Punishing Donald Sterling

Punishing Donald Sterling

 

In “Clippers’ Owner Donald Sterling’s Rant Wasn’t Racist,” posted here on 4-28-2014, I posited my considered opinion that what the white, aged owner of the L.A. Clippers ranted to his half-black, young hottie paramour, V. Stiviano, didn’t really qualify as racist but, rather, reflected an old man’s mindless jealousy and, yes, an obvious lack of affection for African-Americans in general.

Last I heard, jealousy, even mindless jealousy, are fairly common human emotions as is liking or disliking any particular individual or group and neither rises to the level of a criminal offense.

However, very obviously, the new National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver feels very differently, based on his Tuesday announcement that Sterling will be suspended for life from the NBA in addition to being fined $2.5 million for the allegedly racist comments he made which were somehow captured and published by the notoriously sensationalistic, gossipy TMZ.com in a recorded audio clip.

Silver went even further than a life suspension and a hefty fine by vowing he would “do everything in my power” to force the sale of the Clippers and he waxed absolutely vindictive by adding, “The hateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling. The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful.”

For good measure, Silver clarified his edict: “I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers association or the NBA. Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices, he may not be present at any Clippers facility, and he may not participate in any business or decisions involving the team.”

(In a demonstration of unbounded mercy, the commissioner didn’t forbid the soon-to-be former owner to watch Clippers’ games on television.)

Now, billionaire Donald Tokowitz Sterling may indeed be a dyed-in-the-wool racist, as well as a repulsive human being who seems to have reneged on a 2006 pledge to assist the homeless in Los Angeles.  In addition, he has been sued for racial discrimination in apartments he owns and by various employees and he is undoubtedly the most niggardly team owner in the NBA.

Nevertheless, Silver’s draconian punishment is overkill and could, quite possibly, expose his league . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36930.)

Dinesh D'Souza's "America"

Dinesh D'Souza's "America"

 

Naturalized American citizen, Dinesh D’Souza, who clearly has more love for our country than many natural born citizens–and is certainly more patriotic than the vast majority of liberal leftists–is ready to release his latest documentary, fittingly on July Fourth.

Titled, simply, “America,” the film is not precisely a sequel to his phenomenally successful, “2016: Obama’s America” (2012), the second-highest-grossing political documentary ever, though it is definitely thematically related.  As D’Souza said of his new production, “We answer the central moral challenge of America’s critics, which is that America’s greatness is based on theft, plunder and oppression.”

And, Dinesh D’Souza must be well acquainted with oppression.

Less than two years after “2016: Obama’s America” scored big time at box offices, he was indicted on federal charges of campaign finance fraud. 

Quickly released on an exorbitant $500,000 bond, he still faces a maximum of two years in prison for allegedly donating more than $20,000 to the unsuccessful 2012 GOP Senate campaign of longtime friend Wendy Long, plus an additional five years “for causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission in connection with those contributions.”

Evidently, criticizing President Barack Hussein Obama can be both expensive and dangerous. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36917.)

Easter Ugliness

Easter Ugliness

 

Now that Easter Week is over, I feel a bit more comfortable commenting on all the ugliness that  accompanied the Christian celebration of the Resurrection.

Thanks to God, Americans live in a nation that enshrined both freedom of speech and the freedom to practice one’s religion in the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

There is no evidence anywhere in the Bill of Rights nor in the Constitution that the Founding Fathers envisioned any proximations of how the often-interrelated freedoms of religion and speech would be grossly misinterpreted, abused, and vilified more than two centuries after they composed those documents.

Indeed, how could they have envisioned America’s liberal leftists and the extremes to which they would go to subvert the free exercise of religion and the right to free speech provisions?

As for the former, they have succeeded in convincing secular courts that the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” mean that the Founders intended that there be an absolute separation of the established Christian church or any other religion and the American state.

They have been attempting to ban all references to God in public schools and in the public square as they diligently work to convert our nation into a godless society, while ignoring the fact that Jefferson, et al. merely wanted to ensure America would never be burdened with a mandated state religion comparable to the Church of England we had just escaped.

