Please don't think that we as a people hate Jews, we don't!
By Donald Jenkins
As a black man I must disagree there is more antisemitism in the black community than others. Growing up, I saw the sacrifices Jews made to stand with blacks during the civil rights movement. Jews marched and died so all American's could have full civil rights.
We learned about Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in school.
There are certain self-appointed black community leaders, that for their own agenda fan the flames of antisemitism because it serves their agenda of perpetuating the myth that blacks are perpetual victims. These folks include poverty pimps such as Al Sharpton, "Reverend" Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. However, the average black person sees these fools for who they are and understands that they are out for themselves, not the black community.
Jesse Jackson is a shakedown con-artist who screams racism to extort large companies to enrich himself. The good reverend Jackson's sons, Yusuf and Jonathan Jackson got a beer distributorship from Anheuser Busch after Jackson organized a boycott. Now that his sons are selling the beer, he does not complain about the alcohol problems in the black community. He is an uncle tom sellout.
As to the violence against Jews in Brooklyn, the root cause in my opinion is the lack of swift punishment or accountability. When Giuliani and Bloomberg were in charge, and there was a sane DA in Brooklyn, punishment was swift and severe. People knew to behave themselves. The cops now seem scared to do their jobs and criminals are treated like they are simply victims of racism, or just need counseling. Because of this, folks don't believe they will be held accountable and act like fools without consequences. The black community suffers terribly because of the increase in black-on-black crime.
Lastly, the black leaders are silent in the face of these attacks. If a black person is wrongly pulled over, Al Sharpton organizes a march and protest. If a Jew is attacked by a black person, he is silent. This is not leadership. When there have been isolated incidents where Jewish folks have mistreated blacks, there is thunderous, consistent and forceful denunciation from the Jewish leaders to speak up for the wrong, against the Jewish wrongdoer.
In sum, please don't think that we as a people hate Jews, we don't. We are suffering from a lack of leadership and a media that does not give conservative, sane blacks a voice, and instead focuses on the likes of Jesse and Al, who don't speak for or are respected by, the average black person.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Jenkins submitted this piece as a comment to “What Have Jews Ever Done To Deserve Black Anti-Semitism?” which I posted on Monday. I thought it deserved far better than to be posted merely as a comment. And as you can tell, he writes like a very well-educated person.
I would like to think that Mr. Jenkins is right, but if you look at the densely populated black ghettos, especially back east, they are hot beds of anti-Semitism. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan merely fanned the flames of the anti-Semitism that was already there. Sharpton actually did much more than just fan the flames. In 1991, he played a key role in perpetrating the 3-day Crown Heights riot by blacks against Jews.
Thank you for submitting your thoughts, Mr. Jenkins. May God bless you and your family!
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
SO, WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER IOWA ?
by Bob Walsh
The Iowa Caucuses will be here February 3. Remember, this is NOT a primary but a caucus. It is loud (very often) and public. So, what will the results be and what will the fallout be?
Right now the smart money is on Mayor Pete. Joe the Hairsniffer will probably come out #3. If he doesn't he will look really, really stupid. Joe will also probably NOT win in New Hampshire, the Bernie Bros will probably take that. After all, Bernie is their next-door neighbor. Also, in Bernie's favor, he doesn't change direction every time the wind changes direction. He is pretty honest about who he is (for a politician anyway) and what he wants. There is something to be said for that.
If Joe does not score BIG in South Carolina specifically and overall in general on Super Tuesday he will be in trouble. There will be 14 states up for grabs, including a couple of caucus states. If Joe isn't ahead by then he will start to founder. His only real "advantage" is that he appears to be a reasonable opponent to Trump. That does not help if his own party does not back his play.
The REAL fun will come in if there is no clear winner going into the convention in mid-July. In response to the rip-off Hillary pulled on Crazy Bernie four years ago the rules changed. The superdelegates do NOT get to vote on the first ballot. It is within the realm of possibility that the Dems will end up with a brokered convention. It may even be likely. That will truly be a clusterfuck.
Both Styer and Bloomberg seem to think they will run this thru to the end and both have the resources in their own wallets to make it happen. Styer has no program except TRUMP IS EVIL. Bloomberg has no program except TRUMP IS EVIL, GUNS ARE EVIL, SODA IS EVIL, REPUBLICANS ARE EVIL.
Pocahontas is getting increasingly desperate. Her fund raising is dropping like a stone. She has been forced to back away (slightly) from her EVERYTHING FREE FOR EVERYBODY basic campaign position. Even her sort-of allies are having trouble swallowing that and her embarrassing unwillingness to even pretend to explain how she will fund it makes even liberal's brains hurt.
Personally I think it is shame that Yang hasn't got a chance in hell. He is kind of an interesting guy and is not completely psychotic.
How about Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Moore on a ticket. Golden Corral would probably sponsor them. (OK, that was mean.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: If I were a Democrat, Bloomberg's agenda sounds pretty damn good. As for Rosie and Michael, they would most certainly get the fat vote. (The fat vote ... was that mean?)
The Iowa Caucuses will be here February 3. Remember, this is NOT a primary but a caucus. It is loud (very often) and public. So, what will the results be and what will the fallout be?
Right now the smart money is on Mayor Pete. Joe the Hairsniffer will probably come out #3. If he doesn't he will look really, really stupid. Joe will also probably NOT win in New Hampshire, the Bernie Bros will probably take that. After all, Bernie is their next-door neighbor. Also, in Bernie's favor, he doesn't change direction every time the wind changes direction. He is pretty honest about who he is (for a politician anyway) and what he wants. There is something to be said for that.
If Joe does not score BIG in South Carolina specifically and overall in general on Super Tuesday he will be in trouble. There will be 14 states up for grabs, including a couple of caucus states. If Joe isn't ahead by then he will start to founder. His only real "advantage" is that he appears to be a reasonable opponent to Trump. That does not help if his own party does not back his play.
The REAL fun will come in if there is no clear winner going into the convention in mid-July. In response to the rip-off Hillary pulled on Crazy Bernie four years ago the rules changed. The superdelegates do NOT get to vote on the first ballot. It is within the realm of possibility that the Dems will end up with a brokered convention. It may even be likely. That will truly be a clusterfuck.
Both Styer and Bloomberg seem to think they will run this thru to the end and both have the resources in their own wallets to make it happen. Styer has no program except TRUMP IS EVIL. Bloomberg has no program except TRUMP IS EVIL, GUNS ARE EVIL, SODA IS EVIL, REPUBLICANS ARE EVIL.
Pocahontas is getting increasingly desperate. Her fund raising is dropping like a stone. She has been forced to back away (slightly) from her EVERYTHING FREE FOR EVERYBODY basic campaign position. Even her sort-of allies are having trouble swallowing that and her embarrassing unwillingness to even pretend to explain how she will fund it makes even liberal's brains hurt.
Personally I think it is shame that Yang hasn't got a chance in hell. He is kind of an interesting guy and is not completely psychotic.
How about Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Moore on a ticket. Golden Corral would probably sponsor them. (OK, that was mean.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: If I were a Democrat, Bloomberg's agenda sounds pretty damn good. As for Rosie and Michael, they would most certainly get the fat vote. (The fat vote ... was that mean?)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM AT WORK
Bail reform is setting suspects free after string of anti-Semitic attacks
By Israel Salas-Rodriguez, Khristina Narizhnaya and Laura Italiano By Israel Salas-Rodriguez, Khristina Narizhnaya and Laura Italiano
New York Post
December 28, 2019
Suspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.
The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.
The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.
“Fuck you, Jews!” Harris, 30, of Flatbush, allegedly shouted during the attack.
“Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her.
“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘Fuck you, Jews.’”
As she stood before a judge in Brooklyn Criminal Court with the hood to a navy blue jacket over her head, Harris was in familiar territory.
She still has an open harassment and assault case on the Brooklyn docket from November 2018.
And last month, she was sentenced to no jail time for felony criminal mischief in Manhattan, court records show — a case for which she had repeatedly failed to make court appearances.
Brooklyn prosecutors didn’t even bother requesting bail Saturday, as they could have, given that the reform law, approved in April, technically doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1.
“The de Blasio administration has made it clear that we all need to get into compliance with bail reform now,” said a law enforcement source.
“If prosecutors had asked for bail, corrections would release them immediately,” or they would be sprung on Jan. 1, the source said.
But the de Blasio administration responded that the DOC does nothing without a court order and can’t decide to release anyone.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson even made mention of the coming bail reform legislation in ordering Harris freed.
“So I’m releasing her on consent and also because it will be required under the statute in just a few days,” the judge said.
“Ms. Harris you’re being released on your own recognizance.”
She was issued an order of protection barring contact with the three victims — and a court date of Jan. 10.
Harris broke into a grin when approached by a reporter. “Why do you want to know?” she said. ”Goodbye.”
The legislation requires arraignment judges to set free suspects in any non-sexual assault that doesn’t actually cause a physical injury, even in cases of hate crime attacks.
“If there is an injury, then bail could be requested, because then it would be considered a violent felony,” explained Insha Rahman, who, as director of strategy and new initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice, worked closely with legislators and the governor’s office in drafting the controversial reforms.
The no-injury loophole will mean a quick get-out-of-jail-free card for all but one of the accused attackers in the eight Hanukkah-timed, anti-Semitic bias crimes that have terrified the city’s Orthodox communities.
“You have to beat the hell out of somebody — or murder them — for there to be any consequences,” said former state lawmaker Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism. “Otherwise, you are set free.”
He continued: “It’s open season in New York — open season on innocent people. On Jews, on Muslims, on gay people. It applies to anybody. But it’s the Jewish people in particular who have been targeted.”
Only one of last week’s eight attacks resulted in an actual physical injury — that of a 65-year-old Jewish man who was punched and kicked on Monday morning at East 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.
“Fuck you, Jew bastard!” the petrified victim told cops his assailant shouted.
The suspect in that crime, Steven Jorge, 28, is indeed alleged to have injured his victim, and so was ordered locked up with no bail pending a psychological examination.
Jorge, though, is the exception.
On Friday night, a suspect in another of the hate attacks was similarly sprung with no bail, though in her case she was at least ordered to attend twice-monthly mental health appointments.
“You fucking Jew, the end is coming for you!” that suspect, Ayana Logan, 43, allegedly shouted as she swung a handbag at a 34-year-old Orthodox mom in Gravesend.
The mother had been holding the hand of her 3-year-old son when the unprovoked attack happened, according to the criminal court complaint against Logan.
By Saturday night, Logan, Harris, and Jorge remained the only suspects apprehended in the hate spree. The assailants in the remaining five attacks remain at large.
Rahman and other reformers argue that the vast majority of suspects in minor assaults are quickly released anyway — and that the new bail reform lets judges set conditions for release that can address the underlying mental health issues.
“That can be mental health counseling, a stay-away order, which wasn’t readily available before, as conditions for release,” said Rahman.
Suspects are getting none of that during their pretrial stays in city jails, Rahman noted.
“Money bail, and keeping someone temporarily detained with no care, doesn’t address at all the long term concerns” of community safety and the well-being of suspects, she said.
But in the city’s Orthodox neighborhoods, there was outrage in learning that even when violent bigots are caught, they’ll be immediately released.
“They were released on no bail?” a 32-year-old Orthodox man asked a Post reporter near where the three women were attacked. “Disgusting.”
Steve Benjamin, 30, of Borough Park, said, “We’re scared to walk at night in the street.
“There is a lot of hate here and I don’t know why. People in the community are scared. It’s very dangerous. It’s just like remembering the days before World War II. I don’t let my kids out alone.
“It should be more justice — they arrest them, but they let them out of jail a day later.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Would the attackers be released so quickly if they were white and the victims were black?
By Israel Salas-Rodriguez, Khristina Narizhnaya and Laura Italiano By Israel Salas-Rodriguez, Khristina Narizhnaya and Laura Italiano
New York Post
December 28, 2019
Suspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.
The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.
The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.
“Fuck you, Jews!” Harris, 30, of Flatbush, allegedly shouted during the attack.
“Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her.
“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘Fuck you, Jews.’”
As she stood before a judge in Brooklyn Criminal Court with the hood to a navy blue jacket over her head, Harris was in familiar territory.
She still has an open harassment and assault case on the Brooklyn docket from November 2018.
And last month, she was sentenced to no jail time for felony criminal mischief in Manhattan, court records show — a case for which she had repeatedly failed to make court appearances.
Brooklyn prosecutors didn’t even bother requesting bail Saturday, as they could have, given that the reform law, approved in April, technically doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1.
“The de Blasio administration has made it clear that we all need to get into compliance with bail reform now,” said a law enforcement source.
“If prosecutors had asked for bail, corrections would release them immediately,” or they would be sprung on Jan. 1, the source said.
But the de Blasio administration responded that the DOC does nothing without a court order and can’t decide to release anyone.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson even made mention of the coming bail reform legislation in ordering Harris freed.
“So I’m releasing her on consent and also because it will be required under the statute in just a few days,” the judge said.
“Ms. Harris you’re being released on your own recognizance.”
She was issued an order of protection barring contact with the three victims — and a court date of Jan. 10.
Harris broke into a grin when approached by a reporter. “Why do you want to know?” she said. ”Goodbye.”
The legislation requires arraignment judges to set free suspects in any non-sexual assault that doesn’t actually cause a physical injury, even in cases of hate crime attacks.
“If there is an injury, then bail could be requested, because then it would be considered a violent felony,” explained Insha Rahman, who, as director of strategy and new initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice, worked closely with legislators and the governor’s office in drafting the controversial reforms.
The no-injury loophole will mean a quick get-out-of-jail-free card for all but one of the accused attackers in the eight Hanukkah-timed, anti-Semitic bias crimes that have terrified the city’s Orthodox communities.
“You have to beat the hell out of somebody — or murder them — for there to be any consequences,” said former state lawmaker Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism. “Otherwise, you are set free.”
He continued: “It’s open season in New York — open season on innocent people. On Jews, on Muslims, on gay people. It applies to anybody. But it’s the Jewish people in particular who have been targeted.”
Only one of last week’s eight attacks resulted in an actual physical injury — that of a 65-year-old Jewish man who was punched and kicked on Monday morning at East 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.
“Fuck you, Jew bastard!” the petrified victim told cops his assailant shouted.
The suspect in that crime, Steven Jorge, 28, is indeed alleged to have injured his victim, and so was ordered locked up with no bail pending a psychological examination.
Jorge, though, is the exception.
On Friday night, a suspect in another of the hate attacks was similarly sprung with no bail, though in her case she was at least ordered to attend twice-monthly mental health appointments.
“You fucking Jew, the end is coming for you!” that suspect, Ayana Logan, 43, allegedly shouted as she swung a handbag at a 34-year-old Orthodox mom in Gravesend.
The mother had been holding the hand of her 3-year-old son when the unprovoked attack happened, according to the criminal court complaint against Logan.
By Saturday night, Logan, Harris, and Jorge remained the only suspects apprehended in the hate spree. The assailants in the remaining five attacks remain at large.
Rahman and other reformers argue that the vast majority of suspects in minor assaults are quickly released anyway — and that the new bail reform lets judges set conditions for release that can address the underlying mental health issues.
“That can be mental health counseling, a stay-away order, which wasn’t readily available before, as conditions for release,” said Rahman.
Suspects are getting none of that during their pretrial stays in city jails, Rahman noted.
“Money bail, and keeping someone temporarily detained with no care, doesn’t address at all the long term concerns” of community safety and the well-being of suspects, she said.
But in the city’s Orthodox neighborhoods, there was outrage in learning that even when violent bigots are caught, they’ll be immediately released.
“They were released on no bail?” a 32-year-old Orthodox man asked a Post reporter near where the three women were attacked. “Disgusting.”
Steve Benjamin, 30, of Borough Park, said, “We’re scared to walk at night in the street.
“There is a lot of hate here and I don’t know why. People in the community are scared. It’s very dangerous. It’s just like remembering the days before World War II. I don’t let my kids out alone.
“It should be more justice — they arrest them, but they let them out of jail a day later.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Would the attackers be released so quickly if they were white and the victims were black?
‘GOD SHOULD INCREASE YOUR STRENGTH TO RISE ABOVE ALL THE OBSTACLES PLACED BEFORE YOU!’
Donald Trump praises 'wonderful statements' of Democratic Jewish leader who accuses AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib of anti-Semitic hate speech amid growing row with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio over blame for mass stabbing at Hanukkah party
By Katelyn Caralle
Daily Mail
December 30, 2019
Donald Trump praised a Jewish leader Monday for 'wonderful statements about me' after he blamed Democrats for a rise in anti-Semitism and slammed Bill DeBlasio and Andrew Cuomo in the wake of a mass stabbing at a Hanukkah party.
'There is a cause for hate speech. When you have the Farakahns of the world, when you have members of the United States Congress – Tliab, Omar, AOC – when you have them indulging in hate speech themselves – and to get away with it. You know there's a new standard, one is for anti-Semitism and one is for other type of hate,' Dav Hikind said on Fox & Friends Sunday morning.
'Unfortunately, people within my party – I'm a Democrat – within the Democratic Party, there's a double standard,' he said, claiming those on the left disparage any type of hate speech unless it's against Jewish people.
'The hate, the anti-Semitism that emanates from within the left – you don't hear anything, you hear very little,' he continued. 'Anything that comes from the other side, it's all – I mean, even the mayor of the city of New York has continued to call the hate coming from the right. All the hate in New York is coming from the left.'
Trump thanked Hikind, a former Democratic New York state assemblyman.
'Thank you to highly respected Jewish leader Dov Hikind for his wonderful statements about me this morning on @foxandfriends,' Trump tweeted Monday morning, but he was actually referencing Hikind's interview with Pete Hegseth on Sunday.
Hikind reacted to Trump's gratitude on Twitter Monday, and thanked him in return for helping make strides to protect Jewish people.
'Thank you Mr. President for all you've done and continue to do to protect the Jewish people all the while making America stronger and more prosperous!' Hikind said in response to Trump's tweet. 'God should increase your strength to rise above all the obstacles placed before you!'
Hikind, a Democrat, appeared on Fox News Channel the day after a man broke into a rabbi's home during a candle lighting ceremony in upstate New York Saturday night, the seventh night of Hanukkah, and stabbed five people.
The stabbing came after a string of attacks on the Jewish community in the area throughout Hanukkah, and Hikind blamed the rise in anti-Semitism on the left side of the political aisle.
He specifically called out those who have been accused of spouting anti-Semitic tropes, including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and progressive freshmen Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Hikind and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are also at odds over the cause of the stabbing and overall genisis of the spike of anti-Semitic attacks.
'For him to tell me, every time there's an anti-Semitic incident that he condemns it, that he feels the pain, and then he goes home and waits for the next incident and does the same thing, what is going to be done by the mayor, the governor? They are literally taking advantage of us,' Hikind said of de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
De Blasio disagreed with Hikind in an interview with Fox News Sunday night, claiming that the hate is emanating from Washington D.C. and Trump.
'When I think something is anti-Semitic, I say it and I've said it about fellow Democrats. But I also want us to be clear what's happening here. An atmosphere of hate has been developing in this country over the last few years. A lot of it is emanating from Washington and it's having an effect on all of us,' de Blasio said.
'Wait, so you're saying -- you're blaming the president by saying [unintelligible] from Washington,' Fox News' Ed Henry questioned on America's News HQ Sunday evening.
'Not just the president,' de Blasio asserted. 'I'm saying, but we have to be clear. We need a different tone starting in Washington.'
Stabbing suspect Grafton Thomas, a 37-year-old black man, broke into Rabbi Chaim Leibush Rottenberg's house in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Monsey, New York Saturday night. He stabbed five people before he was chased out of the house.
The victims were taken to two nearby hospitals, but their conditions were not released.
De Blasio said in an interview with Fox News over the weekend that authorities in New York are working to find the root cause of the attacks on the Jewish community and other minority groups.
Hikind says de Blasio needs to face the fact that the issue of violence against Jews is mostly coming from young black men.
'I think the mayor is being very dishonest, because the mayor is not dealing with a reality that exists,' Hikind said of de Blasio. 'Most of the attacks in New York that have happened against Jews, happened to come from the African-American community.'
