What the statistics show about police shootings and public safety By Rep. Peter King (Retired-NY District 2)trict

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/548740-what-the-statistics-show-about-police-shootings-and-public-safety

Whatever the verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd, that case — and the tragedy of another death, this time of 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in nearby Brooklyn Center, Minn. — should not be used to advance the narrative of systemic police racism and brutality nationwide. No one has done more to save and protect Black lives — indeed, all lives — than the men and women in police uniforms.  

Among the victims in today’s social and racial upheaval are the overwhelming majority of innocent, hardworking people living in minority communities who are being victimized by nationwide spikes in violent crime. Their communities already are beset by a lack of job opportunities and quality education — neither of which is their fault, nor the fault of the police — yet now they are beset by increased crime as well. Police have become victims, too, as they are expected to do the impossible while being attacked from all sides and portrayed as excessively violent or trigger-happy. 

Any discussion of policing and crime, including police interactions with minorities, is complicated and often turned into an emotional debate by an array of factors, including the sources and causes of crime itself. 

But let’s consider some statistics on police actions.

In New York City in 2018, 36,000 NYPD officers answered more than 6.1 million calls. In all of those calls, a total of 35 police shooting incidents were reported — despite one common refrain that the city’s police are trigger-happy. Of those 35 incidents, six involved police suicides or attempted suicides and four involved animals. So we are talking about barely .01 percent of shooting incidents, or 99.9 percent of police calls in which no shots were fired by the police.  

Not exactly a shooting gallery.

BACKLASH? SYDNEY WILLIAMS

“It would be wrong, in my opinion, to suggest the United States is ready to explode. But the pendulum has been pulled far back by “woke” elitists. From their ivory-towered college classrooms, their sound-proofed newsrooms, their glitzed-up Hollywood studios, and the inner sanctums of their corporate offices, they seem unaware of what constitutes the typical American, what they think and how they feel. They are ignorant of the consequences of what they have wrought. Accusations of systemic racism and the teaching of Critical Race Theory foment divisiveness, and divisiveness leads to hate and hate leads to violence.”

The arc of a pendulum carries its bob in an equal and opposite direction from which it starts. Metaphorically, it describes our country, as politics is subject to the same laws of physics.

In 1937, Albert Einstein, then living in Princeton, New Jersey but thinking of the Europe he had left four years earlier, issued a warning: “Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.” Even without those extremes, political power in the U.S. has vacillated between Democrats and Republicans. In the seventy-six years since the end of World War II, Democrats have held the White House thirty-six years and the Republicans forty. Thus, political extremism has been contained, not by politicians but by the wisdom of voters. Even today, a balance exists. While the Presidency is held by Democrats, conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. And the Congress is divided, with the Senate split 50-50, and the House with Democrats up by 218-212, with five seats vacant. We are a divided nation, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as minority voices are heard and unafraid to speak out, and as long as extremism remains confined.

In February 1788, Thomas Jefferson looked hopefully at the incoming Presidency of George Washington, the only individual to win election (and re-election) without being a member of a political party. He wrote William Stephens Smith, a Federalist Representative from New York: “We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest, finally, in the middle.” That turned out not to be true in the post-Washington years, and it is not true today. In the nation’s most extreme backlash, a Civil War broke out in 1861. A hundred years later, from the mid-1960s to the early-1970s, Civil Rights and the Vietnam War caused a backlash of protests that turned bloody.

Today, we are in the midst of another such turmoil. The difference, in my opinion, is that this time the causes are politically manufactured. There is no question that inequalities exist. They always have and always will. We are not equal in athleticism, intelligence, looks, aspirations or diligence. But today’s “victims” have little in common with those held in bondage a hundred and sixty years ago, with women who were denied the vote a hundred years ago, with blacks who had to comply with the lie of “separate but equal” public schools of sixty years ago, or with gays who were shunned two decades ago. We have come a long way, which is reason to celebrate, but we also acknowledge that all democracies are works in progress. Differences should be aired, respectfully and with tolerance for those whose opinions differ.

Corrupt Media Who Accused Trump Of ‘Inciting’ Violence Are Silent When Democrat Maxine Waters Does Just That By Tristan Justice

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/19/corrupt-media-who-accused-trump-of-inciting

Legacy outlets covered Trump’s speech with the pre-determined premise of incitement. They have either ignored or dismissed Water’s call to ‘get more confrontational.’

On Saturday, California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters went to Minnesota and demanded militant demonstrators “get more confrontational” this week in the absence of a guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial of former Minneapolis Police Office Derek Chauvin.

“We are looking for a guilty verdict,” Waters said. Anything less, would be an insult to warrant insurrection. “Not manslaughter. No no no, this is guilty. For murder.”

