Crickets

On Thursday, Newsbusters posted an article about the media coverage of the murder of Cayler Ellingson in North Dakota. Somehow there has been very little coverage of this event in the mainstream media.

The article reports:

Shannon Brandt, 41, struck and killed the teenager with his Ford Explorer SUV early Sunday in an alley. His mother said Cayler called and asked her if she knew Brandt (she did). The boy called again a short time later and said ‘that ‘he’ or ‘they’ were chasing him.” The mother could no longer reach him after that.

Court documents said “Brandt admitted to striking the pedestrian with his car because he had a political argument with the pedestrian and believed the pedestrian was calling people to come get him.” He claimed the teen was part of an unspecified Republican “extremist group.” Brandt was released on bail.

While the Fox News Channel and Newsmax both started reporting this story on the evening of September 20, NewsBusters found zero coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. How about our taxpayer-funded PBS and NPR? Zero coverage. The New York Times and The Washington Post had nothing.

The article notes:

This murder bears some resemblance to 32-year-old Heather Heyer dying when she was run over by a white nationalist during dueling protests in Charlottesville in 2017. In that case, another 35 people were injured. The liberals would insist this was different because it occurred at a major protest scene over the removal of Confederate statues that the national media had been anticipating for weeks in advance.

Heyer’s death was promoted as a political disaster for President Trump. PBS NewsHour ran headlines like “Trump faces backlash for Charlottesville comments as protest victim is laid to rest.” Joe Biden later declared that Trump’s reaction to the Charlottesville attack inspired him to run for president.

The article concludes:

Liberal outlets recently rolled out a new set of stories marking the fifth anniversary of Heyer’s death. Doesn’t Cayler Ellingson’s death deserve national attention? Or is it just too contrary to the narrative that all the political violence is presumed to be coming from the conservative side? No one’s going to suggest this is a problem for President Biden, who recently trashed MAGA Republicans as a dangerous threat to democracy.

This lines up with the recent murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German by a Democrat county official, Robert Telles. Since the victim was a journalist, this has gotten some national attention, but it came with a nasty tendency to avoid describing Telles as a Democrat

It makes it harder to speculate that Democratic politicians are spurring violence through using hateful rhetoric if media outlets seek to squelch the idea there’s any politically motivated violence by Democrats. 

It seems as if the Democrats have interpreted free speech as their right to yell fire in a crowded theater, but they feel the need to censor and restrict almost everything everyone else can say.

The Real Cost Of An Open Border

On Thursday, Fox News reported that the kidnapper charged with the murder of two children in Alabama was someone who had been deported from the United States before.

The article reports:

José Paulino Pascual-Reyes – charged with first-degree kidnapping, three counts of capital murder and two counts of abuse of a corpse in connection to the gruesome discovery — is considered a “re-entry nonimmigrant unlawful presence foreign national,” Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett confirmed to Fox News Digital by phone on Thursday. 

That means, according to Abbett, that 37-year-old Pascual-Reyes was deported by Homeland Security to Mexico before, but the sheriff could not confirm that time frame or when he is believed to have reentered the United States and to have come to Alabama.

In case you are unfamiliar with the sequence of events:

The Tallapoosa County Sheriff’s Office first responded to the area of 3547 County Road 34 in Dadeville, Alabama, at approximately 8:30 a.m. on Monday to a 911 call from a driver who reported stopping to help a 12-year-old girl spotted wandering on the road. Pascual-Reyes, listed as living at that address, was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Auburn, Alabama.

Overnight investigation at the mobile home led to the discovery of two decomposing corpses. 

Abbett confirmed to Fox News Digital that those bodies were that of a woman – Sandra Vazquez Ceja – and her son, a boy under the age of 14. Ceja was on parole pending an asylum claim. Investigators believe the deceased woman was Pascual-Reyes’ girlfriend. 

Abbett praised the surviving 12-year-old girl as a “hero,” saying she endured almost a week of torture. 

The complaint says the girl is believed to have been tied to bed posts for at least a week, was assaulted and kept in a drug-like state by being plied with alcohol. She escaped by chewing through her restraints, according to court documents. 

That child will be traumatized for the rest of her life because the Biden administration couldn’t be bothered to secure our southern border. She represents the true cost of an open border.

 

Would You Be Comfortable Living Next Door To These Two Boys?

Our criminal justice system is supposed to keep people who are a danger to society away from people they might harm. Theoretically it is also supposed to help criminals become law-abiding citizens by punishing them for their crimes and showing them the error of their ways. Well, evidently California has lost that concept.

Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article about a recent court case in California that resulted in a very questionable sentence for the defendants.

The article reports:

In a case that’s drawing a lot of attention based on the insane level of leniency shown, two 14-year-olds who bullied, murdered, danced on the body of, and filmed a helpless 13-year-old, have been let off with the mother-of-all-slaps-on-the-wrist by a Riverside County Superior Court Justice. 

According to local radio station KTLA:

Two 14-year-old Southern California boys who beat a fellow student in 2019, causing his death, won’t go to jail but must undergo anger management therapy, a judge ruled.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Roger A. Luebs imposed the therapy as a probation condition before releasing the teenagers to their parents on Thursday, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported Friday.