'We're not blaming the African-American community,' he continued, 'but when you look at the video surveillance and you see that almost all these acts are committed by young blacks, you need to raise the question, you need to have the discussion, you need to bring in the clergyman, you need to bring in people and say, 'Why is this going on?'
Hikind also said Jews, in particular Hasidic Jews, are easy targets, especially when they are easy to identify by their appearance and garb.
Trump, on Sunday, called for the country to 'come together to fight anti-Semitism' after a machete-wielding man attacked those gathered for a Hanukkah celebration.
'The anti-Semitic attack in Monsey, New York, on the 7th night of Hanukkah last night is horrific,' Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon is response to the attack. 'We must all come together to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism. Melania and I wish the victims a quick and full recovery.'
Witnesses said Thomas had a machete and stabbed five people before one of the attendees chased him out of the home by throwing a coat rack, table and chair. There were about 60 people gathered for the celebration.
Thomas tried to enter the synagogue next door but it was already barricaded by people who had taken shelter inside.
NYPD officers located him covered in blood 30 miles away in Harlem about two hours later and he was taken into custody at the 32nd precinct.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, while speaking to reporter Sunday morning, called the attack 'an act of domestic terrorism.'
Trump's daughter and Senior Advisor Ivanka converted to Judaism and is married to fellow-Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, who is also Jewish.
Ivanka posted on her Instagram story that the issue of anti-Semitic violence in the New York area isn't receiving enough media attention or action from the government.
'The vicious attack of a rabbi in Monsey, NY last night was an act of pure evil. As we pray for the victims, may the candles of Chanukah burn bright through this darkness,' she posted.
'Attacks on Jewish New Yorkers were reported almost every single day this past week,' she continued in a second story post. 'The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic violence (and around the country) receives far too little local governmental action and national press attention.'
The attack in New York appeared to be the latest in a string targeting Jews in that region.
Earlier this month a massacre occurred at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey and there are at least six other known anti-Semitic incidents over the first seven nights of Hanukkah, which began on December 23.
This time, a witness said the suspect said, 'No one is going anywhere' before he launched the attack.
The five stabbing victims were transported to two hospitals in the area but their conditions are still unknown.
Authorities have also not provided a motive for the attack, including whether it was prompted by religion.
An estimated one-third of the 320,000 residents of Rockland County, where the attack occurred, are Jewish, according to census figures, and it is the county with the highest concentration of Jews in the United States.
By Katelyn Caralle
Daily Mail
December 30, 2019
Donald Trump praised a Jewish leader Monday for 'wonderful statements about me' after he blamed Democrats for a rise in anti-Semitism and slammed Bill DeBlasio and Andrew Cuomo in the wake of a mass stabbing at a Hanukkah party.
'There is a cause for hate speech. When you have the Farakahns of the world, when you have members of the United States Congress – Tliab, Omar, AOC – when you have them indulging in hate speech themselves – and to get away with it. You know there's a new standard, one is for anti-Semitism and one is for other type of hate,' Dav Hikind said on Fox & Friends Sunday morning.
'Unfortunately, people within my party – I'm a Democrat – within the Democratic Party, there's a double standard,' he said, claiming those on the left disparage any type of hate speech unless it's against Jewish people.
'The hate, the anti-Semitism that emanates from within the left – you don't hear anything, you hear very little,' he continued. 'Anything that comes from the other side, it's all – I mean, even the mayor of the city of New York has continued to call the hate coming from the right. All the hate in New York is coming from the left.'
Trump thanked Hikind, a former Democratic New York state assemblyman.
'Thank you to highly respected Jewish leader Dov Hikind for his wonderful statements about me this morning on @foxandfriends,' Trump tweeted Monday morning, but he was actually referencing Hikind's interview with Pete Hegseth on Sunday.
Hikind reacted to Trump's gratitude on Twitter Monday, and thanked him in return for helping make strides to protect Jewish people.
'Thank you Mr. President for all you've done and continue to do to protect the Jewish people all the while making America stronger and more prosperous!' Hikind said in response to Trump's tweet. 'God should increase your strength to rise above all the obstacles placed before you!'
Hikind, a Democrat, appeared on Fox News Channel the day after a man broke into a rabbi's home during a candle lighting ceremony in upstate New York Saturday night, the seventh night of Hanukkah, and stabbed five people.
The stabbing came after a string of attacks on the Jewish community in the area throughout Hanukkah, and Hikind blamed the rise in anti-Semitism on the left side of the political aisle.
He specifically called out those who have been accused of spouting anti-Semitic tropes, including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and progressive freshmen Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Hikind and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are also at odds over the cause of the stabbing and overall genisis of the spike of anti-Semitic attacks.
'For him to tell me, every time there's an anti-Semitic incident that he condemns it, that he feels the pain, and then he goes home and waits for the next incident and does the same thing, what is going to be done by the mayor, the governor? They are literally taking advantage of us,' Hikind said of de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
De Blasio disagreed with Hikind in an interview with Fox News Sunday night, claiming that the hate is emanating from Washington D.C. and Trump.
'When I think something is anti-Semitic, I say it and I've said it about fellow Democrats. But I also want us to be clear what's happening here. An atmosphere of hate has been developing in this country over the last few years. A lot of it is emanating from Washington and it's having an effect on all of us,' de Blasio said.
'Wait, so you're saying -- you're blaming the president by saying [unintelligible] from Washington,' Fox News' Ed Henry questioned on America's News HQ Sunday evening.
'Not just the president,' de Blasio asserted. 'I'm saying, but we have to be clear. We need a different tone starting in Washington.'
Stabbing suspect Grafton Thomas, a 37-year-old black man, broke into Rabbi Chaim Leibush Rottenberg's house in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Monsey, New York Saturday night. He stabbed five people before he was chased out of the house.
The victims were taken to two nearby hospitals, but their conditions were not released.
De Blasio said in an interview with Fox News over the weekend that authorities in New York are working to find the root cause of the attacks on the Jewish community and other minority groups.
Hikind says de Blasio needs to face the fact that the issue of violence against Jews is mostly coming from young black men.
'I think the mayor is being very dishonest, because the mayor is not dealing with a reality that exists,' Hikind said of de Blasio. 'Most of the attacks in New York that have happened against Jews, happened to come from the African-American community.'
'We're not blaming the African-American community,' he continued, 'but when you look at the video surveillance and you see that almost all these acts are committed by young blacks, you need to raise the question, you need to have the discussion, you need to bring in the clergyman, you need to bring in people and say, 'Why is this going on?'
Hikind also said Jews, in particular Hasidic Jews, are easy targets, especially when they are easy to identify by their appearance and garb.
Trump, on Sunday, called for the country to 'come together to fight anti-Semitism' after a machete-wielding man attacked those gathered for a Hanukkah celebration.
'The anti-Semitic attack in Monsey, New York, on the 7th night of Hanukkah last night is horrific,' Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon is response to the attack. 'We must all come together to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism. Melania and I wish the victims a quick and full recovery.'
Witnesses said Thomas had a machete and stabbed five people before one of the attendees chased him out of the home by throwing a coat rack, table and chair. There were about 60 people gathered for the celebration.
Thomas tried to enter the synagogue next door but it was already barricaded by people who had taken shelter inside.
NYPD officers located him covered in blood 30 miles away in Harlem about two hours later and he was taken into custody at the 32nd precinct.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, while speaking to reporter Sunday morning, called the attack 'an act of domestic terrorism.'
Trump's daughter and Senior Advisor Ivanka converted to Judaism and is married to fellow-Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, who is also Jewish.
Ivanka posted on her Instagram story that the issue of anti-Semitic violence in the New York area isn't receiving enough media attention or action from the government.
'The vicious attack of a rabbi in Monsey, NY last night was an act of pure evil. As we pray for the victims, may the candles of Chanukah burn bright through this darkness,' she posted.
'Attacks on Jewish New Yorkers were reported almost every single day this past week,' she continued in a second story post. 'The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic violence (and around the country) receives far too little local governmental action and national press attention.'
The attack in New York appeared to be the latest in a string targeting Jews in that region.
Earlier this month a massacre occurred at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey and there are at least six other known anti-Semitic incidents over the first seven nights of Hanukkah, which began on December 23.
This time, a witness said the suspect said, 'No one is going anywhere' before he launched the attack.
The five stabbing victims were transported to two hospitals in the area but their conditions are still unknown.
Authorities have also not provided a motive for the attack, including whether it was prompted by religion.
An estimated one-third of the 320,000 residents of Rockland County, where the attack occurred, are Jewish, according to census figures, and it is the county with the highest concentration of Jews in the United States.
UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR’S CALL TO BOYCOT TRADER JOE’S BACKFIRES
The Cheese Challenge That Stopped a Boycott
By Yossi Aloni
Israel Today
December 30, 2019
A Palestinian professor never imagined that his call to boycott a major supermarket chain would increase sales of Israeli-made products.
Prof. Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian who lectures on Islam at the University of California, Berkeley, called for a boycott of Trader Joe’s supermarkets because they sell Israeli feta cheese.
Bazian published a picture of the Israeli feta cheese sold at Trader Joe’s 503 stores found in 42 US states, and in his Facebook post wrote: “Trader Joe’s is selling Israeli feta cheese. One more reason to stop buying in this store.” In his comments, the professor tagged Linda Sarsour, an American of Palestinian descent who has made anti-Israel and antisemitic statements such as “There is nothing more revolting than Zionism.”
Joe Zevulun, an Israeli who resides in Florida, hurried to call his 35,000 followers on Facebook to rush to the supermarkets and buy the Israeli cheese and other Israeli products. “This is a call to arms to all fighters for Israel!” he wrote. “I need your backing. An antisemitic professor from the University of California, Berkeley hates Israel and has tagged Linda Sarsour in his post calling to boycott Trader Joe’s because of the Israeli feta cheese they sell. Go to his (FB) page and rank him a fascist as he deserves and don’t forget to thank him because we’re all going out to buy from Trader Joe’s because of his post. Tag the Population and Immigration Authority and help me show Israel who this guy is.”
Zevulun calls his FB group “an army of pro-Israel publicity.” His post inspired many Israelis living in the US and US citizens to buy the feta cheese. One Israeli in Miami photographed himself buying five canisters of the Israeli cheese. In some of the supermarket’s branches, the cheeses were completely sold-out and many of the shelves depleted. The result was that people started buying other Israeli products like Bamba, tahini, soup and more.
Zevulun posted another video over the weekend encouraging people to buy the Israeli cheese. “Now it’s your turn… Go to Trader Joe’s and buy only Israeli-made products. And if you want to indulge me, buy some for families who cannot afford these products.”
Zevulun said he received many messages of support from Israelis and Jews in the US. “Every message warms the heart and you give me a lot of strength,” he added. “We broke the boycott with the Cheese Challenge. I get messages from all over the US with pictures of the cheese that people buy. That wretched professor came to curse, but it turned out to be a blessing.”
By Yossi Aloni
Israel Today
December 30, 2019
A Palestinian professor never imagined that his call to boycott a major supermarket chain would increase sales of Israeli-made products.
Prof. Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian who lectures on Islam at the University of California, Berkeley, called for a boycott of Trader Joe’s supermarkets because they sell Israeli feta cheese.
Bazian published a picture of the Israeli feta cheese sold at Trader Joe’s 503 stores found in 42 US states, and in his Facebook post wrote: “Trader Joe’s is selling Israeli feta cheese. One more reason to stop buying in this store.” In his comments, the professor tagged Linda Sarsour, an American of Palestinian descent who has made anti-Israel and antisemitic statements such as “There is nothing more revolting than Zionism.”
Joe Zevulun, an Israeli who resides in Florida, hurried to call his 35,000 followers on Facebook to rush to the supermarkets and buy the Israeli cheese and other Israeli products. “This is a call to arms to all fighters for Israel!” he wrote. “I need your backing. An antisemitic professor from the University of California, Berkeley hates Israel and has tagged Linda Sarsour in his post calling to boycott Trader Joe’s because of the Israeli feta cheese they sell. Go to his (FB) page and rank him a fascist as he deserves and don’t forget to thank him because we’re all going out to buy from Trader Joe’s because of his post. Tag the Population and Immigration Authority and help me show Israel who this guy is.”
Zevulun calls his FB group “an army of pro-Israel publicity.” His post inspired many Israelis living in the US and US citizens to buy the feta cheese. One Israeli in Miami photographed himself buying five canisters of the Israeli cheese. In some of the supermarket’s branches, the cheeses were completely sold-out and many of the shelves depleted. The result was that people started buying other Israeli products like Bamba, tahini, soup and more.
Zevulun posted another video over the weekend encouraging people to buy the Israeli cheese. “Now it’s your turn… Go to Trader Joe’s and buy only Israeli-made products. And if you want to indulge me, buy some for families who cannot afford these products.”
Zevulun said he received many messages of support from Israelis and Jews in the US. “Every message warms the heart and you give me a lot of strength,” he added. “We broke the boycott with the Cheese Challenge. I get messages from all over the US with pictures of the cheese that people buy. That wretched professor came to curse, but it turned out to be a blessing.”
TOP 5 ISRAELI INNOVATIONS OF THE PAST DECADE
The Start-up Nation has made several groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of technology, science, and innovation during the past decade
By Yafit Ovadia
Israel Hayom
December 29, 2019
While Israeli discoveries reach far and wide, the past decade marked a high number of Israeli technological milestones in an astounding variety of fields – from medicine to high-tech to space exploration. Some of those startling advancements include finding potential cures for diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and improvements in transportation by using artificial intelligence-run devices. Leaping into the unknown, Israel launched objects into orbit, such as the Amos communications satellites, and earlier this year made history as the seventh country to send a spacecraft to the Moon.
Below is our countdown for the top five Israeli innovations of the decade:
5. Electric-powered airplane
Eviation, an Israeli startup introduced its first electric airplane, capable of flying short distances of up to 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) at around 270 mph (440 kmp). The craft, named Alice, is not only cheaper to produce, it also produces zero emissions, as it relies mainly on electricity and uses very little fuel. As the world grows greener and numerous attempts are made to reduce the human carbon footprint on the planet, this innovation is a creative endeavor by far.
Alice can transport up to nine passengers, including two pilots. It is equipped with revolving seats and even portable chargers for mobile phones. Unveiled at the Paris Air Show this past June, Alice is capable of embarking on shorter flights, such as from Israel to Cyprus or from Paris to Toulouse. Eviation expects its main customers to be American aviation companies, which can service short-haul lines within the continental US like the New York-Boston route.
4. Clean drinking water
In order to provide clean water for underdeveloped communities, Israeli startup WaterGen unveiled its GEN-M, a medium-scale atmospheric generator (AWG) that makes water out of air. The device can produce over 200 gallons (800 gallons) of clean drinking water per day. GEN-M creates water by cooling air at its natural dew point, and then filtering it, and purifying it with carbon. By using ultraviolet rays, any remaining bacteria is subsequently eliminated, making it suitable for consumption.
While the product was first presented in 2010, it has been put into service in far-reaching countries like Puerto Rico during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, in a small village near Cúcuta, Colombia, and in various other disaster zones.
3. Mobileye, an AI device that helps drivers navigate roads safely
The company launched this invention in 2011, with the aim of assisting drivers to navigate roads and highways with more caution. The Mobileye device contains a small digital camera equipped with algorithms that are capable of predicting traffic accidents, thereby aiding drivers to travel more safely. The system can alert a driver when he or she attempts to switch lanes, by warning of a collision or sensing the presence of pedestrians in the street. The life-saving artificial intelligence device has already been installed by several known carmakers, including Volvo, BMW, GM, and others. After its worldwide success, Mobileye was later bought by Intel in 2017.
2. The first artificial pancreas – A potential cure for diabetes?
In a possible future cure for diabetes, researchers at Betalin Therapeutics have engineered the first artificial pancreas. It can be inserted underneath the skin, without anesthesia and "reprograms" the natural pancreas to function correctly, by teaching it how to properly administer insulin. The pancreas, which is located in the abdomen, is a vital organ crucial to the digestive process. In diabetic patients, it doesn't produce enough insulin, causing the amount of sugars to increase in the bloodstream, and leading to symptoms such as nausea and shortness of breath.
Betalin's ground-breaking bio-artificial pancreas was engineered using pig lung tissue and cells secreted by insulin. It can identify a patient's blood sugar level and accurately dispense the required amount of insulin as needed, rendering all future injections, drugs or blood glucose measures obsolete.
"We are mimicking what actually happens in the body," Dr. Nikolai Kunicher, CEO of Betalin Therapeutics previously told Israel Hayom.
1.The first Israeli spacecraft to the Moon, Beresheet
In February of this year, Israel Aerospace Industries and SpaceIL did the impossible – after years of a combination of hard work, Israeli ingenuity, and budgeted-funding – the first Israeli spacecraft, Beresheet blasted off to the Moon. Beresheet – in the beginning – as it was aptly named, was sent into space, and orbited the Earth for two months relying mainly on solar powered energy in order to save fuel costs, before it crash-landed on the lunar surface in April.
Although communication was ultimately lost with the craft, it made history as both the cheapest and lightest probe ever built. Beresheet generated a combined cost of $100,000, and was funded by SpaceIL President Morris Kahn, Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, the Science and Technology Ministry, the Israel Space Agency, Israel Aerospace Industries, and numerous other private donors.
__________
Although the Jewish state has only been in existence for 71 years, it is on a direct trajectory to technological innovation-success, from new developments in medicine to future space exploration projects.
So, who knows what the next decade may hold?
By Yafit Ovadia
Israel Hayom
December 29, 2019
While Israeli discoveries reach far and wide, the past decade marked a high number of Israeli technological milestones in an astounding variety of fields – from medicine to high-tech to space exploration. Some of those startling advancements include finding potential cures for diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and improvements in transportation by using artificial intelligence-run devices. Leaping into the unknown, Israel launched objects into orbit, such as the Amos communications satellites, and earlier this year made history as the seventh country to send a spacecraft to the Moon.
Below is our countdown for the top five Israeli innovations of the decade:
5. Electric-powered airplane
Eviation, an Israeli startup introduced its first electric airplane, capable of flying short distances of up to 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) at around 270 mph (440 kmp). The craft, named Alice, is not only cheaper to produce, it also produces zero emissions, as it relies mainly on electricity and uses very little fuel. As the world grows greener and numerous attempts are made to reduce the human carbon footprint on the planet, this innovation is a creative endeavor by far.
Alice can transport up to nine passengers, including two pilots. It is equipped with revolving seats and even portable chargers for mobile phones. Unveiled at the Paris Air Show this past June, Alice is capable of embarking on shorter flights, such as from Israel to Cyprus or from Paris to Toulouse. Eviation expects its main customers to be American aviation companies, which can service short-haul lines within the continental US like the New York-Boston route.
4. Clean drinking water
In order to provide clean water for underdeveloped communities, Israeli startup WaterGen unveiled its GEN-M, a medium-scale atmospheric generator (AWG) that makes water out of air. The device can produce over 200 gallons (800 gallons) of clean drinking water per day. GEN-M creates water by cooling air at its natural dew point, and then filtering it, and purifying it with carbon. By using ultraviolet rays, any remaining bacteria is subsequently eliminated, making it suitable for consumption.
While the product was first presented in 2010, it has been put into service in far-reaching countries like Puerto Rico during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, in a small village near Cúcuta, Colombia, and in various other disaster zones.
3. Mobileye, an AI device that helps drivers navigate roads safely
The company launched this invention in 2011, with the aim of assisting drivers to navigate roads and highways with more caution. The Mobileye device contains a small digital camera equipped with algorithms that are capable of predicting traffic accidents, thereby aiding drivers to travel more safely. The system can alert a driver when he or she attempts to switch lanes, by warning of a collision or sensing the presence of pedestrians in the street. The life-saving artificial intelligence device has already been installed by several known carmakers, including Volvo, BMW, GM, and others. After its worldwide success, Mobileye was later bought by Intel in 2017.
