Atlanta Attack Wrongly Blamed on Guns, Racism
The trouble with political narratives is that they often ignore or outright contradict the actual facts surrounding an event in order to advance an ideological agenda. It’s easy to do, and leftists have become masters in this art of public manipulation. As Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s former chief of staff infamously espoused, “You don’t ever want a good crisis to go to waste.”
Well, not only did scumbag/liar-nObama embrace that mindset while in office — he repeatedly asserted the false narrative of a nationwide problem of systemically racist police after the death of Michael Brown — but he has continued this practice of assigning motive and blame even before the facts are known.
Following Tuesday’s murderous attacks in Atlanta that left eight people dead, primarily Asian Americans working in massage parlors, scumbag/liar-nObama quickly sought to fuel the dubious narrative Democrats created last year in which they ridiculously claimed that Donald Trump was responsible for fueling a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans because he highlighted the fact that the coronavirus originated in China. Furthermore, scumbag/liar-nObama also sought to weave in the Democrats’ long-running anti-gun agenda, asserting, “Even as we’ve battled the pandemic, we’ve continued to neglect the longer-lasting epidemic of gun violence in America. Although the shooter’s motive is not yet clear, the identity of the victims underscores an alarming rise in anti-Asian violence that must end.”
President-in-Waiting lowlife/liar-Kamala Harris also blatantly blamed racism. “I do want to say to our Asian American community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people,” she said. “Knowing the increasing level of hate crimes against our Asian American brothers and sisters, we also want to speak out in solidarity with them and acknowledge that none of us should ever be silent in the face of any form of hate.”
White House Press Secretary liar-Jen Psaki piled on as well, saying there’s “no question” that Trump’s “damaging rhetoric” has led to “elevated threats against Asian Americans.” Numerous congressional Democrats followed suit.
scumbag/liar-nObama then brought it back to guns, which is where Harris and her “boss” will eventually take it: “[Tuesday’s] shootings are another tragic reminder that we have far more work to do to put in place commonsense gun safety laws and root out the pervasive patterns of hatred and violence in our society.” In other words, irrespective of the facts, the takeaway from this senseless violence is the need for more government redlining of Americans’ First and Second Amendment rights.
Was the murderous attack in Atlanta motivated by either “gun violence” or racism, as both scumbag/liar-nObama and the Leftmedia have asserted? That does not appear to be the case. The apprehended perpetrator, a 21-year-old white male, explained to law enforcement that his motive was “sex addiction.” Cherokee County Sheriff Captain Jay Baker stated, “He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as … a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.” It certainly doesn’t justify this horrific crime to note that there is sex-trafficking at these Asian brothels disguised as “massage parlors.” After all, the guy didn’t go after Asian restaurants.
In related news on the deaths of minorities, eight illegal immigrants were killed Monday when their human smugglers crashed while trying to evade police. Given that socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden has encouraged and enabled the border crisis with his politicized and ill-conceived changes to immigration policy, does that mean their blood is on his hands?
As for these mass-shooting incidents, blindly assigning motive to an incident without investigating and learning all the facts is the epitome of foolishness. It’s a characterization of those who care little for the actual truth but who are obsessed with advancing their own self-importance and self-interests. Unfortunately, our government and the wider popular culture is plagued with these types of individuals. They both reflexively claim to identify the problems while at the same time offering the “only” solutions to these problems — solutions that inevitably require individuals to give up their freedom and self-reliance to a bunch of self-proclaimed “experts.” ~The Patriot Post
An Army of Social Justice Warriors
“Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” was one of the 17 executive orders President socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s handlers got him to sign on his first day in office. It states that “all persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” In short, wholly irrespective of biological and chromosomal reality, the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration and its supporters now consider “man” and “woman” to be interchangeable concepts. Yet if that’s the case, then why is the United States Army considering a reversal of its new “gender-neutral physical test” and including different evaluation categories for men and women?
“Research showed that the Army Combat Fitness Test [ACFT], which is the same for male and female soldiers, was leading to lower results for women with a knock-on effect for promotions,” reports The Telegraph. “An early Pentagon study showed that women were failing the ACFT at a rate of 65 per cent, while only 10 percent of men did.”
A report issued late last fall showed a similar discrepancy with 54% of women failing to make the grade, compared to only 7% of men, during the second quarter of 2020. “In the ACFT there are six events — the maximum deadlift, a standing power throw, hand-release push-ups, a sprint, drag and carry, leg tuck, and a two-mile run,” the report explained. “To pass the test those taking it must score at least 360 points out of a possible 600, and those who achieve higher scores are more likely to be promoted. However, average scores for women so far are said to have been 100 points lower.”