On Sept. 16, 2019, the teenagers were videotaped attacking 13-year-old Diego Stolz outside classrooms at Landmark Middle School in Moreno Valley, east of Los Angeles. One boy struck the teenager in the head from behind and he fell, hitting his head against a pillar. The boys then continued punching the boy, who died nine days later from a brain injury.

Would you feel comfortable with these children living in your neighborhood?

The article also notes:

Parts of his (Riverside County Superior Court Judge Roger A. Luebs) sentencing were obnoxious, too:

Luebs directed that each offender enroll in character development and anger management classes, as well as perform 150 hours community service, not play violent video games, avoid social media and write letters of apology to the Stolz family. They were additionally ordered to permanently steer clear of one another.

Luebs warned the pair that any probation violation could land them in deep trouble, possibly resulting in time behind bars.

Why, exactly, are they getting ‘one last warning’ to behave themselves, when they’ve already done the worst they could possibly do?  These killers should have had their one-last-warning before they moved up to killing people. This didn’t happen out of the blue — one of these plagues-on-society was already on probation when he tried his hand at killing. How seriously are they going to take this latest ‘one-last-warning’? The message they’ve gotten so far is that if they get caught violating probation, all they will get is another one-last-warning. But remember, one more chance.

The article goes on to mention that California has been moving in the direction of reducing its youth prison population in past years. I guess its pretty easy to reduce your prison population if you don’t hold murderers accountable for their crimes.

Actions Have Consequences

Yesterday The Daily Wire reported:

The Democrat-controlled Seattle City Council voted late on Monday to advance a highly controversial plan to defund the Seattle Police Department as violent crime and far-left riots have rocked the city in recent months.

The Seattle City Council voted to remove approximately $3 million from the Seattle Police Department’s budget…

…“The committee voted to move the bulk of its proposal forward during its 10 a.m. session, before giving its final approval Monday evening by a 7-1 margin,” MyNorthWest reported. “Councilmember Kshama Sawant was the lone “no” vote, while Debora Juarez — who was not present at Monday’s meetings — abstained. Sawant’s vote against the package was based around her belief that it didn’t go far enough in its reductions to SPD’s funding.”

Fox News reported at the start of the month that Seattle was one of several Democrat-controlled cities that had seen a recent spike in “shootings and murders.”

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported:

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best will be resigning on Wednesday morning, following the city council voting to defund the police amid massive unrest.

The news of Best’s resignation came one day after dozens of businesses were looted once again.

…Q13 reports, “the council on Monday approved proposals that would reduce the police department by up to 100 officers through layoffs and attrition. Chief Best was vocal in her oppostion to the cuts, which came after councilmembers pledged to redirect money from SPD to community programs amid calls from protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.”

The budget cut will slash nearly $4 million from the department’s annual budget — and the councilmembers promised to cut even more in 2021. The 7-1 vote faced objections from the city’s police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild.

It does not take a genius to predict that businesses and property owners will be leaving Seattle in the near future. Community programs have value, but unless you have some semblance of law and order in a city, people don’t want to live or operate businesses there.

Under The Radar

On Wednesday The Epoch Times reported the following:

President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced on Wednesday significant developments in the administration’s efforts to eradicate the notorious MS-13 gang, including its plan to seek the death penalty of an alleged gang member in connection to the slayings of two New York teens.

Trump said his administration’s “campaign to destroy MS-13” had lead to the arrest and indictment of dozens of MS-13 members and its leaders. The Justice Department launched Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV) in August 2019 in an effort to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy the vicious gang, which has been responsible for a wide range of criminal activity across the United States such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.

Among the arrests include the indictment of Melgar Diaz, who became the first MS-13 member to be charged with terrorism-related offenses, officials say.

“He was responsible for activities in 13 states—20 cliques in the United States.  He was also the person who would greenlight assassinations in the United States.  The orders come from El Salvador—or they request to assassinate people who go down to El Salvador, and he would greenlight the hit,” Barr said during a press conference at the oval office on Wednesday.

Diaz, whose indictment was unsealed on July 14, was charged with offenses including conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to kill or maim individuals overseas, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.

The article concludes:

The attorney general told reporters that more actions against the leadership of MS-13 are expected, saying that the administration had been working very closely with counterparts in El Salvador.

MS-13 was initially formed by Salvadoran immigrants that came to the United States in order to escape the civil war in their home country, according to a study published in the Journal of Gang Research in 2009.

This action is long overdue. Securing our borders is one way to keep members of MS-13 from coming into the country. Arresting the members that are already here is another step toward making America a safer place.

Finally

Yesterday (updated today) The Epoch Times reported that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Monday, sending the National Guard to Atlanta to restore order.

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported:

In Atlanta this weekend, an 8-year-old girl was shot and killed while riding in a vehicle with her mother. The driver was trying to enter a parking lot where a group of people had illegally placed barricades. Someone in the group reportedly opened fire.

The article at The Epoch Times reports:

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed an order declaring a state of emergency on Monday, authorizing the deployment of the troops.

He argued that the troops are needed to protect state buildings, including the state capitol, the Department of Public Safety headquarters, the governor’s mansion, and the Georgia World Congress Center. He noted these troops will free up state troopers from those locations to patrol the streets of Atlanta.