2. The first artificial pancreas – A potential cure for diabetes?
In a possible future cure for diabetes, researchers at Betalin Therapeutics have engineered the first artificial pancreas. It can be inserted underneath the skin, without anesthesia and "reprograms" the natural pancreas to function correctly, by teaching it how to properly administer insulin. The pancreas, which is located in the abdomen, is a vital organ crucial to the digestive process. In diabetic patients, it doesn't produce enough insulin, causing the amount of sugars to increase in the bloodstream, and leading to symptoms such as nausea and shortness of breath.
Betalin's ground-breaking bio-artificial pancreas was engineered using pig lung tissue and cells secreted by insulin. It can identify a patient's blood sugar level and accurately dispense the required amount of insulin as needed, rendering all future injections, drugs or blood glucose measures obsolete.
"We are mimicking what actually happens in the body," Dr. Nikolai Kunicher, CEO of Betalin Therapeutics previously told Israel Hayom.
1.The first Israeli spacecraft to the Moon, Beresheet
In February of this year, Israel Aerospace Industries and SpaceIL did the impossible – after years of a combination of hard work, Israeli ingenuity, and budgeted-funding – the first Israeli spacecraft, Beresheet blasted off to the Moon. Beresheet – in the beginning – as it was aptly named, was sent into space, and orbited the Earth for two months relying mainly on solar powered energy in order to save fuel costs, before it crash-landed on the lunar surface in April.
Although communication was ultimately lost with the craft, it made history as both the cheapest and lightest probe ever built. Beresheet generated a combined cost of $100,000, and was funded by SpaceIL President Morris Kahn, Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, the Science and Technology Ministry, the Israel Space Agency, Israel Aerospace Industries, and numerous other private donors.
__________
Although the Jewish state has only been in existence for 71 years, it is on a direct trajectory to technological innovation-success, from new developments in medicine to future space exploration projects.
So, who knows what the next decade may hold?
Monday, December 30, 2019
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS A LONG HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACKS
Did you know that the Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, founded the KKK, and fought against every major civil rights act in U.S. history? Watch as Carol Swain, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, shares the inconvenient history of the Democratic Party
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Republicans must have photoshopped this video to make Carol Swain, who is obviously white, look like a black woman.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Republicans must have photoshopped this video to make Carol Swain, who is obviously white, look like a black woman.
OKLAHOMA EMBARRASSED BY LOUISIANA
LSU demolishes OU 63-28 in Peach Bowl to earn a spot in college football’s national championship game
BarkGrowlBite
December 30, 2019
There is nothing like one state embarrassing another and that is exactly what happened when LSU demolished Oklahoma U 63-28 Saturday in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
LSU led OU 49-14 at halftime on seven touchdown passes by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow. Burrow also ran for a 3-yard touchdown in the third quarter.
LSU will face Clemson for the national championship in – of all places – New Orleans on January 13. Clemson, the reigning champion, defeated Ohio State 29-23 Saturday in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona.
Ironically, Burrow transferred from Ohio State to LSU because he did not think he would become the starting quarterback at OSU.
Another irony is that Carley McCord, the daughter-in-law of LSU offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger, was killed in a plane crash in Lafayette, Louisiana while on her way to see the LSU-OU game.
It’s a good thing the two states don’t share a common border because if the did, a bunch of armed Oakies would invade Louisiana to seek revenge. Since they don’t share a common border, that Oakie army would dissipate in the bars and whorehouses of Arkansas or Texas on its way to Louisiana.
BarkGrowlBite
December 30, 2019
There is nothing like one state embarrassing another and that is exactly what happened when LSU demolished Oklahoma U 63-28 Saturday in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
LSU led OU 49-14 at halftime on seven touchdown passes by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow. Burrow also ran for a 3-yard touchdown in the third quarter.
LSU will face Clemson for the national championship in – of all places – New Orleans on January 13. Clemson, the reigning champion, defeated Ohio State 29-23 Saturday in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona.
Ironically, Burrow transferred from Ohio State to LSU because he did not think he would become the starting quarterback at OSU.
Another irony is that Carley McCord, the daughter-in-law of LSU offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger, was killed in a plane crash in Lafayette, Louisiana while on her way to see the LSU-OU game.
It’s a good thing the two states don’t share a common border because if the did, a bunch of armed Oakies would invade Louisiana to seek revenge. Since they don’t share a common border, that Oakie army would dissipate in the bars and whorehouses of Arkansas or Texas on its way to Louisiana.
GOVERNOR FREDO CUOMO HASN'T BLAMED RUSH LIMBAUGH FOR THE MONSEY ATTACK.......YET
But He Probably Will
by Bob Walsh
Saturday evening an asshole named Grafton E. Thomas, 37, barged his way into the home of a Hasidic Rabbi in Monsey, New York, about 30 miles north of the slime-pit known as New York City. He attacked the people there with a machete leaving five injured, one of them is still critical.
The area has a very high percentage Jewish population. Many of them were VERY outspoken on the news reports, asserting that they are tired of government officials condemning such attacks but failing to actually DO ANYTHING about them. There have been over a dozen anti-Semitic attacks in the greater New York area in the last week or so.
Someone got the asshole's license tag number and the cops nailed him about midnight in Harlem. By the time you read this he will probably have already been arraigned for five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary.
Governor "Fredo" Cuomo flapped his lips a lot, and made noise about wanting a state domestic terrorism law. That way he can prosecute conservatives, Republicans, NRA members and gun owners in general as domestic terrorists.
by Bob Walsh
Saturday evening an asshole named Grafton E. Thomas, 37, barged his way into the home of a Hasidic Rabbi in Monsey, New York, about 30 miles north of the slime-pit known as New York City. He attacked the people there with a machete leaving five injured, one of them is still critical.
The area has a very high percentage Jewish population. Many of them were VERY outspoken on the news reports, asserting that they are tired of government officials condemning such attacks but failing to actually DO ANYTHING about them. There have been over a dozen anti-Semitic attacks in the greater New York area in the last week or so.
Someone got the asshole's license tag number and the cops nailed him about midnight in Harlem. By the time you read this he will probably have already been arraigned for five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary.
Governor "Fredo" Cuomo flapped his lips a lot, and made noise about wanting a state domestic terrorism law. That way he can prosecute conservatives, Republicans, NRA members and gun owners in general as domestic terrorists.
FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS CALIFORNIA GATOR LAW
by Bob Walsh
The formerly great state of California has a law banning the import and sale of crocodile or alligator products. (I wonder why I can still buy alligator jerkey?) U. S. District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller has blocked enforcement of that law and has a hearing scheduled for April 24 on the state of Louisiana's request for a further injunction against the California action.
American alligators were removed from the endangered species act in 1987 and selling the critters has become a major business in Louisiana. The income from the business goes a long way toward protecting their habitat. They do not breed well in captivity so most people in that business collect alligator eggs and hatch them to get their product. They then return a certain number to the wild. The eggs have a very high non-survival rate in the wild as the eggs and hatchlings have many natural predators. The system works out well for pretty much everybody concerned.
Unfortunately the American alligator is very similar in appearance to the Chinese alligator, which is highly endangered in the wild. That being said I am unsure why anybody would go to the trouble to import endangered Chinese alligators when you can practically trip over American ones in Louisiana and Florida.
California is not opposing the injunction at this time.
The formerly great state of California has a law banning the import and sale of crocodile or alligator products. (I wonder why I can still buy alligator jerkey?) U. S. District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller has blocked enforcement of that law and has a hearing scheduled for April 24 on the state of Louisiana's request for a further injunction against the California action.
American alligators were removed from the endangered species act in 1987 and selling the critters has become a major business in Louisiana. The income from the business goes a long way toward protecting their habitat. They do not breed well in captivity so most people in that business collect alligator eggs and hatch them to get their product. They then return a certain number to the wild. The eggs have a very high non-survival rate in the wild as the eggs and hatchlings have many natural predators. The system works out well for pretty much everybody concerned.
Unfortunately the American alligator is very similar in appearance to the Chinese alligator, which is highly endangered in the wild. That being said I am unsure why anybody would go to the trouble to import endangered Chinese alligators when you can practically trip over American ones in Louisiana and Florida.
California is not opposing the injunction at this time.
WHAT HAVE JEWS EVER DONE TO DESERVE BLACK ANTI-SEMITISM?
Machete-wielding black man attacks Jews at Hanukkah party
By Elizabeth Keogh and Bill Sanderson
New York Daily News
December 29, 2019
NEW YORK—Several people were stabbed Saturday night at a Hanukkah celebration at an Orthodox rabbi’s home in Rockland County, police said.
A man armed with a machete entered the home in Monsey’s Forshay neighborhood around 9:50 p.m., said several reports.
The suspect stabbed five people, said Chief Brad Weidel of the Ramapo Police Department, which covers Monsey.
New York Police Department officers later caught the suspect in Harlem, Weidel said. The suspect was a black man who had fled the scene in a Nissan Sentra, said the website Vos Iz Neias .
About 50 people attended the celebration at the rabbi’s home, said Lazer Klein, 19, who lives in the neighborhood and spoke to others about what happened.
Klein said the suspect, whose face was covered, parked his car on a side street and went to the home armed with a “large machete.”
“He just took it out, and started to run at people,” said Aron Kohn, 65, who witnessed the attack. “I saw him stabbing people, and I started throwing chairs and tables.”
Kohn said he then fled the home with two women. “I was scared for my life. I ran out the front door,” he said.
Around then, Klein arrived at the scene. “As I came up people were running away, screaming and calling the cops," he said. "They didn’t know what was going on.”
The suspect tried to make a run from the rabbi’s home to a synagogue next door — but someone locked the door to keep him from going inside.
Two of the five wounded were in in critical condition, said the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council of the Hudson Valley.
One victim was stabbed at least six times, the organization said.
FBI agents were at the scene early Sunday. The NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau said it was “closely monitoring” the situation.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu said, ““Israel strongly condemns the recent displays of anti-Semitism, including the vicious attack at the home of a rabbi ... during Hanukkah. We send our best wishes for recovery to the wounded. We will cooperate however possible with the local authorities in order to assist in defeating this phenomenon. We offer our assistance to every country.”
Rabbis Marvin Hier, Dean and Founder, and Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Black leaders to speak out against the spate of recent hate crimes in New York and New Jersey carried out by black anti-Semites. They also said, “Enough is enough! Jews should not have to fear for their lives in America to go to their houses of worship. The FBI must step up and take the lead in all recent violent hate crimes targeting religious Jews.”
Blacks constitute the largest group of Jew haters in this country, despite that Jews were in the forefront of the civil rights movement and shed their blood for blacks.
The Guardian Angels have stepped in to patrol the Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn which are in the midst of that borough’s black communities.
What have Jews ever done to deserve black anti-Semitism? It must be because as a minority that has been hated as much as blacks, Jews have become successful while blacks are left with Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, dope dealers, and the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Envy breeds hatred.
__________
Guardian Angels to patrol Jewish neighborhoods in New York City after recent attacks
By Dennis Romero
NBC News
December 28, 2019
The Guardian Angels, a private, unarmed crime-prevention group, said it would start patrolling New York City's Brooklyn borough on Sunday following a series of anti-Semitic attacks.
Curtis Sliwa, who founded the organization in 1979 in New York City, said the patrols would start at noon in the Crown Heights neighborhood and expand to Williamsburg and Borough Park later in the day.
The move came hours before five people were wounded in a stabbing attack during a Hanukkah party at a rabbi's house in upstate New York late Saturday.
The latest incident followed eight attacks on Jews in Brooklyn since Dec. 13, according to the New York Police Department.
The violence included victims being struck in the face, head and back of the head and at least one suspect throwing a beverage at someone, police said.
"These attacks are taking place, and the cops have not been proactive at all," Sliwa said Saturday. "It comes from City Hall and the mayor. He's been just apathetic."
The press office for Mayor Bill de Blasio responded in a statement Saturday, saying, “We have no tolerance for anti-Semitism in New York City.
"The best police department in the world has increased deployment in Crown Heights, Boro Park and Williamsburg, and has launched a new intelligence unit to prevent hate crimes from occurring," it continued. "We will continue to work hand in hand with the community to keep our city safe.”
Prior to Saturday night's stabbing, the latest attack occurred Friday when a woman allegedly slapped three females in Brooklyn and later told officers it was because they're Jewish, police said at a news conference.
The suspect, Tiffany Harris, 30, was charged Saturday with attempted assault as a hate crime, according to court records. She was released without bail.
On Dec. 10, a couple opened fire at a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey, and exchanged gunfire with officers. It ended in the deaths the two, a police officer and three people who had been inside the JC Kosher Supermarket.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the attacks "disturbing."
"This recent spate of hate-fueled crimes is even more disturbing as they occurred during the Hanukkah holiday, a time when Jewish New Yorkers gather to celebrate," he said in a statement Friday.
Sliwa said local leaders of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement asked for his group's help, and he believes Guardian Angels patrols will halt the violence.
"We’re a visual deterrence in our red berets and our red satin jackets," he said. "Nobody’s going to commit an attack when we're around."
If they do, he said, "We’ll physically restrain the persons responsible, make a citizen's arrest, and hold them until the police arrive."
EDITOR’S NOTE: The police do not like the Guardian Angels because the Angels do a better job of protecting communities than do the cops. It hasn’t been lost on them that many people think more highly of the Guardian Angels than they think of cops.
By Elizabeth Keogh and Bill Sanderson
New York Daily News
December 29, 2019
NEW YORK—Several people were stabbed Saturday night at a Hanukkah celebration at an Orthodox rabbi’s home in Rockland County, police said.
A man armed with a machete entered the home in Monsey’s Forshay neighborhood around 9:50 p.m., said several reports.
The suspect stabbed five people, said Chief Brad Weidel of the Ramapo Police Department, which covers Monsey.
New York Police Department officers later caught the suspect in Harlem, Weidel said. The suspect was a black man who had fled the scene in a Nissan Sentra, said the website Vos Iz Neias .
About 50 people attended the celebration at the rabbi’s home, said Lazer Klein, 19, who lives in the neighborhood and spoke to others about what happened.
Klein said the suspect, whose face was covered, parked his car on a side street and went to the home armed with a “large machete.”
“He just took it out, and started to run at people,” said Aron Kohn, 65, who witnessed the attack. “I saw him stabbing people, and I started throwing chairs and tables.”
Kohn said he then fled the home with two women. “I was scared for my life. I ran out the front door,” he said.
Around then, Klein arrived at the scene. “As I came up people were running away, screaming and calling the cops," he said. "They didn’t know what was going on.”
The suspect tried to make a run from the rabbi’s home to a synagogue next door — but someone locked the door to keep him from going inside.
Two of the five wounded were in in critical condition, said the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council of the Hudson Valley.
One victim was stabbed at least six times, the organization said.
FBI agents were at the scene early Sunday. The NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau said it was “closely monitoring” the situation.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu said, ““Israel strongly condemns the recent displays of anti-Semitism, including the vicious attack at the home of a rabbi ... during Hanukkah. We send our best wishes for recovery to the wounded. We will cooperate however possible with the local authorities in order to assist in defeating this phenomenon. We offer our assistance to every country.”
Rabbis Marvin Hier, Dean and Founder, and Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Black leaders to speak out against the spate of recent hate crimes in New York and New Jersey carried out by black anti-Semites. They also said, “Enough is enough! Jews should not have to fear for their lives in America to go to their houses of worship. The FBI must step up and take the lead in all recent violent hate crimes targeting religious Jews.”
Blacks constitute the largest group of Jew haters in this country, despite that Jews were in the forefront of the civil rights movement and shed their blood for blacks.
The Guardian Angels have stepped in to patrol the Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn which are in the midst of that borough’s black communities.
What have Jews ever done to deserve black anti-Semitism? It must be because as a minority that has been hated as much as blacks, Jews have become successful while blacks are left with Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, dope dealers, and the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Envy breeds hatred.
__________
Guardian Angels to patrol Jewish neighborhoods in New York City after recent attacks
By Dennis Romero
NBC News
December 28, 2019
The Guardian Angels, a private, unarmed crime-prevention group, said it would start patrolling New York City's Brooklyn borough on Sunday following a series of anti-Semitic attacks.
Curtis Sliwa, who founded the organization in 1979 in New York City, said the patrols would start at noon in the Crown Heights neighborhood and expand to Williamsburg and Borough Park later in the day.
The move came hours before five people were wounded in a stabbing attack during a Hanukkah party at a rabbi's house in upstate New York late Saturday.
The latest incident followed eight attacks on Jews in Brooklyn since Dec. 13, according to the New York Police Department.
The violence included victims being struck in the face, head and back of the head and at least one suspect throwing a beverage at someone, police said.
"These attacks are taking place, and the cops have not been proactive at all," Sliwa said Saturday. "It comes from City Hall and the mayor. He's been just apathetic."
The press office for Mayor Bill de Blasio responded in a statement Saturday, saying, “We have no tolerance for anti-Semitism in New York City.
"The best police department in the world has increased deployment in Crown Heights, Boro Park and Williamsburg, and has launched a new intelligence unit to prevent hate crimes from occurring," it continued. "We will continue to work hand in hand with the community to keep our city safe.”
Prior to Saturday night's stabbing, the latest attack occurred Friday when a woman allegedly slapped three females in Brooklyn and later told officers it was because they're Jewish, police said at a news conference.
The suspect, Tiffany Harris, 30, was charged Saturday with attempted assault as a hate crime, according to court records. She was released without bail.
On Dec. 10, a couple opened fire at a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey, and exchanged gunfire with officers. It ended in the deaths the two, a police officer and three people who had been inside the JC Kosher Supermarket.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the attacks "disturbing."
"This recent spate of hate-fueled crimes is even more disturbing as they occurred during the Hanukkah holiday, a time when Jewish New Yorkers gather to celebrate," he said in a statement Friday.
Sliwa said local leaders of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement asked for his group's help, and he believes Guardian Angels patrols will halt the violence.
"We’re a visual deterrence in our red berets and our red satin jackets," he said. "Nobody’s going to commit an attack when we're around."
If they do, he said, "We’ll physically restrain the persons responsible, make a citizen's arrest, and hold them until the police arrive."
EDITOR’S NOTE: The police do not like the Guardian Angels because the Angels do a better job of protecting communities than do the cops. It hasn’t been lost on them that many people think more highly of the Guardian Angels than they think of cops.
ROACHES WERE THE WORST PART OF PRISON
The Young Climate Activist Who Just Spent 6 Days in Russian Prison Said It Wasn’t That Bad — Minus the Cockroaches
by Alex Lubben
Vice News
December 27, 2019
Arshak Makichyan, a 25-year-old climate activist, didn’t have that bad of a time in a Russian prison. In fact, he said people treated him fairly well behind bars.
“Everyone was supporting me in the prison, even some thieves,” Arshak told VCE News after being released on Thursday. “They were quite good to me.”
“I was talking about climate with police, with people in jail. People in Russia, they’re getting angry, and they’re starting to support every protest, even if they’re about climate,” he added.
Arshak, a violinist who recently finished his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, served a six-day prison sentence for staging an unauthorized protest to demand action on climate change. His punishment was among the harshest dealt to any of the climate activists inspired by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who started skipping school to strike by herself every Friday in 2018.
Arshak, sign in hand, took to the streets again on Friday, for the forty second consecutive week.
“It was better than I expected,” Arshak said of his time at a prison in Moscow. But he also noted the cockroaches and his foul-smelling mattress.
“I’m a vegan, so it was difficult for me to be imprisoned because there isn’t a lot of vegan food,” he said.
Arshak has held off getting a job so he can focus on his climate activism. Until around February of this year, he knew little about climate change; he said it’s not talked about much in Russia, where the environment isn’t exactly a political priority. Politicians often cite the benefits to the country that could come from a warmer climate, like new shipping lanes through the Arctic. Russian President Vladimir Putin even claims that “nobody knows the origins of global climate change.”
Arshak started hearing about Thunberg’s protests in Sweden and began poring over articles about climate science. After he took part in another political demonstration, in memory of a slain Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemstov, he started identifying as an activist.
“It was at that moment that I understood myself to be part of society, and I had to do something because nothing was happening,” he said.
