Archive for the ‘Civil Rights’ Category

In this op-ed, Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz poses a pretty potent what if that liberals should think twice about.

First, he wrote “the New York Times has reported that, according to three sources, special counsel Robert Mueller is trying to stitch together an obstruction of justice case against President Trump based on his public tweets, TV appearances, conversations with public officials and other entirely lawful acts.” Next, he wrote “Just imagine a prosecutor going through all of your tweets, all of your conversations, all of your actions and all of your emails in search of a plausible theory of criminality based on an accordion-like statute such as obstruction of justice. If Mueller manages to cobble together an obstruction of justice case from innocent communications, then this dangerous precedent will lie around like a loaded gun ready to be used by any vindictive prosecutors against any plausible target. That target could be you or someone you love. It could be a Democrat or a Republican. It could be a liberal or a conservative.”

People keep saying that “we don’t know what Mueller has.” Technically, that’s true. It’s also misleading. The truth is that Mueller would already be writing the report if he had something damning against President Trump. He wouldn’t be expanding the fishing expedition into President Trump’s public comments and tweets if he had the goods.

Dershowitz has been consistent talking about civil rights:

Defenders of Mueller will surely argue that it is common for prosecutors to stitch together innocent conduct to manufacture a crime, especially when the target is a suspected drug dealer, a terrorist or gangster. Tragically they are right. There are such cases, but there shouldn’t be. Many wrongs do not make a right.

Moreover, in those cases, the underlying conduct is generally done in secret. Here, Mueller apparently is trying to turn public, open communications — core First Amendment expression — into a crime.

The time has come — indeed, it is long overdue – for all Americans to take a hard look at broad, ambiguous and open-ended statutes, which empower prosecutors to be “creative.” There is a concept in criminal law known as lenity: If there are numerous ways of interpreting a statute, the law requires that it be interpreted in the most reasonably narrow way, so as to avoid empowering prosecutors to target unpopular defendants. Failing to apply this concept to constitutionally protected tweets, messages, emails, etc., should concern every civil libertarian, even those who are anxious to find legal weapons with which to target President Trump.

JFK once famously said that if the laws don’t protect everybody, they don’t protect anybody. We should never forget that statement because truer words were never spoken.

The St. Cloud Times’ Nora Hertel should be applauded for applying an excruciating amount of scrutiny during Keith Ellison’s visit to St. Cloud this week. It’s a safe bet he won’t grant her an exclusive interview after she put the screws to Mr. Ellison. Check this out.

For instance, we found out that “Ellison told a friendly audience in St. Cloud [aka CAIR-MN] that it’s difficult to get legislation passed in Washington D.C. now, while state attorneys general are on the front lines of protecting people’s rights.”

Later, we found out that Ellison “shared his platform and took questions from the small group Friday at New York Gyro on Third Street North. Ellison has served in Congress for 12 years and practiced law long before that.” Still later, when asked about his views on law enforcement, Ellison replied that “Like fire service and public utilities, public safety services should be delivered fairly, Ellison said. He supports a number of reforms including: allowing felons to vote, decriminalizing marijuana, training police on de-escalation and implicit bias. He supports drug courts and wants to treat addiction as a medical, rather than a law enforcement, problem.”

In other words, Ellison’s priority would be to teach the police to stop being racists and to stop shooting innocent minorities when these minorities are given fair, specific instructions by law enforcement officers.

According to the Kirwan Institute, the definition of implicit bias “refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control. Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness. Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection.”

Let’s understand this. Implicit bias resides “deep in the subconscious”, meaning that they “aren’t accessible through introspection.” Further, these biases “are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.”

If we don’t know that these traits exist and they’re “activated involuntarily”, how are we supposed to prevent them? That’s assuming that they actually exist, which I’m skeptical of, at least to the extent that Mr. Ellison says they exist.

Left out of Ms. Hertel’s article is Mr. Ellison’s extensive (and disturbing) interview with radical Rabbi Michael Lerner:

Treating Ellison like he’s just another political candidate ignores Mr. Ellison’s support of cop killers. In his past, Ellison has questioned detectives investigating cop killers like Kathleen Soliah:

At the event, Ellison told the Pioneer Press he believed the prosecution of Olson was political. In his speech, Ellison noted he didn’t know much about the SLA and he thought Olson was being prosecuted in the court of public opinion because of some of her political beliefs.

