Monday, October 31, 2022

TOMORROW'S ISRAELI ELECTION IS EVEN MORE CRITICAL THAN OUR MIDTERM ELECTION

Jewish Sovereignty Is on the Ballot

The real issue dividing Israel isn’t Benjamin Netanyahu or the economy, but something far more basic: Israeli society is being torn apart by the issue of national sovereignty.

 

by Caroline Glick

 

JNS 

Ballot slips for competing parties are seen at a polling station in Jerusalem as Israelis vote in the March 23, 2021, election.

 

Most of Israel’s commentators insist that Tuesday’s Knesset elections—the fifth in fewer than four years—are about the same thing the last four were about: Benjamin Netanyahu. If you vote for Netanyahu’s Likud Party, or for the other three parties in his right-religious bloc, then you are for Netanyahu. If you vote for caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, or for any of the members of his left-Arab bloc, then you are against Netanyahu. Nothing else is up for grabs.

The notion that politics in Israel can be boiled down to whether a person loves or hates Netanyahu was never true, at least for voters. Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Gideon Sa’ar and their colleagues in the Yamina and New Hope parties who bolted the right and formed the current left-Arab government are rightly viewed as having betrayed their voters. Last May they put their hatred and envy of Netanyahu above their professed ideology and their voters to oust their camp from power and give Israel its first post-Zionist government.

Today, there is no “Never Bibi” right. Bennett isn’t running. Shaked is about to be wiped out at the polls. Sa’ar has joined Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s leftist National Unity Party.

Life in Israel has also moved on from where it stood in May 2021. Back then, it was still credible to call Netanyahu—whose corruption trial was in its opening stages—a crook. But in the intervening 18 months, the prosecution’s case against Netanyahu has completely disintegrated.

So too, the left-Arab bloc has shown it is incompetent to lead the country. Netanyahu gave his successors a country with a fast-growing economy, even as the global economy was sunk in deep recession following the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, the economy is on a sharp downward trajectory. Inflation is galloping forward with no end in sight. And the middle class is straining to keep itself above water as prices outstrip wages.

Then there is Israel’s international and regional position. When Netanyahu was sent into the political wilderness a year and a half ago, Israel was at the pinnacle of its regional power and global stature.

Today, Israel’s core national interests are threatened to a degree we haven’t seen in years. Israel’s regional and global positions are weaker today than at any point since 2002. Australia’s announcement last week that it is rescinding recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was an expression of the growing contempt in which the nations of the world now hold Israel.

If “Only Bibi” or “Never Bibi” was the leitmotif of the first four rounds of elections, that issue has been replaced by what is really driving our society apart. It’s not the economy, it’s something far more basic. Israeli society is being torn apart by the issue of national sovereignty.

In foreign affairs, the issue of sovereignty has come up most obviously in relation to the Biden administration. In the weeks before the Lapid-Bennett-Gantz government came to power, Lapid, Bennett and Gantz all promised the Biden administration that their government would not “surprise” the administration in its actions against Iran.

They fulfilled their pledge, and then some. Under their leadership, Israel surrendered its operational independence. They gave the Biden administration a veto over Israel’s efforts to block Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal. The number of reports regarding sabotage of Iran’s nuclear sites fell dramatically as soon as the three men replaced Netanyahu in office.

That US veto over Israel’s foreign and defense prerogatives has since spread to Israel’s dealing with Hezbollah and the Palestinians. Under the maritime deal Lapid signed with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, Lapid and Gantz ceded Israel’s territorial waters and sovereign natural resources to the terror state to its north. The terms of the agreement were Hezbollah’s terms. And Israel’s capitulation was dictated by the Biden administration.

As for the Palestinians, reports over the past several weeks revealed that the Biden administration is interfering in Israel’s military operations in Judea and Samaria down to the company and squad level through its embassy in Jerusalem.

This state of affairs, in which a US administration that has made little effort to hide its hostility and the hostility of its policies to the Jewish state has taken effective control over Israel’s foreign policy, is unprecedented. It has devastated Israel’s regional standing, and compelled Israel to adopt policies and positions that undermine its national interests and security.

In domestic affairs, the dispute over the continued sovereignty of the Jewish state is manifested in three main disputes. The first relates to the meaning and nature of democracy. The right-wing bloc supports the view that democracy means that voters elect leaders who reflect their views and values. Elected officials in turn have the duty to lead the nation in a manner that reflects the positions of the voters.

In contrast, the left-Arab bloc maintains that people’s rule is mob rule. Real democracy is “substantive.” “Substantive democracy” is a form of government where unelected, “enlightened” members of the judiciary and the permanent bureaucracy decide Israel’s course. The duty of elected leaders is to obey the bureaucracy.

Gantz’s National Union Party has made “substantive democracy” its rallying call. But all the parties in the left-Arab bloc support it because Israel’s self-selected Supreme Court justices, state prosecutors and IDF generals share their progressive, post-nationalist world view. That post-nationalist view eschews national strength for appeasement; national interests for “being on the right side of history.” The concept of “sovereignty,” like the concept of “victory,” is considered antiquated and dark.

The second main dispute is over Israel’s right to assert its sovereignty over its national boundaries. Israel has both permanent interests and sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria. Israel’s administration of the areas, which like Jerusalem are the cradle of Jewish history and civilization, is legal under international law. What Israel’s eastern border eventually looks like is a matter of dispute, both internationally and domestically. But until that dispute is settled, it is the right and the duty of Israel’s government to administer Judea and Samaria in accordance with Israel’s national interests and security requirements.

