The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1383896
B-8 Wednesday, June 16, 2021 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg The state of Black America Listening to all the rhetoric in the popular media, you would think America is the most unfair, racist nation in the world. You would think that Black Americans are uniform- ly living in oppression and poverty, with no hope for the future, save the federal government arriving on the scene to their rescue. Sorry, liberals, to trouble you with facts. But indeed there are facts. And the facts tell a far different story than what we are hearing. Let's start with the most recent an- nual report of the Census Bureau: Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019. According to this report, annu- al real median household income in the U.S. increased 6.8 percent in 2019, the largest annual increase re- corded by the Census Bureau going back to 1967. Black median household income in 2019 increased 7.9 percent, the larg- est on record and, per American En- terprise Institute economist Mark Perry, "almost nine times the aver- age annual increase of 0.90 percent over the last half-century." Moreover, in 2019, 29.4 percent of Black households had income of $75,000 or more, compared with 28.7 percent of Black households that had income of $25,000 or less. This was the first time, ever, that the percent- age of high-income Black households exceeded the percentage of low-in- come Black households. In 1967, 44.5 percent of Black households were low-income, com- pared with 9.1 percent high-income. Last September, the Federal Re- serve published its Survey of Con- sumer Finances, published once ev- ery three years. The survey covers the three-year period 2016 -2019, just prior to the onset of the pandemic. Over this period, per the report, Black net worth increased 32.1 per- cent, Hispanic net worth increased 63.6 percent and white net worth in- creased 4 percent. Business equity among Blacks in- creased 138 percent. How about other measures of achievement? Per the Census Bureau, in 2019, 88 percent of Blacks had a high school diploma, 98 percent of the nation- al average. In 1950, the percent of Blacks with a high school diploma equaled 50 percent of the national average. In 2018, 37.8 percent of Blacks ag- es 18 -24 were enrolled in college, compared with a national average of 40.9 percent in this age group. In the age group of 25 -39, 28.4 per- cent had a bachelor's degree or high- er, compared with 40.5 percent of the general population. The high school dropout rate among Blacks in 2018 was 4.9 per- cent, compared with a national aver- age of 5.7 percent. Am I trying to divert attention from the many real economic and social problems in many Black com- munities? Certainly not. But what I do wish to disabuse is the focus on problems in certain Black communities and us- ing this data to generalize about all Blacks. It's certainly false and a dis- tortion, and ironic how often this is coming from those who pretend to be fighting racism. It certainly is true, again accord- ing to the Census Bureau, that in 2019, Blacks, who constituted 13.2 percent of the population, represent- ed 23.8 percent of those living below the poverty line. But is this about racism? The da- ta tells us that this is about family breakdown, not racism. And the problem of family break- down is afflicting the whole nation. It just happens to be hitting many Black communities particularly hard. Pov- erty is excessive in households of all races that are headed by single wom- en. Blacks just happen to have a very high percentage of households head- ed by single women. But, according to Statistica, on- ly 6.4 percent of Black households headed by a married couple live in poverty. So, enough of racist generaliza- tions about Blacks. And enough of the distortions that Blacks have not been gaining ground in our free country and that where we do have problems, we need more govern- The climate censors Whom does Facebook trust to cen- sor? A Ph.D. graduate from France. Really. The Frenchman, Emmanuel Vin- cent, started a group he calls "Cli- mate Feedback." It does "a new kind of fact-checking." It sure is new. And wrong. I released a video in which some climate scientists argue that climate change is not a "crisis." They believe people can adjust to changing tem- peratures. Twenty-five million people watched the video. But now Facebook will not show it to you because Emmanuel Vincent suddenly called it "partially false." Vincent would not agree to an in- terview. Nor would most of his "re- viewers." Only one, Patrick Brown, an assistant professor at San Jose State, agreed to an interview. Brown doesn't like that my video suggests that America can adjust to rising sea levels by building dikes and doing other things like Holland has. That's "not the mainstream view," he says. Brown claims sea levels could rise 200 feet. "You're citing an extreme," I point out. "The IPCC doesn't consider that likely." "I don't know if they assess sea lev- el rise out to a thousand years," he responds. No. Of course, they don't. In a thousand years, we may have carbon-eating machines. It's absurd that Facebook lets Cli- mate Feedback censor me because of something that might happen in 1,000 years. The Biden White House is furious- ly trying to cajole congressional