers..... BOOOOOOORIIIIIIING! Right? But if they all disappeared, what would she eat? What would she wear?
By contrast, the movie never shows Belle contributing anything of value to her town. Sure, she's beautiful and smart, but she does nothing of value with those gifts. And they aregifts. Both beauty and intelligence are mostly hereditary. She could teach children, for example, but she doesn't even do that.
Even her father, though eccentric, invents useful machines, and yet the story presents him as a lovable, intelligent buffoon.
... what's wrong with men who work in skilled trades? After all, they make Ms [Susan] Patton's life, with luxuries and comforts King Solomon could not have imagined, possible. They extract the fuels and generate the electricity she uses to make a living. They keep that electricity flowing and swoop in to the rescue when that flow is interrupted. They build the roads on which every single product Ms Patton owns and uses reached its intended destination, and drove those products to her. Surely, the fancy restaurants Ms Patton frequents cook with natural gas. Where does she think that natural gas originated? How did it reach her favorite restaurant? She probably doesn't think about those questions, because the men who make it happen do their job so well she doesn't have to think about it.
It's also the kind of contempt for people who work with their hands that Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame regularly combats.
So, why does it matter that a fictional Disney princess reflects the contempt with which her creators hold blue collar Americans in flyover country? Because...
“Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society, the way that a child catches the measles.” ~ Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
This snobbery towards people (the vast majority of them men) who choose to work with their hands and their brains needs to stop, and as long as Americans swim from childhood in an ocean of slanderous contempt towards hard working, decent people in flyover country, it won't stop.
Soledad O'Brien claims she wants to have "an honest conversation about race", then proceeds to lie to her audience.
O'Brien tells so many lies of both omission and comission that it would take too long to break them all down, so I'll focus on only one of them.
In a roughly 10-year period in New York [City], approximately five million people were stopped [and frisked] by police. Eighty three percent of them were black and Hispanic men... What does it do to people to be considered a suspect constantly in their own neighborhoods because of the color of their skin?
O'Brien believes that the only reason police officers in NYC - and the rest of the country - stop and arrest more blacks than whites is because police officers are racists. That's a lie. Heather Mac Donald explains why.
Blacks commit over 75% of the shootings in NYC, even though they make up only about 23% of the population. Whites commit about 2% of the shootings in NYC, even though they make up 34% of the city's population. As Ms. Mac Donald explains, using 2011 and 2012 data...
Blacks are 53 percent of stop subjects, though they are 23 percent of the city’s population. Whites are 9 percent of stop subjects, though they are 35 percent of the city’s population. Therefore, conclude Stringer and others, the NYPD targets individuals for stops based on their race rather than on crime patterns and suspicious behavior.
...
The claim ignores the reality that the preponderance of crime perpetrators, and victims, in New York are also minorities. Blacks, for example, constituted 78% of shooting suspects and 74% of all shooting victims in 2012, even though they are less than 23% of the city's population.
Whites, by contrast, committed just over 2% of shootings and were under 3% of shooting victims in 2012, though they are 35% of the populace. Young black men in New York are 36 times more likely to be murdered than young white men—and their assailants are virtually always other black (or Hispanic) males.
Given such a crime imbalance, if the NYPD focuses its resources where people most need protection, the effort will inevitably produce racially disparate enforcement data.
Police departments that do their job concentrate their efforts in the neighborhoods with the highest crime rates. In NYC, those neighborhoods are largely populated by blacks. Because of that, most of the people the NYPD stops and frisks are black. But Soledad O'Brien blames that on racism.
To illustrate the audacity of Ms. O'Brien's lie, think about this for a second.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 93.3% of prisoners in the US are male. Clearly that must be the result of anti-male sexism, right? Of course not! Obviously, most prisoners are male because males commit the vast majority of crimes. Likewise, the incarceration rate among black Americans is much higher than the incarceration rate among Hispanic Americans, white Americans and Asian Americans (in that order) because the crime rate among black Americans is far higher than the crime rate among Hispanic Americans, white Americans and Asian Americans (in that order).