Rather than fulfill its duties, which fall almost exclusively on Gantz’s shoulders as defense minister, the government has endangered all of Israel’s interests and security imperatives in its derelict administration of Judea and Samaria. Illegal Palestinian construction has increased 80 percent in Area C, where 500,000 Israeli citizens live and where Israel’s military installations, including the eastern frontier, are located. This land theft imperils the lives of Israel’s citizens and impedes the IDF’s ability to perform its duties.

By facilitating the land grab, Gantz is eliminating the need for a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. Gantz is establishing a Palestinian state de facto, while endangering Israel’s core strategic interests and the lives of the half million Israelis who live in the areas and the millions more who work and travel through Judea and Samaria. Gantz does this to advance his world view, which abjures Israel’s national rights and interests in favor of defining Israel’s national security interests as whatever the Biden administration says they are.

Within Israel’s sovereign borders, the government’s post-nationalist, post-sovereign view has imperiled Israel’s sovereignty in the Negev and the Galilee. Bennett, Gantz, Lapid and their colleagues agreed to grant effective autonomy to Israel’s restive Bedouin and Muslim minority. To please their Muslim Brotherhood coalition partner Ra’am, Lapid, Bennett and Gantz gave Israel’s Bedouin a green light to continue their wholesale theft of government lands and expand their illegal autonomous zones in the Negev. In Jerusalem, Haifa, Lod, Akko, on the roads in the Negev and the Galilee, Israeli law is barely enforced against Arab lawbreakers, including—indeed especially—those who have engaged in terrorist violence against their Jewish compatriots. Instead, Israeli policemen who have fought irredentist, violent Arab rioters have found themselves under criminal probes and indicted for using force to quell Arab mob violence.

This has gutted the very concept of sovereignty, especially Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish state.

And this brings us to the third dispute over sovereignty, that forms the basis of the rupture between right and left in Israel, as we go to the polls on Tuesday: The dispute over Israel’s Jewish character.

For the past year and a half, the government has joined the progressive, politicized legal fraternity in its longstanding war against Israel’s Jewish national character. The government began to crumble when Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz decided to end the bans on hametz in public hospitals during Passover. The implication of the act was that Jews who keep kosher for Passover wouldn’t be able to follow the strictures of Jewish law if they were hospitalized.

That move convinced Yamina MK Idit Silman to call it quits. But it wasn’t the government’s only anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist effort. Far from it. Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton has ended Bible instruction and pre-modern Jewish history modules in non-religious government schools. Holocaust education was effectively ended when the government announced it was ending trips to the death camps in Poland.

Shasha-Biton also canceled the matriculation exams in history and literature. Since high school curricula are built around the matriculation exams, in practical terms, Shasha-Biton ended all Jewish instruction in the schools. If left intact—as they will be under a left-Arab government, her reforms will doom a generation of Israeli Jews to ignorance and emptiness, rendering them incapable of understanding why their country deserves to be defended.

In place of Jewish and Zionist education, Shasha-Biton has introduced gender studies and other progressive nostrums, beginning in pre-school.

As religious affairs minister, Bennett’s lieutenant, Matan Kahana (now a loyal member of Gantz’s party), enacted reforms to lay waste to the state rabbinical courts, kosher certifications and religious councils.

Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel went after the ultra-Orthodox community’s ability to keep away from smartphones, and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman directed most of his efforts to demonizing and impoverishing ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

Lapid and Gantz have both expressed their desire to gut Israel’s basic law, which defines Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Their position, supported by the post-Zionist Labor and Meretz parties as well as by the Arab parties, is nothing less that a disavowal of the foundations of modern Zionism, and the documents of Israel’s founding dating back to the Balfour Declaration.

In recent years, the gap between right and left in Israel, and worldwide, has become unbridgeable. The left likes to present the disparity as merely a disagreement about the character of rightist political leaders. By burying the substantive, indeed, existential issues that divide the camps, the left has been able to split their rightist opponents. They have managed to seduce a large enough fraction of the right to abandon their political camp and bring the left to power. But their success has only made the dispute more undeniable, and unbridgeable.

It isn’t Netanyahu that divides Israelis from their countrymen. Our domestic debate revolves around one question: Do we believe in our nation state and wish to preserve and defend it, or do we reject our national identity and national rights, and aspire to replace both with a globalist, progressive identity, devoid of Zionism and of Jewish sovereignty?

This is the question we will answer when we go to the polls on Tuesday.

FATHER BEGS COPS TO KEEP HIS POT-SMOKING, CARJACKING SON LOCKED UP, BUT IS THREATTENED WITH BEING CHARGED FOR CHILD NEGLEGENCE

Baltimore dad begs authorities to keep teen son behind bars  

Santiago Garcia-Diaz  says authorities threatened to charge him with neglect after he pleaded with them to keep his 14-year-old son behind bars for a rash of crimes.

 

October 31, 2022

 

Santiago Garcia-Diaz says his 15-year-old son Bryce is constantly smoking marijuana and stealing cars                 Santiago Garcia-Diaz says his 14-year-old son Bryce is constantly smoking marijuana and stealing cars

 

A desperate Baltimore dad is so afraid his 14-year-old son’s life of crime will get him killed that he begged authorities to keep him locked up — but says they threatened to charge him with neglect instead.

“He’s not going to be alive, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Santiago, who asked that his last name not be used, told FOX45 News about his wayward teen.

“It’s progressively getting worse,” he told the news outlet.

