Stop and frisk is back!

U.S. Second Circuit restores stop and frisk!.

Unfortunately, it’s only going to last until De Blasio takes office. And then, the criminal element will run wild.

Why Republicans love Hispanic immigration

As everyone already points out all the time in the comments, big business likes immigration because it means cheap labor which makes the rich business owners even richer while depressing wages of the workers. And the Republican Party likes business (especially they love Small Business, but they also like big business) because Republicans love capitalism and everyone knows business is inherently capitalist so Republicans tend to reflexively agree with whatever big business donors ask for.

But the other thing going on, that hardly any commenters ever mention, is that the Republican party has a powerful single-issue anti-abortion wing. They are a single-issue wing because the only thing they care about is making abortion illegal, and they are Republican only because the Republican party is the anti-abortion party and not because they support conservative economic policies or any other policies that Republicans support.

The single-issue anti-abortion wing likes Hispanic immigration because they see Hispanics as religious Catholics who will vote for anti-abortion candidates and there’s always the dream they will become Republican because of the abortion issue, or maybe sometime in the future there will be a powerful Right-To-Life party that’s a coalition of Catholic Hispanics and Christian and Catholic whites, with this new party not being especially “conservative” except for being anti-abortion.

This also explains why Republicans are so interested in Hispanic outreach but are doing nothing about outreach to Asians, even though Asians are also a fast-growing minority. You would think that Asians would be “natural conservatives” because Asians have good jobs and would be in favor of lower taxes and other conservative economic and social policies. If “conservative” means belief that one should be married before having children, and value hard work, then Asians are a lot more conservative than Hispanics in their behavior.

But alas, what Republicans really mean by “natural conservatives” is being anti-abortion. And Asians aren’t particularly anti-abortion because that’s only something that Christians get excited about. Asians from Buddhist countries just aren’t that religious, and “Asians” from the Hindu country are far more opposed to eating beef than they are to non-Hindu women getting abortions.

Republicans can only win over Asians by becoming less of a Christian anti-abortion party, which is not something that the Christian Right wants any part of.

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One may rightly ask whether Hispanic immigration will actually have the desired effect of leading to laws against abortion.

In the short term, Hispanics vote for Democrats, and I can almost guarantee you that the next Democratic president will appoint liberal pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court.

So far, Hispanics don’t care that much about abortion when it comes to how they vote. They wouldn’t vote against a candidate because he’s pro-life (unlike most white Democrats), but they place a much higher importance on voting for candidates who will give them more government benefits, more affirmative action, and allow more of their relatives to move here and become citizens.

Mexico has stricter abortion laws than the United States, but they are liberalizing even there. Abortion-on-demand is available in Mexico City.

Rand Paul opposes eugenics

Rand Paul, “trying to make a point about eugenics, saying the United States was veering dangerously close to eliminating people whom society considered to be undesirable.”

Nothing could better for this country than eliminating undesirable people. Why do my blog readers support this guy?

* * *

Also this an be interpreted as an admission that abortion produces desirable results for society.

Phyllis Schlafly says amnesty is suicide for Republicans

Phyllis Schlafly writes :

The current level of immigration, even without amnesty, will add nearly 15 million new potential voters by 2036, a large share of whom will favor the left. To allow this to happen will make Republicans a permanent minority party.
Looking at the political motivation of the groups pushing higher immigration and amnesty, it’s obvious that the Democrats promote large-scale immigration because it produces more Democratic votes.

How do you replace the battery in your Apple device?

Apple doesn’t believe in designing devices in which the user can replace the battery. Because lithium-ion batteries tend to die after two or three years (at least they did in the past, maybe current generation batteries are better), this encourages you to upgrade when your battery no longer holds a charge.

Catherine Rampell also thinks that Apple intentionally designed iOS 7 to make older iPhones suck, thus encouraging upgrade.

Cruise ships are prole

NY Times article about cruise ships made me think about how cruise ships are prole.

Proles like cruises because they like vacations where they can feel like they are rich, and cruise lines provide a faux-riche experience to proles who don’t know any better. And there’s also unlimited food, which proles like.

Jane Brody looks down on you

After reading NY Times journalist Jane Brody’s condescendingly smug article about the benefits of living in a walkable neighborhood with short commutes, I wanted to know more about where she lives.

So I did some research and discovered that she owns a brownstone in Park Slope that’s valued, according to Zillow, at $2.85 million.

In the end I have to agree with the lesson from the article. If you can become rich enough to afford a $2.85 million home, you too can live in a really great location and smugly look down upon the poor people who can’t afford to live your lifestyle.

Quintuple murder in Chinatown (Brooklyn)

25-year-old live-in “mentally troubled” relative kills mother and four children with a machete. NY Post.

So the lesson here is not to be guilted into letting mentally troubled relatives live with you.

What should the Barneys shopper have done with $2,500?

Welfare mom spends $2,500 on a handbag at Barneys.

In the absences of needs-tested government benefits programs, I’d say she should save the money if she doesn’t need to buy anything right now (and she certainly doesn’t need to buy a $2,500 handbag).

But it’s possible that saving the money would be the wrong real-world choice because she might lose access to Medicaid, AFDC, financial aid for her college program, and whatever other benefits depend on a person having close to zero savings.

I am opposed to wealth-based tests for need. (1) They are the easiest to lie about anyway so they disproportionately punish the honest; and (2) they discourage frugal behavior, and that’s the opposite of what we should be discouraging.

Everyone should get the same government benefits without regard to “need.” This would better reward frugality and work.

Hilarity at Barneys

A 21-year-old unmarried welfare mom from the ghetto, pregnant with a second child, goes to Barneys (a very high-end clothing retailer in Manhattan) and buys a $2,500 handbag with a temporary ATM card that doesn’t have a name on it. Hilarity ensues.