However, let’s focus here on some of the vile abuses of free speech, the Easter ugliness we witnessed in our country in the week prior to Easter and on Easter Sunday itself.  Those abuses ranged from the just plain stupid to the amazingly offensive. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36870.)

Clippers' Owner Don Stirling's Rant Wasn't Racist

Clippers' Owner Don Stirling's Rant Wasn't Racist

 

Within hours after TMZ  Sports published an audio tape last Friday apparently involving Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Donald Tokowitz Sterling angrily making alleged racist remarks during a private, heated argument earlier this month with his then-girlfriend/mistress, V. Stiviano, the reactions on the Internet, from former and current NBA players, the league itself, civil rights leaders, black celebs, and, later, even from President Barack Hussein Obama, came fast and furiously. 

What incensed Sterling was Ms. Stiviano, a black-Mexican model denounced by Mrs. Rochelle Stein Stirling as a “golddigger,” posting a photo (since removed) on Instagram featuring her posing with NBA great Magic Johnson at a Clippers’ game. 

Shortly after the tape hit the fan, and without verification that the recorded voice on the tape was even Sterling’s, brickbats came flying in the owner’s direction:

–NBA spokesman Mike Bass weighed in by saying the comments were “disturbing and offensive;”

–Miami Heat star LeBron James called them “appalling,” said he wasn’t sure if he would play the rest of the NBA playoffs if he was a Clipper, and added, “There’s no room for Donald Sterling in the NBA;”

–L.A. Lakers’ MVP Kobe Bryant, who was accused in 2003 of raping a 19 year old in Colorado and paying her off, tweeted, “I couldn’t play for him;”

–Famed Philadelphia 76ers power forward, “Sir Charles” Barkley, declared, “You can’t have this guy making statements like that. He [NBA commissioner Adam Silver] has to suspend him and fine him immediately;”

–Magic Johnson, the man sort of at the center of the controversy, expressed outraged “disappointment” with Donald Sterling and contended it was time for Sterling to sell the Clippers;

–The always rabid Snoop Dogg got into the act, ripping the owner as a “racist piece of s**t” and the always race-baiting Al Sharpton threatened to take his troops into the steets in protest . . .

I guess Sterling is fortunate that no one, so far, has called for his lynching!

Though this will no doubt deeply annoy Sterling’s offended critics, based on the excerpts of the eighty year old  Sterling’s rant against the 20-something Stiviano as published on TMZ.com, there is little if anything that can reasonably be characterized as racist in what he said. 

If we agree with the generally accepted definition of racist as someone who . . .  (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36879.)

Canonizing Trayvon Martin

Canonizing Trayvon Martin

 

With Pope Francis scheduled to officially recognize former Popes John XXIII and John Paul II as canonized saints in the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, it’s appropriate that we pay homage to an unofficial American saint-in-the-making, black martyr, Trayvon Benjamin Martin.

If eventually secularly sanctified, Martin’s sainthood would be unique.

The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black man-child, by 29 year old, mixed-race neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the early evening of February 26th, 2012, was an avoidable national tragedy, but hardly grounds for Trayvon’s sainthood in any sense.

It was avoidable because Martin failed to control his rage at being accosted and challenged and because of Zimmerman’s overzealousness in performing his volunteer job of protecting his Sanford, Florida community.
I
t evolved into a national tragedy, in fact, a national travesty, when Zimmerman was pre-judged guilty and threatened with execution by radical civil rights agitators. 

That unpunished, outrageous threat by the New Black Panther Party accompanied the mainstream media wildly sensationalizing and twisting the truth about the defendant and the incident and was further exacerbated by the president of the United States needlessly interjecting himself in a local affair, thereby intentionally or unintentionally helping ignite a national firestorm over race, prejudice, and the equity of “Stand Your Ground” laws.

(See graphic, including previously suppressed, photos of Martin and Zimmerman here http://tinyurl.com/k9blrzo.)

When George Zimmerman was totally exonerated by a jury of his peers in July, 2013 and the FBI regretfully conceded it found no racial bias in the shooting, overly optimistic observers assumed, hoped, that the unfortunate spectacle was over and done with. 

We naively felt that Martin would and should forever be fondly remembered by his family and friends and that  Zimmerman would and should be permitted to live out his life as an innocent, free man.