“I’m a supporter of anybody who’s subject to political prosecution based on their being in a vilified group,” he told the Pioneer Press. “Your chances of getting a fair trial are low. I’ve been waiting for the evidence against her. I don’t think they would not cheat to prosecute this woman.”

Here’s what he said about Assata Shakur and Bernadine Dohrn:

Ellison also spoke favorably of convicted cop killer Assata Shakur and expressed his opposition to any attempt to extradite her to the United States from Cuba, where she had fled after escaping prison.

“I am praying that Castro does not get to the point where he has to really barter with these guys over here because they’re going to get Assata Shakur, they’re going to get a whole lot of other people,” Ellison said at the event, which also included a silent auction and speech by former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn. “I hope the Cuban people can stick to it, because the freedom of some good decent people depends on it.”

Summarizing, Ellison thinks that cop killers are misunderstood civil rights heroes and that police officers are racists. Is that the type of man we want leading law enforcement? Is that the type of man we want harassing law enforcement? I don’t think so.

This article is proof that Keith Ellison hates the Constitution, especially the First Amendment. It’s also proof that he’s unfit to be Minnesota’s chief law enforcement officer, aka state Attorney General.

The article notes that Ellison is “demanding that Amazon censor books and other materials produced by organizations listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.” That’s a frightening insight into Ellison’s thinking on multiple levels. First, it’s disturbing that the man who wants to be Minnesota’s attorney general thinks that censorship is a foundational constitutional principle. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment except if it incites violence. It doesn’t make much sense to have an attorney general who hates constitutionally protected civil rights.

Next. it’s disturbing, though not surprising, that Ellison thinks that the SPLC is a reputable arbiter of right and wrong. Here’s a couple snippets from Ellison’s censorship letter:

Click to enlarge.

Later in the letter is something that’s definitely chilling:

As stated earlier, Amazon has a strict policy against hateful and racist products on its platform. The availability of all the material listed in the aforementioned report indicates to me that either Amazon is willfully refusing to enforce its own policies against the sale of racist products or its sheer size make it impossible for the company to police itself. In either event, Amazon must immediately cease doing business with groups that promote racist violence.

It’s apparent that Ellison hasn’t hesitated in using his official capabilities to intimidate companies into outright censorship.

Any legal eagle that’s anti-civil rights is disqualified to be Minnesota’s attorney general.

Saying that picking Erin Maye Quade is Erin Murphy’s first unforced mistake isn’t controversial outside the DFL. Since I’m not in the DFL, I’m not that worried what the DFL thinks. Frankly, I’m confident that I’ve got lots of company in thinking that.

Filling out Erin Maye Quade’s identity isn’t difficult. She’s admitted to organizing with Barack Obama in 2007-08. She’s led this year’s anti-gun protest at the Capitol. She’s from Apple Valley. Combining with Erin Murphy is natural since the DFL is the Metrocrat Party. Increasingly, to the DFL, life outside the Twin Cities Metro doesn’t exist. Increasingly, to the Metro DFL, people who want to protect their families are considered weird. If you don’t believe me, ask Lori Swanson how welcoming the DFL is to NRA members. Swanson led Matt Pelikan by 5 points after the first ballot. Shortly thereafter, the DFL endorsed Pelikan. After the first ballot, Pelikan dropped a neutron bomb in the convention center, telling everyone that — gasp! — the NRA had given Swanson an A rating. Within 15 minutes, Swanson withdrew.

Why would we think that an anti-mining, gun-grabbing, pro-single-payer health care ticket from the Twin Cities would attempt to represent rural Minnesota? That being said, I’m praying that this is the DFL ticket this November. Check out the last half of this video:

Quade first admits that she’s a first-term legislator. Next, she virtually admits that parents can’t afford child care. Perhaps, she should’ve told Gov. Dayton not to let several hundred million dollars leave the program as a result of fraud.