“He started breaking into cars to steal cigarettes and chains, then you’re stealing cars and running from the police,” the distressed dad added.

He said his boy, who wasn’t identified, has been arrested along with a cohort multiple times for a crime spree involving carjackings and thefts from Baltimore to Washington, DC.

“They was flying down Route 4 going 100 miles an hour in and out of traffic,” Santiago said, adding that his son almost took the lives of two cops who were chasing him.

 

The worried father spoke with a local news outlet in Baltimore to share his concerns over the inaction from law enforcement when it comes to his son's out of control behavior                 The worried father spoke with a local news outlet in Baltimore to share his concerns over the inaction from law enforcement when it comes to his son's out of control behavior

 

Despite the rash of crimes, his son has never faced serious consequences for his actions, Santiago said as he shared charging documents with the news outlet.

Of the 19 charges the teen was slapped with, all but one — which carries only probation — have been dropped, he said.

But when the desperate dad pleaded for his son to remain behind bars, he said he was threatened with jail himself.

“I got the call from Prince Frederick County and Calvert County telling me that they had him in custody and they told me what had happened and stuff, and I said, ‘You know what, let him stay there in custody,’ and they told me, ‘You got six hours to get here and get him or we will be coming to get you for neglect and abandonment issues,’” he told FOX45.

“I want my son to get some help, I mean, if it’s jail that what’s it’s gonna take, then jail. What my son needs, he needs some mental help,” Santiago added.

 

Baltimore has become a hot-spot for crime in recent years                Baltimore has become a hot-spot for crime in recent years. 14-year-old Bryce has had several run-ins with the law in Baltimore, pictured above, and also in Washington, D.C.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, in 2021 said that 'the era of "tough on crime" is over'                  Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, in 2021 said that 'the era of "tough on crime" is over'

 

Santiago has also set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to cover the heavy financial toll of restitution costs from his son’s crimes.

The Post has reached out to local prosecutors about Santiago’s pleas and the charges against his son.

AWFUL IDEAS ARE WAITING FOR US IF THE DEMOCRATS WIN

This ‘ideas’ election will decide the country’s direction for a long time 

 

October 30, 2022

 

voting polls Election season has many people questioning what the future of politics will be. 

 

Every election, the same voices loudly proclaim it the “most important election of our lifetime.” They can’t all be the “most important,” but we are heading into a unique election that will decide the direction of our country for a long time through more than just candidates’ individual policies.

It’s not as sexy as “most important,” but in a few days we’ll participate in an “ideas” election in a way we haven’t for a while: Who do we want to be as a country and where do we want to go?

Unlike so many presidential elections, this race will not be driven by personality. America has had our share of those over the last 15 years. Whether President Barack Obama or President Donald Trump, people were signing up for the man far more than his actual ideas.

But the personalities of the candidates in this midterm election, some good and some bad, are far less relevant than the direction the winners will take us.



The theme is a “return to normal.” This is the first midterm election since the COVID lockdowns changed the country’s trajectory. Our economy was booming, kids consistently went to schools where parents didn’t have to be on constant high alert for indoctrination, crime was manageable. When our country went into lockdown, normal went out the window.

Americans are hungry for normalcy, and they’re not going to get it from Democrats.

Many voted for President Joe Biden hoping for this return to normal. But much of Biden’s presidency, and his Democratic Party’s direction, is a rejection of all rationality and embrace of fringe figures and ideas.

Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” has been a driving factor of inflation that continues to climb upward. As American families are hurting, instead of reversing course, Biden is trying to push through cash handouts for his constituents in the form of student-loan forgiveness, which would mean wealth redistribution from plumbers and electricians to lawyers and doctors.

 

President Joe Biden has received a lot of backlash during his presidency.


On schools, no one blocked access to in-person education more than Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers president, and the results have been a full-on disaster. Yet she continues to be a top campaigner for Democrats.

Over the weekend, she campaigned with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who flat-out lied during last week’s televised debate with her opponent, Tudor Dixon, that she closed schools for only three months. Weingarten is busing around the country to campaign with Democrats like Gov. Tony Evers in Wisconsin, US Senate candidate Tim Ryan in Ohio and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

That someone who caused so much damage to children is still taking the stage with Democrats shows the direction they want to continue in.

In the closing weeks before the midterms, meanwhile, Biden held a roundtable with far-left site NowThis News. Among the people getting access to the president, who rarely speaks to the media or gives interviews, was transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, who asked whether states should be allowed to deny “gender-affirming” care. 

 

Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers presidentRandi Weingarten serves as the President for the American Federation of Teachers.


States only deny this “care,” which actually means prescribing hormones or performing surgery to remove the breasts or genitals, to children. The president answered that no one should have the right to stop this.

Democrats often describe arguments like this as “culture war.” But culture is important, and this election will take a firm stance on whether our culture is OK with children getting life-altering hormones or surgery to try to change their gender.

And finally, crime. It has been a tough road to get Democrats to admit crime is even an important issue. During the debate between Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Lee Zeldin, Hochul wondered why the crime issue is so important to Zeldin.

We can’t go on like this anymore. We can’t start from debating whether crime matters or whether it even exists. We need to move on and elect people dedicated to fighting it. There are two distinct roads here, and we have to choose one.

We’ve been in the upside-down, where lax crime policies, insane school programs and so much more have been winning the day. A red wave will mean Americans demand a different direction. It will mean we tried the leftist ideas, declared them failures and want to try something else. 

It will mean a return to something better, back to the normal we have longed for and deserve.