So he linked up with the budding youth climate movement in Russia, which mobilized some 700 people to strike across the country in September, alongside millions of others across the world. Many people have been arrested around the globe, including in the U.S. and U.K., for protesting climate change, but few, if any, have served prison sentences for their activism.
Protesting in Russia without a permit is illegal, and Arshak said he unsuccessfully tried to get permits more than 10 times for a mass climate demonstration in Moscow. But lone demonstrators don’t need a permit.
Every week since March of this year, Arshak’s been staging a solo protest in Pushkin Square. Sometimes his friends join him and take turns holding a single sign, but two people won’t hold signs simultaneously to avoid confrontation with authorities.
The day Arshak was arrested, however, he was protesting with two other activists, who were arrested but didn’t face charges. The cops didn’t give him the opportunity to roll up his banner, he said in court, according to the BBC. He was detained, brought to a police station, held for five hours and released with a charge of demonstrating illegally.
He’s not the only young Russian climate activist to face pressure from cops. Sasha Shugai, a 25-year-old climate striker in Novosibirsk, told VICE News she’s been facing threats from authorities over her strikes. So are other activists across Russia, she said.
“The police are harsh with us,” Sasha said. “They threaten and intimidate us.”
It’s not just the police: Shugai said her teacher intimidated one of her friends into giving up participating in the strikes.
As Arshak was being released on Thursday, police were arresting another protester. Konstantin Fokin, a school principal in Moscow, chained himself up in Pushkin Square. The police showed up with bolt cutters and pried him loose.
He appeared to protesting by himself.
by Alex Lubben
Vice News
December 27, 2019
Arshak Makichyan, a 25-year-old climate activist, didn’t have that bad of a time in a Russian prison. In fact, he said people treated him fairly well behind bars.
“Everyone was supporting me in the prison, even some thieves,” Arshak told VCE News after being released on Thursday. “They were quite good to me.”
“I was talking about climate with police, with people in jail. People in Russia, they’re getting angry, and they’re starting to support every protest, even if they’re about climate,” he added.
Arshak, a violinist who recently finished his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, served a six-day prison sentence for staging an unauthorized protest to demand action on climate change. His punishment was among the harshest dealt to any of the climate activists inspired by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who started skipping school to strike by herself every Friday in 2018.
Arshak, sign in hand, took to the streets again on Friday, for the forty second consecutive week.
“It was better than I expected,” Arshak said of his time at a prison in Moscow. But he also noted the cockroaches and his foul-smelling mattress.
“I’m a vegan, so it was difficult for me to be imprisoned because there isn’t a lot of vegan food,” he said.
Arshak has held off getting a job so he can focus on his climate activism. Until around February of this year, he knew little about climate change; he said it’s not talked about much in Russia, where the environment isn’t exactly a political priority. Politicians often cite the benefits to the country that could come from a warmer climate, like new shipping lanes through the Arctic. Russian President Vladimir Putin even claims that “nobody knows the origins of global climate change.”
Arshak started hearing about Thunberg’s protests in Sweden and began poring over articles about climate science. After he took part in another political demonstration, in memory of a slain Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemstov, he started identifying as an activist.
“It was at that moment that I understood myself to be part of society, and I had to do something because nothing was happening,” he said.
So he linked up with the budding youth climate movement in Russia, which mobilized some 700 people to strike across the country in September, alongside millions of others across the world. Many people have been arrested around the globe, including in the U.S. and U.K., for protesting climate change, but few, if any, have served prison sentences for their activism.
Protesting in Russia without a permit is illegal, and Arshak said he unsuccessfully tried to get permits more than 10 times for a mass climate demonstration in Moscow. But lone demonstrators don’t need a permit.
Every week since March of this year, Arshak’s been staging a solo protest in Pushkin Square. Sometimes his friends join him and take turns holding a single sign, but two people won’t hold signs simultaneously to avoid confrontation with authorities.
The day Arshak was arrested, however, he was protesting with two other activists, who were arrested but didn’t face charges. The cops didn’t give him the opportunity to roll up his banner, he said in court, according to the BBC. He was detained, brought to a police station, held for five hours and released with a charge of demonstrating illegally.
He’s not the only young Russian climate activist to face pressure from cops. Sasha Shugai, a 25-year-old climate striker in Novosibirsk, told VICE News she’s been facing threats from authorities over her strikes. So are other activists across Russia, she said.
“The police are harsh with us,” Sasha said. “They threaten and intimidate us.”
It’s not just the police: Shugai said her teacher intimidated one of her friends into giving up participating in the strikes.
As Arshak was being released on Thursday, police were arresting another protester. Konstantin Fokin, a school principal in Moscow, chained himself up in Pushkin Square. The police showed up with bolt cutters and pried him loose.
He appeared to protesting by himself.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
THE PUBLIC IS ENTITLED TO KNOW THE IDENTITY OF THE PERSON WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE IMPEACHMENT MESS
President Trump is being excoriated for naming CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella as the whistleblower
BarkGrowlBite
December 29, 2019
On Thursday, the Washington Examiner ran an article on the Judicial Watch’s lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the CIA and the Justice Department seeking the communications between the whistleblower and former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, and his emails between June 1, 2016, and Nov. 12, 2019.
The Examiner named Eric Ciaramella as the whistleblower.
Trump retweeted the Examiner story and later sent out another tweet in which he named Ciaramella as the whistleblower. Trump is being excoriated by the media and all over the internet for naming the whistleblower.
Ciaramella had already been identified as the whistleblower by various sources long before the Examiner story and Trump’s tweets.
Trump did absolutely nothing wrong in naming Ciaramella!
The public is entitled to know the identity of the person who is responsible for the impeachment mess. Adam Schiff relied on the whistleblower’s concern about Trump’s call to the Ukrainian president to start his kangaroo court proceedings against Trump. If it weren’t for Ciaramella, President Trump might never have been impeached. And that is why the whistleblower’s identity is fair game.
BarkGrowlBite
December 29, 2019
On Thursday, the Washington Examiner ran an article on the Judicial Watch’s lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the CIA and the Justice Department seeking the communications between the whistleblower and former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, and his emails between June 1, 2016, and Nov. 12, 2019.
The Examiner named Eric Ciaramella as the whistleblower.
Trump retweeted the Examiner story and later sent out another tweet in which he named Ciaramella as the whistleblower. Trump is being excoriated by the media and all over the internet for naming the whistleblower.
Ciaramella had already been identified as the whistleblower by various sources long before the Examiner story and Trump’s tweets.
Trump did absolutely nothing wrong in naming Ciaramella!
The public is entitled to know the identity of the person who is responsible for the impeachment mess. Adam Schiff relied on the whistleblower’s concern about Trump’s call to the Ukrainian president to start his kangaroo court proceedings against Trump. If it weren’t for Ciaramella, President Trump might never have been impeached. And that is why the whistleblower’s identity is fair game.
CHRISTMAS TRADITION IN STOCKTON
by Bob Walsh
On the second day after Christmas large numbers of mostly Black teenagers get together and riot at the two large local malls, which are right across the street from each other. They attack shoppers (mostly White shoppers), damage vehicles in the parking lots and act like spoiled and dangerous assholes. No arrests were made. No serious injuries resulted.
The malls were both locked down until the little bastards could be cleared out. The next day no juveniles were admitted to either mall unless they had a parent with them.
These his been the third year running for this charming local tradition.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Hmmm, no arrests. I'll bet had the little thugs been white, there would have been arrests.
On the second day after Christmas large numbers of mostly Black teenagers get together and riot at the two large local malls, which are right across the street from each other. They attack shoppers (mostly White shoppers), damage vehicles in the parking lots and act like spoiled and dangerous assholes. No arrests were made. No serious injuries resulted.
The malls were both locked down until the little bastards could be cleared out. The next day no juveniles were admitted to either mall unless they had a parent with them.
These his been the third year running for this charming local tradition.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Hmmm, no arrests. I'll bet had the little thugs been white, there would have been arrests.
MAN MISTAKEN FOR BURGLAR SHOT BY COP
Texas Deputy Shoots Homeowner's Father During Home Invasion Call
By Hannah Dellinger
Houston Chronicle
December 27, 2019
HOUSTON -- A woman reported a home invasion to police Thursday night, but when a Harris County deputy responded to the home north of Houston her father wound up being shot, according to law-enforcement officials.
Two Harris County deputies responded to the home in the 800 block of Darbydale Crossing Lane around 7 p.m., the sheriff’s office said, after athe woman called to report that she heard sounds in the downstairs area of her home.
As they arrived, the deputies saw a vehicle parked on the lawn of the home, according to the sheriff’s office, and they encountered a man in front of the home.
One of the deputies fired his weapon at the person he believed to be a burglary suspect, shooting the man in the leg, according to the statement.
What took place between the officers and the man prior to the shooting is still under investigation, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said at the scene.
The father was responsive before he was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, officials said.
No deputies were injured during the incident, according to the sheriff’s office. The name of the officer who shot the man has not been released to the public.
There were multiple people in the home at the time, the spokesperson said, including children.
The sheriff’s office’s Homicide Unit, its internal affairs division and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the shooting.
By Hannah Dellinger
Houston Chronicle
December 27, 2019
HOUSTON -- A woman reported a home invasion to police Thursday night, but when a Harris County deputy responded to the home north of Houston her father wound up being shot, according to law-enforcement officials.
Two Harris County deputies responded to the home in the 800 block of Darbydale Crossing Lane around 7 p.m., the sheriff’s office said, after athe woman called to report that she heard sounds in the downstairs area of her home.
As they arrived, the deputies saw a vehicle parked on the lawn of the home, according to the sheriff’s office, and they encountered a man in front of the home.
One of the deputies fired his weapon at the person he believed to be a burglary suspect, shooting the man in the leg, according to the statement.
What took place between the officers and the man prior to the shooting is still under investigation, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said at the scene.
The father was responsive before he was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, officials said.
No deputies were injured during the incident, according to the sheriff’s office. The name of the officer who shot the man has not been released to the public.
There were multiple people in the home at the time, the spokesperson said, including children.
The sheriff’s office’s Homicide Unit, its internal affairs division and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the shooting.
POT DECRIMINALIZED TO PROMOTE TOURISM
Jamaica Can’t Shake Status As US’ Top Marijuana Provider
By Maria Alejandra Navarrete
InSight Crime
December 26, 2019
A series of marijuana seizures reported over the last few months highlight the magnitude of the drug flow from Jamaica to the United States, as well as the difficulties authorities have in stemming it.
During a November 22 operation, six men were arrested after the seizure of 1,000 pounds of marijuana in the port city of Ocho Ríos, the Jamaica Gleaner reported. The haul was valued at $4.5 million in the US market.
The latest seizure came after two earlier marijuana busts in the same city. In early October, police discovered about 1,000 pounds during a raid. Days before that raid, authorities had captured 500 pounds of marijuana, Caribbean news outlet Loop reported.
In August, authorities seized about 7,000 pounds of marijuana in a district neighboring Ocho Ríos. The marijuana — valued at $36 million — was packaged and appeared ready for export.
According to the latest US State Department report on international drug control strategies, most of the marijuana leaving Jamaica is headed for the United States.
InSight Crime Analysis
The recent seizures show that Jamaica’s steps to stop large quantities of marijuana continue flowing out of the island have been toothless. Corruption at Jamaica’s ports and airports facilitates the movement of drugs, and local organized crime bosses have ties to government officials, “creating a permissive environment for drug trafficking,” the State Department report stated.
According to the report, factors that have contributed to the island nation becoming one of the hemisphere’s key drug trafficking points include the country’s location in the Caribbean, its difficult-to-patrol shores, and its role as a container transshipment point.
Jamaica’s popularity as a tourist destination also facilitates the movement of drugs via small boats and private aircraft, according to the report.
The Jamaican and US governments have tried to stop the flow for years with bilateral cooperation agreements. Both countries uphold judicial assistance and extradition treaties in order to facilitate the prosecution of traffickers. The countries also collaborate on enforcement efforts to interdict maritime trafficking.
In 2019, the two countries signed a bilateral Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement (CMAA) to formalize the exchange of information between US and Jamaican customs agencies to help control the flow of drugs, arms and other contraband smuggled through legal ports of entry.
In 2015, Jamaica decriminalized possession of marijuana, allowing citizens to carry small quantities of 57 grams or less, for personal use.
By passing this law, the country hoped not only to reduce micro-trafficking on the island and the burden on the judicial system, but also to encourage the development of a legal marijuana industry that could in turn promote tourism around regulated marijuana consumption.
By Maria Alejandra Navarrete
InSight Crime
December 26, 2019
A series of marijuana seizures reported over the last few months highlight the magnitude of the drug flow from Jamaica to the United States, as well as the difficulties authorities have in stemming it.
During a November 22 operation, six men were arrested after the seizure of 1,000 pounds of marijuana in the port city of Ocho Ríos, the Jamaica Gleaner reported. The haul was valued at $4.5 million in the US market.
The latest seizure came after two earlier marijuana busts in the same city. In early October, police discovered about 1,000 pounds during a raid. Days before that raid, authorities had captured 500 pounds of marijuana, Caribbean news outlet Loop reported.
In August, authorities seized about 7,000 pounds of marijuana in a district neighboring Ocho Ríos. The marijuana — valued at $36 million — was packaged and appeared ready for export.
According to the latest US State Department report on international drug control strategies, most of the marijuana leaving Jamaica is headed for the United States.
InSight Crime Analysis
The recent seizures show that Jamaica’s steps to stop large quantities of marijuana continue flowing out of the island have been toothless. Corruption at Jamaica’s ports and airports facilitates the movement of drugs, and local organized crime bosses have ties to government officials, “creating a permissive environment for drug trafficking,” the State Department report stated.
According to the report, factors that have contributed to the island nation becoming one of the hemisphere’s key drug trafficking points include the country’s location in the Caribbean, its difficult-to-patrol shores, and its role as a container transshipment point.
Jamaica’s popularity as a tourist destination also facilitates the movement of drugs via small boats and private aircraft, according to the report.
The Jamaican and US governments have tried to stop the flow for years with bilateral cooperation agreements. Both countries uphold judicial assistance and extradition treaties in order to facilitate the prosecution of traffickers. The countries also collaborate on enforcement efforts to interdict maritime trafficking.
In 2019, the two countries signed a bilateral Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement (CMAA) to formalize the exchange of information between US and Jamaican customs agencies to help control the flow of drugs, arms and other contraband smuggled through legal ports of entry.
In 2015, Jamaica decriminalized possession of marijuana, allowing citizens to carry small quantities of 57 grams or less, for personal use.
By passing this law, the country hoped not only to reduce micro-trafficking on the island and the burden on the judicial system, but also to encourage the development of a legal marijuana industry that could in turn promote tourism around regulated marijuana consumption.
THE KILLER THANKED THE NRA
Washington man accused of killing wife purportedly confessed to murder in tweets to NRA, Trump
By Lucia I. Suarez Sang
Fox News
December 28, 2019
A Washington state man accused of killing his wife the day after Christmas apparently confessed to the shooting in tweets to the NRA, President Trump, and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
A Twitter account purportedly owned by Kevin Heimsoth - a Bellingham man who is the main suspect in the shooting death of his wife Lynn Heimsoth - sent a series of four reply tweets shorting after 3 a.m. PT on Dec. 26 stating that the user shot and killed his “whole family.”
In a reply to the NRA’s Merry Christmas tweet, the account wrote: “Guns don’t kill people, people do.”
“Guns just make it a lot easier. AR-15 makes it super easy,” the post continued. “I jist (sic) killed my whole family, and i couldnt have done it without a gun! I’m too much of a coward, a knife would have been waaay too hard. So, thanks to everyone at the NRA.”
Similar tweets were also sent as replies to Trump’s personal and presidential accounts as well as to McConnell’s account.
In a subsequent tweet, the user then thanks McConnell for making it possible and then requested a welfare check at an address on Marine Drive in Bellingham.
The rest of the account appeared to just be political commentary replying to President Trump.
Fox News’ has not independently verified that the Twitter account belongs to Kevin Heimsoth. As of Saturday morning, the tweets are still up.
However, the Bellingham Herald reported the account is associated with email accounts and phone numbers that belong to him and the account associated with Lynn Heimsoth followed it.
Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo said deputies were called to a home on the 900 block of Marine Drive around 10:28 a.m. Dec. 26 for a report of a murder-suicide.
Inside, they found a 58-year-old woman dead from a gunshot wound. The woman’s 56-year-old husband was also found inside the apartment with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The pair were later identified as the Heimsoths.
As of Friday, Kevin Heimsoth remained hospitalized in critical condition.
“This horrendous crime impacted many in our community,” Elfo told the Bellingham Herald. “While our investigation has not yet revealed any facts that would indicate a propensity for domestic violence prior to the murder, anyone with information that might be helpful to our investigation and review of this incident is requested to contact the Sheriff’s Office. As this case illustrates, the dynamics of domestic violence can escalate and lead to extreme violence.”
Deputies also found Lynn Heimsoth’s therapy dog, Sukha, and a cat, both dead from gunshot wounds, the Bellingham Herald reported.
Lynn Heimsoth was the principal at Sunnyland Elementary in Bellingham since July 2017.
The school’s superintendent said in a statement Thursday that they are “heartbroken” by her death.
“Her death is a profound loss to our Sunnyland community, our school district and to our extended community,” Bellingham Public Schools Superintendent Greg Baker said. “Lynn was a passionate, equity-driven instructional leader. She loved kids to the core and always kept students’ needs at the center of her work.”
A vigil was held Friday.
By Lucia I. Suarez Sang
Fox News
December 28, 2019
A Washington state man accused of killing his wife the day after Christmas apparently confessed to the shooting in tweets to the NRA, President Trump, and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
A Twitter account purportedly owned by Kevin Heimsoth - a Bellingham man who is the main suspect in the shooting death of his wife Lynn Heimsoth - sent a series of four reply tweets shorting after 3 a.m. PT on Dec. 26 stating that the user shot and killed his “whole family.”
In a reply to the NRA’s Merry Christmas tweet, the account wrote: “Guns don’t kill people, people do.”
“Guns just make it a lot easier. AR-15 makes it super easy,” the post continued. “I jist (sic) killed my whole family, and i couldnt have done it without a gun! I’m too much of a coward, a knife would have been waaay too hard. So, thanks to everyone at the NRA.”
Similar tweets were also sent as replies to Trump’s personal and presidential accounts as well as to McConnell’s account.
In a subsequent tweet, the user then thanks McConnell for making it possible and then requested a welfare check at an address on Marine Drive in Bellingham.
The rest of the account appeared to just be political commentary replying to President Trump.
Fox News’ has not independently verified that the Twitter account belongs to Kevin Heimsoth. As of Saturday morning, the tweets are still up.
However, the Bellingham Herald reported the account is associated with email accounts and phone numbers that belong to him and the account associated with Lynn Heimsoth followed it.
Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo said deputies were called to a home on the 900 block of Marine Drive around 10:28 a.m. Dec. 26 for a report of a murder-suicide.
Inside, they found a 58-year-old woman dead from a gunshot wound. The woman’s 56-year-old husband was also found inside the apartment with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The pair were later identified as the Heimsoths.
As of Friday, Kevin Heimsoth remained hospitalized in critical condition.
“This horrendous crime impacted many in our community,” Elfo told the Bellingham Herald. “While our investigation has not yet revealed any facts that would indicate a propensity for domestic violence prior to the murder, anyone with information that might be helpful to our investigation and review of this incident is requested to contact the Sheriff’s Office. As this case illustrates, the dynamics of domestic violence can escalate and lead to extreme violence.”
Deputies also found Lynn Heimsoth’s therapy dog, Sukha, and a cat, both dead from gunshot wounds, the Bellingham Herald reported.
Lynn Heimsoth was the principal at Sunnyland Elementary in Bellingham since July 2017.
The school’s superintendent said in a statement Thursday that they are “heartbroken” by her death.
“Her death is a profound loss to our Sunnyland community, our school district and to our extended community,” Bellingham Public Schools Superintendent Greg Baker said. “Lynn was a passionate, equity-driven instructional leader. She loved kids to the core and always kept students’ needs at the center of her work.”
A vigil was held Friday.