“Peaceful protests were hijacked by criminals with a dangerous, destructive agenda. Now, innocent Georgians are being targeted, shot, and left for dead,” Kemp said in a statement on Monday. “This lawlessness must be stopped and order restored in our capital city.”

Kemp said that as a result, he declared an emergency “because the safety of our citizens comes first,” adding that it will “allow troops to protect state property and dispatch state law enforcement officers to patrol our streets. ”

“Enough with the tough talk,” the Republican governor concluded. “We must protect the lives and livelihoods of all Georgians.”

Across Atlanta over the Fourth of July weekend, 31 people were shot and five people died, including an 8-year-old girl. The Georgia State Patrol headquarters were also vandalized by protesters over the same time period, according to local media reports.

“They were armed with bricks, landscaping bricks, Molotov cocktails, fireworks. Their one mission was to destruct property and that is exactly what they did,” Lt. Stephanie L. Stallings, spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Public Safety, told WSB-TV, adding that between 60 and 100 vandals dressed in dark clothing came to the headquarters in the early-morning hours to cause havoc.

This is not a protest–it is a murderous rampage of lawlessness.

The article concludes:

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, said the 8-year-old child wasn’t killed by police officers and referenced recent calls for police reform.

“Well, now we’re demanding action for Secoriea Turner and for all of the other people who were shot in Atlanta last night and over the past few weeks because the reality is this—these aren’t police officers shooting people on the streets of Atlanta, these are members of the community shooting each other,” she told reporters on Monday.

“If you want people to take us seriously, and you don’t want us to lose this movement, then we can’t lose each other,” the mayor said, adding that “you can’t blame this on a police officer, you can’t say this is about criminal justice reform.”

“This is about some people carrying some weapons who shot up a car with an 8-year-old baby in the car.”

If the Mayors of our largest cities cannot maintain order, the Governors of their states need to declare an emergency and call in the National Guard to restore order. Lawlessness is not an option, and those who choose to practice it need to be arrested and sent to jail.

What In The World Is Going On In Atlanta?

When the news reports something that contradicts common sense, there is usually a story behind it that is not being reported. Evidently there is a story behind the decision of the District Attorney in Atlanta to charge police officer Garrett Wolfe for the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks. The video of the shooting has been widely posted, and many Americans have seen it. The video clearly shows Mr. Brooks resisting arrest and attacking the policemen who were attempting to arrest him. Somehow in the press conference announcing the charge, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Paul Howard Jr., only focused on the beginning footage of the Officer Wolfe’s body camera where Mr. Brooks was cooperative. He chose to overlook what happened next. So what is this actually about? The Conservative Treehouse posted an article yesterday that provides some clues.

The article notes:

Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Paul Howard Jr., held a press conference earlier this afternoon to announce eleven charges against police officer Garrett Wolfe for the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks.  The shooting took place at a local Atlanta Wendys.

In what appears to be a decision heavily influenced by local politics, DA Howard is charging officer Garrett Wolfe with felony murder; an unlawful killing with malice, forethought and specific intent.  It looks like Howard is purposefully making a mess.

…There is something rather unusual about the way DA Paul Howard framed the encounter between the police and Rayshard Brooks, because CCTV video and body-cam footage do not support the district attorney’s version of events. Obviously in a courtroom the defense is going to replay the DA statements while they run simultaneous footage of Mr. Rayshard Brooks resisting arrest, fighting with police and ultimately taking one of the officers’ tasers to use as a weapon.

The article explains a possible motive for the District Attorney’s actions:

There’s something very sketchy going on in the political background…. and I cannot help but wonder if Paul Howard Jr. is planning to be defeated in the next election (he seems in trouble) and is, as an intentional and self-centered plan, trying to set-up his political successor with a lose/lose scenario.

The eleven charges which include felony murder seem positioned from a district attorney who knows he won’t be around to deal with the case details.  Howard can present himself as the community hero today and force his successor into the role of legal villain. That scenario is exactly what this looks like.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse includes a screenshot of something the Georgia Bureau of Investigation posted on their Facebook page:

The article concludes with the following statement along with videos of the press conference and of the arrest:

It is brutally obvious DA Paul Howard Jr. is setting a political trap for the next Fulton County District Attorney.   The weird press conference and charges are ridiculous.

Regardless of internal Atlanta politics, the message to police is chilling.  I would not want to be living anywhere around Fulton county, Georgia; because I suspect there is going to be a massive drop in law enforcement.  Crime will likely rise, violence will likely escalate, and the suffering community will be the same black neighborhoods who might currently be thanking DA Howard without realizing what consequences are looming.

Chaos may be coming to Atlanta, courtesy of a politically-motivated District Attorney.

This Really Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

Breitbart reported yesterday that at least 250 convicted and accused criminals freed from New York’s Rikers Island prison have been rearrested 450 times thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) jailbreak directive.

The article reports:

Of approximately 2,500 defendants sprung from Rikers early because of COVID safety planning, at least 250 have been arrested again since, according to Michael LiPetri, chief of Crime Control Strategies for the NYPD. [Emphasis added]

Chief LiPetri tells NBC New York the NYPD did not object to releasing older defendants, nor those with underlying medical conditions. But he says the consequences of the larger-scale release of prisoners are now showing up in the arrest data, with those 250 re-offenders being arrested 450 times so far during the pandemic. [Emphasis added]

What did they expect? How much transition assistance was provided to these prisoners when they were released? Were there halfway houses available to them so that they had a place to stay as they transitioned to life outside prison?