If the jury, which has not been sequestered despite the ongoing unrest in the Twin Cities, refuses to hand down the demanded verdict, Waters said, it’s up to progressive revolutionaries, who, just this month held a police station under siege and smashed windows to loot businesses to “get more confrontational.”

“We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business,” Waters said.

Hours later, two Minnesota National Guard members were injured in a drive-by shooting. The largest corporate outlets drew no connection between Waters’ rhetoric and the ensuing violence.

Waters’ weekend incitement, where she traveled to an anti-police protest after requesting police protection, provoked rebuke by congressional Republicans. House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy demanded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seek retribution for the dangerous rhetoric, pledging if she doesn’t, “I will.”

‘White Terror Is As American As The Stars And Stripes’: How The Left Is Answering Ibram Kendi’s Call For Racial Strife Ben Weingarten

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/19/white-terror-is-as-american-as-the-stars-and-stripes-how-the-left-is-answering-ibram-kendis-call-for-racial-strife/

Although its participants may not know it, our ruling class is speaking in Ibram X. Kendi’s tongue, and realizing his ‘antiracist’ vision.

Ibram Xolani Kendi, born Ibram Henry Rogers to a black liberation theology-adhering tax accountant father and health-care business analyst mother, is the Prophet of Wokedom to whom the likes of Twitter’s Jack Dorsey pays $10 million to prove his virtue.

Kendi is a bestselling author across several categories, with an ever-growing list of scholarly credentials and awards. He is ubiquitous in corporate media, on college campuses, and at elite conclaves. Perhaps most significant of all, Kendi’s ideas are permeating the commanding heights of society, trickling into every aspect of American life, and therefore turning him into a transcendent figure.

Kendi’s Ideas Serve Today’s Ruling Class

On the first day of the Biden-Harris presidency, the administration issued an executive order claiming America suffers from systemic racism, manifested in “[e]ntrenched disparities in our laws and public policies, and in our public and private institutions,” and charged the whole of the federal government with “affirmatively advancing equity” (emphasis mine).

Numerous other government and private institutions are following suit. Oakland is testing a program to provide 600 black, indigenous, or otherwise non-white families—and only these families—$500 per month for 18 months. A Boston medical center is implementing a pilot program to offer “preferential care based on race” and “race-explicit interventions.”

Critical race theory, ethnic studies, and a panoply of related teachings such as the 1619 Project version of American history pervade U.S. schools, while their supporters wage a war on merit for diversity and against any teacher who would dare dissent.

More than 100 executives leading major businesses recently came together to discuss ways they could swing their weight to challenge voting legislation, including Georgia’s, that they dishonestly portrayed as discriminatory. It’s just one data point in the continuing trend of corporate America’s race left that accelerated during the post-George Floyd tumult of 2020.

Increasingly the rationale for all leftist policies is “antiracism,” the movement Kendi leads. One example is casting the filibuster as a “Jim Crow relic.” Although its participants may not know it, our ruling class is speaking in Kendian tongue, and aiming to realize his “antiracist” vision.

If America is fated to succumb to Kendiization—a term coined by a colleague that aptly captures our national moment—and live in a world of “antiracism,” it behooves us to examine the views of the man behind it.

New National World War I Memorial Is A Moving Tribute To Bravery, Sacrifice, And The Indomitable American Spirit By Paulina Enck

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/17/new-national-world-war-i-memorial-is-a-moving-tribute-to-bravery-sacrifice-and-the-indomitable-american-spirit/

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae’s immortal words of remembrance of all who fell in the Great War carried through a beautiful ceremony honoring the oft-forgotten war and America’s pivotal role. On Friday morning, politicians, historians, activists, military leaders, artists, and descendants virtually gathered to raise the American flag over the newly-erected World War I memorial in Washington DC.

As the last of the major 20th century US war veterans to receive a national memorial, those who served in WWI now have a powerful tribute to their sacrifice, bravery, and heroism. Hopefully, the monument will help return the Great War to public consciousness.

The monument is a peaceful place of reflection, erected in downtown Washington, D.C. within Pershing Park, which is named for John Pershing, General of the Armies who commanded America to victory in the Great War. The stone walls contain quotes from writings and poetry of WWI soldiers, and small fountains hide the city sounds.

The centerpiece of the memorial is a long statue featuring several war scenes leading into the other. The figures are near life-sized and each tableau has a sense of action, as well as fluidity between them, creating a palpable sense of immediacy to the images.