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, who served as Army secretary until 2019, was unmoved. “If you can’t pass the Army Combat Fitness Test, then there’s probably not a spot for you in the Army,” he said in 2018, after planning for the test was revealed.
Not quite. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the military’s once-primary mission — fighting and winning wars — is no longer its top priority. As The Washington Post explains, the test in its current form “has yielded a dramatic gender gap, raising questions about whether the service might unintentionally compound barriers for women trying to move up the ranks … in an institution already struggling to shed historical gender and racial disparities.”
Such “disparities” have been brought to the attention of Congress, which has now put a stop to the test’s implementation. Meanwhile, the Army is conducting an independent review to determine whether or not the test is “fair.”
Fair to whom? The current ACFT was developed over seven years and specifically designed to simulate aspects of combat, such as dodging enemy fire or dragging a wounded comrade across a field. Officials explain that 20 years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan revealed inadequacies in the Army’s previous training regimen. Inadequacies that engendered frequent injuries.
Regardless, the political pressure is apparently on and the orchestrations to accommodate it will now include “gender-specific” evaluation categories aimed at ensuring the aforementioned equal levels of promotion between the sexes. These include separate percentile bands for men and women that would be gender-blind when soldiers go before a promotion board. “We are not going to artificially inflate the raw score for women, but we have to figure out a way to make it fair to both genders,” an unnamed Army official said.
Why? Didn’t socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s executive order eliminate “gender differences”? Weren’t those who complained that men identifying as women would dominate athletic events dismissed as bigoted or transphobic, while supporters insisted there should be no restrictions imposed on transgender athletes?
Isn’t ensuring the military maintains a single standard of lethality even more important than what happens in sports?
Apparently not. “The need to broaden the recruiting pool to meet the increasingly technical realities of war runs counter to the endless pursuit of fitness as a measure of readiness,” asserted Emma Moore, a Research Associate for the Military, Veterans, and Society program at the Center for a New American Security. Moore did acknowledge that physical fitness is important, but using such tests as a filter for retention and promotion “leads to repercussions that can arbitrarily hold women back.”
Captain Kristen Griest, the Army’s first female infantry officer, disagrees. “The drastically lower female standards of the old Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) not only jeopardized mission readiness in combat units but also reinforced the false notion that women are categorically incapable of performing the same job as men,” she writes.
It’s a false notion the Army apparently endorses: One of the expected changes in the test will be how core body strength is measured. Rather than hanging from a bar and tucking their legs to their chests, soldiers will be given the option of doing a two-minute plank exercise. That alternative was “temporarily” introduced last year in response to a high failure rate by women.
Now it appears the change will become permanent. “What we’re really trying to figure out is how do you incentivize excellence in improving physical fitness without adversely impacting any demographic negatively within the Army,” explained Maj. Gen. Lonnie Hibbard, commanding general of the Army’s Center for Initial Military Training (CIMT), which designed the new test.
The military’s concern with “demographics” is quite revealing. It suggests that, much like other aspects of America culture, merit will be replaced by “equity.”
Hence, style becomes as important as substance. As President socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden explained, “We’re making good progress designing body armor that fits women properly; tailoring combat uniforms for women; creating maternity flight suits; updating — updating requirements for their hairstyles.” socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden also signed another executive order approving “sex reassignment” surgery for active-duty personnel.
Again, what does any of this have to do with military preparedness? For even asking the question, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson was excoriated by a cadre of military personnel who took him to task for daring to state that “the U.S. military exists to fight and win wars” and that it is “not an NGO, it is not a vehicle for achieving equity, it’s not a social experiment, it’s definitely not an employment agency.”
The military’s response? “I want to be very clear right up front, that the diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths,” insisted Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby.
The DOD also posted a tweet, stating, “Women were limited to supporting roles in the military early on. Since then, women have made great strides to shatter glass ceilings within the military.”
Perhaps shattering glass ceilings — as opposed to shattering enemies — is the best we can expect going forward.
Along with rigid ideological conformity: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a February 5 memo directing commanders to institute a one-day stand-down within 60 days to address “extremism” within the ranks.
Make that some extremism. “The prevalence of extremist and white supremacist ties among service members and veterans was expected to be an urgent issue for President Biden and Austin, who is the first Black man to lead the Pentagon,” NPR reported.
Extremist and white supremacist ties as defined by whom? For a military intent on turning genuine warriors into social justice warriors, the answer is irrelevant. ~The Patriot Post
scumbag-Gavin Newsom Vows to 'Fight Like Hell'
If the words “fight like hell” mean what we think they mean, the city of Sacramento had better start putting up the fences, unspooling the razor wire, and setting up the Porta Johns for the National Guard. Because there’s gonna be a riot. And then there’s gonna be an impeachment.