The article concludes:

While the mass release of convicted and accused criminals in New York continues and violent crime surges, Mayor Bill de Blasio is vowing to cut NYPD funding. The reduction in funding for the police would come as murders have jumped 160 percent over the last week and burglaries are up 402 percent.

As businesses and residents leave the city because it is becoming too dangerous, Mayor de Blasio will have to increase taxes further to meet his budget obligations. That will be the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as driving out the remaining honest residents and business of New York City. A little common sense applied to policies regarding criminals is needed.

An Interesting Twist To The Story

Unfortunately we have reached the point where the truth about the actual cause of George Floyd’s death is somewhat irrelevant. George Floyd has pretty much been left behind in all the current chaos. His death was simply an excuse to commit mayhem by people who commit mayhem. I remind you of the past protests by antifa and the like at the various G-7 conferences. The anarchists have been with us for a while, and unfortunately we have generally chosen to ignore them rather than arrest them.

On June 3, a website called lawofficer.com posted an intriguing article. I am not familiar with the website, so I can’t vouch for its veracity, but it raises an interesting question.

The article reports:

And if you aren’t careful you would believe it but Michael Baden is a hired gun and he is used by attorneys to say what needs to be said to drive pubic opinion and drive the civil lawsuit settlement higher.

The truth is Michael Baden didn’t do an autopsy.

He couldn’t have because if he did, he would not have been able to give the opinion that was needed by the media and the attorneys. You see, the determination of asphyxia or strangulation is not difficult to see. It takes just a few seconds of looking at the eyes and Baden may be a hired gun but he’s not stupid and he proves that in his carefully crafted statements.

On Fox News, he spoke about the George Floyd case in terms that seem ridiculous to any professional pathologist. As he discusses what the “autopsy” showed he said “in the video” several times.

“There was compression, you can see in the video…

“The video of the pressure of the neck and back goes along with his statements that he couldn’t breathe.”

And it goes on and on and on.

There is little doubt that the actions of the police officer were a major contributing factor in the death of George Floyd. However, I do wonder if the charge of murder will stick. It looks as if this policeman had a history of excessive force and should have been fired a long time ago. He was simply an incident waiting to happen. If the murder charge against the officer (and the charges against the other officers) do not hold up, we can expect more riots. This is definitely a lose-lose situation.

The Problem With Justice In Minneapolis

The death of George Floyd is a tragedy. There is no doubt that he would still be alive if he hadn’t been held down on the ground by the police for as long as he was. However, the autopsy does not give asphixiation as the primary cause of death. So where do we go from here?

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review today that might provide some answers.

The article notes:

For one thing, contrary to most people’s assumption, Mr. Floyd appears not to have died from asphyxia or strangulation as Chauvin pinned him to the ground, knee to the neck. Rather, as alleged in the complaint, Floyd suffered from coronary-artery disease and hypertensive-heart disease. The complaint further intimates, but does not come out and allege, that Floyd may have had “intoxicants” in his system. The effects of these underlying health conditions and “any potential intoxicants” are said to have “combined” with the physical restraint by three police officers, most prominently Chauvin, to cause Floyd’s death.

As I’ve noted in a column on the homepage, Hennepin County prosecutors have charged Chauvin with third-degree depraved-indifference homicide. Now that the complaint has been released publicly, we see that a lesser offense was also charged: second-degree manslaughter. This homicide charge involves “culpable negligence creating an unreasonable risk” of serious bodily harm, and carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.

It is easy to see why prosecutors added this charge (and why they shied away from more serious grades of murder described in my column). The case is tougher for prosecutors if there is doubt about whether Chauvin’s unorthodox and unnecessary pressure on Floyd’s neck caused him to die. Had he been strangled, causative effect of the neck pressure would be patent. But if the neck pressure instead just contributed to the stress of the situation that triggered death because of unusual underlying medical problems (possibly in conjunction with intoxicants Floyd may have consumed), it becomes a harder murder prosecution.

Stay tuned. This is going to get complicated. I believe that the police force was correct to fire the officers involved. However, getting them to pay a more serious price for their abuse of power is going to be difficult. Even with video evidence, they are innocent until proven guilty and have to be convicted ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’

 

There Has Been An Arrest

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that Derek Chauvin, the fired Minneapolis police officer who was seen on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, has been arrested. The other three officers were not arrested.

CBS Minnesota is reporting:

Fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been arrested four days after George Floyd’s fatal arrest that sparked protests, rioting and outcry across the city and nation, and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced he has been charged with murder and manslaughter, with the charges scheduled to be released shortly.

Every American is entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers. Therefore, despite the video and what appears on it, we need to withhold judgement until Mr. Chauvin has been tried. However, it is encouraging to me that he has been arrested and charged with murder in relation to the death of George Floyd. Hopefully this will provide closure for the family of George Floyd and might help calm some of the protestors that have created so much havoc in Minneapolis.

 

 

Another Step Toward Justice For Ahmaud Arbery

What happened to Ahmaud Arbery was a disgrace to the State of Georgia and to America. No one has the right to deny a person their right to a trail and a verdict. I hope all of the men involved spend some serious time in prison to consider what they did. I don’t know if Ahmaud Arbery was guilty of anything–that is not the point–the three men involved had no right to take the law into their own hands.

