Democrats’ hoodwinking of blacks

Democrats’ hoodwinking of blacks

History does not support most black's view of the political party that is their ally....

Ask any black person which political party has been black people’s political ally. With near unanimity, blacks would answer the Democratic Party. Asked which party has been hostile to blacks, they’d say the Republican Party with similar unanimity. For better answers, check out Prager University’s five-minute clip “The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party,” by Carol Swain, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University (http:// tinyurl.com/kq3gxuw).

Since its founding in the late 1820s, the Democratic Party has defended slavery, started the Civil War and opposed Reconstruction. The Democratic Party imposed segregation. Its members engaged in the lynching’s of blacks and opposed the civil rights acts of the 1950s and ’60s. During Reconstruction, hundreds of black men were elected to Southern state legislatures as Republicans, and 22 black Republicans served in the U.S. Congress by 1900.

The Democratic Party did not elect a black man to Congress until 1935.

President Woodrow Wilson was a Progressive Democrat and an avowed racist. He re-segregated the federal civil service. He screened the racist film “The Birth of a Nation,” originally titled “The Clansman,” at the White House; it was the very first movie ever played at the White House.

What was the party of Orval Faubus, the Arkansas governor who blocked the desegregation of Little Rock schools and defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision? What was the party of Theophilus Eugene Connor, known as Bull Connor, who, as city commissioner, set vicious dogs, fire hoses and billy clubs on black civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham?

Connor said: “You can never whip these birds if you don’t keep you and them separate. I found that out in Birmingham. You’ve got to keep your white and black separate.” If you answered Faubus and Connor were Democrats, go to the head of the class. By the way, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who sent troops to ensure that black students could go to Little Rock’s Central High School.

What was the political party of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who, during the 1960s civil rights movement, declared that he stood for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” and blocked black students from entering the University of Alabama?

A few years later, the only serious congressional opposition to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 came from Democrats. Eighty percent of Republicans in the House of Representatives supported the bill. Less than 70 percent of Democrats did. Democratic senators, led by ex-Klansman Robert Byrd’s 14-hour filibuster, kept the bill tied up for 75 days, until Republicans mustered votes to break it.

Labor unions have always been allied with the Democratic Party and have a history of racism. Most of today’s black leaders give unquestioned support to labor unions and their policies that harm black workers, but yesteryear’s black leaders saw things differently. Frederick Douglass, in his 1874 essay “The Folly, Tyranny, and Wickedness of Labor Unions,” argued that unions were not friends of blacks.

W.E.B. Du Bois called unions “the greatest enemy of the black working man.” Booker T. Washington also opposed unions because of their adverse impact on blacks.

Today, Democrats use diplomacy to hoodwink blacks. They tell blacks to be against those – such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos – who are for school vouchers that enable black parents to get their children out of rotten schools run by Democrats at the National Education Association. Democrats are using black congressmen to go after Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who is a high-profile conservative, champion of law and order, and supporter of President Donald Trump’s. They view Clarke as a threat to Democratic Party interests.

Indeed, if Democrats lost just 25 percent of the black vote, they would be in deep political trouble.

By the way, none of what I’ve said should be taken as an argument that blacks should rush to become Republicans. I’d like to see the black community acting the way most Japanese and Chinese communities do – not getting into a tizzy over which political party is in power.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University and a syndicated columnist.

Where did all the starter homes go? New studies show more rules mean less building.

Where did all the starter homes go? New studies show more rules mean less building.

Conservatives are right! An increasing number of regulations accounts for housing construction that remains 35% below normal levels across the country

Paul Davidson @Pdavidsonusat USA TODAY

James and Carrie Finan have been house hunting in the Seattle area for four months in a seemingly futile race against time: They’re living in a room in James’ mother’s house and their first child is due in September.

They’ve seen about 40 starter houses that match their criteria — $350,000 or less, three bedrooms, about 1,200 square feet — and made four offers ranging from $32,000 to $82,000 above asking price. They’ve lost out each time.

“Every time we hear we’re not getting it, my heart kind of sinks,” says James, 29. “It’s been insane.”

A big reason the Finans are struggling is the regulatory morass faced by builders such as Mike Walsh. On a parcel in Sammamish, Wash., a Seattle suburb, he would like to build 36 relatively affordable houses. But since zoning changes in recent years permit just 25, he’ll have to sell each at $1.2 million to make the project profitable.

An increasingly byzantine maze of zoning, environmental, safety and other requirements partly accounts for housing construction that remains 35% below normal levels across the country, especially for affordable starter houses, builders and economists say. And that building deficit is the chief culprit behind a skimpy supply of both new and existing homes that has driven up prices about 40% the past five years, says Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. Rising prices are good for homeowners but shut out many buyers, especially Millennials shopping for their first house.

But while experts have long suspected that regulations were a deterrent for builders, new studies show more starkly that areas with the most rules — particularly big metro regions on the East and West coasts — have the least housing construction. Some of the regulations aim to make homes safer or help neighborhoods deal with heavier rainfall and congestion. But one side-effect is that fewer homes are affordable in coastal areas with many rules.

A report by the National Association of Home Builders last year found that from 2011 to 2016, regulatory costs to build an average house had increased from about $65,000 to $85,000, or 30%, and continue to make up a quarter of the price of a home.