Or is “fight like hell” only an incitement to violence when a Republican president says it?
To be fair, California Governor scumbag-Gavin Newsom didn’t utter those words himself. His strategist Sean Clegg did. But scumbag-Newsom hasn’t fired or even disciplined the guy, so he must approve of that language and the “lawless action” that it might “foreseeably” result in; language that has already “gravely endangered the security” of the state of California “and its institutions of government,” to borrow the language from the Democrats’ impeachment article against Donald Trump.
So, Golden Staters, why not just spare your unpopular governor the indignity of a prolonged recall effort and, in the trenchant words of the always classy Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib, “Impeach the motherf—r”?
If nothing else in this deep-blue state, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2-to-1, the recall movement has gotten scumbag-Gavin’s attention. And it should. As Politico reports, “Supporters of the recall … said Wednesday they submitted 2,117,730 signatures by the day’s deadline, a number that appears to comfortably exceed the required threshold even if some are invalid.”
“Am I worried about it? Of course I’m worried about it,” scumbag-Newsom said in a bold and fearless appearance on that hard-hitting journalistic slaughterhouse known as “The View.” He added, “The nature of these things, the up-or-down question, the zero-sum nature of the question, is challenging, and it’s vexing. … I have to do my job every single day, but I’m going to fight this thing, because I’m going to fight for California values and the things I hold dear.”
By “California values,” we presume he means ordering the state’s unwashed masses to do one thing during the pandemic while he and his privileged colleagues do another thing entirely. Like dining unmasked with lobbyists at a tony Napa Valley café after having consigned everyone else to lock down and mask up. And like feigning sympathy for the millions of Californians who’ve had to endure school closures and virtual learning for their children while his own kids have been in an elite private school since November. California values like that.
Just how worried is scumbag-Newsom? Worried enough to play the race card. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “California Gov. scumbag-Gavin Newsom promised Monday to replace the state’s senior Senator, Dianne Feinstein, with a black woman, and says he has ‘multiple names in mind’ if she retires. Just one problem. Sen. Fein-stein’s term ends in 2024, and she’s made clear she’s not going anywhere.”
scumbag-Newsom himself blamed the recall effort on “members of the Three Percenters, the right-wing militia group, the Proud Boys, support of the insurrection, [and] folks that quite literally, enthusiastically, support QAnon conspiracies.”
Who knew there were 2,117,730 Proud Boys and QAnon types in California?
As Anne Dunsmore, campaign manager of the recall effort, notes in National Review, one-third of the California residents who signed the recall petition are independents or Democrats.
“It’s not just the French Laundry,” Dunsmore said. “It’s the gas taxes, the rolling blackouts, the wildfires. … Everybody’s gotten a major lesson in ‘Government Screws You 101.’”
When it comes to recalls, California has the lowest standards of any state in the country — only 12% of the turnout from the previous election is required to start a recall movement. And this for the fifth-largest economy in the world with 40 million people, or one in eight voters in the entire United States.
Republicans, though, should curb their enthusiasm. They haven’t won a statewide election in California in 15 years. scumbag-Newsom will probably win, but it’ll be an expensive and ugly ride. The Golden State is a deep-blue one, after all, and, according to the California secretary of state, Democrats enjoy a better than 20% margin in registered voters. As Republican recall strategist Dave Gilliard said in a tweet Wednesday, petition signatories were “64.10% GOP; 25.30% NPP (No Party Preference); 9.00% Dem; 1.60% Other and 49.48% Female.”
Still, liberty-loving, anti-lockdown, anti-elitist, anti-hypocrisy Americans of all stripes can dream, can’t we? ~The Patriot Post
DeSantis: No Woke Racism in Florida Schools
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced during a press conference Wednesday that his state’s schools will “expressly exclude” teaching the Marxist-infused Critical Race Theory (CRT) in classrooms. “There’s no room in our classrooms for things like Critical Race Theory,” DeSantis contended. “Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money.” Can we get an “amen”?
Instead, DeSantis explained, “Florida’s civics curriculum will incorporate foundational concepts with the best materials, and it will expressly exclude unsanctioned narratives like Critical Race Theory and other unsubstantiated theories.” In order to facilitate educating students in accurate American civics, DeSantis proposed a program to offer a $3,000 bonus to teachers who complete a civics education course that specifically focuses on “foundational concepts.” He added, “So we will invest in actual, solid, true curriculum, and we will be a leader in the development and implementation of a world-class civics curriculum.”