Nothing in Ms. Quade’s legislative history suggests that she’s prepared to be governor if, God forbid, Murphy is incapacitated. Then again, I question whether either of these women are interested in representing the people of rural Minnesota. I’m betting they won’t.

This ticket screams identity politics. This ticket doesn’t seem interested in representing all of Minnesota’s 87 counties. In the end, that’s why I think Murphy-Quade will get beat by Walz-Flanagan.

Written by Rambling Rose

The Left calls foul and proves how intolerant they are when the person they attack is not silenced and does not cower in their presence. Last January, senior Addison Barnes at Liberty High School in Hillsboro, OR, entered his first-period “People and Politics” class wearing a T-shirt. The only problem was that his T-shirt was not PC. He displayed a statement from President Trump’s campaign. He knew that he was “making a statement” but assumed that it was covered by the school’s policies on the right of students’ free speech and the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

“Specifically, the words on the shirt read: ‘Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.,’ with ‘The Wall Just Got 10 Feet Taller’ in quotes.”

He was wrong. During the class, Assistant Principal Amanda Ryan-Fear removed him from class and ordered him to cover his shirt. She stated that the teacher and at least one other student had been offended by his shirt during a discussion on immigration. He complied and returned to class. However, he realized that he had a right, protected by the First Amendment and his own school’s policies, to state his own opinion so he uncovered his shirt.

Later that same hour, the assistant principal returned to his class and saw his shirt. She ordered a security guard to remove Barnes. She reminded him that his shirt offended others and gave him the choice to cover the shirt or to go home for the day. Barnes went home. [Editor’s note: I would have said ‘None of the above’, then asked the assistant principal if she’d prefer I be allowed to wear the shirt or fight a civil rights lawsuit that she’d lose badly.]

The following Monday, Addison Barnes and his father met with Principal Greg Timmons. They learned that his absence had become a suspension and that the teacher and student had also changed their claim—they felt “threatened.” The suspension was rescinded, but Barnes was told that he would be suspended again if he ever wore that shirt in the school.

He obeyed the directive until April when he was interviewed by another student for a documentary on the First Amendment. That student was ordered to obscure or blur the shirt before uploading the segment to the school’s online learning platform.

Mr. Barnes sued the school, the district and Principal Timmons for denying him his First Amendment right. His actions were silent and passive, reflected the theme of the day’s discussion in January and the topic of the interview in April. No violence or disturbance were caused by Barnes; only the teacher, a fellow student and the administrators were disruptive in protesting his rights. The charge also addresses the “selective” discrimination by allowing other offensive statements reflecting the favored stance of the welcoming Sanctuary City to be displaced in posters in classrooms for the entire school year. Mr. Barnes and others found those posters offensive but recognized that they were protected by the First Amendment and said nothing.

“The suit seeks a declaratory judgment stating that the school violated Barnes First Amendment rights and a permanent injunction against the school enforcing its guidelines in a similar manner, so the teen can again wear the shirt to school. Unspecified damages, court costs and attorney fees are also sought.” It was filed on May 18, 2018.

In the words of one of his lawyers, “The high school, ironically named Liberty High School, had violated his free-speech rights. He was told he offended them but that’s a far cry from being disruptive, and it is certainly a far cry from violating school policy, let alone what is clearly First Amendment free-speech law.”

Even the ACLU had to defend Barnes’ right to free speech, although they did so reluctantly. “It is disappointing that Liberty High School decided to censor the student instead of inviting the student body to discuss immigration, the freedom of speech, and the impacts of xenophobic rhetoric. Schools have a responsibility to teach our youth how to engage in thoughtful conversations about difficult and potentially offensive subject matters. Censorship doesn’t work and often just elevates the subject the government is trying to silence.”

While the Liberty High School’s Parent-Student Handbook does not address political clothing directly, the Standards of Student Conduct do prohibit “illustration, words or phrases” that are or could be disruptive and/or that promote one group over another. There was no disruption in the class or the interview and the T-shirt reflected the topics under discussion—immigration and the First Amendment. It does not appear that Mr. Barnes committed any violation. [Editor’s note, part II: If possible, the judge should prohibit Liberty HS from posting rules that infringe upon a person’s right to speak their mind. Final note: The First Amendment guarantees the right of people to say offensive things. It doesn’t, however, give people the right to say things that cause people to injure people.]

