RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU’RE SURPRISED TO HEAR THIS. Poverty in the U.S. Was Plummeting—Until Lyndon Johnson Declared War On It.

THE BRINK’S ROBBERY/TRIPLE MURDER WAS ON THIS DAY IN 1981: Please keep in your thoughts Brink’s guard Peter Paige and Nyack police officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown (who was Nyack’s first African-American officer). All three were murdered in the course of the 1981 Brink’s heist. Also remember Brink’s guard Joseph Trombino, who was seriously wounded, but survived, only to be killed twenty years later on 9/11.

The perpetrators were six members of the Black Liberation Army and four former members of Weather Underground who had since formed the May 19^th Communist Organization.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the trial of the first three defendants (one from the BLA and two from the M19CO):

Gilbert, Weems, and Clark were the first of the Brink’s robbers to go to trial. Because the BLA was known for attempting to break their members out of prison … massive security precautions were undertaken, turning the courthouse … into a heavily armed compound. … All three defendants declined assistance from defense lawyers and chose to represent themselves. Their contention was that since they did not recognize the authority of the United States, the government had no right to put them on trial. Throughout the trial, they repeatedly disrupted the proceedings by shouting anti-US slogans, proclaiming to be “at war” with the government and refusing to respect any aspect of the US legal system. They called the robbery an “expropriation” of funds that were needed to form a new country in a few select southern states that ideally would be populated only by African Americans.

…

Rockland County D.A. Kenneth Gribetz told reporters: “Our goal is to see that these people, who have contempt for society and have shown no remorse, will never see the streets of society again!” Judge Ritter apparently agreed. On October 6, 1983, he sentenced each defendant to three consecutive twenty-five year-to-life sentences, making them eligible for parole in the year 2058. After the trial, Weems claimed, “As to the seventy five years in prison, I am not really worried, not only because I am in the habit of not completing sentences or waiting on parole or any of that nonsense but also because the State simply isn’t going to last seventy five or even fifty years.” He died in prison from AIDS in 1986. Gilbert and Clark remain in prison. In September 2006, Clark was granted a new trial by a judge … in a district court on grounds that she had no representation at trial. On January 3, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a unanimous decision, reversed the district court’s judgment granting a new trial. The Second Circuit panel noted that she chose to represent herself and defaulted any claim by failing to appeal until after the time for appeals had expired. In December 2016, Gov. Andrew Cuomo commuted Clark’s sentence to 35 years, citing “exceptional strides in self-development,” Clark is eligible for parole as of 2017.

M19CO member Kathy Boudin was tried, convicted, and sentenced to twenty years to life. She was paroled in 2003 and later hired by Columbia University, where she is now an assistant professor and co-founder/co-director of Columbia’s Center for Justice. Peter Paige, Edward O’Grady, and Waverly Brown could not be reached for comment.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

● Shot: After Tucson, will media tone it down?

—Headline, CNN.com, January 17, 2011.

● Chaser: HOLY S*IT: New editorial cartoon shows Kyrsten Sinema shooting down ex-combat pilot Martha McSally.

—Twitchy, last night.

In this superheated political environment, I eagerly await Paul Krugman’s condemnation of an illustration that goes “far beyond politics as usual.”

YES: Are Colleges Turning Out Our Most Self-Absorbed and Fragile Generation?

NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Occasional Cortex*: We Must Use the Blueprint From Defeating the Nazis to Defeat Global Warming.

Describing global warming as the moral equivalent of WWII? How new and original!

* Hat tip, Sarah Hoyt.

GOOD. SMUG SJW VIRTUE-SIGNALLING SHOULD NOT BE INDULGED: Swedish student who grounded deportation flight faces prosecution. She’s a bad person, not any sort of hero.

HIGHER EDUCATION NEEDS MORE ADULT SUPERVISION: SD House of Representatives Majority Leader Lee Qualm (R) sent the state’s Board of Regents 19 questions aimed to help lawmakers craft legislation that would promote free speech on campus.

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ROMANIAN PUMA: An armed Romanian IAR 330 Puma Socat helicopter provides air support for Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division and Romanian tank crews during an exercise in Smardan, Romania,

WITH DNC IN MIND, CITY BANS CARRYING URINE, FECES. Plot Twist: It looks urine might take down a politician in 2018, but it’s not the one Dems were hoping for. “Fox News is reporting that Sen. Claire McCaskill’s husband, Joseph Shepard, was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife… And it gets worse. According to the report, Shepard verbally abused her, punched her in the chest and … wait for it … peed on her.”

Why is the Democratic party such a cesspit of violence and abuse?

(Classical reference in headline.)

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FESTERING INTELLECTUAL POISON: Cultural Marxism Is the Main Source of Modern Confusion—and It’s Spreading.

It’s all Gramscian Damage. And by the way, if you’ve never followed the link and actually read the Gramscian Damage piece, you really should. It explains so much.

BLUE ON BLUE: Stephen Lynch downplays progressives’ role in Democrats retaking House.

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema Attacked ‘Bullshit’ Stay-At-Home Moms For ‘Leeching Off Their Husbands.’

Related: From the “Republicans Pounce!” School Of Journalism: Kyrsten Sinema’s Hilary Rosen Moment, and Her Persistent Verbal Flubbery.

They’re not “flubs” or botched jokes — the quotes from Sinema are what she honestly believed at the time she uttered them, and likely still does. As Michael Kinsley famous said, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.” Or at least his or her personal “truth,” to borrow from former NJ governor Jim McGreevy.

POLITICO STARTS COOLING THE MARKS: Mueller report PSA: Prepare for disappointment.

THE DNC-MSM ACTIVISTS WITH BYLINES WHO DIDN’T BARK: Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill Just Demanded a Government Investigation of Journalists For Doing Journalism, and the Media Barely Noticed.

ON THIS DAY IN 1994, Congress passed the Howard Metzenbaum Multi-Ethnic Placement Act. Named for the Senate’s most leftist member at the time, the Act is a reminder that, not so long ago, there was a bipartisan consensus that race neutrality was usually the best policy.

At least during the 1980s and 1990s, African-American children tended to languish in state or foster care waiting for permanent adoptive parents much longer than white children. (I don’t have recent data.) Part of the problem was that organizations like the National Association of Black Social Workers vehemently opposed cross-racial adoptions. The president of that organization testified at a Senate hearing in 1985, “We view the placement of Black children in white homes as a hostile act against our community. It’s a blatant form of racial and cultural genocide.”

MEPA was built on the notion that African-American children shouldn’t have to wait for parents of the “right race” to adopt them. It prohibited federally-funded adoption agencies from refusing to place a child on account of the adoptive parents’ race. Alas, the statute didn’t work. It was not worded strongly enough and hence easy to circumvent. It was therefore replaced with the stronger language of the Inter-Ethnic Placement Provisions of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996. The second effort has worked … well … better.

BUT DOES SHE DRAW THE APPROPRIATE LESSON? WHAT DO YOU THINK? I’m a woman who imitated the swagger of an entitled white male — and it got results.