As National Review explains, “Critical race theory ‘presupposes that racism is embedded within society and institutions.’ The theory’s implementation in classrooms nationwide has drawn outcry from parents, some of whom have received emails from their children’s schools about ‘Decentering Whiteness at Home’ or have elementary-school aged children who have been read ‘a book about whiteness’ that suggests ‘color matters’ and encourages them to dissect ‘the painful truth’ about their ‘own family,’ regarding potential racist behavior.” CRT is racist by design.
DeSantis is following in the footsteps of Donald Trump, who last September issued an executive order directing federal agencies to “cease and desist from using taxpayers dollars to fund” CRT training, which consists of “divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions.” socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden has subsequently reversed Trump’s CRT ban.
Governor DeSantis is showing Republicans how to boldly stand up and fight against the leftist anti-American culture war. The Left’s intentionally divisive actions are designed to undermine the very values of individual Liberty the U.S. is built upon in order to make way for the radical transformation of the country into a socialist state. Conservatives must oppose them head-on. ~The Patriot Post
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden's Iran Policy Is Turning Back the Clock
It used to be a matter of simple politics to witness a president reverse certain policies established by his predecessor, particularly if that predecessor was from the opposing party. President socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden, however, seems resolutely determined to wipe away the entire presidency of Donald Trump and pretend that America magically leapt from January 19, 2017, to January 21, 2021, without skipping a beat.
Take, for instance, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s recent actions in trying to restart the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. This gem from Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s long list of foreign policy failures was a multilateral agreement with Germany, France, the UK, Russia, and China to get Iran to abandon its program developing nuclear weapons. Anyone with a day’s worth of foreign policy experience knew it was the sum of all lies, but scumbag/liar-nObama and his feckless Secretary of State hanoi-John Kerry declared it as peace in our time.
Thanks to pallets of cash and other perks from the scumbag/liar-nObama administration that allowed Iran and its terrorist proxies to run roughshod throughout the Middle East, the deal didn’t live up to its promise. Iran continued to spin its centrifuges, enrich weapons-grade uranium, and flout the agreement. And the scumbag/liar-nObama administration continued to pretend all was well. Shocking, we know. Trump rightly pulled the United States out of the toothless agreement and was predictably lambasted in the Leftmedia. How dare he challenge scumbag/liar-nObama’s infinite wisdom!
Trump didn’t stop there, though. He went on to foster a series of peace agreements in the Middle East known as the Abraham Accords that many of his predecessors couldn’t have dreamed of pulling off. Dealing directly with Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, Trump helped cement bilateral agreements between the Jewish State and four Arab countries to normalize relations for the first time in history. Trump was also working on a fifth agreement between Israel and Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, when he left office. It was work worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize that Trump will never get. That’s okay, though, because the Nobel Peace Prize has long since lost its relevance or value and is now merely a foreign policy participation trophy for the leftist crowd.
Trump’s foreign policy successes were muted by the Trump-hating media. His own mouth also frequently got in the way of his accomplishments. Nonetheless, his work in the Middle East could have changed the face of international politics and business and brought a new level of peaceful engagement in the world’s most volatile region.
But not if socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden has anything to say about it. With little apparent reason other than to simply undo everything Trump has done, the socialist/ scumbag/liar-Biden administration has systematically stymied all these existing agreements and essentially torpedoed the unfinished Israel-Indonesia agreement. Why? For one reason, to erase Trump’s accomplishments. For another, to placate Iran.
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden appeared tough when he launched a retaliatory strike on an Iran-backed militia in Syria in February after repeated attacks on American military personnel. But it wasn’t a very effective strike, and it could hardly be categorized as a full retaliatory response. If one looks deeper into socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s dealings with Iran thus far, he seems to be walking on eggshells with the regime in hopes of getting the JCPOA up and running again.
If the president truly cares about “restoring alliances,” then he should build on the work Trump did with Israel and its Arab neighbors. These nations have proven they can work together, and such an alliance would be a great counterweight to Iran’s plans for regional hegemony. And those plans are much more likely to come to fruition if socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden insists on returning to the nuclear deal. The mullahs are already playing him like a harp, rejecting offers of direct talks and holding out for concessions that the U.S. signals it is prepared to make, even at the expense of our allies in the region.
socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden was never much of a thinker, and now that he is president, and an addled president at that, his singular pursuit of getting back in bed with Iran on a nuclear deal spells nothing but trouble. The Pentagon all but acknowledges that Iran will have nuclear weapons within the next decade. But socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden appears committed to preserving his former boss’s legacy, even though the world has changed too much in four years to go back to those bad old days. ~The Patriot Post
Cartoonists are Canceled, Charlie
On January 7, 2015, armed assailants attacked the far-left (and famously irreverent) Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris, France. By the time they were finished shooting, 12 were dead, 11 were injured, and the world was rightly horrified. The jihadist murderers’ motive? They didn’t like cartoonists making certain cartoons and exercising their right to free speech (an “Essential Freedom,” according to the French Constitution).
