Black Lives Matters: The Lid Comes Off The Con

 I have said now for at least a couple years that Black Lives Matter is a label, not a proper organization. Jen Monroe at her Substack has recently detailed the painful unraveling of whatever shambles existed of that organization, and particularly, what happened to $60 million in donations now that "[b]oth Andrew Kerr of the Washington Examiner and Sean Campbell of New York magazine reported on the lack of leadership and transparency within the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation."

To recap –- the nation’s premier social justice organization does not have a functioning board of directors, nor an office, and $60 million that nobody is willing to say who is in control of. According to BLMGNF’s bylaws, the executive director has control of all funds related to the corporation but it seems it has not had anyone in that role since Cullors left.

It turns out the most visible arm of BLM has murky finances, former officers buying themselves real estate in multiple tony addresses, and no visible leadership — none of which is a surprise. This is a more extreme form of the general problem of "awareness" in charities, which always amounts to an excuse for self-referential fundraising. Given the state of racial hucksterism, I fully expect that even this brazen cash grab will result in a shrug among their corporate donors, whose major interest is in shooing away bad press.

The Senator From East Virginia Takes On Licensing Of PetSmart Groomers

 Shoshana Weissmann’s Twitter persona as the Senator from East Virginia is the cover story for her advocacy on a number of subjects with the R Street Institute: DMCA Section 230, social media regulation, and especially, occupational licensing. Charming, smart, and funny despite the numerous trolls she attracts daily, she gets to a lot of stories that would otherwise miss my attention. One such that escaped me from 2018 was a tawdry story of New Jersey PetSmart groomers actually killing dogs in their custody — and PetSmart immediately turning this into an opportunity to pretend that licensing dog groomers would have fixed this situation!

PetSmart should absolutely be held accountable for these losses. Harming dogs in this way is both unconscionable and illegal. The state of New Jersey ought to step in and investigate. However, a pet grooming license will do little to help protect dogs from negligent or reckless groomers.

The New Jersey bill would require individuals to pass an exam, be at least 18 years of age and “of good moral character” to obtain a groomer license. The problem, however, is that large corporations like PetSmart will have no trouble getting licenses for their groomers. PetSmart is a major company with the financial means to train its staff and ensure that its groomers have licenses. In fact, PetSmart already trains its groomers.

Instead, adding licensing requirements will prevent smaller groomers from practicing — including struggling small businesses, teens who have learned to groom to earn some extra money, and other individual groomers of poorer means who have been grooming pets for years but cannot afford the training.

Now, it should also be mentioned that among the dogs that died, 20 of 47 were brachycephalic breeds — in other words, dogs with congenital breathing disorders bred into them. This is not an excuse, of course, but it does help to understand why some of them died, anyway. It in no way excuses PetSmart’s absurd reaction, which would kick people out of the business who had not killed any dogs.