WILL TOMORROW'S ISRAELI ELECTIONS MAKE OR BREAK NETANYAHU? ..... OBAMA AND BIDEN ARE PRAYING FOR BIBI'S DEMISE

What Are Netanyahu’s Options if He Falls Short of a Majority?

His political future might then depend on what the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism decide.

 

By David Isaac 

 

Is the ticking clock of Netanyahu's political career nearing the end?

 

Polls show opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu either eking out a victory in Tuesday’s election or falling just short of a majority. Final surveys released last week said he will come up short. If his “natural coalition” misses the mark, can he still form a government?

It will be difficult for Netanyahu if he ends up with 60 seats in the incoming Knesset, just one short shy of the 61-seat majority he needs, Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, said.

“The natural thing for him to do would be to try and do what he did in times past, which is nab one [Knesset member] here or there by offering them whatever they want,” Rynhold told JNS. “But a lot of those people have been burned so that if he doesn’t get 61, I think it’ll be very difficult for him. His big problem is that if nobody can form a government, then [Yair] Lapid continues to be [caretaker] prime minister.”

Rynhold believes that could spell the end of Netanyahu’s career. “I’m not saying he’ll disappear straight away, but people don’t support him because they like him, they support them because he wins,” he said.

Netanyahu’s future might then depend on what his long-time allies, the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, decide: “The haredim will start to think that maybe they should just cut their losses and go with Benny Gantz.”

In that case, the Blue and White Party leader, who has joined with Minister of Justice Gideon Sa’ar to form the National Unity alliance, “could easily be able to form a government,” Rynhold said.

If Netanyahu is in trouble, could he turn to the Islamist Ra’am Party?

“Ra’am would do it, but I don’t believe Bezalel Smotrich would,” Rynhold said, referring to the head of the Religious Zionism Party, who categorically refused to serve in a coalition that included Ra’am following the last election in March 2021.

Despite recent polls, Rynhold said Netanyahu’s prospects actually appear favorable. “My sense is that the polls always tend to underestimate the right wing, the haredi vote,” he said. “When you add to that Meretz and two Arab parties [Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al] being on the borderline [of making it into the Knesset], I think Bibi has a reasonable chance.”

Ilana Shpaizman, also from the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, agrees that the outlook for Netanyahu is good. Indeed, even with 60 Knesset seats, Netanyahu likely will secure victory, she told JNS. “He can work with 60. He will find someone who will back him.”

She acknowledged that Netanyahu’s options have shrunk in terms of which Knesset members he could pluck from other parties to get to 61, but offered the possibility that he could find a defector from Gantz’s party.

Another option is that Netanyahu forms a minority government, meaning a party would agree to support his government without joining it. “This is something that is possible and we’ve had it before with [Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin in 1995 and in some periods with [Premier Ehud] Barak. It’s not very stable in Israel, but it is possible,” Shpaizman said.

Like Rynhold, she brought up the possibility that this election could mark the end for Netanyahu if he doesn’t come out victorious. Netanyahu will face pressure to retire as a Likud-led government would form quickly without him. (The objection of most political leaders to joining with the Likud is the presence of Netanyahu at its head. They cite his corruption cases as the reason.)

Shpaizman said the key to this election is the turnout—who is voting and from which areas. Knowing where people are voting tells you more about who will win than asking individuals for whom they will vote, she said.

Rynhold agrees, saying the turnout in the Arab sector will be the most important factor this cycle. It is possible that two of the three Arab parties (some say all three) could fail to pass the 3.25 percent electoral threshold. Polls predict the Arab turnout will be low, and the lower it is, the better for Netanyahu. “If the Arab turnout is around 45 percent, Netanyahu will get 61 seats, but if they turn out at 55 percent or 60 percent, he’ll get only 60 seats,” he said.

One factor that’s gone underreported, Rynhold said, is the influx of 45,000 immigrants from Russia and Ukraine since the war there began.

“In an election where 10,000 votes here or 10,000 votes there could swing the whole thing, it’ll be interesting to see how they vote,” he said. A strong Russian vote could help Avigdor Liberman of the Israel Beiteinu Party, a bitter foe of Netanyahu. “It is something to watch,” he said.

IF YOU'RE WAITING FOR AN AMBULANCE WHEN SECONDS COUNT, HOUSTON FD AMBULANCES MAY BE STUCK AT THE ER

HFD short on available ambulances 84% of 2022

 

By Ted Oberg and Sarah Rafique 


KTRK

October 28, 2022

 

 Houston Fire Department paramedics rush a critically injured man into the Trauma Center, one paramedic performs Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) as they move. Ben Taub Hospital, Houston, Texas


HOUSTON, Texas -- Randy Kubosh was getting his second round of chemotherapy at a treatment center in Memorial City when his sister-in-law saw him go into cardiac arrest.

"She said I was shaking. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I laid back, and they started doing CPR, and put oxygen on me," Kubosh recalled. "It lasted a long time. I was - I flatlined. I was dead."

Kubosh said he's thankful he was already in a medical setting, with nurses and doctors who could get his heartbeat and consciousness back during his health crisis on Sept. 1. Without those health professionals, Kubosh said he worries about what could have happened.

13 Investigates found Kubosh's heart stopped just minutes after city records show Houston Fire Department EMS went into what it calls resource management, meaning fewer than 35% of the department's ambulances were available for new calls citywide.

Our investigation found that HFD staffing is down, response time is up, and the department's ambulances are increasingly busy, even as it implements rules to deal with it.

"The slow response time could be a matter of life or death for someone," Kubosh said.