Just the News is reporting today that William “Roddie” Bryan Jr has been arrested an charged with felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Bryan was the man that filmed the video of the attack on Ahmaud Arbery.

The article reports:

A father and son have already been arrested in the case but media reports indicate Bryan is the individual who filmed the footage that appears to show the moments leading up to Arbery’s death. Authorities on May 7 arrested 64-year-old Gregory McMichael and the 34-year-old Travis McMichael. The McMichaels are white while Arbery was black.

In the video two men appear to be engaged in a struggle and shots can be heard—one man is eventually seen collapsing.

Arbery’s mother believes that her son was out jogging. The elder McMichael said to police that he suspected Arbery of being a burglar and that Arbery attacked his son prior to getting shot.

In the state of Georgia “a person can be charged with felony murder for committing any felony that causes the death of someone else,” according to the Associated Press. “It does not require intent to kill and carries an automatic life sentence.”

The penalty for this crime needs to be severe, and there need to be penalties for anyone who blocked the investigation into the shooting. I don’t know if this was a racial killing, but it sure looks that way, and there should be no room for racism in America.

Putting The Safety Of Convicted Criminals Above The Safety Of Innocent American Citizens

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article that illustrates the folly of letting convicted prisoners out of jail to protect them from the coronavirus. First of all, the original idea is shaky. In order for a prison to have an outbreak of the coronavirus, the virus would have to enter the prison with someone. Prisons have the potential of being the ultimate ‘shelter in place’ example. If you control the people coming in–limit visitors until the virus is not active in the area of the prison and test your prison guards regularly (take their temperatures in a non-intrusive way), theoretically that would not allow the virus to enter the prison. You can also quarantine anyone with the virus. There is no reason to free convicted prisoners and endanger the lives and property of everyday Americans. Meanwhile, some states are doing really dumb things.

The article reports:

A Florida inmate released on March 19 to ‘slow the spread of the Coronavirus’ was arrested on a murder charge just one day after he got out of jail.

State officials are releasing hundreds of inmates into society over Coronavirus fears while they threaten and arrest law-abiding citizens for violating ‘social distancing’ orders.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tampa deputies say 26-year-old Joseph Edwards Williams committed second-degree murder just one day after he was released from jail.

…“There is no question Joseph Williams took advantage of this health emergency to commit crimes while he was out of jail awaiting resolution of a low-level, non-violent offense,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said. “As a result, I call on the State Attorney to prosecute this defendant to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Judges, prosecutors, and Sheriffs around the country are facing difficult decisions during this health crisis with respect to balancing public health and public safety. Sheriffs in Florida and throughout our country have released non-violent, low-level offenders to protect our deputies and the jail population from an outbreak. Our commitment as an agency is to keep this community safe and enforce the law.”

Letting prisoners out of jail before they have completed their sentences is not a way to keep our communities safe.

The Murder Of An American Patriot

Philip Haney was well known in intelligence circles. He was an honest man who told the truth and blew the whistle on some of the ‘questionable’ practices of the Obama administration. He was well respected and totally honest in his assessments of terrorist threats. He was murdered in California earlier this week.

Law Enforcement Today posted an article this morning.

The article reports:

We have a quick update for the story we broke earlier today in the apparent murder of our friend, Philip Haney. We will continue to provide details as they become available.

While we and The Gateway Pundit are the only outlets covering this developing news, conversation on Twitter is exploding. 

LET broke this tragic news to the nation this morning. 

A screen shot taken from Frank Andrew Bostom’s Twitter feed shows what appears to be a statement from Frank Gaffney, the Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy. 

The statement reads: 

“As you may know, we lost this week one of our most brilliant, most dedicated and most devout comrades-in-arms: Philip Haney. 

While the details are sketchy at the moment, Phil went missing on Wednesday in the area he called home in northern California to which he returned after the passing of his beloved wife, Francesca, following a long struggle with a series of terrible health afflictions. On Friday morning, a sheriff’s deputy finally found his body with a gunshot wound to the chest. 

As of now, we have no word about suspects or motives. 

It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this loss to the cause of freedom…”

The article includes a screenshot of a tweet by Andrew Bostom:

I never met Philip Haney, but I am familiar with his work. He was a dedicated patriot. He will be missed. Hopefully those responsible for his death will be found quickly and arrested.

Letting A Lie Stand

John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog today about a lie told by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She has made a number of anti-Semitic statements during her short term in Congress.

The article reports:

Yesterday Tlaib retweeted the claim that a “herd of violent Israeli settlers” had “kidnapped and murdered” a seven-year-old Palestinian boy. The original tweet was accompanied by a video that showed an Israeli rescue team recovering the body of the boy from a cistern.

The article concludes:

The whole thing was a hoax, made up out of whole cloth. (Not the death of the boy, which was real, but the assertion that he was murdered by Israeli “settlers.”) The tweet by the Palestinian politician, Hanan Ashrawi, has now been deleted, as has Tlaib’s retweet. But Tlaib’s deletion was silent, with no explanation or apology, or any attempt to correct the misinformation that she had spread to tens of thousands on Twitter.

What happened is obvious. Like many people, Tlaib believes anything that tends to confirm her pre-existing bigotry. There is no need to investigate or verify the facts when an opportunity to smear Jews is at hand.