On January 11, 2015, more than a million people and dozens of world leaders gathered for a rally of national unity, where the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (translated to “I am Charlie”) became an international cry of solidarity supporting freedom of speech — a fundamental right long honored by Western civilization. Political and cultural satire, as it were, was upheld as a protected and cherished practice, and its purveyors hailed as martyrs slain for the cause.
Cue 2021 — the world has changed. Where once we only worried about extremists threatening the free exercise of Liberty, now it’s an establishment practice conducted by Big Tech and the New Media. There may not be guns involved, but if the pen is mightier than the sword, one can only conclude the situation is significantly more dire.
On March 8, 2021, we posted a cartoon from one of our syndicated cartoonists, Gary Varvel. Two days later, it was labeled as “Mostly False” by independent “fact-checker” PolitiFact and our page was punished (again) for sharing “false information.” The cartoon was “missing context” and did not technically toe the line for the leftist version of the truth about the Democrats’ tyrannical HR 1 legislation. The sentiment surrounding the well-known push by Democrats to manufacture new voting blocs (among other things) was essentially ignored. The whole point of the hyperbolically humorous cartoon was lost on the humorless wokescolds. In its place, an increasingly common tactic of nitpicking “facts” here and there was used to discredit the intention of the cartoon — which was to analytically mock the intentions of a political party and not literal features of the bill.
Varvel wasn’t trying to say that these are the provisions in the bill, or that Nancy Pelosi is literally handing out ballots to illegal 16-year-olds. He was trying to say that Democrats are after letting kids and illegals vote.
But it doesn’t matter that, à la Charlie Hebdo, editorial cartoons are meant to be satirical commentary on politics and society. Satirical cartoons, once hailed as sacred by the Left, have now become the next prime candidates for cancellation. The Left will stop at nothing to ruin humor.
Well, conservative humor anyway. Also in 2015, PoltiFact “fact-checked” a Tom Toles cartoon about female wages that was based on false information. He still got a “Mostly True” rating. In 1989, Toles won a Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon including language that “technically” isn’t in the First Amendment. So there’s that.
For leftist “fact-checkers,” it’s not really about the truth, of course. It’s about using their power to squelch conservative thought.
Cartoons are not policy papers — they are cartoons. So much for opinion journalism. ~The Patriot Post
Was the Shooting of Ashli Babbitt Justifiable?
“The instruments by which [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!” —Alexander Hamilton (1794)
There was a development this week in the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick — the circumstances of which I previously covered in detail. Two “Trump supporter” thugs were arrested for assaulting Officer Sicknick, spraying him with bear repellant, a nonlethal irritant similar to pepper spray that still may have been a factor in his death. For that reason, the arrests were for “assault” not “homicide.”
As I noted in my original analysis, “There is speculation [his] death was associated with chemical irritants” sprayed by rioters. I also noted that his autopsy and the medical examiner’s cause-of-death determination should be released now, not months after being spun about in scumbag/liar-Pelosi’s “9/11-type commission,” which is all about political theater, not facts.
Rep. scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck scumbag/liar-Schumer might use these arrests to pivot away from the fact that they disgracefully used the death of Officer Sicknick (a Trump supporter) as political fodder just days ahead of their post-presidential impeachment charade. (Recall that House Democrats cited the New York Times’s false claim that Sicknick had been bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher as factual grounds for their impeachment.) But as it stands, we are no closer to understanding how or why Brian Sicknick died — other than the fake narrative spread by the Times and other mass media outlets.
Thus, unless and until more information is released on his cause of death, the only death directly connected with the Capitol riot on 06 January is that of Ashli Babbitt.
For the record, the only other case in the past 10 years in which a Capitol Police officer shot and killed someone posing an imminent threat to a member of Congress was on 14 June 2017, when officers stopped an attempted massacre by a leftist activist commie-Bernie Sanders supporter in Virginia. The assailant had already near-fatally shot House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and wounded three others when members of Scalise’s security detail engaged and shot him. It is highly likely that many of the 24 other House members present that day would have been murdered if the assailant had not been stopped by the two Capitol Police officers.