Joe Weishaar, the architect who designed the memorial, detailed his desire to center the monument on the stories of those who served. To supplement the beauty and remembrance of the physical structure, there is a multimedia aspect in the form of an app, which augments the experience by providing deeper learning to the attendees. The app can also be used outside the monument itself, allowing users to turn any area into a place of remembrance.

Actor and philanthropist Gary Sinise, best known for his Oscar-nominated turn as Lieutenant Dan in “Forrest Gump,” hosted the flag-raising from the office of his veteran service foundation. He opened the ceremony describing the American Soldiers, or doughboys as they were colloquially referred, in turning the tide of the war for the allied powers, overlaid with footage of the brave soldiers.

As Maxine Waters Calls for Riots in the Streets to Continue, Minnesota National Guardsmen Shot At Rebecca Downs

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/04/18/as-maxine-waters-calls-for-riots-in-the-streets-minnesota-national-guardsmen-shot-at-n2588123

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a sitting member of Congress, took to the streets in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, where she called on riots to continue. She did so in the dead of the night, knowingly breaking curfew and encouraging others to do the same. As Hannah Nightingale with the Post Millennial reported, sure enough, something came of that. A news release from the Minnesota National Guard alerted that the Minnesota National Guardsmen security team were fired upon at about 4:19am, local time. Fortunately, the injuries two guardsmen sustained were minor. 

The Joe Biden Who Never Was Biden is proving the Biden he always was—as incompetent as Jimmy Carter, without the latter’s probity. He may prove as corrupt as Bill Clinton yet without his animal energy. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/18/the-joe-biden-who-never-was/

These are the most radical first three months of a presidency since 1933, the most divisive—and certainly the most dangerous. And its catalyst is the myth of ol’ Joe from Scranton who has unleashed furies and hatreds never quite seen in modern American history.

“Woke” Joe Biden

At an age when most long ago embraced a consistent political belief, late septuagenarian Joe Biden suddenly reinvented himself as our first woke president. That is ironic in so many ways because Joe’s past is a wasteland of racialist condescension and prejudicial gaffes. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, he positioned himself as the workingman’s Democrat from Delaware (or, as Biden once beamed, “We [Delawareans] were on the South’s side in the Civil War.”). In truth, he exuded chauvinism well beyond that of his constituents. 

Biden’s concocted working-man schtick meant praising former segregationists of the Senate like Robert Byrd and James O. Eastland. He would talk tough about inner-city predators, even as he pontificated about his support for tough drug sentencing. Kamala Harris, without any political traction other than her race and gender, once predicated her unimpressive and early aborted presidential campaign on the single strategy of knocking Joe out of the primaries for his purported innate racism that hurt victims of color, such as herself, the deprived child of two Ph.Ds. 

Add up what Joe has said about race and it is hard to find any major political figure of either party who has been so overtly race-obsessed. His corny Corn Pop fables positioned Joe as the white working-class everyman. Indeed, he took on supposed gang bangers from the ghetto, standing them down, no less, with his own custom-cut chain. 

On the paternalistic flip side, Joe kindly allowed young African-Americans at poolside the chance to stroke their heroic lifeguard’s shimmering golden leg hairs, or so he tells us. 

As vice president, Biden condescendingly warned an audience of successful black professionals that a rather meek Mitt Romney had the superhuman ability to “put y’all back in chains.” 

Indeed, he warned them in a fake black patois, reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s grating “I don’t feel no ways tired.” In Bidenland, donut shops are full of Indians and the sum total of Barack Obama is the fact he was supposedly “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” 

We assume then that Joe was suggesting that Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson could barely speak, were unkempt, and perhaps ugly in comparison to Barack Obama. The latter, other than his diction, fastidiousness, and appearance, apparently to Joe had not much to offer the country. 

Four Police-Related Deaths and the Importance of Context by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17296/police-related-deaths

These four cases taken together, demonstrate the considerable disparity among cases involving police related deaths. Each case presents different facts, different legal considerations, different moral conclusions, and different lessons to be learned. Let us consider them each separately, as they deserve.

Even if [Derek] Chauvin initially had the right to place his knee on Floyd’s neck or shoulder, there was no reason to do so after Floyd had been handcuffed and subdued.

[Officer Kim] Potter should not have been charged and should be acquitted if brought to trial. The decision to charge her was based not on the rule of law but on the demands of the crowds.

[I]t is unclear whether Officer [Eric] Stillman knew Toledo was no longer armed when Stillman pulled the trigger less than a second after Toledo threw his gun behind the fence, out of the view of the officer.

The refusal by radical anti-police bigots to acknowledge the dangers faced by decent, honest, non-racist police officers — which the vast, vast majority are — endangers us all.

Justice is a double-edged virtue. We need justice for the victims of police misconduct, and we need justice for those falsely or excessively charged with police misconduct.