Anyone can make a mistake and believe something that isn’t true. However, Congresswoman Tlaib owed the people who follow her on Twitter and explanation of why her tweet was deleted and a correction to the story. Kidnapping and murder is generally not something that Israelis do to children. Unfortunately the Palestinians who Tlaib supports have a history of killing innocent people–both Israeli and American–citizens of Israel and tourists. The Representative needs to check her facts more carefully.

This Really Isn’t News To Anyone Who Has Been Paying Attention

The New York Post posted an article today about some recent comments by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, New York City’s former chief medical examiner, about the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

The article reports:

“I think that the evidence points toward homicide rather than suicide,” Baden insisted on Fox News Wednesday.

“The brother (Mark Epstein) is concerned that if [Epstein] was murdered, then other people who have information might be at risk,” Baden insisted, suggesting powerful players may have been involved in the death.

“If they think he has information, his life could be in jeopardy.”

Baden said there were signs of “unusual” activity “from day one” of the autopsy, saying the wounds were “more consistent with ligature homicidal strangulation.”

The article also notes some rather strange circumstances surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein:

Baden noted two fractures on either side of Epstein’s larynx, and one on the hyoid bone, above the moneyman’s Adam’s apple.

“Hanging does not cause these broken bones and homicide does,” he insisted on Fox. “A huge amount of pressure was applied.”

Baden also called for federal prosecutors to release the findings from DNA samples.

 “They took fingernail clippings to see if there’s anybody else’s DNA on it and that hasn’t been released, neither has information about whose DNA is on the ligature out of torn strips of orange sheets,” he said.

“Whoever made it has to have a lot of DNA on it and the brother has been asking for that from day one.”

He also questioned the supposed “total breakdown in security,” with the “extremely unlikely” coincidences of two guards falling asleep while video cameras in Epstein’s cell and hallway were also not working.

I suspect this is not the last we will hear about this. Hopefully the truth will be revealed eventually.

Common Sense Versus Profit

Yesterday Fox News reported that of the film “The Hunt” about liberals hunting conservative “Deplorables” who fit the description of supporters of President Trump.

I can’t help but wonder why the movie was made in the first place. Did the producers think this was a good idea?

The article reports:

In a statement, a Universal Pictures spokesperson said “the studio has decided to cancel our plans to release the film … we understand that now is not the right time to release this film.”

Someone needs to sit down with the head of Universal Pictures and explain that there is never a good time to release a film about killing people whose politics you disagree with!

The article further states:

Understandably, initial reaction to the trailer centered on the horrific callousness and immorality of hunting and killing people for their ideologically conservative beliefs. It’s quite jarring to see.

The trailer seemed to be tapping into the same sort of anger and sense of disenfranchisement that many believe led to Trump’s populist rise.

Imagine the protests if the film had taken a different tack and portrayed Trump supporters hunting down supporters of one of the Democratic presidential candidates. The protests would have been justified.

The article concludes:

In the end, those of us with a religious, conservative worldview welcome a civil, respectful and spirited debate with those on the other side, believing that our principles and values will lead to a flourishing and more prosperous world.

The cancelation of the release of “The Hunt” is a step in the right direction. We must all live and work with those we disagree with and try to understand their point of view. Letting our disagreements escalate into violent attacks on one another is neither acceptable nor entertaining.

We have a problem in America with people deciding it is their right to harm people who disagree with them. It is not safe to wear a Make America Great Again hat in some parts of the country. We recently saw journalist Andy Gno severely beaten at a rally in Portland, Oregon. As I have said, I don’t understand why those in charge at Universal decided to make this movie in the first place. I am glad they finally came to their sense and chose not to release it.

How Much Are American Lives Worth?

Most of the people attempting to break into America are people simply looking for a way out of economic and political oppression. However, there are some seriously rotten apples in the bunch. Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about one group of rotten apples.

The article reports:

22 members of the violent El Salvadoran gang MS-13 were charged with enforcing a criminal racketeering enterprise by murdering people in ‘medieval style’ killing sprees.

A 12-count indictment was handed down Monday by prosecutors in Los Angeles who charged the MS-13 gang members with killing 7 people with machetes.

A rival gang member was dismembered and his heart cut out of his chest and thrown into canyon in Los Angeles.

 Now we know 19 of the 22 arrested gang members were here in the US illegally.

In February, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution giving Los Angeles sanctuary status for immigrants. In a 12-0 vote, the council reaffirmed laws limiting cooperation with federal authorities regarding immigration enforcement policies. Loosely translated that means that law enforcement in the city will not cooperate with the federal government to enforce immigration laws. Had immigration laws been enforced, 19 of the 22 gang members would not have been here to commit the horrendous crimes they committed.

Why We Need To Keep Track Of Illegal Aliens Who Come To America And Commit Crimes

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about Carlos Eduardo Arevalo from El Salvador, an illegal alien who brutally murdered a 59-year-old woman, Bambi Larson, in California.

The article reports:

Arevalo has a long criminal record of arrests for violent crimes, but the State of California refused to turn him over to ICE because California is a far-left “Sanctuary State” for criminal illegal aliens.