We analyzed data for every day in 2022 and found HFD was low on ambulance availability and went into resource management at some point during 84% of the days, so far, this year.

During 30% of every hour in 2022, HFD dropped into the resource management designation.

"At that time, a certain number of things begin to happen to try and figure out where our fleet is being utilized, what's their status right now, and how can we get them back into the available status to make emergency runs," HFD Assistant Chief Matthew White, who oversees EMS, said.

The firefighter's union calls it a crisis.

"Do we really think that it's acceptable in the city of Houston, in the fourth largest city, the third largest municipal fire department, to gamble on people's lives because we don't want to tell the truth about the resources within the Houston Fire Department?" Houston Professional Fire Fighters Union President Marty Lancton said.

Since 2018, the volume of Houston EMS calls is up 14%, but city records show firefighter staffing dropped by 9%. While HFD tries to make it up with overtime, that's not guaranteed.

 The department says that regardless of whether or not they're short-staffed, ambulances get staffed first.

Still, city data shows that since 2018, the time it takes for the first HFD unit to arrive at an EMS call has grown by 90 seconds.

"That is absolutely something you never want to see. In our world, seconds matter. When somebody has a heart attack, or a stroke, or they're in a bad car wreck, or they're stuck in a fire, do you think that they want to wait 90 more seconds? This isn't a joke. These are people's lives," Lancton said.

White said the department goes into resource management most weekdays, usually from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., when the population is the largest, causing most of the calls to come in.

He said resource management is a tool the department uses to actually keep ambulances on the street.

"The goal isn't necessarily to get out of EMS resource management. The goal is to have our units available to make the runs. By staying in EMS resource management, that's how we accomplish that," White said.

Whenever HFD goes into resource management, White said that alerts everyone in the department, allowing meetings to be canceled, administrative tasks curtailed, and stable patients left in the care of hospital ERs.

HFD statistics show ambulances waiting to drop patients off at Houston hospitals causes delays and contributes to putting the department into resource management.

13 Investigates analyzed HFD data and found it takes an average of nearly 37 minutes to drop off a patient and get ambulances back in service.

When HFD goes into resource management, the wait time becomes shorter because department rules allow firefighters to leave patients at ERs quicker.

"When the resource management ... announcement goes out, units know. You'll have EMS supervisors check out hospitals. If there's a particular hospital with a long wait time, they can go to the hospital, start returning units to service (and) working with the hospital staff (to see) what patients can we get into one of your wheelchairs or onto a chair in the waiting room," White said. "We have protocols where if the patient meets a certain criteria at that time, they can call their supervisor, even if they're not there, and leave the patient in the waiting room. We do announce that to the hospital."

A city-funded study seven years ago said HFD needed to add transport units, build three more stations and maintain more than 3,600 firefighters. A year later, a union study suggested even more growth.

But years later, with far more calls, none of them have been added.

He said the department cannot simply add more capacity during peak hours. Instead, he said, HFD is planning to add paramedics in SUVs around the city to help address the issue. The so-called 'squad' program is one HFD moved away from years ago but is now bringing back.

In Kubosh's case, HFD records obtained by 13 Investigates show it took a standard HFD ambulance 18 minutes to arrive that day. A fire engine, with a paramedic on board as part of a special program, arrived 36 minutes later.

The department disputes that timeline, saying the first engine was on scene in five minutes, offering another document for the same call.

The department's nearest advanced life support ambulance was dispatched 37 miles away in Kingwood and was waved off before it ever arrived.

Kubosh's brother, Michael Kubosh, is a City of Houston council member and said he didn't realize how often HFD's EMS services were low on ambulances until there wasn't one available for his brother during his time of need.

The hospital was less than a quarter of a mile away from Randy Kubosh, yet the nearest advanced life support ambulance was in Kingwood.

"It just doesn't make sense to me. The problem is we're relying on those EMS and ambulances to take our patients and our family members to the hospital or to make sure that they're there in a critical care moment," Councilman Kubosh said. "I have a voice, a vote, and a seat at the table, and I can speak up, and that I will do."

ONE WEEK UNTIL SALVATION...MAYBE-PROBABLY

By Bob Walsh

 

         

IS THE CALIFORNIA COW STARTING TO DRY UP ?

By Bob Walsh

 


Until very recently the legislature of the formerly great state of California was throwing money around with great abandon.  Free health care of illegal aliens.  State funded pre-K for 4-year olds.  State funded legal help for undocumented democrats.  State money to draw women to CA to have abortions that they can not get in their home states.  The gravy train may be slowing down. 

The God-Emperor of California, Gavin Newsom, stopped unemployment benefits for undocumented democrats.  He put the kibosh to the expansion of full-day kindergarten classes.  He has acknowledged that it is now likely that the state will be about $8-9 billion short by the end of the fiscal year on July 1.  

A lot of the problem is tax policy.  CA relies VERY heavily on income tax revenue.  Much more so than most states.  The top 1% of earners in CA pay very close to 50% of the income tax in the state.  The current economic situation and especially the current stock market have put a huge ding in the income of those high earners.  That then puts a huge ding in the money the state sucks up from these folks.  In addition a fair number of them have just said "fuck this shit" and left the state for places like Texas and Florida.  

The general economic drag has effected a lot of things.  Last year a total of 206 CA based privately held corporations when public.  This generated a ton of money, much of which is taxable.  It is estimated that this year that number will be less than 50.  

