It’s Friday, August 31st, 2018…but before we begin, since The Left and their MSM shills have chosen to declare any use of the term “monkey” as a racist reference, via a forward from Jeff Foutch, Rich Weinstein has compiled compelling evidence the Dimocratic Party has yet to shake off its racist roots, including The Great Divider himself:

Since we’re on the subject of Liberal hypocrisy run utterly amok…

NBC Threatened Ronan Farrow If He Kept Reporting on Harvey Weinstein

Further proof of the wisdom of Matthew 7:5.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up on the last edition of August, courtesy of Townhall.com, Ben Shapiro details…

What Nonreligious People Get Wrong About Religious People

With the media furiously obsessed over the supposed imminent end of the Trump presidency (spoiler alert: nope), the new conversation among the elite concerns the supposed evils of Vice President Mike Pence. Pence, our leftist thought leaders proclaim, is perhaps even more frightening than President Trump. Frank Bruni of The New York Times terms Pence a “holy terror waiting in the wings…a bigot…a liar…cruel.”

This is nothing new. Conan O’Brien says that “many members of Congress are preparing for a Mike Pence presidency. Yeah, they’re preparing by binge-watching ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.'” Joy Behar called Pence’s faith a “mental illness.” John Oliver trolled Pence last year by mocking his daughter’s children’s book about a bunny rabbit — in Oliver’s parody book, the bunny rabbit is gay. Because, of course, Pence would hate a gay bunny.

Last year, the media went into a tizzy when they learned that Pence refuses to dine alone with women other than his wife (Billy Graham, recognizing early-on the reality of the world in which we live, avoided meeting alone with women under any circumstances.) (the same media have since been shocked to learn that Harvey Weinstein loved dining alone with women other than his wife). This policy made Pence a bigot. But that was just the beginning. Pence, said the media, supported “gay conversion therapy.” This, of course, is false as well. But that didn’t stop the media from feting gay 2018 Winter Olympian Adam Rippon, who proceeded to trot out that debunked chestnut.

What is so frightening about Pence? His status as a religious Christian. According to many on the left, Pence’s religiosity means he’s a theocrat. Never mind the fact that Pence is a limited-government conservative who isn’t generally interested in imposing policy preferences from above; he believes in Jesus, and therefore, he must want to install himself at the head of the United Christian States of America.

But that isn’t even what bothers those on the left. What bothers many on the left about Pence is the same thing that bothers them about religious Christians in general: They seem convinced that religious Americans are merely bigots hiding behind the Bible. The perspective is well-expressed by Greg Carey, professor of the New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary: “People either use religion to justify their bigotry or they refuse to give up their bigotry for the sake of maintaining false religious security.” Or let’s listen to Bruni again, this time from April 2015: “our debate about religious freedom should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to.” Or Hillary Clinton in 2016: “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

This view of religious belief is deeply demeaning. The suggestion seems to be that religious texts are utterly malleable, and that human beings twist them to fit their preconceived notions. But the suggestion is alien to most religious people, who believe that their religion dictates and they listen. This perception gap plagues our public discourse and helps explain why the left seems so unperturbed by violating the religious-practice rights of other Americans: They think those Americans are bad human beings using the Bible to shield themselves. Pence is merely the latest example.

The great irony, of course, is that religious people generally wish to be left alone. They’re not seeking to impose “The Handmaid’s Tale”; such compulsion is endemic to a left that insists we “bake the cake.” Such psychological projection damages the public discourse and undermines cultural unity. If the left truly wants a more tolerant America, perhaps it should start by assuming that its opponents in the religious community aren’t mere bigots cloaked in the vestments of God — and perhaps it ought to think more deeply about whether the true bigotry lies within itself.

Then again, as evidenced by this next item from Breitbart, the supposedly “religious” certainly haven’t cornered the market on morals, judgement…or common sense:

Chicago Cardinal: Global Warming, Migrants are ‘Bigger Agenda’ Than Sex Abuse

“Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, has downplayed bombshell allegations that Pope Francis knowingly rehabilitated an abusive American cardinal, saying the pope has a “bigger agenda” to worry about, such as protecting the environment and migrants.

In a television interview with NBC News, Cardinal Cupich commented on a recent 11-page statement by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former papal nuncio to the United States, that alleges a series of misdeeds by high-ranking Catholic prelates, including Pope Francis himself.

“The pope has a bigger agenda. He’s gotta get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church,” Cardinal Cupich said. “We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this,” he added…”

In light of the fact repeated entry into holes which should have been off-limits…

…is what’s brought the Church to this current crisis, the tone-deaf prelate’s last comment is particularly ironic.

As John O’Sullivan records at NRO in an article entitled “Is the Pope a Catholic?”…

“Even after all that’s happened, some bishops don’t seem to grasp such simple points. Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago sounded like a SNL parody of a secular humanitarian politician when he said: “The pope has a bigger agenda. He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.” This is an unbelievably trivial response to the Church’s moral crisis. Suppose that Viganò’s charges are false, where is the righteous anger of those unjustly accused that should animate Cupich’s words? Suppose the charges are true, on the other hand, where is the bitter shame and determination to cleanse the Augean stables? Instead the archbishop blandly elevates a few contemporary political causes — one of which he describes with inadvertent candor as “talking about the environment” — above the grave sins plausibly committed by churchmen against the innocent, the public, and the Church. It’s all very tepid, nothing much to repent here, move along now…”

We’re with Pete Groetzinger, as he observed inquiring minds are left to wonder whether Cardinal Cupich is protecting a gaggle of serial sexual predators in the Chicago Archdiocese…or is one himself?!?

Either way, though not a Roman Catholic, along with David French, we feel The Faithful’s pain.