CBS Local reported:

“Carlos Eduardo Arevalo Carranza stalked this San Jose neighborhood and his victim,” said San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia. “He is a self-admitted gang member.”

Garcia then detailed his lengthy criminal record.

“His criminal history convictions consist of in Feb. 2013 he was detained by the Department of Homeland Security at the border near McAllen, Texas, and deported.”

“In 2015, he was arrested for drug paraphernalia. In 2015 he was convicted of burglary in San Jose. In 2016, battery of an officer, resisting arrest and entering a property. In 2016, he was arrested for battery in Los Angeles. In 2017, he was arrested and convicted of false imprisonment in San Jose. On April of 2018, arrested for paraphernalia again. In May, he was arrested for possession of methamphetamine.”

“In August of 2018, he was arrested for prowling. On October 2018, he was arrested for false identification and paraphernalia once again.”

Garcia said Carranza was currently on probation for the possession of methamphetamine, paraphernalia, false imprisonment and burglary.

“Unfortunately, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) placed detainers on this individual six separate times. Two in the Los Angeles area and four in the County of Santa Clara,” he said.

…Mayor Sam Liccardo took aim at the Santa Clara County sanctuary policy in a statement following the police press conference:

“It is long overdue for the County to reconsider its current policy of ignoring ICE hold requests for predatory felons, which undermines the safety of the very immigrant communities we collectively seek to protect,” said Liccardo. “The County’s policy has nothing to do with the City’s decades-long policy of declining to have police engage in federal immigration enforcement, which was implemented to protect public safety. In contrast, the current County policy of ignoring detainer requests for individuals arrested for strike offenses and convicted of multiple felonies undermines public safety, and violates common sense. I hope we can restart this conversation to make progress where we all agree: we can both keep our City safe from violent criminals and protect our law-abiding immigrant community.”

We need a wall, and we need to arrest and deport illegal aliens who break the law–the first time they break the law. If there is a wall, it will be more difficult for them to sneak back into the country.

What The Media Didn’t Want To Tell You

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about a recent shooting death in the New York City subway. The murder was gang related, but the NYPD wasn’t interested in having that information available to the public.

The article reports:

He’s an MS-13 gangster and illegal immigrant accused of murdering a rival on a subway platform — but you wouldn’t even recognize him on the street if the NYPD had its way.

Cops bent over backward Tuesday to shield alleged killer Ramiro Gutierrez from public scrutiny after his arrest for Sunday’s broad-daylight slaying in Queens — going so far as to feed reporters bogus information about his whereabouts and claim ignorance on his illegal status hours before President Trump’s State of the Union Address renewing his request for a border wall.

Gutierrez, 26, has been in custody since Monday for the execution-style killing of Abel Mosso, 20, in front of horrified straphangers.

But cops waited until 4 a.m. Tuesday to announce that he had been formally charged.

Then they called reporters Tuesday afternoon to say that he would be walked out of the 115th Precinct station house at 4 p.m. — only to sneak him out a back door by 2 p.m. en route to a courthouse in Queens.

The article continues:

Gutierrez’s NYPD rap sheet goes back to at least 2010, when he received a summons for disorderly conduct, according to sources.

He’s been collared on at least nine misdemeanors and four felonies, including for drug possession, sources said, noting that five of his arrests are sealed.

Gutierrez was out on $2,500 bail for felony conspiracy charges when he allegedly killed Mosso.

He was arrested last Dec. 11, and by Dec. 13 he had pleaded “not guilty” and posted bail, records show.

The arrest put him on ICE’s radar, but the agency was not aware he was in the US illegally until Tuesday, agency officials said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders seized on Mosso’s killing to make the case for tighter border security.

“These things should not be happening,’’ she said Tuesday on CNN.

“We know that the crime and the drugs and those things drastically stop if you have real border security, and that includes a wall.’’

Coming to a city near you unless we get the southern border under control.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Kansas.com posted an article today about International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The article lists five things that we ought to know about International Holocaust Remembrance Day:

  • The United Nations set Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  • In all, about 1.3 million Nazi prisoners were shipped to the Auschwitz complex of camps, most of whom later died or were executed. Many were murdered in the camp’s infamous gas chambers under the guise of being sent to take showers, according to the museum.
  • This remembrance day also serves as a way to promote Holocaust education. In a 2018 poll conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, 22 percent of millennials said they had never heard of the Holocaust or weren’t sure if they had heard of it, the Washington Post previously reported.
  • Numerous world leaders are commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day at memorials or online, including many on Twitter.
  • Around the globe, sites in almost 30 countries will simultaneously play a documentary that discusses how “journalists, scholars, and community leaders secretly documented Nazi atrocities,” according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The documentary — “Who Will Write Our History?” — will play from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. The event is free, but the museum is no longer taking reservations.

Never forget.

The Problem With Bringing People Into America And Not Asking Them To Assimilate Into Our Culture

Yesterday the Associated Press posted an article about Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan, a Jordanian immigrant.

The article reports:

A Jordanian immigrant could face the death penalty after a Texas jury convicted him of killing his daughter’s American husband and an Iranian women’s rights activist in what prosecutors described as “honor killings.”

Prosecutors say Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan was enraged when Nesreen Irsan left home to marry a Christian and convert to Christianity, so he orchestrated the killings of his son-in-law and his daughter’s close friend who had encouraged the marriage.