The cow may not have run dry, but the flow is certainly curtailed.  Now if we could just get a legislature that knew how to prioritize spending properly instead of funding legal aid to fight deportation by illegal aliens as a primary goal we might be making progress.

HAPPY SAMHAIN (HALLOWEEN)

By Bob Walsh


Sunday, October 30, 2022

HOW COME SHE DID NOT GET FIRED AND INDICTED?

Top female cop is SUSPENDED without pay for 120 days by New Orleans' Police Department after she was 'caught filing timesheets while off-duty doing private security work'

New Orleans police officer Sabrina Richardson has been suspended without pay for 120 days after an investigation found she was double-dipping on work. Her patrol vehicle was picked up on police cameras on 8 occasions in six months miles away from where she was supposed to be posted. Earlier in her career, she ran the Public Integrity Bureau which oversees officer conduct

 

By Alex Oliveira

 

Daily Mail

October 30, 2022

 

 

New Orleans police officer Sabrina Richardson, pictured, has been demoted from captain to lieutenant after an investigation found she was double-dipping on work              New Orleans police officer Sabrina Richardson, pictured, has been demoted from captain to lieutenant after an investigation found she was double-dipping on work

 

The New Orleans Police Department has suspended a high-ranking officer who was was exposed for clocking herself in at work while moonlighting as a paid private security guard.

Sabrina Richardson was suspended for 120 days after her fraudulent behavior was exposed by a Fox8 investigation.

The disgraced cop was previously demoted from the rank of captain to lieutenant earlier this month after the investigation's findings were published.

Richardson was caught 'double-dipping' on what are known as off-duty details, which allow businesses to pay off-duty cops to undertake private security work for them while wearing their police uniforms.

Off-duty details are perfectly legal - but Richardson was caught working them 26 times while she was also clocked in at the NOPD and being paid by the city's taxpayers.   

Fox8 journalists Lee Zurnik and Danah Sauer completed the painstaking investigation which saw them request traffic camera records via the Freedom of Information Act, and uncover Richardson's silver Chevy driving to off-duty details while she was at work.  

 

Her patrol vehicle was picked up on police cameras on eight occasions over the last six months several miles away from where she was supposed to be posted
Her patrol vehicle was picked up on police cameras on eight occasions over the last six months several miles away from where she was supposed to be posted
 
 

Timesheets and security detail paperwork appears to show Richardson clocking-in to work at the NOPD while also taking on an off-duty detail shift overlapping at a separate location.

The 'detail shifts' see uniformed New Orleans officers performing off-duty uniformed security work within the city.

It allows for officers, who would otherwise be on their day off, to participate in extra security detail work, while still under the badge of the NOPD.

All police officers carry with them full law enforcement powers and are expected to perform police related duties only, but if arrests are made, then an on-duty officer would have to be summoned.

In Richardson's case, it appears she was taking on such detail shift while clocking-on for legitimate NOPD work.  

In one instance, Richardson was working March 20, 2019 from 3-7pm and being paid to work an off-duty detail shift at Restaurant Depot, a wholesale cash and carry foodservice supplier. But at the exact same time, official NOPD records show her on the clock for the city's police force.

Accompanying the payroll records, Fox 8 was also able to dig up license-plate-camera information on Richardson's vehicle, although from only the last six months.

Even in that short space of time, the journalists found eight instances in which  Richardson had claimed to be working at an off-duty detail, yet the city-wide network of more than 100 cameras found her, police unit several miles away from the assignments. 

 

Richardson was the captain of the Third Police District, which covers Gentilly, Mid-City and Lakeview and has now been demoted to LieutenantRichardson was the captain of the Third Police District, which covers Gentilly, Mid-City and Lakeview and has now been demoted to Lieutenant 

In several instances, Richardson was found to be several miles away from her NOPD shift
In several instances, Richardson was found to be several miles away from her NOPD shift 
 

In April last year, during the NCAA men's Final Four tournament, Richardson was paid $671 for 11 hours of work at Woldenberg Park. The shift was supposed to be from 11am until 10pm.

Yet just 45 minutes before her shift ended she was photographed in her police car on the West Bank, on the clock, working for the NOPD.

Later that year, on November 27, 2021, Richardson had been working a detail at Champions Square, an outdoor festival space next to the Superdome from 11 to 4pm.

However, at just after 1pm a license plate camera saw her police unit some five miles away in the West Bank Area. 

Her patrol vehicle was spotted once again at 2pm on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East, over six miles away from Champions Square.  

Prior to leading the Third District, Richardson had been working in the NOPD Public Integrity Bureau which would normally be responsible for investigating misconduct within the NOPD.

 

Fox 8 trawled through four years of payroll records to find Richardson's double-dipping
Fox 8 trawled through four years of payroll records to find Richardson's double-dipping
 
Her car was also spotted by citywide traffic cameras while she was supposed to be on duty
Her car was also spotted by citywide traffic cameras while she was supposed to be on duty
 
Richardson, center, is pictured with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, left who is also in the middle of her own controversy over a city apartment and luxury first class flights abroad
Richardson, center, is pictured with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, left who is also in the middle of her own controversy over a city apartment and luxury first class flights abroad
 

The Bureau had recused themselves from Richardson's investigation.

The NOPD's then-head of homicide Nick Gernon looked into Richardson's discrepancies yet kept despite coming up with 44 instances, Richardson was kept in charge of her district and kept her ranking.

