“On Monday, the jury ruled that Starbucks had violated Shannon Phillips’s federal civil rights and a New Jersey law that prohibits discrimination based on race when the company fired her amid fallout from the incident, solely because she was white. The jury ordered Starbucks to pay the former manager $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.
The firing happened amid outcry sparked by an April 2018 incident at a Rittenhouse Square Starbucks that began when two black men sat a table without ordering anything. The men were waiting for a third person to arrive when one of them asked to use a restroom. The employees refused and eventually asked the men to leave. When they refused to leave, the employees called police.
The incident caused widespread backlash and led Starbucks to temporarily close 8,000 stores while store managers underwent training to address “unconscious bias.”
Phillips’s lawsuit accused the company of punishing her and other white employees near Philadelphia after the incident, despite having not even been involved in the situation…”
Sounds like Starbuck’s senior executives are the ones in need of training to address “unconscious bias”, as well as the advisability of withholding judgement until all the facts are in.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, on the occasion of Father’s Day this Sunday, writing at The Patriot Post, Mark Alexander recounts…
“The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. In vain are schools, academies, and universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years.” -John Adams, 1778
“Most who have observed the urban protests and riots in recent years, ostensibly in response to the manufactured assertion of “systemic racism,” see masses of discontented young people who are emotionally moved by their feelings about what they are told is “injustice.” In the darkness of some major urban centers, these raging youth hordes have acted out violently, the result of identifying with Black Lives Matter or the Antifa movement of self-styled “anti-fascist” fascists.
But I’ve seen something else in those masses and hordes, something that actually evokes a sense of compassion for these lost souls. What I see is mostly young people, regardless of color or creed, who have been deprived of a sufficient level of stability in their formative years. Thus, they lack the courage required to resist becoming emotionally incontinent pawns of leftist political ideologues, their Leftmedia echo-chambers, and the agitators who incite insurrection identity groups.
What I see are large numbers of people across the nation who have something in common beyond their congregational cause du jour: They did not have the stability of the healthy and functional family that all children deserve — most likely due to the lack of a father or an effective father in their home. Rarely is the lack of fatherhood more evident than in the abject urban violence, and the inconvenient truth that the vast majority of that violence is black-on-black.
Even in the most stable of families, life can be difficult. Young people struggle and sometimes take paths that are self-destructive. Fortunately, many have family members who will toss them a lifeline and bring them back into the fold. But if the lives of young people who had the benefit of stable families are sometimes difficult, many (not all) young people who grow up in broken families face almost insurmountable obstacles — psychologically, emotionally, and socially. If they’re fortunate, they’ll cross paths with a guardian angel who will endeavor to lead them onto the path of personal responsibility required for a productive life. Many, though, won’t be so fortunate.
Annually, on Father’s Day, the third Sunday in June, millions of Americans of all ages are reminded that they grew up in homes without fathers. Many also recognize that this absence has had a significant influence on their lives.
For much of history, it was not uncommon for children to have one parent — having lost the other to childbirth, disease, war, or occupations that took them far away from the home. But those families typically lived near other family members who could stand in the gap. Unfortunately, the United States today ranks high among nations with children growing up in single-parent homes without the benefit of extended family. In the vast majority of these cases, the single parent is the mother, and the absent parent is the biological father who elected to abandon them.
This elective rejection by fathers, the result of divorce or of dissociating from the mother, is an epidemic. And the consequence of this epidemic on children, and the future of Liberty, is dire.
…Perhaps most presciently, John Adams warned, “How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the Sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers?”
Today, that timeless advice has been largely discarded — at an enormous price to families and society.
…for tens of millions of American children growing up in fatherless homes, the consequences of that void are enormous. Here’s the hard data on the number of American children without fathers in their homes:
Between 2014-18, the share of families headed by single parents was 75% among African American families, 58% among Hispanic families, 37% among white families, and 21% among Asian families.
According to the latest Census Bureau data, 19.7 million children, more than one in four, live without a father in the home. Consequently, there is a fatherless factor in nearly all social ills facing America today.
According to additional Census Bureau data, among children who were part of the “post-war generation,” 87.7% grew up with two biological parents who were married to each other. Today, only 68.1% will spend their entire childhood in an intact family. Based on the number of premarital births and high divorce rate, the proportion of children living with just one parent rose from 9.1% in 1960 to more than 30% today.
As Thomas Sowell observed: “Many successful political careers have been built on giving blacks ‘favors’ that look goodon the surface but do lasting damage in the long run. One of these ‘favors’ was the welfare state. A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression.”
The consequences of growing up without a father in the home are staggering, as noted in this graphic:
Notably, absent or ineffective fathering is also associated with gender disorientation and other pathologies that the Left endeavors to normalize.
…Ironically, two of our most notable fatherless presidents have propagated those policies: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. These Democrat Party protagonists, and those in power today, continue to undermine the third pillar of Liberty, which is marriage and family.