In her speech, Soledad O'Brien stated that...
You cannot advance good if you don't confront bad, and you cannot seek renewal if you're not willing to dig into the uncomfortable truths about how we got here today.
She's right. But she also refuses to confront uncomfortable truths about crime rates among black Americans, and the reasons for them. Larry Elder doesn't have that problem.
As I pointed out before, fatherlessness is the number one correlating factor among violent criminals...
According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, 60% of rapists, 72% of adolescent murderers, and 70% of long-term prison inmates are men who grew up in fatherless homes. With regard to girls in particular, those raised by single mothers are more than twice as likely to give birth out-of-wedlock, thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty for yet another generation.
And as I also pointed out in that article, and Larry Elder points out in his video, our welfare system promotes fatherlessness by encouraging women to "marry the state". Soledad O'Brien can't admit that crime rates actually are higher among blacks than whites because if she did she'd have to begin asking why that is, and as every "good" "liberal", she supports the welfare state that rewards fatherlessness and therefore promotes criminality.
In his video, Larry Elder relates the following advice his hard-working, WWII Marine veteran father, who was born in the Jim Crow South, gave him.
Hard work wins. You get out of life what you put into it. You can't control the outcome, but you are 100% in control of the effort. And before blaming other people, go to the nearest mirror and ask yourself, "what could I have done better to change the outcome?"
Those are the words of a man who sees himself as an active moral agent, not a passive, perpetual victim. A truly honest conversation about race would ask black Americans to go the nearest mirror and ask themselves what they could do to change the out-of-control criminality in their neighborhoods, but Soledad O'Brien wants them to blame white people for all their problems and pretend that black crime rates are no higher than anyone else's.
Apparently, Soledad O'Brien doesn't see black Americans as moral agents, which means she sees black Americans as either not fully human, or as perpetual children, which is ironic, considering that she accuses others of racism. A person who sees black Americans as fully adult humans holds black Americans to the same standards to which he/she holds white Americans, not the lower, childlike standards to which Soledad O'Brien holds them.
A truly honest conversation about race in America would include discussions about how embracing a victim mentality, a sense of entitlement and fatherlessness, glorifying thug culture, and rejecting individual responsibility can only lead to violence, poverty and dysfunction.
Jason Riley, who wrote Please Stop Helping Us, converses honestly about race in America. He explains how embracing a culture of underachievement holds black Americans back (6:36 - 9:40), and much more. Listen to his whole speech and the Q&A if you have time.
Obviously, Soledad O'Brien told some truths. The most effective lies are seasoned with truth to make them more palatable. For example, it's true that the Tuskegee Institute found that 3,446 black Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1968. It's also true that even one is one too many.
But even then she lied by omission, because it's also true that - according to the FBI's Unified Crime Report - black criminals murdered 4,585 black Americans between 2014 and 2015. That means that black criminals murdered more black Americans in two years than racist Southerners lynched in 86 years.
Which is the bigger, more immediate problem; 3,446 black Americans lynched over 86 years ending 49 years ago, or 4,585 black Americans murdered over two years right now? Why does Soledad O'Brien focus on a smaller problem that ended 49 years ago, and ignore a much bigger problem that is ongoing right now?
Because focusing on the current, bigger problem wouldn't help her sell her lies.
What makes me think that Soledad O'Brien is lying, and not just wrong? She worked for CNN, and CNN devotes itself to spreading the lie that blacks are perpetual victims, whites are perpetual victimizers of blacks, and therefore blacks are not responsible for any crimes they commit. For example, CNN pushed the "hands up don't shoot" lie.
Michael Brown died because he was a violent thug who stole from a store, assaulted a store employee who confronted him, then attacked a police officer, not because he was an innocent victim of police racism. But CNN pushed the lie before knowing the facts, then, even when it was clear they'd pushed a lie, they refused to admit to their part in pushing the lie and suppressing the truth.