'This double-dipping issue, I just don't get. You have a detail and you're working duty at the same time. This doesn't make sense. And I think with officers who work a normal 40 hours a week, this just doesn't happen,' NOPD watchdog Skip Gallagher said to Fox 8 

The NOPD provided the information to the Orleans District Attorney's Office who will now decided whether any criminal offenses will be brought. 

 

Richardson's double-dipping is the latest example of corruption to have taken place in New Orleans.. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has said she will repay the city for $30,000 she claimed in city cash for first class flights from Washington Dulles Airport to Switzerland and France for herself in July
Richardson's double-dipping is the latest example of corruption to have taken place in New Orleans.. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has said she will repay the city for $30,000 she claimed in city cash for first class flights from Washington Dulles Airport to Switzerland and France for herself in July
 

Richardson's double-dipping is the latest example of corruption to have taken place in New Orleans, which was recently named America's murder capital. 

LaToya Cantrell, the controversial Democratic mayor has said she will repay the city for $30,000 she claimed in city cash for first class flights after living rent-free in a government apartment just three miles from her house. 

The mayor was forced to pay for the flights after a city attorney was brought in who determined that Cantrell, as a city employee, was obliged by policy to seek the cheapest fares or reimburse the city for deluxe expenses.

Cantrell spent around $10,000 on her own flat bed seat and blew a similar amount on a first-class return to France earlier this year - while her aides traveled in coach. 

She raised eyebrows by claiming it was unsafe for black women to fly economy.  

The under fire mayor is already in hot water after admitting to living in a city-owned apartment in the city's French Quarter rent-free, that lies only three miles from her $500,000 Broadmoor home. 

Cantrell had previously caused outrage when she spent taxpayer money on first class air travel to France and Switzerland and excused it by saying economy class was 'unsafe' for black women, adding she had done nothing illegal. 

'Based on the policy review, however, I will have to reimburse,' she said of the flights. 'So I'm moving forward to do that,' without specifying when she would do so.  

 

At the same time she has admitted staying for free in a city-owned apartment in the city's Upper Pontalba building on Jackson Square in the famous district. It has a market rate of $2,991 per month
At the same time she has admitted staying for free in a city-owned apartment in the city's Upper Pontalba building on Jackson Square in the famous district. It has a market rate of $2,991 per month
 

'Based on the policy review of the CAO, as well as the law department, it is very clear that business was done on behalf of the city of New Orleans, however, I will have to reimburse the city for those business expenses,' she said. 

At first she repeatedly refused to repay the cost of a luxury American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles Airport to Switzerland for herself in July, despite a city ban on luxury air travel. 

'My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury,' Cantrell, who reportedly earns approximately $188K annually, said last  Thursday at a press conference.

'As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone. 

'As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be. 

'Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn't understand the world black women walk in.'

Cantrell spent around $10,000 on her own flat bed seat and blew a similar amount on a first-class return to France earlier this year - while her aides traveled in coach. 

But council members did not buy these excuses and had threatened to dock her pay in the 2023 budget to recover the funds. 

'I'm glad that we can put this behind us,' Council President Helena Moreno said. 

'We have so many bigger issues to deal with. Obviously with public safety. We've got the budget coming up and that's really what we'd like to be focused on.' 

 

Cantrell's home in New Orleans' Broadmoor neighborhood, that she shares with her husband Jason, is estimated to be worth upwards of $500K
Cantrell's home in New Orleans' Broadmoor neighborhood, that she shares with her husband Jason, is estimated to be worth upwards of $500K

PAROLE HAS BECOME A FARCE

Paroled criminals avoid jail despite new arrests thanks to dangerous NY law reform 

 

October 30, 2022

 

bail reformThe law places strict limits on parolees who commit technical violations.

 

A change in New York law has made it tougher to put parolees back behind bars when they are accused of a new crime, critics say.

Flaws in the “Less is More” act – signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul last year — have been exposed by several recent high-profile crimes involving suspects on parole who were re-arrested for heinous acts, only to then be freed again thanks to the so-called reforms, according to critics.

“Before, if someone was on parole and they got arrested, they would have to go back to jail and finish their sentence. Now parolees aren’t afraid of getting arrested and going back to jail,” a Queens cop said.

“This is another example of progressive politicians taking another tool out of our toolbox,” the disgusted officer said of “Less is More.”

The law places strict limits on parolees who commit technical violations, such as failing to show up for a hearing or failing a drug test – but it also offers new protections and hearing deadlines to suspects when they are accused of fresh crimes.

For example, a warrant now has to be sought for a suspect breaking parole, and a hearing must be held within a specific timeframe. 

 

Bui Van PhuBui Van Phu was let out on no bail thanks to “Less is More” — until The Post brought attention to it.

Bui Van PhuThe man was caught on camera punching a stranger, sending him into a coma.

 

“It is extremely hard to get a warrant,” noted Wayne Spence, a parole officer and president of the Public Employees Federation, New York’s second-largest state-employee union, which is pushing to amend the law to avoid the move.

He said politicians should study the effect of the law to determine how many parolees are involved in crimes compared to several years ago, suggesting that the changes make it easier for them to stay on the streets to possibly commit more crimes. 

Convicted sex-offender Bui Van Phu was on lifetime parole when he was accused of sucker-punching a stranger and putting him in a coma in The Bronx in August. He was still let out on no bail thanks to “Less is More” — until The Post’s front-page coverage prompted Hochul to push for authorities to issue a warrant on the parole violation.

Critics argue that before the governor’s own reform, Phu could have automatically been put in jail for violating his parole when in court for the sucker-punch case.

 

Waheed FosterWaheed Foster randomly beat a woman in a Queens subway station.