However, there is nothing comparable about the circumstances of the 2017 shooting and those in the shooting of Babbitt.
To be clear, regarding all the hyperbolic Demo and Leftmedia claims about the “armed insurrection” in the Capitol, in a review of the hundreds of arrests associated with the protest inside and outside the Capitol building — most being misdemeanor trespassing or disorderly conduct charges — there were two firearms charges. Neither of those charges occurred on the Capitol grounds, and both were for violations of DC’s onerous gun regulations. There is no evidence that either of those individuals were ever in the Capitol building. After a review of thousands of hours of video, there is no evidence of any firearms inside the building other than those carried by law enforcement officers (LEOs).
The only shot fired in the Capitol building was that which killed Babbitt.
By way of disclaimer, it is very difficult as a former LEO to evaluate the death of an officer without outrage, or an officer-involved shooting death without a predisposed bias in favor of the officer. I exercise much more caution than most in either case because, unlike the vast majority of armchair commentators, I understand what it means to walk in a police officer’s shoes — often hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of sheer terror.
Ashli Babbitt, a 34-year-old Air Force veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, was previously a supporter of Barack scumbag/liar-nObama before becoming a Donald Trump supporter. But her rational perspective as the latter was obscured, according to a detailed profile, after she became an adherent of the QAnon sickthink conspiracy promoted by InfoWars agitator and conspiracy-theory charlatan Alex Jones, and others.
On her way to the Capitol building, Ashli was posting social media messages to friends: “We are walking to the Capitol in a mob. … There is a sea of nothing but red, white and blue patriots for Trump. God bless America, patriots.”
Two hours later, after following some of those mobsters into the building, Ashli, a five-foot, two-inch, 110-pound unarmed woman, was shot and killed by a ranking Capitol Police officer on the other side of a door to the hallway leading to the congressional chamber. She was amid a group of destructive protesters attempting to breach that door.
I note, however, that her diminutive stature doesn’t mean she wasn’t necessarily a threat, but the fact that she was unarmed should certainly have been a consideration in the decision to use deadly force.
Notably, as is clear in the graphic videos of the shooting here and here, there are four uniformed officers protecting Babbitt’s side of the doors, and within feet of Babbitt’s backdrop were at least four additional heavily armed riot police and one or more plain-clothed officers. It is fortunate those officers did not suffer collateral injuries when she was shot.
After her death, there was a review board convened to evaluate the circumstances of the shooting. According to The Wall Street Journal in early February: “The Justice Department said it was … having the Washington Metropolitan Police Department examine the shooting. The police investigators have made an initial determination that charges against the officer aren’t warranted…”
But much as the case with Officer Sicknick’s death, no official details have been released in the Babbitt case.
According to the Babbitt family legal counsel, Maryland attorney Terrell Roberts: “This lack of transparency impedes public scrutiny which is necessary to hold government officials accountable in a free society. It also interferes with the ability of Ashli’s family to obtain justice for their loss. We will continue to investigate this matter. We intend to take appropriate legal action when our investigation has been completed.”
In a statement from Roberts, he insists that her death constitutes “an unjustified use of deadly force which violated her constitutional rights,” adding, “It is clear from video footage that Ashli did not pose a danger to the officer, or any other person, when she was shot. Ashli was unarmed. She did not assault anyone. She did not threaten to harm anyone. There was no excuse for taking her life.”
He added: “The officer who shot Ashli never attempted to arrest her. Nor did he call on his fellow officers to arrest her. Instead, he fired a shot into her chest. Witnesses confirm that the officer did not give Ashli a single verbal warning prior to firing. In fact, Ashli was not even aware that the officer was present, as he was located in the doorway of a room off to the side of her field of vision.” He concluded: “You don’t use deadly force unless you are confronted with a threat to your life or a threat to somebody else’s life. There was no immediate threat to the officer or anyone else. That corridor was clear of congressional members.”
Babbitt’s husband Aaron protested: “She didn’t have any weapons on her. I don’t know why she had to die in the People’s House. She loved her country and she was doing what she thought was right to support her country, joining up with like-minded people that also love their president and their country. She was voicing her opinion and got killed for it.”
Of course, Ashli Babbitt did more than voice her opinion. She also followed a group of violent thugs into the Capitol building. That, more than anything else, is what caused her death. But it doesn’t mean her death was justified.
According to Mark Schamel, attorney for the Capitol Police officer: “In every analysis, this was an absolutely justified use of force. … He was acting within his training. Lethal force is appropriate if the situation puts you or others in fear of imminent bodily harm.” Schamel added, “What he did was unbelievable heroism.”