Of course, as often detailed in this space, none of those hopes came to fruition.

Following the not guilty verdict, black agitators like the New Black Panther Party, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson reacted by ramping up their threats and racial hatred.  Obama’s MSM continued to publish pictures depicting Trayvon as an innocent 12 year old instead of the thuggish, menacing 17 year old he had become.  Martin’s memory was cynically transformed into a black cause of dubious merit.  And Zimmerman was forced to go into hiding to preserve his life.
Compounding those belated miscarriages of justice at the same time they demeaned the life and death of Trayvon Martin, . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36827.)

America, Polluted Pot Paradise

America, Polluted Pot Paradise

 

When the truth finally got out that President Barack Hussein Obama had been both a marijuana and “blow” (cocaine/heroin) aficionado during his high school years, it was only a matter of time before his government would start winking at drug use in America, to the

detriment of the health and safety of druggies and the public alike.

Of course, that truth had long been out there thanks to his confessions in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” about using marijuana and “maybe a little blow” during his high school days in Hawaii, a memoir that soared to best seller lists after he began to make noises regarding running for the presidency before he had served even two years in the U.S. Senate.

It seemed that no one had really read his “Dreams” or really cared.  

As his biographer David Maraniss wrote, not only was the future leader of the Free World a heavy pot-smoker but a leader in the “Choom Gang,” slang for a group of potheads with a “Choomwagon, he was also a drug innovator “known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”  Those innovations included “Total Absorption” or “TA” involving restricting exhaling; “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around” because, “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated.”

Maraniss added that Obama was even known for his “Interceptions,” i.e., when he “elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!,’ and took an extra hit.”

Evidently, the future president was more than your average pothead though, unfortunately, he was never arrested.  Evidently, too, Obama helped create the aura of today’s drug culture as surely as fellow Democrat Bill Clinton contributed to the popularity of oral sex practices especially among young people who felt, Hey, if they can do it, why can’t we?

Flash forward a few decades to Obama in the White House when he bemoaned the fact young African-Americans are incarcerated for minor drug offenses, like pot smoking, at 10 times the rate of whites.  That stat was due to the other fact that blacks commit 10 times the number of crimes whites do, although he failed to mention that. . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36807.)

Did Oprah's Mom Out Her as a Hypocritical Lesbian?

Did Oprah's Mom Out Her as a Hypocritical Lesbian?

 

I’ve always had my doubts about Oprah Gail Winfrey.

Widely regarded as God’s greatest gift to American television and to women the world over because of her empathetic, ultra-sensitive regard for women and the planet as well as for her unprecedented achievements as a black media mogul, talk show hostess, actress, producer, and philanthropist who overcame childhood horrors to become the wealthiest and most influential African-American woman on Earth, Oprah Winfrey is a fraud.

Outrageous, you say?  Well, perhaps, but then again, her mother thinks she is a fraud, and worse, and that must count for something, no?

In a two-part, first-ever interview–conducted with the U.K.’s Daily Mail since no American publication would dare print an interview painting iconic Oprah as a phony–Barbara Winfrey who married Oprah’s father Vernon in 2000 with Oprah very visibly in attendance, spilled her guts on everything she could think of.

She cited Oprah’s complaints about her scratchy bed sheets and small coffee cups, her famous stepdaughter’s rude and callous behavior, her “bizarre” relationships with Gayle King and Stedman Graham, and her command to Barbara on the latter’s 64th birthday, “You say I never talk to you.  I’m talking to  you now. You have until Monday to get out of MY house,” the same house Oprah pretended to buy for Barbara and Vernon yet deviously kept her own name on the deed so she could evict her in the future.

Of course, some stepmoms have been known to morph into stepmonsters over time and a clear strain of bitterness clearly permeates her interview.  How much those emotions are justified is conjectural but, since Barbara refused to sign Oprah’s mandatory confidentiality agreement and since she will soon be homeless, she felt free as a bird to finally speak her mind and expose Oprah’s dirty wash, although she pulls her punches regarding her daughter-in-law’s, ahem, “unhealthy” relationships.

And, Oprah’s wash is extremely dirty, much dirtier than could be expected considering she holds such an iconic status among some segments of Americans who gullibly think their icon is above reproach. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36798.)