On this Father’s Day, let us pay tribute to the irreplaceable and inseparable institutions of marriage and fatherhood — and to the importance of a father’s love, discipline, provision, and protection for his family. Every day of the year, let those of us who are fathers encourage other fathers to be accountable for their marriage and their children.”
Men, as our dear, departed mother on a number of occasions observed directly to us, “Tommy, the best thing you can do for your boys is to love their mother.” Sage advice from a very wise, great Christian woman, wife, mother and friend.
According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses. . . .
Now, answers increasingly look within reach. Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.
As such, not only do we know there were WIV scientists who had developed COVID-19-like illnesses in November 2019, but also that they were working with the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2, and inserting gain-of-function features unique to it.
When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%.”
The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was ‘zero infection’ among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.
A few months later, in May 2021, a report by the Wall Street Journal’s Michael R. Gordon, Warren P. Strobel, and Drew Hinshaw offered more details:
Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology’s first report on the outbreak, published February 3, 2020, and entitled, “A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin,” was written in part by Ben Hu and Yan Zhu. The two men, who knew that they had been working with viruses either identical or extremely similar to this one, and who had been hospitalized with pneumonia-like symptoms right before the pandemic started in their own neighborhood, had the audacity to write, “Most importantly, strict regulations against the domestication and consumption of wildlife should be implemented.”
Why did so many people first believe that this was a case of someone eating bat soup? Because the Chinese government wanted the world to believe that. And one of the many reasons the Chinese government wanted the world to focus on wet markets was because the Wuhan Institute of Virology had an awful lot of military scientists around for an allegedly civilian institution working on public health…”
Holy cow!
NRO goes on to provide additional information on those State Department cables, noting in another item…
“Months after the onset of the Covid pandemic, State Department officials came to the conclusion that the outbreak could have been contained had Chinese Communist Party officials acted to prevent the viral spread rather than trying to conceal its existence, according to newly released cables. The heavily redacted cables, obtained by the public-health transparency group U.S. Right to Know, were sent from July 2020 to January 2021 and include the heading: “Initial Outbreak Could Have Been Contained in China if Beijing Had Not Covered It Up.”
The cables appear to have been sourced through the American Institute in Taiwan, which functions as a de facto U.S. embassy. They appear to confirm previous reporting by the Associated Press, which found that Chinese officials waited six days after they confirmed a highly contagious, potentially lethal coronavirus had originated in the country to warn the public. Instead, Wuhan held a massive celebration for tens of thousands of people, likely accelerating the rate of transmission. During that week, in which Chinese citizens were in the dark about the virus spreading across the country, over 3,000 people were infected, according to internal documents reviewed by the AP and an expert analysis of retrospective infection data. In 30 days, the virus expanded from the Hubei province, home to the capital of Wuhan, to the rest of mainland China.
The newly released cables further indicate that CCP leaders, rather than local officials, led the effort to censor information about the viral outbreak, particularly when the accounts called Beijing’s leadership into question. In one cable, the State Department assesses that Beijing “ordered” party members to obfuscate regarding the source of the virus. A leaked directive, cited in the cable, allegedly confirmed that the regime restricted disclosure of virus information. Another heading states that Chinese president Xi Jinping tried to claim no responsibility for the coverup and refused transparency throughout the crisis…”
A characteristic he shares with his American puppet:
All of which means Drs. Faux Chi and Birx, Rochelle Walensky, Peter Daszak (who funneled Faux Chi’s monies to the ChiComs), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and every other public health bureaucrat and politician involved in the funding for, and covering up of, Beijing’s altogether irresponsible gain-of-function research as well as the ChiCom’s exclusive culpability for the pandemic, should be, quite literally, put against a wall and shot.
And no, unlike Joe, who means exactly the opposite when he says it…
Though we’d settle for life with the possibility of parole in the Florence, CO supermax. BTW, does it not tell you something about Biden when he so frequently feels it necessary to assure his audience he’s not joking?
Moving on, here’s another septet of special selections certain to sate the curiosity of inquiring Conservative minds:
— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) June 13, 2023
…Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky makes a valid point:
(2). Writing at The Patriot Post, Nate Jackson sagely suggests government “pride” displays arguably represent an “establishment of religion” because the gender movement has become a cult.
(4). Cinemark Holdings, Inc. announced the closing of its downtown San Francisco theater, becoming the latest major firm to high-tail it out of the troubled California city.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from Breeze Gould…
…Speed…
…Mark Foster…
…and the lovely Shannon:
Finally, we’ll call it wrap on an administrative note: As we’ll be spending a long weekend with TLJ’s eldest sister Jackie, we’ll be radio silent on Monday and likely Wednesday. So ’til Friday…
Magoo
Video of the Day
John Stossel reveals why Chris Rufo is so despised by dark, woke forces of The Left.
Tales of The Darkside
The great VDH sums up the true cost of The Left’s version of “equality”.
On the Lighter Side
Dave Rubin calls a spade a spade…or perhaps more accurately, a dude a dude. Note well Will Thomas’s assertion you’re either all-in actively affirming the transgenders’ psychoses, or you’re transphobic.
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