Despite his attorney’s utterly asinine assertion of “unbelievable heroism,” the kind of tripe spewed by someone who has never risked his life for anyone else, I’m sure the officer involved does not believe he was heroic — whether he discharged his weapon justifiably or negligently. I’m sure he is devastated, and his life is forever altered.
Witnesses claim that the officer issued no warning before firing, but Schamel says, “It’s a false narrative that he issued no verbal commands or warnings. He was screaming, ‘Stay back! Stay back! Don’t come in here!’”
There is speculation that the officer is claiming he shot Babbitt over concern that her backpack might contain a bomb — there were pipe bombs left outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on the day of the riot, and the FBI is seeking information to identify that bomber.
Such a claim would strain credulity. First, there was no attempt by any of the officers on Babbitt’s side of the door to arrest her or investigate the backpack. Second, most people who attend rallies bring backpacks with provisions.
According to Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), “When they broke the glass in the back, the lieutenant that was there … didn’t have a choice at that time. The mob was going to come through the door, there was [sic] a lot of members and staff that were in danger at the time. And when he [drew] his weapon, that’s a decision that’s very hard for anyone to make and, once you draw your weapon like that, you have to defend yourself with deadly force.”
Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases when officers draw their service weapon, they do not have to shoot.
The truth in this tragic and chaotic moment lies somewhere between the opposing attorneys’ descriptions.
As for my perspective, I think all those who have rioted across our nation should be dumped on a remote deserted island where they can do others no more harm.
But to the point, it’s difficult to put myself in the officer’s situation. My best estimate is that the real threat he perceived was the surge of people expected to follow Ashli through that door. Unfortunately for her, she was at the front of the line.
The officer fired in the heat of the moment, and it was a very heated moment. I have never been in the midst of a massive protest (except for Red Square in Moscow in 1990 — and I was not armed). But I have been in situations as an LEO, weapon drawn down on a perp, adrenaline flowing especially after a pursuit. It is a battle between the adrenaline and making good and rational decisions in the heat of the moment — and in this case the adrenaline may have won.
Keep in mind that most Capitol Police officers receive the same basic training all federal officers receive, but in terms of readiness, they are more like security guards than street LEOs, the latter of whom deal with life-threatening intervention frequently.
To that end, here is a video of a clearly justifiable officer-involved shooting of a woman last week here in Tennessee.
Finally, one motivation for the suppression of details regarding Babbitt’s death is to avoid additional attacks by more unhinged QAnon conscripts, some of whom, according to the radical leftist race-bait Southern Poverty Law Center, want to make her a martyr for their cause. I am likewise sure that there is an effort to protect the officer involved.
But there is a stark contrast between protecting the identity of the Capitol Police officer for his safety and that of the larger community, and exposing the identity of police officers in other high-profile officer-involved deaths of unarmed suspects.
When the identity of a police officer in a high-profile case fits the Democrat Party agenda — as in the current Minneapolis case, in which the city just gave the family of a “victim” a whopping $27 million before the jurors in the officer’s trial had been seated — the identity of that officer is everywhere, 24/7. That officer has been thrown under the bus.
When it does not fit the Democrat Party agenda, the whole apparatus of the state and media protects the officer’s identity.
Bottom line: The identity of all officers should be protected until investigations are resolved. Otherwise, in some instances Democrats and their media outlets will set those officers up for trial in the court of public opinion. ~The Patriot Post
GARY BAUER
Big Business Goes Left
The media and our universities have been dominated by the radical left for decades. But have you noticed that big business now increasingly sides with the left? Sometimes I wonder whether they even realize they are American companies.
For years, we watched in horror as iconic American corporations moved their factories overseas, often to communist China. Their actions devastated American families and communities, and the companies became apologists for communist China.
China’s human rights abuses have been well-documented for decades. Whether it was forced abortions under its barbaric one-child policy or the suppression of free speech and religious freedom. None of that stopped American companies from enriching themselves and communist China.
Now the brutal communist regime has ended what little freedom remained in Hong Kong. Even worse, it stands accused of committing genocide against ethnic minorities.
Where are the statements of condemnation from corporate America and the NBA? How dare these “woke” corporations lecture us about our values when they are profiting off of slave labor!
But not only are these American corporations soft on communists abroad, they are making common cause with socialists here at home.
Big tech companies like Facebook and YouTube are shutting down conservative viewpoints. Pro-life messages are blocked. Conservative Christian messages are blocked. Books that promote biological reality are banned. Silencing free speech is what totalitarian regimes do.
In recent years, several states tried to protect religious liberty and ensure that our daughters were safe in public restrooms. But big corporations blasted the commonsense legislation as bigoted. They threatened to boycott those states if the legislation passed.
