RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/stop-demonizing-the-columbus-police-officer/

How prominent Democratic officials are demonizing a justified police shooting in Columbus, Ohio, ensuring that police will now be even less likely to use force in critical situations; and the mounting pile of unintended consequences to Democratic government policies.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Wednesday morning: “While the verdict was being read in the Derek Chauvin trial, Columbus police shot and killed a sixteen-year-old girl. Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant. She should be alive right now.”

Valerie Jarrett, one of the most powerful women in the federal government for about eight years, declared, “a Black teenage girl named Ma’Khia Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight. Demand accountability. Fight for justice.”

Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor and current UC Berkeley professor, added: “Just yesterday, shortly before the guilty verdict was announced, police killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Yet another young life stolen. In what world is this public safety?”

The ACLU of Ohio declared: “The systems that allowed George Floyd to be murdered remain FULLY intact. Moments after we celebrated a win for police accountability in Minneapolis, news broke that Columbus Police murdered a 15 year old Black girl.”

There is no indication that any of these people care that Ma’Khia Bryant was about to stab another teenage girl — as seen in the police body-cam footage and separate security-camera footage. As a neighbor who witnessed the incident described it, “Unfortunately, the cop had only seconds to respond. Once I saw the body cam video, I realized the young lady had a knife. It could have been worse. It could have been two people dead if he didn’t respond as fast as he did.”

Notice that the knee-jerk, uncorrected, and un-retracted denunciations of the Columbus Police above are not from random anonymous lunatics on Twitter. This is not nut-picking. This is a U.S. senator, a former top adviser to the president, a fairly widely read columnist of the left, and the state chapter of a major political-litigation group — all relatively mainstream Democrats and progressives with significant followings and prestige. And this isn’t even getting into how arguably the most famous professional athlete of our era posting a photo (since deleted) of the police officer and declaring, “You’re next.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/22/senate-republicans-just-handed-matches-to-arsonist/

“It’s hard to see why rank-and-file Republicans should keep sending the same craven bunch of leftist accomplices to Washington. Maybe one day, they’ll stop.”

One of the most fateful decisions of Donald Trump’s presidency happened just weeks after Inauguration Day.

In March 2017, Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to demand Jeff Sessions, a former Senate colleague and Trump’s new attorney general, recuse himself from anything related to the investigation into alleged Russian election collusion. Sessions’ two brief meetings in 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak—a figure who appeared often in collusion-related drama—amounted to evidence of collusion, collusion perps insisted.

Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) were just a few top Republicans who asked Sessions to step aside—so he did.

Sessions’ recusal put the Justice Department safely back in the hands of anti-Trump operatives just as their malfeasance was being exposed by Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). The cover-up of how the agency targeted Donald Trump and his campaign associates was secure while top officials deflected attention to the concocted Russian collusion hoax.

For an added punch, the same Republicans successfully pushed for a House ethics probe into Nunes, which sidelined his work for eight months until he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

A few months later, Republicans fiercely backed the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russians; Robert Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/cair-and-us-islamists-have-metoo-problem-daniel-greenfield/

First, Ahmad Saleem, a community organizer for CAIR in Florida, was busted after showing up to molest what he thought was a 12-year-old girl he had met over the internet. When Ahmad showed up in a car with a plate, “Invest in Children”, the cops were waiting for him instead.

The son of Pakistani immigrants had headed up the local Muslim Students Association at the University of Central Florida before moving up the ranks at CAIR. Then it was off to prison.

Now it’s Hassan Shibly’s turn. The Syrian immigrant who headed up CAIR Florida was accused of assaulting his wife, threatening to kill her, and sexually harassing CAIR employees. Shibly was also accused of threatening some of his accusers, and trying to pay them off.

An NPR article noted that CAIR leaders had been aware of the accusations as far back as 2016 and that no action was taken. “CAIR National has a history of turning a blind eye to many incidents over the years, and the information is coming out. No NDA will save them from what’s to come,” a former CAIR employee tweeted.

A forum for CAIR victims on Instagram quickly filled up with stories of a CAIR chapter head who “was found to be sexually harassing a member of staff and other women also complained about his behavior” only to be protected by the local CAIR governing board, a CAIR leader grooming an employee into a sexual relationship, a CAIR leader using “his religious belief that men can have 4 wives to manipulate women into having affairs with him behind his legal wife’s back”, and a “lawsuit with an imam and a little girl.”

This kind of thing happens a lot.

When the various Islamist groups set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and similar networks operate in this country, they use the laws of Sharia that they intend to impose on Americans.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/comedy_is_a_dictatorships_first_victim.html

Humor has always been one of the first targets of a dictatorship.  It is no surprise that in America, comedians can no longer function because of rampant political correctness.  Thus,  according to Mel Brooks, “we have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy.  Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks.”  Comedian Gilbert Gottfried says:

Imagine if the most brilliant comedians in history were working today.  They’d never stop apologizing.  Charlie Chaplin would have to apologize to all the homeless people he belittled with his Little Tramp character.

Irony abounded in the black humor that described life under communism.

A farm worker greets Josef Stalin at his potato farm.

“Comrade Stalin, we have so many potatoes that, piled one on top of the other, they would reach all the way to God,” the farmer excitedly tells his leader.