[Congresswoman] Maxine Waters is seeking justice for neither. She is demanding vengeance without justice, without due process and without morality.

The police must be held accountable for deliberately employing excessive, especially deadly, force against minority and other individuals. But they, too, must be accorded the presumption of innocence and the due process of law. (The city manager of Brooklyn Center, Minn. was apparently fired simply for saying that Kim Potter would be accorded due process!) The rule of law must govern every case, without the heavy thumb of the angry crowd on the scales of justice.

The world is focused on three police-related deaths: the killing of George Floyd by former Officer Derek Chauvin; the shooting of Daunte Wright by former Officer Kim Potter; and the shooting of Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old in Chicago, by Officer Eric Stillman. There is a fourth death that has not received comparable attention: Police Officer Darian Jarrott was murdered in cold blood by a career criminal, Omar Felix Cueva, whose car the officer stopped and politely asked for identification.

Turkey: Iranian-Kurdish Political Refugee to be Deported by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17298/turkey-afshin-sohrabzadeh

An Iranian Kurdish political refugee, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, who suffers from cancer and lives in Turkey, has been held in administrative detention for deportation — for allegedly “threatening Turkey’s security”. He is currently being held in a removal center, and, if returned to Iran, he may well face the death penalty.

On April 5, he visited the Eskisehir Immigration Office to get permission to visit a friend in Ankara. Instead, he was held in administrative detention and a decision was made by the authorities to deport him back to Iran.

“Another option that will save Sohrabzadeh is that the UNCHR will step in and announce that he will be resettled in a third and safe country – other than Turkey or Iran.”

“As Turkey neighbours Iran, these refugees and their families continue to be exposed to the possibility of persecution by the Iranian intelligence agencies. At the same time, the Turkish immigration services are extremely reluctant to provide them with the administrative cooperation they need to complete their applications for asylum and resettlement in safer countries.” – Reporters Without Borders, April 30, 2020.

Turkey is bound by international law not to deport UN-recognized refugees. – Mahmut Kacan, Sohrabzadeh’s lawyer, to Gatestone, April 2021.

The UNCHR, the international media, and all human rights groups need to work to save Sohrabzadeh from arrest, torture and virtually certain death in Iran.

An Iranian Kurdish political refugee, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, who suffers from cancer and lives in Turkey, has been held in administrative detention for deportation — for allegedly “threatening Turkey’s security”. He is currently being held in a removal center, and, if returned to Iran, he may well face the death penalty.

Sohrabzadeh, a political activist, was arrested and jailed in Iran in 2010, His lawyer, Mahmut Kacan, told Gatestone:

“Sohrabzadeh was arrested by Iranian authorities for joining demonstrations protesting the controversial 2009 Iranian presidential elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won. Sohrabzadeh was then charged with being a member of the Kurdish Komala organization, with being ‘an enemy of Allah’ and with ‘threatening Iranian national security.'”

The Courage of Your Convictions: Paul Revere, Lexington, and Concord By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/04/18/the-courage-of-your-convictions-paul-revere-lexington-and-concord-n1440789

“Too many today reflexively reject anything that doesn’t fit in with the tribal narrative. But all sides could look at what happened in Lexington and Concord and draw inspiration and perhaps — just perhaps — begin to understand just a little bit about what America truly means.”

Two hundred and forty-six years ago this evening, a prominent Boston silversmith set out on a ride that would be immortalized by America’s finest poet. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was looking for a subject to write about that illustrated American virtues and concluded that Paul Revere’s ride on April 18, 1775, to alert Sam Adams and John Hancock that the British regulars were coming to arrest them in Lexington was a perfect allegory.

Longfellow wrote the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” in 1860 when no one was alive who remembered the actual events. And that was a good thing.  Longfellow took enormous liberties with the subject matter. But he wasn’t trying to achieve historical accuracy. Instead, Longfellow wanted to say something profound about the American character and the entire revolutionary generation: that they were willing to suffer and die for something greater than themselves.

Revere was a fairly wealthy man by standards of the time and could have done quite well for himself if he had stuck with the British during the Revolution. But he was a figure that would become quite common in America’s future. Revere was a man on the make and knew that if allowed the freedom to prosper, he could do better.

Revere became one of the first American industrialists and died a very wealthy man.

But most colonists were like the small group of militiamen who took positions on the green at Lexington the next day. They were simple folk — farmers, tradesmen, nary a wealthy man among them. They weren’t really sure why they were there except they knew they were standing up for what they understood their rights as free-born Englishmen to be. They were bitterly and tragically mistaken.

Imagine you were there. What side would you have been on?