Why do these companies think they can dictate our values when they refuse to speak up against communist China’s atrocities?
Fast-forward to today. Millions of Americans have serious concerns about the last election. Many states are advancing bills to roll back the “emergency” pandemic orders that radically changed election laws and made fraud easier. Several courts have ruled that these bureaucratic changes were in fact illegal.
But the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and several big corporations, bowing to pressure from the left, just announced their opposition to Georgia’s critical election reform measures.
For years conservatives like me have proudly supported American business. I still do, particularly when it involves small businesses and entrepreneurs who are the backbone of our economy. I believe in free markets and the fundamentals of capitalism.
But many big corporations are now handmaidens of the radical left. And as the left-wing crowd in Washington gets ready to massively raise taxes on multinational corporations, they will find few, if any, allies on the right willing to defend them.
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s Bad Messaging
President socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden finally addressed the crisis on the southern border Tuesday night. In an interview with ABC News, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden essentially repeated what other administration officials have said.
He told migrants, “Don’t come,” and then proceeded to discuss how we were accommodating all the unaccompanied children at the border. (By the way, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden also conceded that these “children” were mostly 16- and 17-year-olds.)
Press Secretary liar-Jen Psaki and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorjkas have said this before. But always with qualifiers like, “Don’t come now,” i.e., coming illegally later is fine, and “This is not the time to come” or “We don’t have the processing we need at the border.”
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s messaging is terrible. He’s not discouraging illegal aliens, he’s coordinating with them. What they’re really saying is, “You’re overwhelming us. We can’t process you fast enough. You’re making us look bad. Take a number!”
This is not a message against illegal immigration. At best, it’s a plea for more orderly illegal immigration so it doesn’t cause too much political blowback on the president and his allies.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Democrats are feeling the heat.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) was asked about the border situation Monday. He said, “Oh, it’s a crisis. Whatever message was sent, it sure was interpreted the wrong way.”
Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) said, “We have got to get the right message. You know, when you say, ‘Don’t come now, come later,’ that message, in my opinion, is not a very good message. We have to be very clear as to what we mean on the border because the president or the administration’s message is not getting through.”
Fuming Over the Filibuster
Senate liberals and their allies in the progressive movement are planning an assault on the filibuster rule. It’s an arcane rule of the Senate that distinguishes it from the House of Representatives by requiring super-majority support for most legislation.
While Democrats initially promised to preserve the filibuster, the evidence is clear that they are getting ready to go “nuclear” so they can eliminate it.
They are desperate to get their radical wish list — nationalization of elections, the misnamed Equality Act, and a massive amnesty bill — passed at any cost. Even socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden, who said he opposed eliminating the filibuster just 10 days ago, now says he’s open to “reform.”
The threat is real, my friends. So much so that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell went to the Senate floor Tuesday to strongly warn his colleagues what a “scorched-earth Senate” would look like if Democrats nuke the filibuster. He said:
“This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon. To proceed with a garden-variety floor speech. To dispense with the reading of lengthy legislative text. To schedule committee business…
"I want my colleagues to imagine a world where every single task requires a physical quorum — for which the vice president does not count, by the way… This is not a trade-off between trampling etiquette but then getting to quickly transform the country. That’s a false choice…
"This chaos would not open up an express lane to liberal change… The Senate would be more like a hundred-car pile-up. Nothing moving.”
And to think that so many Americans voted for socialist/ scumbag/liar-Joe Biden thinking that he and the Democrats were going to unite the country!
Israel Apartheid Week
Radical Muslim student groups and the BDS movement are promoting a disgusting myth this week known as “Israel Apartheid Week.” As the name clearly states, they are comparing the Jewish state to the South African apartheid regime of racial segregation.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel is the most diverse nation in the Middle East. It fully protects the rights of minority citizens.
Israel’s Arab citizens can vote in elections. Israeli Arabs serve in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. They also serve in the Israeli military. Salim Joubran, an Israeli Arab citizen, served on Israel’s Supreme Court for 14 years. This is hardly apartheid.
Anyone who accuses Israel of being an “apartheid state” clearly knows nothing about Operation Moses, a secret mission to rescue 8,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan and bring them to Israel.
If we want to discuss “apartheid states,” let’s talk about the Palestinian Authority. Anti-Israel activists claim that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians because they don’t have a state of their own.
Well, that’s entirely the fault of the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinians have repeatedly rejected very generous offers for a Palestinian state. And if they ever do get a state, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insists that it must be “Jew free.” ~The Patriot Post
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