Saturday, December 28, 2019
MY MAN OF THE DECADE IS DONALD TRUMP
I have come to the realization that Trump is one of the most important presidents in US history because of his moral clarity, and because he dared to defy political correctness
By Boaz Bismuth, Editor-in-Chief
Israel Hayom
December 27, 2019
Over the past decade, the world's equilibrium has been disrupted. Social media helped advance the democratic debate, but also intensified the shaming of others, no to mention psychological warfare.
And the US, as always, was the leader of the pack. Self-appointed clergy from the Political Correctness Religion have been telling us what we can say and what we cannot. If you say one bad joke, you are automatically put on trial. The Inquisition is back, but this time in English.
But there is one person who has taken it upon himself to counter this trend, using the very social media networks that have created this problem.
His name is Donald Trump, the same person who has been dismissed all through the primaries and the general election, only to prove his detractors wrong, eventually becoming the 45th president of the United States.
He has already fulfilled his most important pledges, among them the appointment of two Supreme Court justices and 50 federal judges to lower courts.
The US economy is on fire despite the ongoing spats with China. And despite the domestic problems he faces at home, he has managed to successfully amend free-trade agreements, create new alliances and successfully promote US interests in NATO and other international bodies.
He has maintained his policy of maximum pressure on Iran by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposing sanctions. Even the investigations into the alleged Russian interference in the election went nowhere, and now people are asking questions over law enforcement's conduct and why Trump's campaign was subject to wiretapping.
The Israeli public has also understood that the president has lived up to his promises, especially after his decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, as well as his decision to view Israeli settlements as consistent with international law and his executive order punishing campuses for allowing anti-Israel activity.
But the media herd, the intellectuals, and the fundamentalist liberals will just not let go. For them, Trump is like a red rag to a bull. They consider him a thug who has taken over the White House.
I had the opportunity to meet and interview him multiple times on the campaign trail and three times as president. I have come to the realization that Trump is one of the most important presidents in US history.
In a world where boundaries are blurred, where it is unclear who is good and who is bad, it is good to know that that the world's superpower is led by a person with moral clarity, a president who knows which side creates technology and develops medicine, and which side exports terrorism. He knows that there are some who are for liberty and some who live in darkness.
We live in an era where if you are a conservative, God forbid, you are automatically considered an enemy because you are against political correctness.
Some would say that he is vulgar, but he has forced the liberals to confront the reality they have created with their discourse on the "Deplorables," as Hillary Clinton called his supporters.
Trump is the man of the decade because he has been the leader of the good guys. Regardless of whether he wins another term, he has redefined the world and challenged the cardinals of the new Inquisition – and by doing that he changed our discourse and reality.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Caroline Glick writes that “Thanks to the Obama administration's political, economic and military support for Iran, when President Donald Trump entered office in January 2017, Iran had effectively consolidated its control over an empire that stretched from Iran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. Yemen had also become an Iranian colony. With Trump's decision in May 2018 to withdraw the US from Obama's nuclear deal and reinstate US sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration began destabilizing Iran, at home and throughout its colonies. The protests, which began in Lebanon and Iraq in October and spread last month to Iran, are rooted in economic privation and dislocation fomented in large part by the US sanctions.”
By Boaz Bismuth, Editor-in-Chief
Israel Hayom
December 27, 2019
Over the past decade, the world's equilibrium has been disrupted. Social media helped advance the democratic debate, but also intensified the shaming of others, no to mention psychological warfare.
And the US, as always, was the leader of the pack. Self-appointed clergy from the Political Correctness Religion have been telling us what we can say and what we cannot. If you say one bad joke, you are automatically put on trial. The Inquisition is back, but this time in English.
But there is one person who has taken it upon himself to counter this trend, using the very social media networks that have created this problem.
His name is Donald Trump, the same person who has been dismissed all through the primaries and the general election, only to prove his detractors wrong, eventually becoming the 45th president of the United States.
He has already fulfilled his most important pledges, among them the appointment of two Supreme Court justices and 50 federal judges to lower courts.
The US economy is on fire despite the ongoing spats with China. And despite the domestic problems he faces at home, he has managed to successfully amend free-trade agreements, create new alliances and successfully promote US interests in NATO and other international bodies.
He has maintained his policy of maximum pressure on Iran by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposing sanctions. Even the investigations into the alleged Russian interference in the election went nowhere, and now people are asking questions over law enforcement's conduct and why Trump's campaign was subject to wiretapping.
The Israeli public has also understood that the president has lived up to his promises, especially after his decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, as well as his decision to view Israeli settlements as consistent with international law and his executive order punishing campuses for allowing anti-Israel activity.
But the media herd, the intellectuals, and the fundamentalist liberals will just not let go. For them, Trump is like a red rag to a bull. They consider him a thug who has taken over the White House.
I had the opportunity to meet and interview him multiple times on the campaign trail and three times as president. I have come to the realization that Trump is one of the most important presidents in US history.
In a world where boundaries are blurred, where it is unclear who is good and who is bad, it is good to know that that the world's superpower is led by a person with moral clarity, a president who knows which side creates technology and develops medicine, and which side exports terrorism. He knows that there are some who are for liberty and some who live in darkness.
We live in an era where if you are a conservative, God forbid, you are automatically considered an enemy because you are against political correctness.
Some would say that he is vulgar, but he has forced the liberals to confront the reality they have created with their discourse on the "Deplorables," as Hillary Clinton called his supporters.
Trump is the man of the decade because he has been the leader of the good guys. Regardless of whether he wins another term, he has redefined the world and challenged the cardinals of the new Inquisition – and by doing that he changed our discourse and reality.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Caroline Glick writes that “Thanks to the Obama administration's political, economic and military support for Iran, when President Donald Trump entered office in January 2017, Iran had effectively consolidated its control over an empire that stretched from Iran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. Yemen had also become an Iranian colony. With Trump's decision in May 2018 to withdraw the US from Obama's nuclear deal and reinstate US sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration began destabilizing Iran, at home and throughout its colonies. The protests, which began in Lebanon and Iraq in October and spread last month to Iran, are rooted in economic privation and dislocation fomented in large part by the US sanctions.”
WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH ….. GALLAGHER OR HIS ACCUSERS?
Fellow Navy SEALs call Edward Gallagher "toxic" and "freaking evil" in never-before-seen interviews
CBS News
December 27, 2019
Never-before-seen confidential video reveals shocking details from the war crimes investigation of a decorated Navy SEAL. In interviews obtained by "The Weekly," The New York Times' TV series, members of SEAL Team 7 told investigators they witnessed Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher stabbing a young ISIS fighter for no reason.
The SEALs call Gallagher "toxic," "evil" and a man who was "perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving," reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.
"I think he just wants to kill anybody he can," one said.
The testimony paints a chilling pattern of violence executed by their platoon chief.
"Did Eddie say anything when he did this or did he just literally pull out a knife and just start stabbing him?" one SEAL was asked.
"He just pulled out a knife and started stabbing him," he replied.
The evidence includes bodycam footage in which Gallagher is seen over the limp ISIS fighter's body before the camera is switched off.
Asked in the interviews if he interpreted the fighter as a threat when Gallagher stabbed him, one of the SEALs said, "I did not, no."
One of the SEALs confirmed that he views what happened that day, as well as other incidents, as war crimes.
In July, Gallagher was found not guilty by a military jury for the stabbing. He was, however, demoted after the jury convicted him of posing for a photo with the ISIS fighter's corpse.
Corey Scott, whose testimony in court was crucial to Gallagher's acquittal, was also interviewed in the videos. Asked if the fighter did anything to Gallagher that would justify the chief's actions, Scott said, "No."
But on the stand and after being given full immunity, Scott took the fall for the stabbing.
"They tried to frame me as a criminal from the get-go," he said.
The Navy Board also considered stripping Gallagher of his status as a Navy SEAL. But last month, President Trump intervened and restored Gallagher's rank.
"They wanted to take his pin away and I said, 'No, you're not going to take it away,'" he said at the time. "These are tough people, and we're going to protect our warfighters."
That move angered many in the Navy, including former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who was ousted after requesting the president not get involved in Gallagher's case.
"I don't think he really understands the full definition of a warfighter. A warfighter is a profession of arms, and a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to and they hold themselves to," Spencer said.
Gallagher, who just this week met with Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, called the SEALs' testimony "blatant lies" in a statement.
"My first reaction to seeing the videos was surprise and disgust that they would make up blatant lies about me, but I quickly realized that they were scared that the truth would come out of how cowardly they acted on deployment," he said. "I felt sorry for them that they thought it necessary to smear my name, but they never realized what the consequences of their lies would be."
An attorney for Gallagher said he is preparing a lawsuit against The New York Times and correspondent Dave Philipps.
"There were sections where the video inexplicably cut off, sections where you could hear the investigator coaching the witness in the hall, and probably the most unprofessional witness interview technique that any of us have ever seen," Tim Parlatore said in a statement. "Philipps' persistent desire to ignore the facts of this case, to continue to publish false and misleading articles months after the acquittal demonstrates clear bias and actual malice, which is why my client has instructed me to prepare a lawsuit against him and the New York Times."
Another attorney for Gallagher told CBS News, "The jury heard all the evidence — the prosecution's and the defense's — and acquitted Eddie of every single serious charge. Enough said."
EDITOR’S NOTE: I hate yo pass judgement on a courageous combat hero, but it also took a lot of courage for his accusers to speak out knowing that they would be shunned forever for ratting out a fellow SEAL. And if they are telling the truth, did President Trump act in Gallagher’s behalf before he knew what his accusers said.
Gallagher accuses his accusers of having been cowards during their missions. Could he be calling them cowards because they would not shoot at innocent civilians? Just a thought.
As for the planned lawsuit, it would be very nice to see The New York Times hit with a multimillion-dollar judgement.
CBS News
December 27, 2019
Never-before-seen confidential video reveals shocking details from the war crimes investigation of a decorated Navy SEAL. In interviews obtained by "The Weekly," The New York Times' TV series, members of SEAL Team 7 told investigators they witnessed Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher stabbing a young ISIS fighter for no reason.
The SEALs call Gallagher "toxic," "evil" and a man who was "perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving," reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.
"I think he just wants to kill anybody he can," one said.
The testimony paints a chilling pattern of violence executed by their platoon chief.
"Did Eddie say anything when he did this or did he just literally pull out a knife and just start stabbing him?" one SEAL was asked.
"He just pulled out a knife and started stabbing him," he replied.
The evidence includes bodycam footage in which Gallagher is seen over the limp ISIS fighter's body before the camera is switched off.
Asked in the interviews if he interpreted the fighter as a threat when Gallagher stabbed him, one of the SEALs said, "I did not, no."
One of the SEALs confirmed that he views what happened that day, as well as other incidents, as war crimes.
In July, Gallagher was found not guilty by a military jury for the stabbing. He was, however, demoted after the jury convicted him of posing for a photo with the ISIS fighter's corpse.
Corey Scott, whose testimony in court was crucial to Gallagher's acquittal, was also interviewed in the videos. Asked if the fighter did anything to Gallagher that would justify the chief's actions, Scott said, "No."
But on the stand and after being given full immunity, Scott took the fall for the stabbing.
"They tried to frame me as a criminal from the get-go," he said.
The Navy Board also considered stripping Gallagher of his status as a Navy SEAL. But last month, President Trump intervened and restored Gallagher's rank.
"They wanted to take his pin away and I said, 'No, you're not going to take it away,'" he said at the time. "These are tough people, and we're going to protect our warfighters."
That move angered many in the Navy, including former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who was ousted after requesting the president not get involved in Gallagher's case.
"I don't think he really understands the full definition of a warfighter. A warfighter is a profession of arms, and a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to and they hold themselves to," Spencer said.
Gallagher, who just this week met with Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, called the SEALs' testimony "blatant lies" in a statement.
"My first reaction to seeing the videos was surprise and disgust that they would make up blatant lies about me, but I quickly realized that they were scared that the truth would come out of how cowardly they acted on deployment," he said. "I felt sorry for them that they thought it necessary to smear my name, but they never realized what the consequences of their lies would be."
An attorney for Gallagher said he is preparing a lawsuit against The New York Times and correspondent Dave Philipps.
"There were sections where the video inexplicably cut off, sections where you could hear the investigator coaching the witness in the hall, and probably the most unprofessional witness interview technique that any of us have ever seen," Tim Parlatore said in a statement. "Philipps' persistent desire to ignore the facts of this case, to continue to publish false and misleading articles months after the acquittal demonstrates clear bias and actual malice, which is why my client has instructed me to prepare a lawsuit against him and the New York Times."
Another attorney for Gallagher told CBS News, "The jury heard all the evidence — the prosecution's and the defense's — and acquitted Eddie of every single serious charge. Enough said."
EDITOR’S NOTE: I hate yo pass judgement on a courageous combat hero, but it also took a lot of courage for his accusers to speak out knowing that they would be shunned forever for ratting out a fellow SEAL. And if they are telling the truth, did President Trump act in Gallagher’s behalf before he knew what his accusers said.
Gallagher accuses his accusers of having been cowards during their missions. Could he be calling them cowards because they would not shoot at innocent civilians? Just a thought.
As for the planned lawsuit, it would be very nice to see The New York Times hit with a multimillion-dollar judgement.
GOVERNORS CUOMO AND NEWSOM, A MATCHED SET
N.Y. Gov. Cuomo blocks some federal judges from officiating at weddings — because they might be Trump nominees
By Allan Smith
NBC News
December 23, 2019
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has vetoed a noncontroversial bipartisan bill that would have allowed all federal judges to officiate weddings in the state because some might have been nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump.
"I cannot in good conscience support legislation that would authorize such actions by federal judges who are appointed by this federal administration," Cuomo's veto message stated.
"President Trump does not embody who we are as New Yorkers," the Democratic governor added Friday. "The cornerstones that built our great state are diversity, tolerance and inclusion. Based on these reasons, I must veto this bill."
The legislation, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger, passed the state Senate by a 61-to-1 vote. It passed the state Assembly by a 144-to-2 tally. Both the state Senate and the Assembly are under Democratic control.
Currently, New York law permits all state judges in their official capacity to preside over wedding ceremonies, although only certain federal judges — like those in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and those at each of the state's federal district courts — are eligible to preside over weddings. This bill would have expanded the wedding authority to all federal judges, largely those from outside New York.
"Four years ago, we gave the governor the ability to perform marriages," Krueger said in a statement. "Two years ago, we gave legislators that ability. Marriage in New York is inclusive, equal, and open to all who want it. So when it was suggested to me that we expand it to federal judges, I thought, 'Why not? The more the merrier!' I'm certainly no fan of the judges this president is choosing to appoint — but since any New Yorker can become a minister online for $25 and legally perform weddings, I didn't consider this to be a major issue."
Trump has now had nearly 190 federal judges confirmed through his first term, including 1 in every 4 circuit court judges.
The Federal Judges Association declined to comment on Cuomo's veto, saying that the "solemnization of marriage is within the sole jurisdiction of individual states which control all matters of family law."
"Federal Judges do enjoy performing wedding ceremonies as a function granted specifically by the laws of many states in the Union, but that grant of authority is not universal," U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, president of the Federal Judges Association, told NBC News in a statement.
The White House declined to comment. Cuomo did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Cuomo and California's Newsom do not govern for all the people in their respective states. They govern only for the Democrats, and the far-left Dems at that.
By Allan Smith
NBC News
December 23, 2019
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has vetoed a noncontroversial bipartisan bill that would have allowed all federal judges to officiate weddings in the state because some might have been nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump.
"I cannot in good conscience support legislation that would authorize such actions by federal judges who are appointed by this federal administration," Cuomo's veto message stated.
"President Trump does not embody who we are as New Yorkers," the Democratic governor added Friday. "The cornerstones that built our great state are diversity, tolerance and inclusion. Based on these reasons, I must veto this bill."
The legislation, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger, passed the state Senate by a 61-to-1 vote. It passed the state Assembly by a 144-to-2 tally. Both the state Senate and the Assembly are under Democratic control.
Currently, New York law permits all state judges in their official capacity to preside over wedding ceremonies, although only certain federal judges — like those in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and those at each of the state's federal district courts — are eligible to preside over weddings. This bill would have expanded the wedding authority to all federal judges, largely those from outside New York.
"Four years ago, we gave the governor the ability to perform marriages," Krueger said in a statement. "Two years ago, we gave legislators that ability. Marriage in New York is inclusive, equal, and open to all who want it. So when it was suggested to me that we expand it to federal judges, I thought, 'Why not? The more the merrier!' I'm certainly no fan of the judges this president is choosing to appoint — but since any New Yorker can become a minister online for $25 and legally perform weddings, I didn't consider this to be a major issue."
Trump has now had nearly 190 federal judges confirmed through his first term, including 1 in every 4 circuit court judges.
The Federal Judges Association declined to comment on Cuomo's veto, saying that the "solemnization of marriage is within the sole jurisdiction of individual states which control all matters of family law."
"Federal Judges do enjoy performing wedding ceremonies as a function granted specifically by the laws of many states in the Union, but that grant of authority is not universal," U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, president of the Federal Judges Association, told NBC News in a statement.
The White House declined to comment. Cuomo did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Cuomo and California's Newsom do not govern for all the people in their respective states. They govern only for the Democrats, and the far-left Dems at that.
AN EVIL ALLIANCE
Russia, China, Iran start joint naval drills in Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean
Reuters
December 27, 2019
DUBAI/MOSCOW -- Iran, China and Russia began joint naval drills on Friday in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, in what Moscow said was an unprecedented exercise in naval cooperation and training.
Waters around Iran have become a focus for international tensions, with the United States exerting pressure for Iranian crude oil sales and other trade ties to be cut off.
“The message of this exercise is peace, friendship and lasting security through cooperation and unity... and its result will be to show that Iran cannot be isolated,” Iranian flotilla admiral Gholamreza Tahani said on state television.
The broadcaster said the drills included rescuing ships on fire or vessels under attack by pirates and shooting exercises.
The Gulf of Oman is a particularly sensitive waterway as it connects to the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes and which in turn connects to the Gulf.
Washington proposed a U.S.-led naval mission following several attacks in May and June on international merchant vessels, including Saudi tankers, in Gulf waters which the United States blamed on Iran. It denies the accusations.
President Donald Trump last year pulled the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions on the country, crippling its economy.
Tension has risen in the region not only over Iran’s disputed nuclear program but also over a September attack on Saudi oil facilities blamed on Iran by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Iran also denies involvement in that.
China said on Thursday it was sending a guided missile destroyer to the four-day drills, which it called a “normal military exchange” between the three armed forces.
“It is not necessarily connected with the regional situation,” a Chinese defense ministry spokesman said.
China has close diplomatic, trade and energy ties with Iran, which has friendly ties with Russia.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday it had sent three ships from its Baltic Fleet - a frigate, a tanker and a rescue tug boat - to take part in the drills, Red Star, the official newspaper of Russia’s armed forces, reported.
The ministry was cited as saying that it was the first time that such drills were being held in such a format.
Both Russia and China also have good relations with Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Reuters
December 27, 2019
DUBAI/MOSCOW -- Iran, China and Russia began joint naval drills on Friday in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, in what Moscow said was an unprecedented exercise in naval cooperation and training.
Waters around Iran have become a focus for international tensions, with the United States exerting pressure for Iranian crude oil sales and other trade ties to be cut off.
“The message of this exercise is peace, friendship and lasting security through cooperation and unity... and its result will be to show that Iran cannot be isolated,” Iranian flotilla admiral Gholamreza Tahani said on state television.
The broadcaster said the drills included rescuing ships on fire or vessels under attack by pirates and shooting exercises.
The Gulf of Oman is a particularly sensitive waterway as it connects to the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes and which in turn connects to the Gulf.
Washington proposed a U.S.-led naval mission following several attacks in May and June on international merchant vessels, including Saudi tankers, in Gulf waters which the United States blamed on Iran. It denies the accusations.
President Donald Trump last year pulled the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions on the country, crippling its economy.
Tension has risen in the region not only over Iran’s disputed nuclear program but also over a September attack on Saudi oil facilities blamed on Iran by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Iran also denies involvement in that.
