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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The D.C. BLM Insurrectionists Get a Pass It’s okay to riot in D.C., and assault government buildings and police officers again. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/dc-blm-insurrectionists-get-pass-daniel-greenfield/

The face of the Black Lives Matter insurrectionist who was arrested in Washington D.C. with an axe, a laser, and a “destructive device” will not be plastered by the FBI over any local billboards. 

The BLM insurrections who rioted in Washington D.C. over the death of Daunte Wright, who had choked a woman to steal her rent money, threw fireworks and heavy objects at police. They shone lasers in the eyes of police officers and vandalized the Columbus monument with the obscene and hateful graffiti of a racist black supremacist movement. And they’ll get a pass.

Even when the racist insurrectionist mob chanted, “burn the precinct to the ground.” 

While the D.C. police department has asked for the public’s helpin identifying one of the BLM insurrections who attacked a police officer and is offering a reward, the national media has not picked up the story the way that it did when there was an effort underway to identify the Capitol rioters, nor has the FBI taken to buying billboards asking anyone who knows the thug for tips.

Fighting with a police officer in January was profoundly morally different than doing so in April. 

That’s all the more striking since the D.C. Metro police force is 52% black, while the Capitol Police are 29% black. Black lives don’t matter when they’re also blue. Just ask Captain Dorn.

Only a handful of months after the media agonized over the spectacle of a riot in D.C. and our political class acted as if fights between protesters and police was some inexplicably horrifying event, worse than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor put together, instead of the top outdoor sport of 2020, it’s okay to riot in D.C., assault government buildings, and call for burning them down.

Derek Chauvin Convicted — but What Comes Next? By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/derek-chauvin-convicted-but-what-comes-next/

“Nevertheless, there is a serious question about whether Derek Chauvin got a fair trial. That is a separate question from whether the evidence was compelling. And to be sure, the stronger the evidence, the harder it is to show that due process was denied. A reviewing court is apt to conclude that even exemplary due process would not have made a difference.”

While the guilty verdicts are rational and defensible, the speedy nature of the decision could lead to problems for prosecutors in the appellate process.

D erek Chauvin has been convicted on all three counts.

For those who’ve watched the Chauvin trial, the only quick verdict that seemed rationally possible was a verdict of guilty. While I’ve been more skeptical than most commentators about the intent proof on the two murder counts (felony murder and depraved-indifference homicide), I thought the evidence on the manslaughter count — “culpable negligence,” for which it is unnecessary for prosecutors to prove criminal intent — was daunting.

Consequently, if we are sticking just to the testimony in the trial, it would be implausible — I’m tempted to say, impossible — that a rapid acquittal could have been defended as rational.

As things have turned out, the jury deliberated for less than a day. As this is written, the reporting indicates that the jury submitted no notes to the court to ask questions about the record, to request to hear any testimony reread, to seek any finer-point guidance on the law that controls the case. (I am hedging about the reporting because some matters in the case, particularly those involving the jury, have not been public.)

Word that the jury had so quickly reached a verdict signaled that Chauvin would be convicted.

The logic of the quick verdict is defensible. If the jury started with the felony-murder charge, Count One, they would have needed to find that Chauvin’s restraint and subdual of George Floyd evolved into a criminal assault. To convert what began as a lawful detention into a criminal assault, the jury would have focused on the fact that, for several minutes after Floyd had stopped breathing and lost his pulse, Chauvin maintained the back-and-neck hold — even for a minute after the ambulance arrived.

There will be no riots protesting the shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/there_will_be_no_riots_protesting_the_shooting_of_7yearold_jaslyn_adams.html

The shooting death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in a Chicago alley is a horrible heartbreak, but what about the death of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams?  Adam Toledo’s death has sparked protests and riots in Chicago and all over the country, but I suspect Jaslyn’s will be just another statistic.

Madeline Kenney, Jermaine Nolen, and Cindy Hernandez of the Chicago Sun-Times report:

A 7-year-old girl was killed and her father was seriously wounded in a shooting Sunday afternoon as they were getting food at a McDonald’s drive-thru in the Homan Square neighborhood.

The father, Jontae Adams, 28, and his daughter, Jaslyn, were in a silver Infiniti about 4:20 p.m. at the McDonald’s, 3200 W. Roosevelt Road, when they were shot, Chicago police said. A McDonald’s employee, who asked not to be named, said two people got out of a gray car and started shooting at the victim’s car. (snip)

Police said the shooting was believed to be gang-related, and less than three hours later, two people were shot in their car at a Popeyes in Humboldt Park, which investigators believe is connected to the McDonald’s shooting.