One can only hope that justice will be served, but that is not always the case when judges make law from the bench rather than interpret the laws of the land.

Thanks and stay strong, Addison Barnes.

ISD 742 was one of the 43 school districts that received a letter that “for suspension and expulsion disparities that the department claims violate the state Human Rights Act ‘because they deny students of color and students with disabilities educational access and negatively impact academic achievement.’ The human rights department offered the district two agreements to consider as a way to eliminate those disparities. A lawyer offered the district a modified agreement.”

Unfortunately, the District has already bought into this liberal ideology. According to the article, “the board voted Wednesday to offer the human rights department a fourth option, a version that highlights the work the district is already doing to eliminate suspension disparities and to change the focus of the agreement to keeping all students in school by using nonexclusionary practices.”

Discipline in the district was effectively nonexistent already. Commissioner Lindsey’s Department will make things worse.

The ‘remedy’ is worse than the disease:

The agreement the board approved submitting to the human rights department lists policies implemented by the district to reduce instances where student behaviors result in exclusionary discipline. Those include:

1. Eliminating zero tolerance policies except where required by law,
2. Having an in-school suspension policy designed to result in less adverse effects on minorities while still allowing disciplined students to be separated from the student body when necessary,
3. Having a Positive Behavior Intervention and Support program,
4. Practicing restorative justice,
5. Implementing culturally responsive instructional practices,
6. Implementing social and emotional learning initiatives,
7. Providing additional staff training in classroom management, conflict resolution and ways to deescalate classroom disruption and misconduct,
8. Providing programs to engage families,
9. Educating students on conflict resolution skills, and
10. Providing district resources to provide in-school alternatives to suspension.

Setting discipline based on racial quotas rather than behavior is counterproductive. This isn’t discipline. Potentially, it’s a protection racket. Don’t think that gangs won’t keep track of this. Thanks to ‘quota-based discipline’, gangs will know when disciplining them is off-limits.

Further, there’s no proof that restorative justice leads to better educational outcomes. After reading this article, I’m more than skeptical of restorative justice’s viability. That term is similar to strategic patience or leading from behind, which are different ways of saying doing nothing.

The MDHR is an activist position that pays a person a bloated salary. Further, the threats MDHR extends aren’t based on actual complaints but from statistics. Quota-based discipline is a collectivist’s system of discipline. That sounds more like a system based on implicit bias than on what’s actually happening.

Technorati: Restorative Justice, Leading From Behind, Strategic Patience, Kevin Lindsey, MDHR, ISD742, Implicit Bias, DFL, Activism

Progressives often get lumped in with liberals. That shouldn’t happen. Progressives frequently resemble fascists. They frequently ‘win’ their arguments by accusing people of lying. That’s the case with Maria Cardona’s op-ed. Ms. Cardona wrote “Trump claims several untruths: that nothing has been found thus far in this investigation; that they have found absolutely no collusion; that the whole thing is a partisan witch hunt; and that the sacrosanct attorney-client privilege is dead.”

What BS. I’d love hearing Ms. Cardona list the things Robert Mueller has found thus far that proves collusion. After all, that’s what President Trump has consistently complained about. As for President Trump’s statement that Mueller’s probe being a partisan witch hunt, that isn’t a lie. It’s President Trump’s opinion. It’s virtually impossible to lie when stating an opinion. As for whether “the sacrosanct attorney-client privilege is dead,” I’ll leave that to Harvard Professor Emeritus Dershowitz, who wrote “Clients should be able to rely on confidentiality when they disclose their most intimate secrets in an effort to secure their legal rights. A highly publicized raid on the president’s lawyer will surely shake the confidence of many clients in promises of confidentiality by their lawyers. They will not necessarily understand the nuances of the confidentiality rules and their exceptions. They will see a lawyer’s office being raided and all his files seized.”

Professor Dershowitz is a principled, old-fashioned liberal. Old-fashioned liberals frequently displayed a commitment to civil liberties. They frequently had a libertarian streak in them, too. The point is that old-fashioned liberalism isn’t compatible with hardline progressivism. Often, they’re opposites.