China said on Thursday it was sending a guided missile destroyer to the four-day drills, which it called a “normal military exchange” between the three armed forces.
“It is not necessarily connected with the regional situation,” a Chinese defense ministry spokesman said.
China has close diplomatic, trade and energy ties with Iran, which has friendly ties with Russia.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday it had sent three ships from its Baltic Fleet - a frigate, a tanker and a rescue tug boat - to take part in the drills, Red Star, the official newspaper of Russia’s armed forces, reported.
The ministry was cited as saying that it was the first time that such drills were being held in such a format.
Both Russia and China also have good relations with Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Friday, December 27, 2019
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
By Howie Katz
In 1938, Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels were enjoying the view of snow-covered Bavarian Alps outside Hitler’s Kehlsteinhaus ("Eagle's Nest") near Berchtesgaden when suddenly a big dog appeared, lifted his hind leg and peed all over Der Fuhrer’s shiny right boot.
Infuriated, Der Fuhrer shouted at SS Oberscharführer Rochus Misch, his bodyguard: “Misch, schießen das verdammte hund!”
Misch clicked his heels together, gave the Nazi salute, and shouted: “Heil Hitler, jawohl mein Fuhrer.” Misch then drew his pistol and fired a couple of shots at the dog. He missed and the dog got away.
“Ach, du dummkopf,” Hitler yelled at Misch.
Hitler then turned to Goebbels and asked: “Joseph, what kind of verfluchte hund was that?”
Goebbels thought for a brief moment, then replied: “Adolf, that must have been one of those Jewish schweinehunde you’ve been railing at in your speeches.”
In 1938, Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels were enjoying the view of snow-covered Bavarian Alps outside Hitler’s Kehlsteinhaus ("Eagle's Nest") near Berchtesgaden when suddenly a big dog appeared, lifted his hind leg and peed all over Der Fuhrer’s shiny right boot.
Infuriated, Der Fuhrer shouted at SS Oberscharführer Rochus Misch, his bodyguard: “Misch, schießen das verdammte hund!”
Misch clicked his heels together, gave the Nazi salute, and shouted: “Heil Hitler, jawohl mein Fuhrer.” Misch then drew his pistol and fired a couple of shots at the dog. He missed and the dog got away.
“Ach, du dummkopf,” Hitler yelled at Misch.
Hitler then turned to Goebbels and asked: “Joseph, what kind of verfluchte hund was that?”
Goebbels thought for a brief moment, then replied: “Adolf, that must have been one of those Jewish schweinehunde you’ve been railing at in your speeches.”
TEXAS CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT RECIDIVISM CLAIM OF ONLY 21.4 PERCENT HAS TO BE A FLAT-OUT LIE
Concordance Academy Eases the Post-Prison Transition
By Connor Smith
Barron’s Penta
December 12, 2019
Concordance Academy’s main campus, tucked in an office complex in the Maryland Heights borough of St. Louis, looks like your typical local college. Downstairs, students pack glass-walled classrooms that line the front-facing windows. There’s a lounge, equipped with a foosball table, chess boards, and other activities.
But walk up one flight of stairs and you’re in your local drugstore. Clocking in and stacking shelves in one room are former prisoners. Another room is built like a packaging facility, with folded-up boxes and products to pack.
A few weeks before, the former inmates were in the classrooms downstairs, learning life skills, coping mechanisms, and other lessons to help them transition into lives outside of prison, and make sure they never go back.
Of a sampling of 401,288 state prisoners released in 30 states in 2005, 44% were arrested again in their first year out, while 83% were incarcerated within nine years of release, according to a U.S. Department of Justice study published in 2018. That means communities spend more to battle crime, the cost of prison continues to skyrocket, and the labor market loses out on getting these workers into jobs.
In 2015, Danny Ludeman set about trying to change that by leveraging his financial skills as the former chief executive officer of Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis. He launched Concordance Academy, a nonprofit that helps ex-cons readjust in society after they are released from prison. Unlike other programs, Concordance doesn’t specialize in a specific service, like job placement, housing assistance, community involvement, mental health care, substance abuse services, or legal advice. The St. Louis nonprofit packages each of these services and more. “These participants are not going to make it just by receiving one or two services,” Ludeman says. “That’s why we’re holistic. They need wraparound services, and they need them for a while. No one heals in the first six weeks. No one fully heals.”
Ludeman, who is Concordance’s president and CEO, says the program is working since having accepted its first group of participants in 2016. While it may be too early to evaluate results, he said in early August that 57 of 314, or 18%, of participants going through the program had recidivated thus far.
According to the Department of Justice study, 44% of prisoners were arrested again in the first year, but the recidivism rate goes down as every year passes, Ludeman notes. The nonpartisan independent research group NORC at the University of Chicago is conducting a random, controlled trial studying Concordance, which will take about three years to complete.
The “evidence-based service model’’ was developed with researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Participants spend 18 months in the program, starting six months prior to leaving prison, and continuing for a year after that.
Ludeman first learned about evidence-driven practice while leading a local United Way campaign. He says with any philanthropy, giving from the heart isn’t always enough if donors don’t get to see real results firsthand. “And so, because of that, I wanted to make sure whatever we implemented was scientifically effective,” he says.
Concordance plans to expand initially to three states and then “franchise’’ the model to each state in the U.S. by 2027. The organization is currently working with Illinois and Missouri to secure Pay for Success contracts, in which governments collaborate with outside investors, and tying funding to success that can be measured. “It’s a leading-edge approach to funding for a nonprofit, and it ensures that the services each state is funding are actually delivering results,” Ludeman says.
He hopes Concordance will be in Kansas and possibly Virginia by 2021. “We are basically creating the franchise model. We know exactly what a location needs, what the staff needs to be, and how to train them.”
As part of the national expansion plan, Concordance has sought mostly national firms as partners, including TAGG Logistics, to employ participants, and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, which provides legal services. “Everything we’re doing has scale in mind,” Ludeman says.
Incarceration issues have vaunted into the public discourse as the U.S. jail and prison population has exploded to 2.2 million in 2016, from 329,122 in 1980, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The bipartisan First Step Act eases drug-related mandatory minimums, among other re-entry initiatives. Though ending mass incarceration has become a major theme among Democratic presidential candidates, what happens when people get out of prison is even more important, Ludeman says.
Solving this issue could reduce the strain on taxpayers, boost the workforce, and reduce crime. Though costs differ by state and type of facility, it costs an average of $32,704 annually to house federal inmates, according to the Bureau of Prisons. The average annual outlay in Missouri is $22,187 per prisoner. Though the prison population has fallen slightly in recent years, in part due to efforts to release nonviolent inmates, recidivism remains stubborn.
“The effect on predominantly minority communities has been immeasurable,” says John Roman, an economics, justice, and society senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago, referring to mass incarceration.
Researchers receive a list of people slated to be released during certain times so they randomly select those to offer the program. Those who turn down the program are still tracked to measure their progress and to compare outcomes with participants. “This kind of research takes a long time, that’s why there’s so little of it,” Roman says. “It takes patience. It’s a real investment.’’
Concordance participants are paid a stipend and attend daily classes. Concordance works with people like James, who spent 11 years in a Missouri prison before his release in May, and who, like other former inmates, faces many obstacles. (He withheld his last name out of safety concerns). James didn’t have a driver’s license, a Social Security card, or a copy of his birth certificate.
Even simple changes in technology presented challenges. On one of his first days out, he says he confused a vacuum cleaner at a local gas station for a pay phone. “When I walked over and looked at it, I started laughing at myself,” he says. “I had to get accustomed to a whole lot of things.”
James, 46, says the staff, including therapists, instructors, and case workers, and the programs at Concordance have helped him maintain his sobriety, reconnect with family, including a son and daughter, and obtain a job cleaning equipment at a local bakery chain. “I knew I needed some help,” he says. “Honestly, I knew I did. A job was very important. Keeping my sobriety was very important. Without my sobriety, I would not have a job. I would not have reconciliation with my family. I have been readjusted in so many aspects of my life through this program.’’
The academy has received support from dozens of local and national donors, including the AT&T Aspire initiative, which provides access to job training; health insurer Centene’s charitable foundation, Enterprise Holdings Foundation, and Ludeman himself. At a fund-raising event in October, Concordance raised a full $1 million.
“I thought it was a great idea,” says Centene CEO Michael Neidorff. “You’re giving people what this country was founded on—a second chance. We always say they paid their debt to society. Let’s give them an opportunity to do something more.”
The private sector has provided nearly all of the funding for academy services, but that revenue model isn’t sustainable, Ludeman says. That’s why Pay for Success is critical. He says that talks have been “extremely productive’’ and he’s “hopeful that progress will continue’’ in order to get contracts.
Ludeman says that nothing justifies a crime, but it’s important to be aware that the deck has been stacked against most ex-convicts.
“It’s just inexplicable, horrific, the experience our participants have had—pretty much all by the age of nine,” Ludeman says. “It does help to understand the horrific environments that almost all of our participants grew up in that leads to all of these different things, starting with substance abuse or mental health, to lack of education, lack of job readiness, lack of any type of family or positive supports, all the way down to the perpetual stigma of being a felon.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Concordance Academy looks like a promising program.
When you look at the nation’s recidivism rate, the Texas claim of only 21.4 percent, which is less than half of the nation’s average, cannot be true. Texas does not have a magic recidivism elixir. If Texas has a lower recidivism rate than the rest of the nation it is only because parolees receive practically no supervision. If they are returned to prison it is only because they have been sentenced by a court for committing a new crime.
By Connor Smith
Barron’s Penta
December 12, 2019
Concordance Academy’s main campus, tucked in an office complex in the Maryland Heights borough of St. Louis, looks like your typical local college. Downstairs, students pack glass-walled classrooms that line the front-facing windows. There’s a lounge, equipped with a foosball table, chess boards, and other activities.
But walk up one flight of stairs and you’re in your local drugstore. Clocking in and stacking shelves in one room are former prisoners. Another room is built like a packaging facility, with folded-up boxes and products to pack.
A few weeks before, the former inmates were in the classrooms downstairs, learning life skills, coping mechanisms, and other lessons to help them transition into lives outside of prison, and make sure they never go back.
Of a sampling of 401,288 state prisoners released in 30 states in 2005, 44% were arrested again in their first year out, while 83% were incarcerated within nine years of release, according to a U.S. Department of Justice study published in 2018. That means communities spend more to battle crime, the cost of prison continues to skyrocket, and the labor market loses out on getting these workers into jobs.
In 2015, Danny Ludeman set about trying to change that by leveraging his financial skills as the former chief executive officer of Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis. He launched Concordance Academy, a nonprofit that helps ex-cons readjust in society after they are released from prison. Unlike other programs, Concordance doesn’t specialize in a specific service, like job placement, housing assistance, community involvement, mental health care, substance abuse services, or legal advice. The St. Louis nonprofit packages each of these services and more. “These participants are not going to make it just by receiving one or two services,” Ludeman says. “That’s why we’re holistic. They need wraparound services, and they need them for a while. No one heals in the first six weeks. No one fully heals.”
Ludeman, who is Concordance’s president and CEO, says the program is working since having accepted its first group of participants in 2016. While it may be too early to evaluate results, he said in early August that 57 of 314, or 18%, of participants going through the program had recidivated thus far.
According to the Department of Justice study, 44% of prisoners were arrested again in the first year, but the recidivism rate goes down as every year passes, Ludeman notes. The nonpartisan independent research group NORC at the University of Chicago is conducting a random, controlled trial studying Concordance, which will take about three years to complete.
The “evidence-based service model’’ was developed with researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Participants spend 18 months in the program, starting six months prior to leaving prison, and continuing for a year after that.
Ludeman first learned about evidence-driven practice while leading a local United Way campaign. He says with any philanthropy, giving from the heart isn’t always enough if donors don’t get to see real results firsthand. “And so, because of that, I wanted to make sure whatever we implemented was scientifically effective,” he says.
Concordance plans to expand initially to three states and then “franchise’’ the model to each state in the U.S. by 2027. The organization is currently working with Illinois and Missouri to secure Pay for Success contracts, in which governments collaborate with outside investors, and tying funding to success that can be measured. “It’s a leading-edge approach to funding for a nonprofit, and it ensures that the services each state is funding are actually delivering results,” Ludeman says.
He hopes Concordance will be in Kansas and possibly Virginia by 2021. “We are basically creating the franchise model. We know exactly what a location needs, what the staff needs to be, and how to train them.”
As part of the national expansion plan, Concordance has sought mostly national firms as partners, including TAGG Logistics, to employ participants, and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, which provides legal services. “Everything we’re doing has scale in mind,” Ludeman says.
Incarceration issues have vaunted into the public discourse as the U.S. jail and prison population has exploded to 2.2 million in 2016, from 329,122 in 1980, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The bipartisan First Step Act eases drug-related mandatory minimums, among other re-entry initiatives. Though ending mass incarceration has become a major theme among Democratic presidential candidates, what happens when people get out of prison is even more important, Ludeman says.
Solving this issue could reduce the strain on taxpayers, boost the workforce, and reduce crime. Though costs differ by state and type of facility, it costs an average of $32,704 annually to house federal inmates, according to the Bureau of Prisons. The average annual outlay in Missouri is $22,187 per prisoner. Though the prison population has fallen slightly in recent years, in part due to efforts to release nonviolent inmates, recidivism remains stubborn.
“The effect on predominantly minority communities has been immeasurable,” says John Roman, an economics, justice, and society senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago, referring to mass incarceration.
Researchers receive a list of people slated to be released during certain times so they randomly select those to offer the program. Those who turn down the program are still tracked to measure their progress and to compare outcomes with participants. “This kind of research takes a long time, that’s why there’s so little of it,” Roman says. “It takes patience. It’s a real investment.’’
Concordance participants are paid a stipend and attend daily classes. Concordance works with people like James, who spent 11 years in a Missouri prison before his release in May, and who, like other former inmates, faces many obstacles. (He withheld his last name out of safety concerns). James didn’t have a driver’s license, a Social Security card, or a copy of his birth certificate.
Even simple changes in technology presented challenges. On one of his first days out, he says he confused a vacuum cleaner at a local gas station for a pay phone. “When I walked over and looked at it, I started laughing at myself,” he says. “I had to get accustomed to a whole lot of things.”
James, 46, says the staff, including therapists, instructors, and case workers, and the programs at Concordance have helped him maintain his sobriety, reconnect with family, including a son and daughter, and obtain a job cleaning equipment at a local bakery chain. “I knew I needed some help,” he says. “Honestly, I knew I did. A job was very important. Keeping my sobriety was very important. Without my sobriety, I would not have a job. I would not have reconciliation with my family. I have been readjusted in so many aspects of my life through this program.’’
The academy has received support from dozens of local and national donors, including the AT&T Aspire initiative, which provides access to job training; health insurer Centene’s charitable foundation, Enterprise Holdings Foundation, and Ludeman himself. At a fund-raising event in October, Concordance raised a full $1 million.
“I thought it was a great idea,” says Centene CEO Michael Neidorff. “You’re giving people what this country was founded on—a second chance. We always say they paid their debt to society. Let’s give them an opportunity to do something more.”
The private sector has provided nearly all of the funding for academy services, but that revenue model isn’t sustainable, Ludeman says. That’s why Pay for Success is critical. He says that talks have been “extremely productive’’ and he’s “hopeful that progress will continue’’ in order to get contracts.
Ludeman says that nothing justifies a crime, but it’s important to be aware that the deck has been stacked against most ex-convicts.
“It’s just inexplicable, horrific, the experience our participants have had—pretty much all by the age of nine,” Ludeman says. “It does help to understand the horrific environments that almost all of our participants grew up in that leads to all of these different things, starting with substance abuse or mental health, to lack of education, lack of job readiness, lack of any type of family or positive supports, all the way down to the perpetual stigma of being a felon.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Concordance Academy looks like a promising program.
When you look at the nation’s recidivism rate, the Texas claim of only 21.4 percent, which is less than half of the nation’s average, cannot be true. Texas does not have a magic recidivism elixir. If Texas has a lower recidivism rate than the rest of the nation it is only because parolees receive practically no supervision. If they are returned to prison it is only because they have been sentenced by a court for committing a new crime.
TRUMP WANTS TO HELP GOVERNOR GAVIN
by Bob Walsh
President Trump has just announced that, if Governor Gavin Newsom can't get things going properly in the formerly great state of California the feds may have to move in and straighten out the homeless thing for him.
I can't imagine how they can actually do that, until they get an honest-to-god epidemic or three going on in the homeless encampments. That would give CDC some rights to move in. Wouldn't that be cool? Quarantine the whole state due to plague, typhoid and rampant government stupidity.
President Trump has just announced that, if Governor Gavin Newsom can't get things going properly in the formerly great state of California the feds may have to move in and straighten out the homeless thing for him.
I can't imagine how they can actually do that, until they get an honest-to-god epidemic or three going on in the homeless encampments. That would give CDC some rights to move in. Wouldn't that be cool? Quarantine the whole state due to plague, typhoid and rampant government stupidity.
NINE-YEAR OLD MURDERS HIS FAMILY IN ILLINOIS
by Bob Walsh
An unnamed nine-year old set fire to the family home in Goodfield, Illinois back in April. It killed four people, including two half-siblings and a cousin. His mother says he suffers from ADD, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Probably a fire bug too.
He is being examined to see if he is fit to stand trial. He has been charged with arson and four counts of murder.
I wonder who he is living with right now. Hopefully not in a wood frame house.
An unnamed nine-year old set fire to the family home in Goodfield, Illinois back in April. It killed four people, including two half-siblings and a cousin. His mother says he suffers from ADD, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Probably a fire bug too.
He is being examined to see if he is fit to stand trial. He has been charged with arson and four counts of murder.
I wonder who he is living with right now. Hopefully not in a wood frame house.
CHOOSING WINNERS
Even If They May Actually Be Losers
by Bob Walsh
If you build a single family house or small apartment building in the formerly great state of California starting in about a week you will be REQUIRED to have solar panels on the roof. It will cost about $10K per house. Also the builders will be STRONGLY ENCOURAGED to install a solar powered battery backup system, at another $10k to $20k per house.
They haven't got around to doing that for reroofs. Yet.
They are also pushing very hard to essentially outlaw new gasoline powered cars in CA in about eight years or so. Same with diesel powered large trucks. Think what THAT will do to the trucking industry. You have to stop your truck every two hours while going down I-5 to give it a 12 hour recharge. At least it will save the trouble of your drivers keeping a log book. They won't be on the road long enough for it to matter.
The nanny state is here, and it is growing.
Ho Ho Ho.
by Bob Walsh
If you build a single family house or small apartment building in the formerly great state of California starting in about a week you will be REQUIRED to have solar panels on the roof. It will cost about $10K per house. Also the builders will be STRONGLY ENCOURAGED to install a solar powered battery backup system, at another $10k to $20k per house.
They haven't got around to doing that for reroofs. Yet.
They are also pushing very hard to essentially outlaw new gasoline powered cars in CA in about eight years or so. Same with diesel powered large trucks. Think what THAT will do to the trucking industry. You have to stop your truck every two hours while going down I-5 to give it a 12 hour recharge. At least it will save the trouble of your drivers keeping a log book. They won't be on the road long enough for it to matter.
The nanny state is here, and it is growing.
Ho Ho Ho.
BLACK MARKET FLOURISHES AFTER LEGALIZATION OF POT
With up to 80% of California’s Weed Business Still in the Black Market, State Panel Suggests Returning to Ballot Box
KTLA 5
December 24, 2019
Two years after California began licensing pot shops, the industry remains so outmatched by the black market that a state panel recently joined some legalization supporters in calling for significant changes — perhaps turning again to voters to address the problems.
In its annual draft report, the Cannabis Advisory Committee warned Gov. Gavin Newsom and California legislators that high taxes, overly burdensome regulations and local control issues posed debilitating obstacles to the legal marijuana market.
With tax revenue about a third of what was expected and with only about 800 of an anticipated 6,000 licensees open for business, the panel said, officials may need to consider “revisiting the ballot initiative process.”
“Despite the state’s committed efforts to bring cannabis businesses fully into the regulated commercial market,” the report said, “as much as 80% of the cannabis market in California remains illicit.”