There is no police body cam video of Jaslyn’s death, of course, because it was gangbangers who likely killed her as collateral damage.  Gangs are killing hundreds of people in Chicago each year.  The latest figure (from April 14) I can find for shootings in Chicago (the overwhelming number of which are gang-related) is 864 people so far this year, 218 more than last year.

Chauvin Found Guilty on All Counts in George Floyd Trial By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chauvin-found-guilty-on-all-charges-in-george-floyd-trial/

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of all charges on Tuesday in the killing of African American resident George Floyd during his arrest in May 2020.

Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Jury deliberations lasted just over ten hours, making for a relatively speedy verdict. The jury members were kept anonymous during the trial to protect their safety.

The charge of second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, while third-degree murder carries up to 25 years in prison and second-degree manslaughter up to ten years in prison. Chauvin was remanded into custody of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office with bail revoked.

Sentencing will occur in roughly two months, according to the judge in the case.

Media and demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse in the hour before the verdict was proclaimed. Demonstrators also converged outside the convenience store where Floyd was arrested, with local media reporting elation among the crowds.

Video of Floyd’s arrest went viral last year, sparking riots in cities across the country and resulting in Chauvin’s dismissal from the Minneapolis police department. The video showed Chauvin using his knee to pin Floyd to the ground for more than nine minutes, persisting even after Floyd lost consciousness.

Floyd was pronounced dead at the scene of his arrest. The trial largely focused on the degree to which Chauvin’s actions caused Floyd’s death in combination with other factors, such as a history of hypertension and Floyd’s ingestion of a fentanyl/methamphetamine combination sometime before the arrest.

Never in America-Right? Cherie Zaslawsky

https://newswithviews.com/never-in-america-right/

In a recent broadcast, Tucker Carlson featured a story destined to send shockwaves throughout America. In discussing Canada’s new policy of mandatory detention of people who test positive for Covid in “government facilities,” Tucker referred to these “facilities” as “internment camps.” He’s right, of course, and using the correct terminology brings the euphemistically camouflaged truth out into the open.
 
But could something like this be done in America?
 

The CDC’s Alphabet Soup

Well, if you go to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) website and look up Legal Authorities for Isolation and Quarantine, you may be surprised by what you find under the heading of Federal Law: The federal government derives its authority for isolation and quarantine from the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

According to the Heritage Foundation, “Over the course of the last decades, the Commerce Clause has been used as a primary source for the regulatory expansion of the national government.” It seems the Commerce Clause could well win a popularity contest as the most often used rationale for unconstitutional shenanigans. So let’s take a good look at it.

Hmmm…. In my copy of the Constitution, the “Commerce Clause,” as an item in what is essentially a bulleted list, reads thus: “The Congress shall have the power…to regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.”

Funny, I don’t see anything there about running a medical dictatorship, depriving citizens of their rights and liberty through mandatory “lockdowns,” “house arrests” or quarantines, let alone forced isolation of American citizens in FEMA camps and the like.

That part must have been discovered in a penumbra or in emanations, along with most other tyrannical usurpations of our rights, as they were originally laid out by the Founders in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. That’s independence not only of our nation, but of We the People as sovereign individuals.

Woke Medicine Comes to New York City Aaron Sibarium

https://freebeacon.com/policy/woke-medicine-comes-to-new-york-city/?utm_source=actengage&utm_campaign=FreedomMail&utm_medium=email

Medical workers tend to a patient at a Brooklyn hospital that has seen a rise in coronavirus-related cases on December 15, 2020 in New York City. / Getty Images

A pair of doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital last month outlined a pilot program that, they said, would offer “preferential care” to patients of color. The proposal, published in Boston Review, accuses hospitals across the country of practicing “medical apartheid”—something they said must be addressed through “race-explicit interventions.”

Those interventions may violate civil rights laws, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital assured the Washington Free Beacon that they are “not currently underway at the hospital.” That hasn’t stopped one of its authors, Dr. Michelle Morse, from moving on up: She is now the chief medical officer of New York City.