Next up, also courtesy of NRO, David Kopel and Vincent Harinam report how…

Britain’s Failed Weapons-Control Laws Show Why the Second Amendment Matters

The slippery slope doesn’t end with the confiscation of guns, but with the destruction of the right to self-defense itself.

“…Although England’s 1689 Bill of Rights recognized the right to possess defensive arms, that right is now a dead letter, as are many of the others enumerated in that document. So today, Great Britain has trapped itself in a vicious cycle of rising crime and intensifying repression.

By the government’s count, knife crime in Britain rose 36 percent between 2013 and 2017. Some of the statistical increase can be attributed to changes in the recording practices of police departments, which have long underreported all sorts of crime. But the Home Office, whose functions include collecting crime statistics, acknowledges that knife crime is up sharply.

…The problem certainly isn’t a lack of laws against carrying knives. (Can you say “Chicago”, boys and girls? We KNEW you could!) As Joyce Malcolm details in her book Guns and Violence: The English Experience, since the 1950s, the British have banned carrying anything with the intent to use it for self-defense. (A new definition of insanity!) This even includes a hatpin, if a woman were to use it against an attempted rapist. In the Orwellian language of British law, the willingness to use something for self-defense makes it an “offensive weapon.”

According to a British police website, it is illegal to carry any “product which is made or adapted to cause a person injury.” Britons are allowed, for example, to carry colored dye spray to mark an attacker, but if they spray the dye in the attacker’s eyes, it “would become an offensive weapon because it would be used in a way that was intended to cause injury.”

An American tourist was even convicted of carrying an “offensive weapon” after she used a pen knife to stab some men who were attacking her. Then, in the 1996 Offensive Weapons Act, carrying a knife was made presumptively illegal, even without the “offensive” intent to use the knife defensively. A person accused of the crime must “prove that he had a good reason or lawful authority for having” it to avoid punishment.

And even then, in practice, having a good reason is no protection. The first victim of the anti-knife law was Dean Payne, a man whose job at a distribution plant was to cut the straps on newspaper bundles. During what a local newspaper called “a routine search of his car,” the police found a lock knife, a small printer’s knife, and a Stanley knife. The magistrate readily accepted Payne’s testimony that he had no intention of using the knife for “offensive” purposes, but nevertheless sent him to jail for two weeks.

…Arms rights in England were never as robust as in the United States. The U.S. Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, declares that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.” The more limited 1689 English Bill of Rights allowed “subjects” to “have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” Today, there are no conditions under which English subjects may possess a suitable defensive arm in public. The English government prioritizes the safety of criminals over the safety of their victims. As England shows, the slippery slope of gun control doesn’t end with the confiscation of handguns, but with destruction of the right to self-defense itself.“

In a related item of politically-correct English insanity, writing at the WSJ, Andy Ngo recounts…

A Visit to Islamic England

Muslims headed to Friday prayer while non-Muslims went the other way. No one made eye contact.

“Other tourists may remember London for its spectacular sights and history, but I remember it for Islam. When I was visiting the U.K. as a teenager in 2006, I got lost in an East London market. There I saw a group of women wearing head-to-toe black cloaks. I froze, confused and intimidated by the faceless figures. It was my first encounter with the niqab, which covers everything but a woman’s eyes.

…Other tourists might remember London for Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus and Big Ben. I’ll remember it for its failed multiculturalism. Or perhaps this is what successful multiculturalism looks like.“

Speaking of the inevitable results of the Progressive push for moral equivalence, also writing at the WSJ, Abigail Shrier lists the latest casualties in…

The Transgender Language War

California threatens to jail health workers who refuse to use ‘preferred’ pronouns.

“If you want to control people’s thoughts, begin by commandeering their words. Taking this Orwellian lesson to heart, Virginia’s Fairfax County public school system recently stripped the phrase “biological gender” from its family life curriculum, replacing it with “sex assigned at birth.”

Without permitting parents to opt out, public schools across the country are teaching children that “gender” is neither binary nor biological. It’s closer to a mental state: a question of how girllike or boylike you feel. Students will fall anywhere along a gender spectrum, according to these educators.

So how girllike does any girl feel? The answer might reasonably be expected to vary throughout adolescence, depending on whether a girl was just dumped by a boy or tripped in the hall. Mishaps that once only compromised one’s pride now threaten a child’s gender identity, the ever-evolving claim to a “girl card.” As if adolescence weren’t already hard enough…”

Witness the work of Educated Idiots, possessed of various and sundry advanced degrees but completely bereft of common sense.

In a related item resulting from Educated Idiocy, as FOX News informs us how…

Brown U. pulls ‘gender dysphoria’ study, worried that findings might ‘invalidate the perspectives’ of transgender community

“Brown University has come under fire after censoring its own study on transgender youth, which found that social media and friends can influence teenagers to change their gender identity. The university removed an article about the study from its website five days after it was published, following community complaints that the research was transphobic, the Daily Wire first reported.

In addition, the findings “might invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community,” a university dean wrote. The dean insisted, however, that it [Brown] was still committed to “academic freedom,” noting that all studies should be “debated vigorously.”…”

Unless, of course, the study in question reached politically-incorrect conclusions; so much for the supremacy of science!

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:

Finally, we’ll call it a week with yet another titillating tale torn from the pages of The Crime Blotter, as… 

Employees at Memphis Waffle House filmed brawling over dirty dishes

“The manager told police two employees got into an argument over washing dishes. The alleged victim was not on the clock, but another employee was telling her to do dishes. They started arguing and eventually, things turned physical when the alleged suspect pushed the victim in the back of the head, according to police.

The employees began fighting and were eventually separated.

…Police have not said if charges have been filed.“

Can’t we all just get along?!?  Not while the descendants of slaves labor under the legacy of White racism and oppression.

Magoo