KTLA 5
December 24, 2019
Two years after California began licensing pot shops, the industry remains so outmatched by the black market that a state panel recently joined some legalization supporters in calling for significant changes — perhaps turning again to voters to address the problems.
In its annual draft report, the Cannabis Advisory Committee warned Gov. Gavin Newsom and California legislators that high taxes, overly burdensome regulations and local control issues posed debilitating obstacles to the legal marijuana market.
With tax revenue about a third of what was expected and with only about 800 of an anticipated 6,000 licensees open for business, the panel said, officials may need to consider “revisiting the ballot initiative process.”
“Despite the state’s committed efforts to bring cannabis businesses fully into the regulated commercial market,” the report said, “as much as 80% of the cannabis market in California remains illicit.”
BECAUSE THEY ARE DEMOCRATS, THEIR BIGOTRY DOES NOT MATTER
Liberal women's magazine ignores liberal women's bigotry
by Madeline Fry
Washington Examiner
December 18, 2019
Some of Elle magazine's political favorites may be leftist darlings, but that can't hide their bigotry problem.
The women’s lifestyle magazine just released a list of “20 Women Of Color In Politics To Watch In 2020.” It’s no surprise that they’re all left-wing, and not even Tulsi Gabbard makes it on the list (but a transgender woman does).
The surprising thing about this woke list of political activists, though, is that it’s not actually as woke as it thinks.
In fact, the list includes several women with histories of bigotry: MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who has evaded questions about her anti-gay blog posts; Linda Sarsour, the ex-Women’s March co-chairwoman who left the organization following condemnation of her support of anti-Semitic remarks; and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who has her own anti-Semitism problem.
Are these women really the political activists that women should look up to? The Elle article praises Reid as someone who “knows the media can do a better job in telling a more inclusive story about this country, one in which all people are represented and seen, and she works to elevate the voices of women of color, immigrants, and other diverse perspectives.”
This is the same Reid who claimed that hackers were responsible for anti-gay comments such as this one: “adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types.”
And according to one former colleague, working alongside Reid was far from elevating. "It was a very unhealthy work environment because of her attitude," former radio co-host Andre Eggelletion said last year. "She attacked me on a constant basis while I was there. I was even once threatened with physical violence during a break with her."
Then, there’s Linda Sarsour, who has supported Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam who compared Jews to “termites.” Sarsour’s ties with the Women’s March became a liability after she continually promulgated anti-Semitic tropes, and she hasn’t stopped. Last month, she claimed that “Israel was built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everybody else.”
Yet, Elle gushes: "Linda says she's guided by a radical love for her community and the belief that we are deserving of a democracy that works for all of us."
Finally, we have Rashida Tlaib. Tlaib has invoked Nazi Germany to defend the boycott, divest, and sanctions movement against Israel, claimed that a two-state solution would legitimize Israel’s “inequality, ethnic discrimination, and inhumane conditions,” and posed for photos with terrorist sympathizers.
But, according to Elle, "She has shown up as a woman with the courage and integrity to speak truth to power in the name of justice for the most vulnerable people among us."
These are the women whom Elle says will shape politics in 2020. They may have problems with bigotry, but they're in the right political party, so apparently, those pesky problems don't matter.
by Madeline Fry
Washington Examiner
December 18, 2019
Some of Elle magazine's political favorites may be leftist darlings, but that can't hide their bigotry problem.
The women’s lifestyle magazine just released a list of “20 Women Of Color In Politics To Watch In 2020.” It’s no surprise that they’re all left-wing, and not even Tulsi Gabbard makes it on the list (but a transgender woman does).
The surprising thing about this woke list of political activists, though, is that it’s not actually as woke as it thinks.
In fact, the list includes several women with histories of bigotry: MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who has evaded questions about her anti-gay blog posts; Linda Sarsour, the ex-Women’s March co-chairwoman who left the organization following condemnation of her support of anti-Semitic remarks; and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who has her own anti-Semitism problem.
Are these women really the political activists that women should look up to? The Elle article praises Reid as someone who “knows the media can do a better job in telling a more inclusive story about this country, one in which all people are represented and seen, and she works to elevate the voices of women of color, immigrants, and other diverse perspectives.”
This is the same Reid who claimed that hackers were responsible for anti-gay comments such as this one: “adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types.”
And according to one former colleague, working alongside Reid was far from elevating. "It was a very unhealthy work environment because of her attitude," former radio co-host Andre Eggelletion said last year. "She attacked me on a constant basis while I was there. I was even once threatened with physical violence during a break with her."
Then, there’s Linda Sarsour, who has supported Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam who compared Jews to “termites.” Sarsour’s ties with the Women’s March became a liability after she continually promulgated anti-Semitic tropes, and she hasn’t stopped. Last month, she claimed that “Israel was built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everybody else.”
Yet, Elle gushes: "Linda says she's guided by a radical love for her community and the belief that we are deserving of a democracy that works for all of us."
Finally, we have Rashida Tlaib. Tlaib has invoked Nazi Germany to defend the boycott, divest, and sanctions movement against Israel, claimed that a two-state solution would legitimize Israel’s “inequality, ethnic discrimination, and inhumane conditions,” and posed for photos with terrorist sympathizers.
But, according to Elle, "She has shown up as a woman with the courage and integrity to speak truth to power in the name of justice for the most vulnerable people among us."
These are the women whom Elle says will shape politics in 2020. They may have problems with bigotry, but they're in the right political party, so apparently, those pesky problems don't matter.
SANDERS OR BIDEN?
Democratic insiders: Bernie could win the nomination
By Holly Otterbein and David Siders
Politico
December 26, 2019
Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is being taken seriously.
For months, the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020.
But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives and pundits are reconsidering Sanders’ chances.
“It may have been inevitable that eventually you would have two candidates representing each side of the ideological divide in the party. A lot of smart people I’ve talked to lately think there’s a very good chance those two end up being Biden and Sanders,” said David Brock, a longtime Hillary Clinton ally who founded a pro-Clinton super PAC in the 2016 campaign. “They’ve both proven to be very resilient.”
Democratic insiders said they are rethinking Sanders’ bid for a few reasons: First, Warren has recently fallen in national and early state surveys. Second, Sanders has withstood the ups and downs of the primary, including a heart attack. At the same time, other candidates with once-high expectations, such as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke, have dropped out or languished in single digits in the polls.
“I believe people should take him very seriously. He has a very good shot of winning Iowa, a very good shot of winning New Hampshire, and other than Joe Biden, the best shot of winning Nevada,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama. “He could build a real head of steam heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.”
The durability of Sanders’ candidacy has come as a surprise even in some states where he performed strongly in 2016 and where he is attempting to improve his standing ahead of the 2020 election.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who defeated a Sanders-backed Democrat for his seat in the liberal-heavy San Francisco area in 2016, said Sanders has been “more resilient than I anticipated.”
“But in retrospect,” he added, “he has a very, very loyal following, and people have really stuck with him.”
Sanders is in second place in national polls, nearly 9 percentage points behind Biden, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics average. He is second in Iowa and first in New Hampshire. The latest CNN poll found he has the highest net favorability rating of any Democratic presidential candidate.
While Sanders’ supporters complain relentlessly that he has received less attention from the media than other candidates, he has also avoided sustained criticism that some of his rivals have suffered. That could be helping him, especially compared with Warren, who has recently come under fire from the left and center for her health care plan.
“If you really think about it, Bernie hasn’t been hit a lot with anything. It’s not like he’s getting hit by other campaigns,” said Michael Ceraso, a former New Hampshire director for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign who worked for Sanders in 2016.
“You sort of take for granted that he, like Biden, are institutional figures for very different reasons,” Ceraso said. “Early in the campaign, Bernie’s people said, ‘Look, this guy in these early states has a nice hold, and there’s a percentage of supporters, a quarter of the electorate will potentially go for him.'” He added, “It waned a little bit because people were looking at other options … and now they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, this guy has been the most consistent of anyone.'”
At the beginning of the year — another high point for Sanders’ campaign, before Warren surged — some establishment Democrats talked about how to stop his momentum. Brock, who has a close relationship with many Democratic donors, said he has not heard anything like that in recent weeks: “That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. This is more of an analysis in the political world than in the donor world.”
Many moderate Democrats still dismiss Sanders’ candidacy. They believe his so-called ceiling remains intact and that Warren will depress any room for growth he might otherwise have.
“He can’t win the nomination,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, adding that Sanders’ uptick is simply him “bouncing around between his ceiling and his floor a little bit more than people had thought he would.”
On the other hand, he acknowledged his staying power. “Not until the very end will people say to Bernie Sanders, ‘When are you dropping out?’”
A series of TV segments around last week’s Democratic debate illustrate the shift in how Sanders is being perceived. “We never talk about Bernie Sanders. He is actually doing pretty well in this polling,” former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said on CNN after the event. “He’s actually picked up. And the fact is Bernie Sanders is as consistent as consistent can be.”
The same day on MSNBC, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki said, “Democratic voters like him, and if he starts winning, there could be a bandwagon effect.” GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who conducted a California focus group that found most participants thought Sanders had won the debate, said on CNBC, “I think you’re going to see continued movement. Sanders has been gaining in California over the past two months.”
Larry Cohen, chairman of the pro-Sanders group Our Revolution, said Warren’s candidacy is not a problem for Sanders if both of them can — together — amass a plurality of delegates heading into the convention.
“The math is that if you think of the voters for Warren and the voters for Sanders as two circles, yes, there is overlap, [but] most of the circles are separate,” Cohen said. “I think between them, we can get to a majority.”
If Sanders’ candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an examination of his electability. “That conversation has never worked well for anyone,” Pfeiffer said.
Former California Gov. Gray Davis stopped short of saying firm support for "Medicare for All" would be an impediment for Democrats in the primary but suggested the risk for the nominee is significant.
“Californians and Americans, in general, like options — not mandates,” he said.
Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said political insiders and pundits are rethinking his chances “not out of the goodness of their heart,” but because “it is harder and harder to ignore him when he’s rising in every average that you see.” And he welcomes a conversation about Sanders’ electability, he said.
“We want that,” he said. “I’d love to be able to argue why he stands a better chance to beat Donald Trump than Joe Biden.”
By Holly Otterbein and David Siders
Politico
December 26, 2019
Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is being taken seriously.
For months, the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020.
But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives and pundits are reconsidering Sanders’ chances.
“It may have been inevitable that eventually you would have two candidates representing each side of the ideological divide in the party. A lot of smart people I’ve talked to lately think there’s a very good chance those two end up being Biden and Sanders,” said David Brock, a longtime Hillary Clinton ally who founded a pro-Clinton super PAC in the 2016 campaign. “They’ve both proven to be very resilient.”
Democratic insiders said they are rethinking Sanders’ bid for a few reasons: First, Warren has recently fallen in national and early state surveys. Second, Sanders has withstood the ups and downs of the primary, including a heart attack. At the same time, other candidates with once-high expectations, such as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke, have dropped out or languished in single digits in the polls.
“I believe people should take him very seriously. He has a very good shot of winning Iowa, a very good shot of winning New Hampshire, and other than Joe Biden, the best shot of winning Nevada,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama. “He could build a real head of steam heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.”
The durability of Sanders’ candidacy has come as a surprise even in some states where he performed strongly in 2016 and where he is attempting to improve his standing ahead of the 2020 election.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who defeated a Sanders-backed Democrat for his seat in the liberal-heavy San Francisco area in 2016, said Sanders has been “more resilient than I anticipated.”
“But in retrospect,” he added, “he has a very, very loyal following, and people have really stuck with him.”
Sanders is in second place in national polls, nearly 9 percentage points behind Biden, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics average. He is second in Iowa and first in New Hampshire. The latest CNN poll found he has the highest net favorability rating of any Democratic presidential candidate.
While Sanders’ supporters complain relentlessly that he has received less attention from the media than other candidates, he has also avoided sustained criticism that some of his rivals have suffered. That could be helping him, especially compared with Warren, who has recently come under fire from the left and center for her health care plan.
“If you really think about it, Bernie hasn’t been hit a lot with anything. It’s not like he’s getting hit by other campaigns,” said Michael Ceraso, a former New Hampshire director for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign who worked for Sanders in 2016.
“You sort of take for granted that he, like Biden, are institutional figures for very different reasons,” Ceraso said. “Early in the campaign, Bernie’s people said, ‘Look, this guy in these early states has a nice hold, and there’s a percentage of supporters, a quarter of the electorate will potentially go for him.'” He added, “It waned a little bit because people were looking at other options … and now they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, this guy has been the most consistent of anyone.'”
At the beginning of the year — another high point for Sanders’ campaign, before Warren surged — some establishment Democrats talked about how to stop his momentum. Brock, who has a close relationship with many Democratic donors, said he has not heard anything like that in recent weeks: “That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. This is more of an analysis in the political world than in the donor world.”
Many moderate Democrats still dismiss Sanders’ candidacy. They believe his so-called ceiling remains intact and that Warren will depress any room for growth he might otherwise have.
“He can’t win the nomination,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, adding that Sanders’ uptick is simply him “bouncing around between his ceiling and his floor a little bit more than people had thought he would.”
On the other hand, he acknowledged his staying power. “Not until the very end will people say to Bernie Sanders, ‘When are you dropping out?’”
A series of TV segments around last week’s Democratic debate illustrate the shift in how Sanders is being perceived. “We never talk about Bernie Sanders. He is actually doing pretty well in this polling,” former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said on CNN after the event. “He’s actually picked up. And the fact is Bernie Sanders is as consistent as consistent can be.”
The same day on MSNBC, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki said, “Democratic voters like him, and if he starts winning, there could be a bandwagon effect.” GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who conducted a California focus group that found most participants thought Sanders had won the debate, said on CNBC, “I think you’re going to see continued movement. Sanders has been gaining in California over the past two months.”
Larry Cohen, chairman of the pro-Sanders group Our Revolution, said Warren’s candidacy is not a problem for Sanders if both of them can — together — amass a plurality of delegates heading into the convention.
“The math is that if you think of the voters for Warren and the voters for Sanders as two circles, yes, there is overlap, [but] most of the circles are separate,” Cohen said. “I think between them, we can get to a majority.”
If Sanders’ candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an examination of his electability. “That conversation has never worked well for anyone,” Pfeiffer said.
Former California Gov. Gray Davis stopped short of saying firm support for "Medicare for All" would be an impediment for Democrats in the primary but suggested the risk for the nominee is significant.
“Californians and Americans, in general, like options — not mandates,” he said.
Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said political insiders and pundits are rethinking his chances “not out of the goodness of their heart,” but because “it is harder and harder to ignore him when he’s rising in every average that you see.” And he welcomes a conversation about Sanders’ electability, he said.
“We want that,” he said. “I’d love to be able to argue why he stands a better chance to beat Donald Trump than Joe Biden.”
THIS TINE IT IS PERSONAL — FOR US
“America First” is an honorable slogan; America’s traditional culture, values, and history are precious
By Dov Fischer
The American Spectator
December 20, 2019
Those pathological haters and congenital liars impeached not only President Trump on Wednesday night. They impeached us. This time it is personal. That is my vote they are trying to take away. As an Orthodox Jew, I know plenty about governments taking away my vote. Rome did it to me in Talmudic times. Western Europe did it to me in the Medieval ages. The Ottoman Sultan did it to me. Sheiks did it to me. The Tsar did it to me. Hitler did it to me. Stalin did it to me. Damned if I am going to let a mob of socialist and lying Democrats do it to me. The muck stops here.
For four years, polling has documented that the president’s strongest support demographic is America’s Orthodox Jews. The support runs between 70 percent in radical Los Angeles to 90 percent most everywhere else. This has been documented here and here and here and here and here. Much of that support stems from a deep affinity with his stands on the whole gamut of traditional American cultural and social issues. Many faithful Christians, including devout and committed Catholics, small business owners, and working-class households with traditional values in the heartland between the two coasts all feel the same, determined to rush in to protect this president’s back.
Mr. President, you are not alone.
The corrupt Democrat impeachment charade now, for the first time, has made their three-year war against Trump personal for his backers, too. We now have “skin in the game” — because the Democrats not only are trying to nullify him but also to nullify us, to annul our 63 million ballots and 304 electoral votes, our role at the heart of the American process. We realize that this moment in history demands that we have Trump’s back, too, not just Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, Devin Nunes and Steve Scalise, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Rush. The toxic Democrats and their Corrupt Journalist Corps voted, with defections, to steal our votes and our election. Now it is personal as it never before has been for Trump backers. His poll numbers have survived Pelosi’s gambit magnificently, and we now support him more passionately than ever. Here’s why.
1. America First
We are deep America Firsters. Contrast this video and this with the gutless coward, LeBron James. Just listen to this Lee Greenwood song once again: “I’m proud to be an American.” And they can’t take that away.
We do not care that vile haters a century ago used the “America First” slogan to incite xenophobia because we focus on the different contexts of then and now. Words and terms change meanings over time. A century ago, the word “liberal” would have fit today’s “conservative” perfectly. It meant inter alia that you supported the free market and opposed state control of the economy. By contrast, after the Left arrogated it, the term became so loaded with failure that Democrats have run away from it and now call themselves “progressives.” Similarly, the word “stalwart” is a fine word, meaning someone who takes a stand and sticks to it with loyalty, someone you can trust and count on. But a century and a half ago, that term instead identified a faction of the Republican Party, typified by the likes of Chester Arthur, that promoted “machine politics” and patronage, the Swamp that handed out government jobs based on political connections rather than on merit. Even as that term has changed over time, consider that the era’s opposing Republican faction, associated with such as James Garfield, were a group who believed nobly in honest government run by the best people; yet they were called — yikes! — the “Half-Breeds.” Go ahead and use that term today. We are Trump stalwarts, as the word is used today. And likewise we are America Firsters.
We despise the Left’s obsession with Colin Kaepernick and the troglodytic multi-millionaire ingrate lemmings like him. No Nike athletic shoes or outdoor jackets in our homes and no more NFL football on our TV. We strongly and enthusiastically support building the Wall. Why should we not be enthusiastic about sealing off a porous border (i) that allows the smuggling of deadly drugs including opioids that murder tens of thousands annually, (ii) that fails to keep out animals like MS-13, and (iii) that facilitates and even invites the most vile human trafficking in women and children for unspeakable perversions and quasi-enslavement? We virulently oppose the Democrats’ cynical effort to import millions of illegal immigrants so that, having failed for generations to persuade the majority of self-sufficient Americans who live here legally and know the score, they instead seek to change vote outcomes by importing millions whom they know will rely on Democrat welfare programs. That was their formula in New Mexico and then in flipping California from the Golden State of John Wayne and Reagan to the Homeless State of Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. And now they press on to Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado. We are furious that there was not a president nor even a viable candidate for president in the past half century — and that includes Bush, the other Bush, Dole, McCain, Romney, and the whole bunch of them — until Trump who frontally would try stopping the surge of illegal immigrants.
We see no comparison between the illegal immigrants of today, a group that has no statutory claim to enter and must not be allowed in, in contrast to the plight of Irish who fled famine in the 1840s, other North Europeans who flocked to Ellis Island a century ago, and Jews who fled Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s — because each of those prior groups endeavored to enter the United States legally within the allowed immigration quotas and by the proper procedures. They were not admitted on government handouts and did not assert “entitlements” for public assistance of any kind because they never had the brazen audacity to imagine themselves “entitled” to anything but a chance. They had to demonstrate that family would house and support them from becoming a public charge. There was no welfare state for them, no food stamps, no bilingual education. In the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Jewish immigrant children who spoke Yiddish in the public school hallways had their mouths washed out with soap because in America, you speak English.