Re- publicans into signing off on his $2 trillion "infrastructure bill." So far, they've held firm in saying not just no but "hell, no" to new taxes and spending to pay for all this. It turns out that a bill to fix our roads and bridges, modernize our water and sewer systems, and up- grade ports and airports doesn't require $1 of new spending. West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who has been negoti- ating with the Biden team on a pub- lic works bill, has been slyer than the foxes in the Biden administra- tion. She points out correctly that there's enough money already appro- priated by Biden that can be "repro- grammed" for real infrastructure. If we take out the $1 trillion-plus spending in the Biden plan for fake infrastructure — I'm speaking of the deluge of subsidies for wind, solar and electric vehicle manufacturers — then it's easy to pay for road re- pairs and fixing bridges and modern- izing internet access services with about $ 600 billion. Where will that money come from? Easy. Take it from the unspent slush find dollars crammed inside the bloated $1.9 trillion American Recovery Act, which passed back in March. COVID-19 is over, so the money isn't needed any longer. I've discovered four pots of money adding to more than half a trillion dollars that should be reas- signed for fixing our infrastructure. Step No. 1: Take back $175 billion in blue-state bailout money. Most states have budget surpluses, not deficits, thanks to the stock mar- ket rally and quicker than expected recovery from COVID-19. Yet Con- gress gave states and cities $ 350 bil- lion that they don't need. States that received big payments include: Cal- ifornia, $42 billion; New York, $23.5 billion; Texas, more than $20 billion, and Florida, $17 billion. Half this money still hasn't been sent to the states and should be reallocated for vital infrastructure. Flush with cash, Bloomberg reports states are spend- ing the money on NASCAR subsi- dies, tourism programs, sending $2,000 checks to residents and helping lobster farmers (in Maine). Step No. 2: Stop paying $ 300 a week for supplemen- tal unemployment benefits. The Biden bill provided $ 300 billion for this program, but with 8.1 million job openings, we shouldn't be paying peo- ple not to work. At last count, 25 governors have said no to the money, and if Congress would cancel the program, we save $150 billion. Step No. 3: Reassign federal edu- cation dollars allocated for schools and teacher unions in years 2022- 28. The Biden bill handed out $129 billion for government schools that have been mostly shut down and would be spent through 2028! That's on top of $ 67.5 billion extra federal money the Trump administration allocated to schools during the pan- demic. Since COVID-19 is over, let schools keep the $ 6 billion for this year, and the remaining $123 billion Millions of Americans are no lon- ger in danger of committing a fed- eral crime when they check sports scores at work, fib in an online dating profile, or use a pseudonym on Face- book, thanks to the Supreme Court's decision last Thursday in Van Buren v. United States. Van Buren posed the question of whether the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act made it a crime for an authorized user of a computer sys- tem to use their access for an improp- er purpose. Nathan Van Buren, a police offi- cer in Georgia, used his access to a law enforcement database to run a license-plate search in exchange for money. He used valid creden- tials to log in to the database, and he had been given the right to ob- tain license-plate information from the database, but police department policy prohibited the use of the da- tabase for a "non-law-enforcement purpose." Federal prosecutors charged him with a felony for violating the pro- vision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that subjects to criminal liability anyone who "intentionally accesses a computer without autho- rization or exceeds authorized access" to obtain computer information. Writing for a six-justice majori- ty, Justice Amy Co- ney Barrett agreed with Van Buren that he did not commit a crime under the act. Her opinion ex- plained that "ex- ceeds authorized access," which is defined in the act to mean "to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain … infor- mation in the computer that the ac- cesser is not entitled so to obtain," does not apply when a user can ac- cess a computer system and can ac- cess certain areas within that com- puter system. Rather, the provision applies when a user circumvents restrictions to en- ter a part of the system where the us- er lacks access privileges—in other words, hacking. In dissent, Justice Clarence Thom- as, joined by Chief Justice John Rob- erts and Justice Samuel Alito, argued that "exceeds autho- rized access" should be read in light of common law and statutory interpretation prin- ciples that access to proper- ty is dependent on conditions that a property owner places on access. A person who is authorized to enter land for one purpose, then enters for a different purpose, commits trespass- ing. Thomas recognized that the criminalization of common activi- ty is an "uncomfortable" result of this interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, "but that dis- comfort does not give us authority to alter statutes." As a result