I’m happy that President Trump won but I’m not a win-at-all-costs person. I’ve seen enough of Professor Dershowitz to say the same thing of him. Watch his principles in this interview:

I can’t say that about Ms. Cardona.

If stupidity were money, the writer of this LTE would be wealthy. Early in the LTE, the writer poses a hypothetical situation, saying “Say Matt, 23, dies from an IED in Afghanistan. His rising life is cut short. The anguish is felt by his grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, nephews, nieces — and all their friends and relatives, and Matt’s uncles, aunts, cousins, acquaintances, friends, HS classmates, their parents, college classmates, friends, girlfriends, athletic mates, armed service mates, acquaintances — pain multiplied exponentially compared to an abortion. Pain that goes on forever.”

A few paragraphs later, the writer employs a guilt-trip strategy, writing “Then the same goes for the loved ones and friends of the wounded — physically, emotionally, psychologically. Not to mention the loss of productivity to society. Add massive costs for decades more that you and I foot to aid the wounded warriors. And the conservative reaction to all this carnage? Threats of more wars. And big yawns; hiding behind the skirts of the NRA and a lack of common sense about the second amendment. (Bazookas, grenades and howitzers have been outlawed without ‘taking all our guns.’) If conservatives truly cared about gun deaths, their abortion signs would add, ‘Save our young adults. Outlaw AR-15s.'”

The writer must be physically fit because that’s a hell of a leap. Seriously, outlawing AR-15s won’t come close to putting a dent in mass shooting deaths. Eliminating AR-15s wouldn’t even eliminate 1% of shooting deaths.

Let’s talk about the forever popular with progressives assault weapons ban while we’re at it. The progressives’ definition of an assault weapon is nothing more than a scary-looking semi-automatic rifle. If people want to be consistent, people that want to ban ‘assault weapons’ would have to eliminate all semi-automatic weapons.

Here’s a question that hasn’t been discussed. If these gun grabbers truly wanted to put a significant dent in gun deaths, why aren’t they calling for the elimination of handguns?

Instead of going the gun-grabbing route, we’d be better off if we implemented programs that already have a history of success. Sen. Marco Rubio, the politician accused of having blood on his hands because he’s accepted campaign contributions from the NRA, wrote this op-ed to highlight what Congress has already done:

Just five weeks after the tragedy in Parkland, Congress passed a spending bill that authorizes $1 billion over the next decade to improve the safety of our schools. The STOP School Violence Act is set to immediately provide resources to schools and their communities to prevent violence before it ever begins.

Being proactive is better than efficiently reacting.

The new money would be available to local governments and schools to implement programs like Los Angeles County’s successful School Threat Assessment Response Team, which coordinates the efforts of law enforcement, schools and mental health professionals to make sure nobody slips through the cracks. It will fund anonymous reporting systems like the Safe UT app, and help school districts create and train intervention teams to seek out the troubled students most likely to pose risks like what happened in Parkland.

Rather than listen to the mindless yapping of young activists like David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, Congress has funded an effective program that seeks to expand from Los Angeles to the entire nation. Here’s why that’s important:

School safety programs that had previously been subject to budget cuts or staff turnover will have additional resources for operations and for investments in improvements. Local government officials, and the parents and families they represent, will be able to use the money for solutions that work best for their communities based on tried and true approaches.

It’s time for the activists to get off the stage. They’ve been discredited because improving school safety doesn’t require trampling people’s civil rights. Cameron Kasky, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez are poorly-trained actors with a loser’s script:

For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been inundated with moral-sounding drivel from high school students. While the left-leaning media swooned over these ill-informed activists’ activism, I kept wondering when a true journalist would ask them pertinent questions. After awhile, I stopped expecting the MSM to do something they clearly didn’t want to do. After awhile, I stopped expecting these children to stop acting like ill-informed spoiled brats.

While the MSM praises their activism, people in America’s heartland have moved on. Voters in America’s heartland have tuned these children out, knowing that they’re mostly a creation of the MSM and that the emotions are real. If the MSM won’t ask these children some tough questions, I will.

