Mark Cuban: Truth Teller

Viva La Cuban
“If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it’s late at night, I’m walking to the other side of the street,” he said in a video interview for Inc.’s GrowCo Conference in Nashville. “And if on that side of the street, there’s a guy that has tattoos all over his face — white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere — I’m walking back to the other side of the street.”

At a business conference in Nashville on Wednesday, Mark Cuban admitted to being less than enlightened. “I know I’m prejudiced and I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways.” It is one thing to initiate a dialogue about racism but something else to spew tone deaf ignorance in an interview. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, the acquittal of George Zimmerman and the miscarriage of justice that the not-guilty verdict represented are wounds that, for many, have not healed. (New York Times, 5/24/2014)

Being a self-made billionaire is not enough to insulate you against political correctness as Mark Cuban recently discovered. Cuban incorrectly confessed to bigotry because he admitted to being wary of black gang-bangers wearing hoodies and white, skin-head, neck-tatooed neo-Nazis. We'd call Cuban sensible, not prejudiced. His sin apparently was using the word "hoodie" which opened the door to relitigating the whole Trayvon Martin tragedy. (Note that the New York Times news department has officially concluded that the Zimmerman not guilty verdict was a "miscarriage of justice." This is how the Liberal media creates history, by the way. Climate change is fact; Bill Clinton is a senior statesman; and George Zimmerman got away with murder.)

Quick! What is the natural reaction that anyone would have to seeing youths in hoodies or with shaved heads? Answer: concern for one's own personal safety. In a stunning admission many years ago, no less of an authority on the subject of race than Jesse Jackson confessed to feeling relief when realizing that the people walking behind him on a city street at night were white not black. 

Is Cuban is wrong? We don't think so. He has nothing to apologize for.


Fractionally
As of Friday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.66, a fraction of a cent lower than last year. (New York Times, 5/24/2014)

One of the wonderful things about the Obama presidency is the endless list of things that - whenever we next have a Republican president - can no longer be blamed on that president or even discussed. A partial list includes the following:

- the price of gasoline
- that president's past drug use
- the president's foreign policy experience
- the number of war dead
- the unemployment rate
- the economy in general 
- the president's golf outings

The Days Last Rays

Could Have Been
President Obama spoke publicly for the first time Friday on the acquittal of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, calling for an examination of 'Stand Your Ground" laws nationwide. 

"Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago," Obama said, adding that "it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away."  (Washington Post, 7/18/2013)

In the good old days, presidents had trusted advisers who would quietly counsel them. Often the advice was to shut up. President Dum-Dum has only sycophants like Valerie Jarrett and she is not about to tell him to stop putting his foot in his mouth. First Obama has an imaginary son who is Trayvon Martin. Next Obama himself is Trayvon Martin.  How bizarre is it that we have a black president pandering to black people?


Nobody
No one likes bailouts or the prospect of rewarding Detroit’s historic fiscal mismanagement. But apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually Congress decided to help them. America is just as much about aiding those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility. Government does this in so many ways; why shouldn’t it help Detroit rebuild itself? (Steven Rattner, NYT, 7/19/2013)

Pension fund crook Rattner gets it exactly wrong. The residents of Detroit share in the responsibility for Detroit's plight BECAUSE of their votes. They elected Democrats for the past 50 years. Those Democrats who ran the city into the dirt. 


Chain Reaction
An attempt by Washington’s City Council to force profitable chain stores to pay much higher wages than the city’s minimum has infuriated Walmart, which is threatening to pull out of up to six planned stores.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who worked hard to lure Walmart, finds himself caught in the middle, and many residents sound less than grateful to the lawmakers who claim to be looking out for them.

“Those big people in government, they don’t understand my situation,” said Fred Reaves, 45, who is unemployed and said he would gladly take a job at the current city minimum, $8.25. (NYT, 7/20/2013)

Proof once again that the true enemies of the poor are Liberals.


Imposition
...many European countries already have versions of Texas’s late-term abortion ban on the books. France, Germany and Italy all ban abortions after the first trimester, and impose waiting periods as well. (Ross Douthat, NYT, 7/20/2013)

Good point by Douthat for all those abortion rights hysterics who imagine the end of the world because Texas imposes a few conditions.

Special Scrutiny

Degrees
George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, igniting a national debate on racial profiling and civil rights, was found not guilty late Saturday night of second-degree murder. He was also acquitted of manslaughter, a lesser charge. (NYT, 7/14/2013)

The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy and his family is deserving of America's deepest sympathies.

The coverage of the case by the Legitimate Media was, of course, corrupt and despicable. We got endless pictures of a young, baby-faced Trayvon taken years ago, to advance the storyline that George Zimmerman killed a child. We got endless discussion of the candy he had just bought at a convenience store. Who would kill a young boy eating candy? We got the description of Zimmerman as a "white Hispanic." Whatever that is. We got depictions of Zimmerman as a "wannabe cop." Is that a bad thing, to want to serve in law enforcement? Was Trayvon a "wannabe basketball player?" What almost no one reported on were the words that Zimmerman said to the cops who tried to test his version of the events by telling him that the entire incident had been captured on video. Zimmerman reportedly said: "oh, thank God."


Effects
When President Obama proclaimed that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” it had an effect he did not intend: muddying legal cases across the country.

In at least a dozen sexual assault cases since the president’s remarks at the White House in May, judges and defense lawyers have said that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials as a result. Military law experts said that those cases were only the beginning and that the president’s remarks were certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault. (NYT, 7/13/2013)

As with his comments about Trayvon Martin, Obama again steps in and sows confusion. More proof that he really does not understand the job.