“Honor and shame, that’s what this is all about,” special prosecutor Anna Emmons told jurors. “You heard him say honor is a big deal to him. And the only way to clean that honor is to kill.”

Irsan’s trial in Houston lasted five weeks, but jurors deliberated for just 35 minutes Thursday before convicting him in the deaths of Coty Beavers and Gelareh Bagherzadeh, according to the Houston Chronicle . A sentencing hearing was set to begin Friday. Irsan faces life in prison or the death penalty.

Irsan testified that his daughter caused his family pain after running away to marry Beavers, and that Bagherzadeh had encouraged the union.

Americans need to understand that this behavior would be perfectly acceptable in Mr. Irsan’s homeland of Jordan.

The article also reports:

Nesreen Irsan testified that her father forbade her from dating Christians. She said she went to court to obtain a protective order to stop her family from harassing her after she moved in with Beavers.

Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan acknowledged that he violated the protective order by continuing to call his daughter and drive near Beavers’ home. But he said he was concerned his daughter was on drugs and making bad decisions.

The first thing we need to require of immigrants to America is that they respect our laws. Obviously Mr. Irsan did not respect the protective order or the law against murder. Honor killings are a way of life in Muslim countries. We need to make it clear to people immigrating to America from those countries that murder is against the law here, and we need to make sure those guilty of murder are sent to jail for a very long time. This case is one example of why immigrants to America need to assimilate into our culture. We do not have a perfect culture, but if you want to live here, you need to abide by the rules.

This Might Be Nothing…

On Monday, The New York Daily News reported that Seth Conrad Rich was shot to death a block from his Washington, D.C. home. Mr. Rich was a Democratic National Committee staffer.

The article reports:

Seth Conrad Rich, 27, died early Sunday from multiple gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Washington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood. D.C. police have found little information to explain his death. At this time, there are no suspects, no motive and no witnesses in Rich’s murder.

There is no immediate indication that robbery was a motive in the attack, police said, but it has not been ruled out as a possibility.

So why am I reporting this? A website called anonymous has a little more information. The website reports:

Seth Conrad Rich was the Voter Expansion Data Director at the DNC and had been working on exposing the recent cases of election fraud and voter suppression during the recent primaries around the country.

This killing could simply be a robbery gone bad or it could be another person added to the list of people associated in some way with the Clintons who have died under mysterious circumstances.

A Waste Of A Talented Athlete

WCVB.com (Boston) is reporting today that former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez will spend the rest of his life in prison without the chance of parole. He will serve his time in MCI Cedar Junction in Walpole, less than two miles from Gillette Stadium.

The article reports:

He was also found guilty of charges of illegal possession of firearm and illegal possession of ammunition.

In Massachusetts, a first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He will serve his time at MCI Cedar Junction in Walpole.

“Odin was the backbone of the family. Odin was the man of the house.  Odin was his sisters’ keepers,” his mother, Ursula Ward, said in a victim impact statement.

Through tears, Ward said she has forgiven those involved in her son’s death.

“I forgive the hands of the people who had a hand in my son’s murder — both before and after. And I hope and pray that someday everyone out there will forgive them also,” she said.

Hernandez had a bright future in the National Football League. It is a shame that his lack of moral fiber will mean that he spends the rest of his life behind bars.

Eventually The Truth Comes Out

In 1998 Matthew Shepard was murdered near Laramie, Wyoming. The press immediately dubbed it a hate crime and called for laws against hate crimes. There was much talk about homophobia, intolerance, etc. Well, not so fast. A book is coming out next week entitled, “The Book of Matt.” The book was written by Stephen Jiminez, who has interviewed over 100 people including Shepard’s friends, friends of the killers, and the killers themselves.

Breitbart.com posted an article about the book yesterday. The book tells a different story of the murder of Matthew Shepard than the one we were told in 1998.

The book relates the following:

But what really happened to Matthew Shepard?

He was beaten, tortured, and killed by one or both of the men now serving life sentences. But it turns out, according to Jiminez, that Shepard was a meth dealer himself and he was friends and sex partners with the man who led in his killing. Indeed, his killer may have killed him because Shepard allegedly came into possession of a large amount of methamphetamine and refused to give it up.

The book also shows that Shepard’s killer was on a five-day meth binge at the time of the killing.

So what’s the point? Whether or not it was a hate crime, Matthew Shepherd is still dead. Why do the details matter?

Another article posted yesterday at Breitbart.com tells us why the details matter:

A piece in the gay culture magazine The Advocate by Aaron Hicklin lays out the facts about the Shepherd mythology, but it also contains a line that is the Rosetta Stone to understanding how leftist narrative mythology is so pervasive in both the arts in journalism. Despite the clear evidence that the story that Shepard was done in by deadly homophobia was inaccurate and that Shepard was instead killled in a meth-fueled bender by another man who was bisexual, Hicklin states:

There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.

That is an amazing statement. Unfortunately our mainstream media has lost any respect it might have had for the concept of truth. We are being fed garbage in order to evoke a particular reaction–whether or not what we are being told is true.

The second article I cited at Breitbart.com talks about other cases where the media has ignored the facts in favor of a political agenda. I strongly suggest following the link and reading the entire article. News consumers need to be aware of the aims of those reporting the news. We cannot blindly accept everything we are told.

 

 

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