1. Are you committed to making schools safer? If you are, why are you pushing the thing that doesn’t work?
2. Why is your focus solely on the NRA? Sheriff Israel, Deputy Peterson, the Broward Cowards and the FBI were more to blame than the NRA.
3. To David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez: did you know that an ‘assault weapon’ (as you define it) is nothing more than a scary-looking semi-automatic rifle?
4. Why haven’t you advocated for banning handguns? They kill far more people than so-called assault weapons?
5. Why haven’t you advocated for banning all semi-automatic rifles? They’re just as lethal as assault weapons as defined by you.
6. Isn’t it time for you to admit that you’re just tools of the gun control lobby?
7. Isn’t it time to admit that your ‘solutions’ haven’t worked and can’t work?
8. Finally, isn’t it time you apologized for your ill-informed activism? Yes, you have the right to protest. It’s just that you’d have a better chance of being effective if you knew what you were talking about, which you clearly don’t, and if you were truly interested in solving problems rather than just checking another item off the gun grabbers’ ideological checklist?

Let’s see if anyone responds before the next march:

Student leaders who have organized, marched and pressed for government action to halt gun violence sound as if they’re just getting warmed up. Plans are taking shape for April 20 school walkouts tied to the anniversary of the Columbine High shootings, along with a rally that afternoon at the State Capitol. Next weekend, students in the south metro have called for a town hall meeting, with invites sent to elected officials, hitting again on themes that propelled them to rally and protest: the senselessness of gun violence and the hesitance of some lawmakers to take corrective action. “I think legislators who do nothing on this subject do so at their own peril,” said Joe Campbell, a communications consultant whose GoFundMe campaign sent dozens of Henry Sibley High School students to Washington, D.C., for last weekend’s March for Our Lives. He attended the event, too, and came away thinking, “If I were a politician, and I saw this, I’d be shaking in my boots.”

First, if I was the media director for gun rights advocates, I’d talk about how government failed to protect those students and teachers. I’d highlight that this wasn’t the first time that government failed in protecting its citizens. This article would be highlighted:

A federal database with the names of mentally ill people barred from buying guns still lacks millions of records it needs to be effective. A new report from Mayors Against Illegal Guns points to gaps in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The problem is that 14 years after NICS was put in place, states still aren’t submitting all the required mental health records.

“I think that those states are doing a disservice to their citizens,” says Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily was injured in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. “They’re not doing what they can to protect public safety and to keep firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous people.”

That article was published in August, 2012. Democrats had a significant majority in the Senate and a Democrat was president. Shouldn’t Democrats take the blame for not fixing NICS?

Since the shooting, Virginia has become a model, submitting more than 170,000 records of people with mental illnesses. But the Mayors Against Illegal Guns report shows 21 other states have reported fewer than 100 records. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined why states aren’t submitting records in a July report. Some cited bureaucratic barriers, others technical ones, like switching from paper-based to computer systems. And some states contend it violates their laws to forward mental health records to the federal database. A few states are changing their laws.

“Texas enacted a law in 2009 and was then able to increase the number of records by about 190,000,” says Carol R. Cha, acting director in GAO’s Homeland Security and Justice division. But recent shootings, like the ones in Colorado and Texas, demonstrate that people with mental illnesses are still able to buy guns.

The last I checked, the NRA wasn’t responsible for submitting those records. Government was. Government failed to protect people.
Thank God for people like Ben Shapiro. In this video, Shapiro levels a devastating critique of David Hogg:

To David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez and Cameron Kasky: if you’re truly interested in protecting people from gun violence, which I question at this point, it’s time to get government to do its job. That includes insisting that deputies actually run towards danger instead of hiding behind their vehicles. That includes requiring states to update the NICS system in a timely fashion. That includes pointing the finger of blame at the people who are actually at fault.

Right now, that isn’t happening.

Technorati: Gun Control, March for Our Lives, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, National Instant Criminal Background Check System, Virginia Tech, Parkland, Scott Israel, Scot Peterson, Nikolas Cruz, FBI, NRA, Assault Weapons Ban, Activism

It’s time to figure out the things that went wrong with the Marjory Stoneman-Douglas HS shooting. Why didn’t the Broward County Sheriff’s Office detect the shooter? Why wasn’t he arrested? How big of a role did the PROMISE Program play in this tragedy? Did the Obama administration put in place the building blocks that all but insured this tragedy?