In her new post, Morse will wield enormous influence over New York’s hospital system, and she has promised to use it to “advance health equity.” Part of her job will be serving as a liaison between the health department and local medical centers, including three she singled out as examples of “apartheid”: Montefiore, New York-Presbyterian, and Mount Sinai. She was also named the deputy commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness, a division within the New York City health department.

Asked how her office would address apartheid at local hospitals, Morse did not respond to a request for comment.

Why Aren’t We All Socialists? The Left is no longer on the outside looking in. They’re running the show. They can’t stick it to the man anymore because they are the man. By Dan Gelernter

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/19/why-arent-we-all-socialists/

In 1984, a defecting KGB propagandist named Yuri Bezmenov gave an astounding interview which remains one of the most trenchant in the history of American politics. Espionage and microfilm, he said, are a minor part of the KBG: 85 percent of their manpower and money are spent on “intellectual subversion,” a four-stage plan to replace democracy with socialism by destroying America’s ability to defend its democractic ideals. 

Stage one, demoralization, takes 15-20 years, because that’s how long it takes to pump Leninism-Marxism into the “soft heads” of a generation of American students. They graduate to become half-baked intellectuals running the government, the civil service, the mass media, and education. They are, as Bezmenov says, permanently contaminated: “A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information—the facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him a concentration camp, he’s going to refuse to believe it.”

“This,” Bezmenov warned, 

is what will happen in the United States if you allow all these schmucks to bring the country to crisis: To promise people all kinds of goodies and a paradise on earth, to destabilize your economy, to eliminate the principle of free market competition, and to put a big brother government in Washington, D.C., with benevolent dictators like Walter Mondale, who will promise lots of things—never mind whether the promises are fulfilled or not. He will go to Moscow to kiss the bottoms of a new generation of Soviet assassins. . . .

From ‘Insurrectionists’ to ‘Interruptionists’ More than 100 days after the January 6 melee at the Capitol, promises of high-powered sedition charges have yet to materialize. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/19/from-insurrectionists-to-interruptionists/

Well, this is a bummer for the sedition-baiting crowd.

The Biden Justice Department last week announced its first plea deal related to the January 6 protest on Capitol Hill: Jon Ryan Schaffer pleaded guilty to two charges—obstruction of an official proceeding and entering the Capitol with a dangerous or deadly weapon.

Schaffer, who has no criminal record, faced six counts of various trespassing and disorderly conduct offenses. (He did not plead guilty to any of the initial charges.)

He turned himself in to law enforcement on January 18 and has remained behind bars ever since; like many Capitol defendants, Schaffer was transported to Washington, D.C. to await trial. Schaffer’s arrest was part of the “shock and awe” manhunt the Justice Department unleashed immediately following the unrest to deter people from protesting Joe Biden’s inauguration.

In an April 15 press release, the Justice Department patted itself on the back for a job well done. “On this 100th day since the horrific January 6 assault on the United States Capitol, Oath Keepers member Jon Schaffer has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including for breaching the Capitol while wearing a tactical vest and armed with bear spray, with the intent to interfere with Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results,” Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin said in the statement. “The FBI has made an average of more than four arrests a day, seven days a week since January 6th.”

Carlin, a top deputy in the Obama Justice Department, worked for the same shop that prepared the bogus FISA application against Carter Page. An outspoken Trump critic and onetime chief of staff to ex-FBI Director Robert Mueller, Carlin clearly thrills at the idea of using his government authority against Americans on the Right.

FBI investigators, it appears, had their hands full building a case against this dangerous criminal. (Even though the Justice Department claimed Schaffer is a “founding member” of Oath Keepers, there’s some disagreement as to whether that’s accurate.)

Officer Sicknick Died of Natural Causes, Not Riot Injuries Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/19/officer-sicknick-died-of-natural-causes-not-riot-injuries/
This was just another massive lie used to gaslight the American people and justify an ongoing manhunt for Trump supporters who had the audacity to protest an illegitimate election.

Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, according to a bombshell today in the Washington Post, died January 7 of natural causes not from injuries sustained in the Capitol protest the day before. The D.C. medical examiner told the Post that Sicknick suffered two strokes caused by a blood clot at the base of his brain stem.

“Francisco J. Diaz, the medical examiner, said the autopsy found no evidence the 42-year-old officer suffered an allergic reaction to chemical irritants, which Diaz said would have caused Sicknick’s throat to quickly seize,” the Post reported. “Diaz also said there was no evidence of internal or external injuries.”