To the degree that Jews do remember bitterly the American immigration impediments during the Hitler years, noted Holocaust scholar Professor Rafael Medoff has documented that Roosevelt consciously altered the laws to keep Jewish immigrants from Hitler out, so 190,000 legally authorized immigration openings never were filled during FDR’s presidency. Any comparison between the Ellis Island immigration struggles then and the southern border issues now is blasphemous. ICE of today feeds illegal immigrants, houses them, provides them with medical care and plumbing facilities. Those who ignorantly compare that to concentration camps and Auschwitz, where inmates did not voluntarily seek to enter but instead were transported forcibly there from their homes, then were enslaved into 15-hour work days, experimented on medically, starved, taken to be shot to death or gassed with Zyklon B, and then incinerated in crematoria are not merely idiots; rather, they reflect the dereliction and impact of American conservatives having abandoned wholesale to the Left the sacred task of educating our future generations.
2. America’s Traditional Culture, Values, and History Are Precious
We Trump stalwarts are socially conservative. For Orthodox Jews for example, our Written Laws of Judaism (Torah) and Oral Laws of Judaism (Talmud) recognize only two genders (Genesis 1:27). Our religion’s positions on homosexuality, transgenderism, bisexuality, and gay marriage are defined by Judaism’s unequivocal texts (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Tractate Chulin 92a-b). America’s Christian faithful share that core tradition and those values. Orthodox Judaism’s position on abortion is that a fetus is a human life after 40 days (Tractate Yevamot 69b). Thus, this year the Rabbinical Council of America, an association of 1,000 Orthodox Rabbis, severely condemned New York’s newly enacted abortion-on-demand law. Our position on capital punishment is that, in almost all cases, a person who takes a life with premeditation should pay with his or her life. We oppose assisted suicide. We pray patriotically for the welfare of the government. And these are values shared by Trump supporters across the religious, ethnic, and racial spectra. On issues of law and order, anyone can walk through an Orthodox Jewish community any hour, day or night, male or female, adult or child, and the only danger that may arise will come from outsiders in a passing car or others from outside the Orthodox Jewish community. And so it is wherever Trump support is strong, no matter the religion or color. Police are not concerned for their safety when assigned to patrol communities where Trump support is strong. We deeply believe that Blue Lives Matter. These identical cultural values are held equally by faithful Christians, working-class households in the heartland between the coasts, married women and soccer moms, and Jewish conservatives. And that is why Democrats from Kentucky to Virginia to New Jersey to Florida keep trying to extend the vote to felons, another of their core support bases.
We hate what has happened in American education and the degrading of America’s traditional culture and Judeo-Christian heritage. Many of us Orthodox Jews who grew up before the 1960s went to public schools before the widespread rise of yeshiva parochial schools. We sang in public-school choirs, and that meant singing Christmas carols in school. Fine. My wife Ellen, the Rebbetzin (wife of an Orthodox rabbi) of our shul, knows every single lyric to every single Christmas carol so well that, for decades, she always would win the “Name That Christmas Carol Lyric” contest at the annual Christmas party at the office where she managed investigations of alleged white-collar crime, working as a certified fraud examiner and a certified internal auditor. Only one year did she ever come in second place, the year they brought in a “ringer” who was choirmaster at his church. In the year when they wanted someone else besides The Rebbetzin finally to win for a change, with winking apologies to her they held the party at a non-kosher restaurant where she could not attend. America needs Christmas carols in public schools and Christians wishing each other “Merry Christmas.” Go ahead and keep the crosses on government seals and war monuments. None of this Obama “Happy Holidays” junk — bah, humbug! Thus, Orthodox Jews continually advocate for America’s public schools to begin each day with a prayer, the way it was in the old days when we were younger, when kids started the day with some humility that a G-d reigns supreme — and when kids did not shoot each other in school.
The public schools do not need to teach ideologies: cisgender, transgender, non-binary gender, the whole leftist agender. They do not need public school teachers to hand out condoms or teach sexual strategies for avoiding pregnancy, nor courses on who in history was gay, who was straight, who had bellies inside-out or outside-in. Rather, the schools need to teach reading and writing and arithmetic, hard sciences and technology. Even with texting and keyboards, kids still should grow up knowing how to read a handwritten birthday card or write one. And even with calculators and smartphones, they should be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide on their own. Just look at Congress to see what happens to people who grow up without skills needed to balance a checkbook. And they need to learn real history, not the pure garbage that now consumes valuable pages in texts and jams kids’ minds with dross and detritus. Just imagine if, instead of being encouraged to whine and blame, they were taught the heroism and sacrifice of Americans of all ideologies and races during World War II. They should learn what their grandparents and great-grandparents lived: what if we had lost Midway, what it took to win Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and to take back the Philippines. The suffering and heroism of the Bataan Death March. The thousands who died in the air on utterly exposed daytime bombing runs over Germany until we revised strategies, supplying fighting escorts and shifting to nighttime raids. Liberating Italy, the difference between heroes like Patton and screw-ups like John Dahlquist, the struggles at Anzio and Monte Cassino, the heroic struggles and leadership miscalculations at Market Garden and Hürtgen Forest and the heroic discipline of American soldiers who answered the call, and of course Omaha Beach. The Battle of the Bulge. If taught right, how can students not be inspired to patriotism? That it is why it is not taught.
Teach the Civil War, too. Teach real history — the ugliness of slavery and real racism, but also the heroic sacrifices of more than half a million White people who gave their lives to end it. Teach about the Revolutionary War. Teach about real sacrifice like Nathan Hale and about the rich White men who signed a Declaration of Independence that guaranteed their deaths and the confiscation of all their enormous wealth if the Revolution had failed. When a young person really learns about what a real American Congress once was when it was made of greatness, he or she instantly will perceive the sham impostors of today’s House who pledge neither their lives nor their fortunes — and who have no sacred honor to pledge anyway. The Torah instructs, “Remember the days of yore. Understand the years of generation to generation. Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say it to you” (Deuteronomy 32:7). A nation cannot survive if its future generations do not know its actual history, its vision, its “mission statement.”
Today’s kids go through college, get lofty-sounding degrees that make them feel really smart, just as the Scarecrow felt brilliant immediately after the Wizard gave him a diploma from Universitatas Committeeatum E Pluribus Unum (and, by the way, he convoluted the Pythagorean theorem) — but they are a generation of factually challenged Ocasio-Cortezes, ignoramuses who know more about mixing an alcoholic drink and tweeting a meme than they do about reality: real history, real climate science, real economics. An advanced degree in Identity/Grievance Studies prepares that scholar for a life of jealousy and coveting what others have. Those who stand with Trump know that the key to the American Dream is not wanting to take what others have but to look upon their success, to figure out how they did it — and then to work hard and honorably, learning from their lessons to secure a piece of that pie, too.
We voted for Trump because he was the first since Reagan — and truly even better than Reagan — who spoke our language, gave voice to our values, and truly had demonstrated that he has the executive skills, drive, and determination to keep the promises he made. We knew there was a terribly expanding Swamp that was subverting our democratic republic from within, but neither he nor we realized how deep and all-pervasive it had become. We knew the Swamp had grown to implement its own agenda, impervious to “interference” or “meddling” by the office-holders actually elected by the American people. We watched the Swamp consume everything from the Democrat hedges to the Republican Bushes, subverting and controlling everything from domestic economics to energy and environmental policy, from bank lending to education policy to foreign affairs. We knew it had overtaken the State Department, for example, but most of us had no idea how deeply it even had entrenched itself within agencies of the Justice Department, like the FBI.
Donald Trump dared to take them on. Our 304 electoral votes gave him our Constitution’s most sacred authority to do so. Now the Pelosi House has voted to impeach us, too, to cancel our votes. President Trump has had our backs, and now we have his because this time it is personal — for us, too.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Orthodox Jews are obviously not liberal Jews. It’s too bad they make up only a small percent of American Jewry. Most American Jews are Reform Jews, who vote Democrat, call Trump anti-Semitic, defend the LGBTQ community and love the blacks who hate them.
By Dov Fischer
The American Spectator
December 20, 2019
Those pathological haters and congenital liars impeached not only President Trump on Wednesday night. They impeached us. This time it is personal. That is my vote they are trying to take away. As an Orthodox Jew, I know plenty about governments taking away my vote. Rome did it to me in Talmudic times. Western Europe did it to me in the Medieval ages. The Ottoman Sultan did it to me. Sheiks did it to me. The Tsar did it to me. Hitler did it to me. Stalin did it to me. Damned if I am going to let a mob of socialist and lying Democrats do it to me. The muck stops here.
For four years, polling has documented that the president’s strongest support demographic is America’s Orthodox Jews. The support runs between 70 percent in radical Los Angeles to 90 percent most everywhere else. This has been documented here and here and here and here and here. Much of that support stems from a deep affinity with his stands on the whole gamut of traditional American cultural and social issues. Many faithful Christians, including devout and committed Catholics, small business owners, and working-class households with traditional values in the heartland between the two coasts all feel the same, determined to rush in to protect this president’s back.
Mr. President, you are not alone.
The corrupt Democrat impeachment charade now, for the first time, has made their three-year war against Trump personal for his backers, too. We now have “skin in the game” — because the Democrats not only are trying to nullify him but also to nullify us, to annul our 63 million ballots and 304 electoral votes, our role at the heart of the American process. We realize that this moment in history demands that we have Trump’s back, too, not just Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, Devin Nunes and Steve Scalise, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Rush. The toxic Democrats and their Corrupt Journalist Corps voted, with defections, to steal our votes and our election. Now it is personal as it never before has been for Trump backers. His poll numbers have survived Pelosi’s gambit magnificently, and we now support him more passionately than ever. Here’s why.
1. America First
We are deep America Firsters. Contrast this video and this with the gutless coward, LeBron James. Just listen to this Lee Greenwood song once again: “I’m proud to be an American.” And they can’t take that away.
We do not care that vile haters a century ago used the “America First” slogan to incite xenophobia because we focus on the different contexts of then and now. Words and terms change meanings over time. A century ago, the word “liberal” would have fit today’s “conservative” perfectly. It meant inter alia that you supported the free market and opposed state control of the economy. By contrast, after the Left arrogated it, the term became so loaded with failure that Democrats have run away from it and now call themselves “progressives.” Similarly, the word “stalwart” is a fine word, meaning someone who takes a stand and sticks to it with loyalty, someone you can trust and count on. But a century and a half ago, that term instead identified a faction of the Republican Party, typified by the likes of Chester Arthur, that promoted “machine politics” and patronage, the Swamp that handed out government jobs based on political connections rather than on merit. Even as that term has changed over time, consider that the era’s opposing Republican faction, associated with such as James Garfield, were a group who believed nobly in honest government run by the best people; yet they were called — yikes! — the “Half-Breeds.” Go ahead and use that term today. We are Trump stalwarts, as the word is used today. And likewise we are America Firsters.
We despise the Left’s obsession with Colin Kaepernick and the troglodytic multi-millionaire ingrate lemmings like him. No Nike athletic shoes or outdoor jackets in our homes and no more NFL football on our TV. We strongly and enthusiastically support building the Wall. Why should we not be enthusiastic about sealing off a porous border (i) that allows the smuggling of deadly drugs including opioids that murder tens of thousands annually, (ii) that fails to keep out animals like MS-13, and (iii) that facilitates and even invites the most vile human trafficking in women and children for unspeakable perversions and quasi-enslavement? We virulently oppose the Democrats’ cynical effort to import millions of illegal immigrants so that, having failed for generations to persuade the majority of self-sufficient Americans who live here legally and know the score, they instead seek to change vote outcomes by importing millions whom they know will rely on Democrat welfare programs. That was their formula in New Mexico and then in flipping California from the Golden State of John Wayne and Reagan to the Homeless State of Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. And now they press on to Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado. We are furious that there was not a president nor even a viable candidate for president in the past half century — and that includes Bush, the other Bush, Dole, McCain, Romney, and the whole bunch of them — until Trump who frontally would try stopping the surge of illegal immigrants.
We see no comparison between the illegal immigrants of today, a group that has no statutory claim to enter and must not be allowed in, in contrast to the plight of Irish who fled famine in the 1840s, other North Europeans who flocked to Ellis Island a century ago, and Jews who fled Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s — because each of those prior groups endeavored to enter the United States legally within the allowed immigration quotas and by the proper procedures. They were not admitted on government handouts and did not assert “entitlements” for public assistance of any kind because they never had the brazen audacity to imagine themselves “entitled” to anything but a chance. They had to demonstrate that family would house and support them from becoming a public charge. There was no welfare state for them, no food stamps, no bilingual education. In the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Jewish immigrant children who spoke Yiddish in the public school hallways had their mouths washed out with soap because in America, you speak English.
To the degree that Jews do remember bitterly the American immigration impediments during the Hitler years, noted Holocaust scholar Professor Rafael Medoff has documented that Roosevelt consciously altered the laws to keep Jewish immigrants from Hitler out, so 190,000 legally authorized immigration openings never were filled during FDR’s presidency. Any comparison between the Ellis Island immigration struggles then and the southern border issues now is blasphemous. ICE of today feeds illegal immigrants, houses them, provides them with medical care and plumbing facilities. Those who ignorantly compare that to concentration camps and Auschwitz, where inmates did not voluntarily seek to enter but instead were transported forcibly there from their homes, then were enslaved into 15-hour work days, experimented on medically, starved, taken to be shot to death or gassed with Zyklon B, and then incinerated in crematoria are not merely idiots; rather, they reflect the dereliction and impact of American conservatives having abandoned wholesale to the Left the sacred task of educating our future generations.
2. America’s Traditional Culture, Values, and History Are Precious
We Trump stalwarts are socially conservative. For Orthodox Jews for example, our Written Laws of Judaism (Torah) and Oral Laws of Judaism (Talmud) recognize only two genders (Genesis 1:27). Our religion’s positions on homosexuality, transgenderism, bisexuality, and gay marriage are defined by Judaism’s unequivocal texts (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Tractate Chulin 92a-b). America’s Christian faithful share that core tradition and those values. Orthodox Judaism’s position on abortion is that a fetus is a human life after 40 days (Tractate Yevamot 69b). Thus, this year the Rabbinical Council of America, an association of 1,000 Orthodox Rabbis, severely condemned New York’s newly enacted abortion-on-demand law. Our position on capital punishment is that, in almost all cases, a person who takes a life with premeditation should pay with his or her life. We oppose assisted suicide. We pray patriotically for the welfare of the government. And these are values shared by Trump supporters across the religious, ethnic, and racial spectra. On issues of law and order, anyone can walk through an Orthodox Jewish community any hour, day or night, male or female, adult or child, and the only danger that may arise will come from outsiders in a passing car or others from outside the Orthodox Jewish community. And so it is wherever Trump support is strong, no matter the religion or color. Police are not concerned for their safety when assigned to patrol communities where Trump support is strong. We deeply believe that Blue Lives Matter. These identical cultural values are held equally by faithful Christians, working-class households in the heartland between the coasts, married women and soccer moms, and Jewish conservatives. And that is why Democrats from Kentucky to Virginia to New Jersey to Florida keep trying to extend the vote to felons, another of their core support bases.
We hate what has happened in American education and the degrading of America’s traditional culture and Judeo-Christian heritage. Many of us Orthodox Jews who grew up before the 1960s went to public schools before the widespread rise of yeshiva parochial schools. We sang in public-school choirs, and that meant singing Christmas carols in school. Fine. My wife Ellen, the Rebbetzin (wife of an Orthodox rabbi) of our shul, knows every single lyric to every single Christmas carol so well that, for decades, she always would win the “Name That Christmas Carol Lyric” contest at the annual Christmas party at the office where she managed investigations of alleged white-collar crime, working as a certified fraud examiner and a certified internal auditor. Only one year did she ever come in second place, the year they brought in a “ringer” who was choirmaster at his church. In the year when they wanted someone else besides The Rebbetzin finally to win for a change, with winking apologies to her they held the party at a non-kosher restaurant where she could not attend. America needs Christmas carols in public schools and Christians wishing each other “Merry Christmas.” Go ahead and keep the crosses on government seals and war monuments. None of this Obama “Happy Holidays” junk — bah, humbug! Thus, Orthodox Jews continually advocate for America’s public schools to begin each day with a prayer, the way it was in the old days when we were younger, when kids started the day with some humility that a G-d reigns supreme — and when kids did not shoot each other in school.
The public schools do not need to teach ideologies: cisgender, transgender, non-binary gender, the whole leftist agender. They do not need public school teachers to hand out condoms or teach sexual strategies for avoiding pregnancy, nor courses on who in history was gay, who was straight, who had bellies inside-out or outside-in. Rather, the schools need to teach reading and writing and arithmetic, hard sciences and technology. Even with texting and keyboards, kids still should grow up knowing how to read a handwritten birthday card or write one. And even with calculators and smartphones, they should be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide on their own. Just look at Congress to see what happens to people who grow up without skills needed to balance a checkbook. And they need to learn real history, not the pure garbage that now consumes valuable pages in texts and jams kids’ minds with dross and detritus. Just imagine if, instead of being encouraged to whine and blame, they were taught the heroism and sacrifice of Americans of all ideologies and races during World War II. They should learn what their grandparents and great-grandparents lived: what if we had lost Midway, what it took to win Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and to take back the Philippines. The suffering and heroism of the Bataan Death March. The thousands who died in the air on utterly exposed daytime bombing runs over Germany until we revised strategies, supplying fighting escorts and shifting to nighttime raids. Liberating Italy, the difference between heroes like Patton and screw-ups like John Dahlquist, the struggles at Anzio and Monte Cassino, the heroic struggles and leadership miscalculations at Market Garden and Hürtgen Forest and the heroic discipline of American soldiers who answered the call, and of course Omaha Beach. The Battle of the Bulge. If taught right, how can students not be inspired to patriotism? That it is why it is not taught.
Teach the Civil War, too. Teach real history — the ugliness of slavery and real racism, but also the heroic sacrifices of more than half a million White people who gave their lives to end it. Teach about the Revolutionary War. Teach about real sacrifice like Nathan Hale and about the rich White men who signed a Declaration of Independence that guaranteed their deaths and the confiscation of all their enormous wealth if the Revolution had failed. When a young person really learns about what a real American Congress once was when it was made of greatness, he or she instantly will perceive the sham impostors of today’s House who pledge neither their lives nor their fortunes — and who have no sacred honor to pledge anyway. The Torah instructs, “Remember the days of yore. Understand the years of generation to generation. Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say it to you” (Deuteronomy 32:7). A nation cannot survive if its future generations do not know its actual history, its vision, its “mission statement.”
Today’s kids go through college, get lofty-sounding degrees that make them feel really smart, just as the Scarecrow felt brilliant immediately after the Wizard gave him a diploma from Universitatas Committeeatum E Pluribus Unum (and, by the way, he convoluted the Pythagorean theorem) — but they are a generation of factually challenged Ocasio-Cortezes, ignoramuses who know more about mixing an alcoholic drink and tweeting a meme than they do about reality: real history, real climate science, real economics. An advanced degree in Identity/Grievance Studies prepares that scholar for a life of jealousy and coveting what others have. Those who stand with Trump know that the key to the American Dream is not wanting to take what others have but to look upon their success, to figure out how they did it — and then to work hard and honorably, learning from their lessons to secure a piece of that pie, too.
We voted for Trump because he was the first since Reagan — and truly even better than Reagan — who spoke our language, gave voice to our values, and truly had demonstrated that he has the executive skills, drive, and determination to keep the promises he made. We knew there was a terribly expanding Swamp that was subverting our democratic republic from within, but neither he nor we realized how deep and all-pervasive it had become. We knew the Swamp had grown to implement its own agenda, impervious to “interference” or “meddling” by the office-holders actually elected by the American people. We watched the Swamp consume everything from the Democrat hedges to the Republican Bushes, subverting and controlling everything from domestic economics to energy and environmental policy, from bank lending to education policy to foreign affairs. We knew it had overtaken the State Department, for example, but most of us had no idea how deeply it even had entrenched itself within agencies of the Justice Department, like the FBI.
Donald Trump dared to take them on. Our 304 electoral votes gave him our Constitution’s most sacred authority to do so. Now the Pelosi House has voted to impeach us, too, to cancel our votes. President Trump has had our backs, and now we have his because this time it is personal — for us, too.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Orthodox Jews are obviously not liberal Jews. It’s too bad they make up only a small percent of American Jewry. Most American Jews are Reform Jews, who vote Democrat, call Trump anti-Semitic, defend the LGBTQ community and love the blacks who hate them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)