What we know

We know that the School Resource Officer stayed outside the school once the shooting started. We know that it’s his job to run towards danger when all hell breaks loose. He didn’t do that. He hid rather than protect students. Further, we know that 3 other deputies stayed outside rather than running in and saving kids’ lives.

Additionally, we know that Broward County enthusiastically implemented the PROMISE Program in 2013. PROMISE stands for “Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Support & Education”. It provides counselling for misdemeanors like “assault, theft, vandalism, underage drinking and drug use”, which focuses on something known as restorative justice. What’s frightening about this is that these incidents don’t get reported to the police or sheriff’s department.

According to the District, “Rather than focusing on punishment, restorative justice seeks to repair the harm done.” In other words, these students are told to take touchy-feely classes rather than facing legitimate discipline. People like Nikolas Cruz don’t ‘slip through the cracks.’ They laugh their asses off at the idiots administering the PROMISE Program while they waltz through the cracks.

PROMISE

What we’re finding out about PROMISE is that it’s been pushed by former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Further, it’s known, thanks almost entirely because of Paul Sperry’s reporting, that Duncan and Holder recommended using “law enforcement measures and out-of-school suspensions as a last resort.”

This has led to anarchy at schools:

“Broward County adopted a lenient disciplinary policy similar to those adopted by many other districts under pressure from the Obama administration to reduce racial ‘disparities’ in suspensions and expulsions,” said Peter Kirsanow, a black conservative on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington. “In many of these districts, the drive to ‘get our numbers right’ has produced disastrous results, with startling increases in both the number and severity of disciplinary offenses, including assaults and beatings of teachers and students.”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s worse:

Kirsanow said that in just the first year after the Obama administration issued its anti-discipline edict, public schools failed to expel more than 30,000 students who physically attacked teachers or staff across the country. Previously, “if you hit a teach, you’re gone,” he said, but that is no longer the case.

That’s terrible but it gets worse:

For example, in St. Paul, Minn., a high school science teacher was “beaten and choked out” by a 16-year-old student, who allegedly came up behind him, called him a “f–king white cracker,” and put him in a stranglehold, before bashing his head into a concrete wall and pavement. The student, Fon’Tae O’Bannon, got 90 days of electronic home monitoring and anger management counseling for the December 2015 attack.

If it isn’t obvious that violence is increasing at these schools as a result of leniency policies, then it’s apparent that people aren’t paying attention.

Sheriff Israel

Through this disaster, Sheriff Israel has been the poster-child for stupidity and arrogance. He should’ve been suspended before the CNN lynching, aka CNN town hall. Before he took the stage that night, he knew that his deputies had failed those students. Those deputies that stayed outside should’ve been fired immediately. Instead, Sheriff Israel praised them. If I was the father of one of those students that got murdered and I’d heard Sheriff Israel praise his deputies, there’s a better than 50-50% chance I wouldn’t take that well.

Student Activists?

Those innocent students who simply want to be safe in their schools aren’t that innocent. It’s interesting that we’ve learned that major anti-gun rights organizations are picking up the tab for these anti-gun rallies in Florida and across the nation:

Since then, major players and organizations, including Everytown, Giffords, Move On, and Women’s March LA, told BuzzFeed News they are helping with logistics, strategy, and planning for next month’s March for Our Lives rally and beyond. Much of the specific resources the groups are providing to the Parkland students remains unclear, as is the full list of supporting organizations, but there are broad outlines.

Giffords, an organization started by former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that fights gun violence, is working with Everytown and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America to plan the main march on Washington, as well as sister rallies across the country.

These organizations are disgusting. It’s one thing to advocate for misguided policies. That’s their right. It’s another to use children to advance those ill-informed policies. That’s manipulating young people who’ve just been through a traumatic experience. That’s cold-blooded. That’s unacceptable.

Technorati: Scott Israel, Eric Holder, Arne Duncan, PROMISE, Nikolas Cruz, Gabby Giffords, Moms Demand Answers, Everytown, Gun Control, Democrats