Two men have been arrested and charged with using bear spray against Sicknick on January 6. “The ruling…likely will make it difficult for prosecutors to pursue homicide charges in the officer’s death,” the Post worried.

Sicknick’s death became a rallying cry after the New York Times reported on January 8 that Sicknick had been bludgeoned to death by Trump-supporting “insurrectionists” using a fire extinguisher. Capitol and D.C. Metro police organized a somber procession for Sicknick on January 10. Democratic leaders invited his family to participate in a rare Capitol memorial attended by Congressional leaders from both parties as well as Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, the weekend before Trump’s second impeachment trial began.

But after pushback from a handful of outlets, including American Greatness, the Times quietly retracted its initial account of what happened to Officer Sicknick. The media quickly shifted to a new narrative—the officer died after suffering an allergic reaction to bear spray. The Times even published a lengthy article with video showing how Sicknick allegedly died from the bear spray attack.

The falsehood about how Sicknick died has been repeated by every Democratic politician, nearly every news and opinion outlet, and most Republican lawmakers. It’s impossible to measure how many impressions of the lie exist on social media, and unlikely Big Tech censors will flag past and future posts as “spreading disinformation.” The lie about Sicknick’s death is still included in the House Democrats impeachment trial memo.

Nancy Pelosi rallies to Maxine Waters’s cause By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/nancy_pelosi_rallies_to_maxine_waterss_cause.html

By some metrics, Maxine Waters is a true American success story – the fifth of 13 children to a single mother, she slowly worked her way up the ladder to become one of the most powerful politicians in America. By other metrics, she’s an American success story in the same way Al Capone was a success story: She attained and has retained power through thuggish bullying. Capone was finally brought to justice for his sins and Waters’ latest incitement to violence may finally be catching up with her.

Waters has been in the House since 1991, representing a very poor area in Los Angeles, even as she lives in a $6 million mansion in a mostly-white neighborhood. She has distinguished herself by being rude and obstreperous within Congress, and by inciting violence outside of it.

In 1992, when the Rodney King riots erupted, eventually killing 63 people and leading to the infamous attack on Reginald Denny, Waters didn’t try to calm the rioters. Instead, she led a “no justice, no peace” really in the middle of the riot. Waters defended the violence, saying, “If you call it a riot it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable.” During the trial of Damian Williams, who was caught on camera slamming a concrete slab into Reginald Denny’s head and dancing around his body, Waters embraced Williams’s cause.

By 1994, the House’s presiding officer, Rep. Carrie Meek called Waters “unruly and turbulent” and threatened her with the House equivalent of a cease-and-desist order for repeatedly interrupting Rep. Peter King’s speech. Ironically, just recently, Waters told Rep. Jim Jordan to “shut your mouth” and stop questioning Fauci.

In 2000, 2004, and 2016, Waters objected to the results of the presidential elections. Nevertheless, she was one of those leading the charge again Republicans who challenged the results of the 2020 election.

In 2018, at a rally about “kids in cages” (which Democrats ignore now), Waters told people to intimidate people in the Trump administration:

Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.

Waters has since escalated her violent demagoguery. This weekend, after having first asked for police protection, Waters crossed state lines to head into Minneapolis. Once there, Waters riled up the crowd gearing up to destroy Minneapolis following a verdict in the Derek Chauvin case.

Even though Chauvin is not charged with First-Degree Murder, and the prosecution struggled to meet the elements of lesser charges, Waters loudly insisted that Chauvin was guilty of First-Degree murder – and urged violence if the jury didn’t find him guilty of a crime for which he’s not being charged:

I know this, we’ve got to stay in the streets. We are looking for a guilty verdict. If nothing does not happen then we have to not only stay in the streets but we have to fight for justice. I am very hopeful and I hope that we are going to get a verdict that is guilty, guilty, guilty and if we don’t, we cannot go away.

Shortly after Waters said that a drive-by shooter attacked a Minnesota National Guard and a Minneapolis police team.

Waters’ demand was so heinous that Chauvin’s attorney argued that it would influence the jury, destroying Chauvin’s right to a fair trial. Judge Peter Cahill denied that the jury would be influenced, but nevertheless lit into Waters for talking about the case “especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law”:

Judge Cahill added that Waters’ conduct was not only “abhorrent” but could result in the case being overturned on appeal if Chauvin is convicted.