More recently, four black suspects (two males, two females, ranging from 17 to 24 years old) kidnapped and tortured a white 18-year-old mentally disabled man while yelling "f**k Donald Trump" and "f**k white people" at him, and live streamed his torture on Facebook.
If you have the stomach for it, you can find the whole video online, but I won't link to it here.
CNN's Don Lemon refused to call this horrific crime evil.
I don't think it's evil. I don't think it's evil. I think these are young people and I think they have bad home training.
When I say who is raising these young people, I have no idea who is raising these young people because no one I know on earth who is seventeen years old or seventy years old would ever think of treating another person like that.
See? It's not their fault, even though they're well above the age of conscience. Why would CNN's Don Lemon refuse to call this horror evil? One of his guests, Symone Sanders, gives us a clue.
We’ve talked about white nationalists and white supremacists and the KKK, but there also, when this inflammatory rhetoric is out there, when someone is repeatedly telling you that your community is the worst of the worst, it brings out the worst of the worst in people.
That is not a hate crime. Hate crimes are because of a person’s racial ethnicity, their religion, their gender, a disability, it isn’t your political leanings, because someone doesn’t like you’re political leanings and they do something bad to you, that is not a hate crime.
See? It's white people's fault. No matter what four black criminals did to a mentally disabled white man, it's not their fault, because the black criminals are victims of racist whites. Clearly, neither Don Lemon nor Symone Sanders see these four black criminals as active moral agents, like Larry Elder's father saw himself and taught Larry Elder to see himself. Don Lemon and Symone Sanders both display the same refusal to hold black Americans responsible for their own actions that Larry Elder, Chloe Valdary and Taleeb Starkes referenced in their videos.
Clearly, CNN is devoted to pushing lies about race in America, and it stands to reason that they hired Soledad O'Brien because she too is devoted to pushing similar lies.
There's another reason that Soledad O'Brien is clearly lying, and not just repeating a lie she believes. Soledad O'Brien is a professional investigative journalist with the resources of one of the world's biggest news organizations at her disposal. What's more likely; that her investigation never uncovered the facts I presented here, or that she omitted them deliberately? Is it more likely that I'm better at her job than she is, or that she omitted facts that contradict the narrative she wants to push?
The answers are obvious.
Why take the time to expose these lies?
First and foremost, because the truth matters... always. Second, because the lies that CNN and Soledad O'Brien are spreading have gotten hundreds of people killed, the majority of them black.
As Heather Mac Donald states in her video, crime rates - especially murder rates - skyrocketed in many US cities when the "Ferguson Effect" - spurred by media lies about endemic racism among police officers - caused police departments to pull back from high crime, inner city, majority black neighborhoods.
University of Missouri at St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld has had "second thoughts." Like many academic criminologists, he had pooh-poohed charges that skyrocketing murder rates in many cities in 2015 and 2016 result from a "Ferguson effect" — a skittering back from proactive policing for fear of accusations of racism like those that followed the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
Now, after looking over 2015 data from 56 large cities, he tells The Guardian that he has changed his mind. Homicides in those cities were up 17 percent from 2014. And ten cities, all with large black populations, saw homicides up 33 percent on average.
"These aren't flukes or blips, this is a real increase," Rosenfeld told reporter Lois Beckett. "The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect."
It gets worse when you look at specific cities. The murder rate in DC increased by 54%. In Baltimore it was 56%. In Cleveland, 90%.
In Chicago, 768 people were murdered in 2016 (as of 27 Dec 2016), compared to 468 in 2015, and 416 in 2014.
How many hundreds (thousands?) of people - most of them black - are dead today because of the lies that Soledad O'Brien, CNN and the mainstream media in general spread? We'll never know. And Soledad O'Brien, Don Lemon, Symone Sanders and the rest will never care.