“But God does not exist,” replies Stalin.

“Exactly,” says the farmer.  “Neither do the potatoes.”

After the death of Stalin, jokes were one way people could regain their sanity in a world gone mad under communism.  One joke that made the rounds went like this:

The regional KGB headquarters in Arkhangelsk suffered a major fire and was almost completely destroyed.  Shortly after, a man called looking for help.

“I’m sorry, we can’t do anything,” said the receptionist.  “The KGB has burnt down.”

Five minutes later, the receptionist received another call.

“I’m sorry, we can’t help.  The KGB has burnt down.”

Another five minutes passed, and the phone rang again.  The receptionist recognized the voice as the man who’d twice called previously.

“Why do you keep calling?  I told you that the KGB has burnt down.”

“I know.  I just like hearing it.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/keep_an_eye_on_this_scotus_labor_case.html

Americans are proud of their right to property, not enjoyed by people in many democracies.  As the Cato Institute puts it, our founding fathers understood that private property is the foundation of prosperity and freedom.  But California’s 46-year-old Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) violates that constitutional principle, and it even fails to protect farm workers.  It allows union officials and pickets to invade farms — for three hours every day, for 120 days a year — and harangue, coerce, and arm-twist farm workers into joining the union and engaging in collective bargaining with growers even when they’re happy with their working conditions and pay.  The property-owner is powerless to stop the intrusion, as the regulation does not require the owner’s permission.

Surprising?  That is why a forthcoming decision by the Supreme Court in a case involving a strawberry plant nursery and a packager from California and the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) will be a watershed.  It will signal whether or not America will end up with more laws that stifle productivity and bestow overweening powers on Democrat-backing leftist unions.

The law came to be enacted in the first place because unions have been the most powerful force in California politics.  Public-sector unions together collect over $900 million in annual revenue.  These unions have long controlled the state Legislature, where Democrats have been in the majority for decades.  Non-public-sector unions too — such as the United Farm Workers (UFW), founded in 1962, and known to invade private farmlands — have wielded coercive influence disproportionate to their membership.  Rather than protect and fight for workers’ rights, unions have been busy increasing their power and political clout and pushing leftist agendas.  Worse, with misconceived laws that give them extraordinary powers and immunities, they force workers to accept unwanted representation, bully them into paying dues, and inflict what the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation calls “compulsory unionism abuses.”  They contribute almost exclusively to Democrat causes and give workers no say in how their dues are spent.  And the unions trespass unhindered on employers’ private properties.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-footage-of-columbus-shooting-released-from-neighbors-security-camera/

Newly released footage of a police shooting in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday shows 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant lunging at two girls with a knife before the officer shoots her.

Footage of the altercation was captured on a security camera belonging to neighbor Donavon Brinson, initially reported by the Columbus Dispatch. During the altercation, one of the people filmed yells “I’m gonna stab the f*** out of you, b****,” at the moment that Bryant was filmed attacking a girl with a knife. It is unclear from the footage if it was Bryant who said those words.

[Warning: graphic content.]

“If the officer hadn’t done what he did, I think we’d have two girls dead. It was violent and all just happened so fast,” Brinson later told the Dispatch. Bryant was living in a foster home across the street from Brinson.

In additional footage from a police body camera, one of the intended victims appears to accuse Bryant of attacking her.

“She f***ing came at me with a knife,” the girl told one of the officers who responded to the scene.

The shooting occurred shortly before the verdict in the case of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd during his arrest in May 2020. Video of that incident sparked massive riots throughout the country, along with demonstrations against police brutality that lasted through the summer.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/anticop-movement-wants-road-anarchy-too-11619132197?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Traffic laws didn’t kill Daunte Wright, but critics of the police are using his death to call for an end to their enforcement. Likewise with George Floyd and laws against counterfeiting.

On April 11 Brooklyn Center, Minn., police stopped Wright, 20, for an expired vehicle registration. Officers then discovered that Mr. Wright had an open warrant for failing to appear in court on charges of illegal gun possession and fleeing from arrest. After following instructions to get out of his car, Wright fought with the cops and lunged back into the driver’s seat when they attempted to arrest him on the outstanding warrant. One of the officers reached for her Taser but, she claims, mistakenly grabbed her pistol instead. She fired one lethal shot.

Floyd allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill, a federal offense, at a Minneapolis convenience store on May 25, 2020. The cashier called police after Floyd refused to return the cigarettes he bought. Floyd intermittently resisted arrest, prompting the responding officers to put him face down on the ground, handcuffed. Officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck and collarbone for nearly eight minutes. Floyd passed out and died. A jury convicted Mr. Chauvin of second-degree murder.

Wright’s and Floyd’s deaths were caused by a combination of their own actions and those of the arresting officers. But leftist politicians and commentators are blaming the laws the men violated in the first place. “No one should die over a traffic stop,” New York City Councilman Brad Lander said. CNN’s John Avlon asserted that “passing a counterfeit bill can get you killed in the U.S.” Yale legal scholar James Forman Jr. and a law student wrote in the Washington Post that “having expired tags or temporary plates” must be added to the list of actions that can “shatter Black lives”—never mind that Wright’s abortive arrest was not for expired tags but for failing to answer to gun charges.