of the ruling in Van Bu- ren, the act can no longer be used to prosecute or seek civil damag- es against individuals who violate a website's terms of service—such as, for example, someone who lies on an online dating profile or uses Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Points to Ponder By Rev. Curtis Bond Continued on page 9 Having just come from vacation with ten of my 11 grandkids, plus their parents, I need a couple of weeks to recover. These are times when the grand- kids, at their age, hopefully can store some good memories of their child- hood, and understand there are good things in this world we can enjoy. A f- ter social distancing for more than a year, they and all of us needed to heal. There are many observations I want to share. The first is that even though we were able to rent a big transit van that seats 15 people, there was not enough space for stuff. Nine of us traveled in this van while the others drove their own ve- hicles. Despite the ample space we had, I'm not sure why some of my muscles I did not know now ache. I learned the art of contortion to reach out for things from the three large snack bags and a cooler we brought. I'm not sure why every time I need- ed something or my grandkids want- ed something, it was so hard to find. They get buried under a ton of blan- kets, pillows, plastic bags, other snacks, etc. Every time it was time to get fuel or take a restroom break, or get more food, you have that feeling it's so won- derful to get a re- spite. But wait. The adults always had to take a headcount of all the kids. There were soooo many travelers on the road, I think the scene looked like that of the buffalo heard crossing the plains and the rivers to migrate. Ev- eryone was ready to just get rid of the mask and social distancing, and enjoy the things we used to take for granted. ••• Traffic was heavy. Cars and SU- Vs, vans and all sorts of vehicles were flying off the road. There were a number of wrecks along the way. It is amazing the kind of technology we have. My son-in-law and daughter were the pilots and co-pilots for this trip. They could track trav- el times, delays, wrecks and shortcuts to take to avoid the loooong traffic delays using their phone GPS. I just sat on my own as- signed seat, kept quiet and served as the conduit to pass on requests for drinks, snacks and whatever was needed to keep them happy. Every kid had their own old phones connected to the main hot spot. You have to do bookings for order- ing food, making room reservations, purchasing tickets and so forth with- out even talking to anybody. Gone are the days when you call, hear the words, "Hi, may I help you? " or "I'm glad to be of help." Oh, how I miss those days. I will go banan- as trying to navigate the complex world of information technology. I hate the prompt word, "Submit" be- My Point of View By H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Some things to share Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Fixing roads. bridges doesn't cost $2 trillion Heritage Viewpoint By Michael J. Ellis Prosecute hacking, not terms violations In the news recently is the story about a rare 1971 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda Convertible for sale in a col- lector car auction in Indianapolis. This one-of-a-kind muscle car is advertised as a real rarity because there are only three cars like it in the world. Bidding was intense and reached a record high bid of $4.8 mil- lion. But it was not high enough to seal the deal. No sale. The last bid was short of the pre-auction esti- mates of $ 6.5 million. However, the highest successful bid in the auction was on a 1967 Shelby 427 S/C Cobra that sold for $ 3.3 million. In 1971 this car sold for approx- imately $ 3,500. The auction house wants us to believe that this car is now worth 1,857 times its original re- tail price. My initial thought was it must be nice to have a few extra dol- lars to indulge in one's pursuit of col- lecting. Whoever purchased the car from Plymouth in 1971 made an ex- cellent investment. Or did they? Beauty is in the eye of the behold- er wrote author Margaret Wolfe Hun- gerford. A more colloquial phrase is one man's junk is another man's trea- sure. Jesus was the master of using everyday objects or events to help people understand how they should live as children of God. In the gospel of Matthew is the story of a merchant who was in search of precious pearls. When he found one pearl of great val- ue, he went and sold everything he owned to purchase this one pearl. Je- sus asked, what could you ever trade your soul for? Is our soul for sale? The musical, 'Jesus Christ Super- star,' portrays Judas as a disciple needing more sympathy and less con- demnation. We know little about Ju- das other than he was the 'treasurer' of the group. When Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with expensive oint- ment, Judas criticized her gesture of love as wasteful. He murmured the ointment should have been sold and the money given to the poor. John in his gospel records that Judas did not care for the poor. He only cared for money because he was a thief, and he carried the bag. John implied that Ju- das was an embezzler. Shortly after this incident, Ju- das went to the religious officials Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 HACKING Court