Hillary Clinton - the most corrupt presidential candidate in American history - lost the election to Donald Trump, and her supporters are freaking out.
Anyone who's been paying attention expected riots, because it's what Leftists do when they don't get their way. Leftists are overgrown toddlers, so when someone tells them "no", they pitch a fit. Besides, it's what they've been doing all along this election year.
Things look pretty bleak for Leftists on the presidential front.
The mainstream media expected Clinton to carry Florida and Arizona. They certainly didn't expect to lose Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan (a traditional bastion of union and Democrat support).
Ironically, things are far worse (or better, depending on your perspective) than the vast majority of Clinton supporters suspect. Because they're Leftists, and for Leftists politics are a religion, they see their presidential candidate as a sort of messiah figure.
Because they see their presidential candidates as saviors, they focus almost all their attention on the presidential race, to the detriment of the hundreds of other races throughout the country. Yes, Republicans maintained majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives (though not with a filibuster-proof super majority), and yes, that's bad news for Democrats, but it's the states where things get really ugly for them. Check out these maps from the Washington Post.
When you look at state legislatures alone, the picture looks even worse. From Reason Magazine.
Republicans control 32 state legislatures, but - as the WaPo points out - Nebraska's legislature "is technically nonpartisan but Republican in practice". That means Republicans "in practice" control 33 state legislatures. As the WaPo points out, most of this Democrat decline took place during the Obama administration.
However, this latest decline is part of a 38-year trend, according to Pew Research.
Joe Scarborough put it this way.
Democrats Under Barack Obama
-11 seats in Senate -60 seats in House -14 governorships -900 state legislative seats
There are at least two major reasons why this is a disaster for the Democrats. First, state legislatures and governors make up a political party's "bench" for national politics. The Republicans now have a much deeper bench from which to draw national-level candidates than the Democrats do. It's not even close.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
The simulated convention passed significant amendment proposals on the following six ideas:
1. Requiring the states to approve any increase in the national debt
2. Imposing term limits on Congress (effective retroactively)
3. Limiting federal overreach by returning the Commerce Clause to its original meaning
4. Limiting the power of federal regulations by allowing an easy congressional override
5. Requiring a supermajority to impose federal taxes and repealing the 16th Amendment, which legalized the federal income tax
6. Giving the states (by a three-fifths vote) the power to abrogate any federal law, regulation, or executive order
If the states ratify just half of these proposals, they would greatly limit and decentralize the federal government's power, which would return the country to a point closer to the founders' intent - a federalist system in which the states govern themselves with little input from the federal government, and the federal government is mostly limited to regulating trade between the states and implementing foreign policy.
Now, don't get too excited (or horrified, depending on your perspective). Article V of the Constitution states that new amendments must be...
... ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof...
... in order to make those amendments...
.... valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution...
Three fourths of 50 state legislatures equals 38 state legislatures. The Republicans effectively control 33 legislatures, which means they need to convince five legislatures they don't control to ratify any amendments. Right now, there are three bicameral legislatures that are split between Democrats and Republicans.
Can the Republicans convince five state legislatures that are either split, or controlled by the Democrats, to ratify Constitutional amendments that would be a Leftist's nightmare?
We shall see.
There's a lesson here for my Democrat friends. Slandering your fellow Americans as racists so you can wallow in your unearned sense of moral superiority is no way to persuade people to your way of thinking. But, hey, keep it up. Surely you can deliver five more state legislatures to the Republicans.
But, if - like me - you're a busy curmudgeon, you might benefit from the convenience of a home gym. Obviously, mine is not the only way to build a home gym. Far from it. Very far from it. But it's a good way, and it might give you some ideas that you can customize to your own situation.
Rogue is one of my two favorite fitness equipment suppliers. The other is Again Faster Equipment. They're about equal in price and quality, but Rogue has gotten a lot bigger over the years, because they're the official equipment suppliers of the CrossFit Games. These days they sponsor strongman, Olympic weightlifting, and power lifting events.