Waheed FosterFoster was cut loose pending a hearing process under the new law.

 

When vagrant Waheed Foster was arrested for breaking his parole in August over two separate incidents — one for alleged criminal possession of stolen property and the other for criminal mischief — a judge cut him loose pending a hearing process under the new law, over the objections of parole officials.

While out, he randomly beat a woman in a Queens subway station so badly her eyesight was in jeopardy, cops say.

Suspected gang member Lesean Carson, on parole since 2019, racked up new weapons arrests and stopped reporting to his parole officer in August — but didn’t end up in jail thanks to “Less is More” until he was arrested for criminal possession of a weapon again Sept. 26, according to sources and officials.

And serial burglar Gregor Gauger was arrested multiple times and pleaded guilty to charges in August, but still walked free as per the law until another arrest Sept. 6. He was finally held in custody.

The state’s controversial bail-reform laws, passed in 2019, and “Less is More” go hand-in-hand in terms of catering to criminals, said defense lawyer Mark Bederow.

 

defense lawyer Mark BederowDefense lawyer Mark Bederow shared his thoughts on the new law.

 

“Guys who a couple of years ago unquestionably would’ve been held get let out,” Bederow told The Post. “That’s just the reality.

“Do I think that guys know that? Of course they know that. … The same way they know if they commit certain offenses, they know the likelihood bail will be set is less.”

Avi Small, a rep for Hochul, said the governor continues to work with law enforcement to “improve the criminal justice system, combat violence, and strengthen public safety.”

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“Under Governor Hochul’s leadership, DOCCS has worked closely with law enforcement and continued to hold individuals accountable when they violate parole, including revoking parole when warranted and issuing 377 warrants for parole violations in September alone,” SmallGovernor Hochul’s leadership, DOCCS has worked closely with law enforcement and continued to hold individuals accountable when they violate parole, including revoking parole when warranted and issuing 377 warrants for parole violations in September alone,” Small said in a statement.

PAROLED? ..... THOSE COP KILLER SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXTERMINATED!

Eight NYC cop-killers are up for parole over next 7 months 

 

October 29, 2022

 

Four cop killers will be up for parole in the next two months. Eight NYC cop-killers are up for parole before May.  

 

Eight New York City cop-killers are up for parole between now and May, The Post has learned.

Among them is Phillip Copeland, who with three cold-blooded accomplices assassinated Officer Edward Byrne in February 1988 on the orders of a drug king, as the rookie cop sat in his patrol car while guarding the house of a witness in South Jamaica, Queens.

The murder shocked the city and became a national symbol of the blood spilled during the crack epidemic. Former President Ronald Reagan personally called the Byrne family. George HW Bush took Byrne’s badge with him to the Oval Office when he won the presidency.

The rookie was just 22 and on the force for a month when he was ambushed at the intersection of Inwood Street and 107th Avenue.

Copeland, now 56, masterminded the hit, and split $8,000 with three accomplices. He first became eligible for parole in 2013, and is scheduled to appear before the 15-member state board next month.

Co-conspirator Scott Cobb, 59, the wheelman, will make his case for freedom in May. Each was sentenced to 25 years to life.

 

Copeland and his accomplices were given $8,000 for the murder.Phillip Copeland assassinated Officer Edward Byrne in 1988. 

 

Also up for parole next month is John Smith, 75, who gunned down Lt. Henry Schmiemann, 46, on June 20, 1974. The off-duty cop was killed on 74th Street in Queens when Smith attempted to rob Schmiemann as he walked to work. Schmiemann drew his weapon, identified himself as a cop, but Smith opened fire and drove off. The mortally injured Schmiemann — shot twice in the head — managed to return fire and hit Smith, who was arrested later that day when he sought medical attention.

Smith, who became eligible for parole in 2001, has been denied freedom repeatedly.

In December, Mitchell Martin, 64, comes up for parole. He shot and killed off-duty Police Officer James Whittington in Brooklyn on Oct. 30, 1982. Whittington was getting a haircut when he was advised that an armed Martin was harassing a woman outside. During a struggle, Martin grabbed the officer’s gun and used it to kill the 42-year-old. Martin became parole eligible in 2015.

 

George HW Bush took Byrne's badge with him to the Oval Office when he won the presidency.Byrne’s murder became a symbol of crack epidemic violence. 

 

Whittington, who was assigned to the Internal Affairs Unit, was survived by his wife and two children. A 40th-anniversary memorial ceremony was held Saturday at the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The Police Benevolent Association is urging its members to write the parole board electronically via a tool on its website to keep the killers in jail. 

“Working together, we can keep cop killers right where they  should be … behind bars,” the PBA website says.

“We are dealing with an utterly broken parole system, one where cop-killers and other violent criminals are given more respect than crime victims,” said PBA President Patrick Lynch. “When police officers are murdered in the line of duty, it is not just their families and fellow cops who suffer. It is an attack on our communities, on every person who wants safe streets. We urge every New Yorker to join us in speaking up against the release of cop-killers, because every New Yorker is a victim of these heinous crimes. Our voices must be heard.”

UKRAINIAN JEWISH DEATH QUEUE ..... NEVER AGAIN?

What was the most terrifying queue imaginable?

 

Luise


Quora

October 30, 2022

 

          

                                This photo is called "The last Jew in Vinnitsa"

 

I'm posting more about the war again now because I want to remind what people do when they go crazy and just follow orders.

The background of this picture is that at first the Jews who were to be exterminated were not transported to death camps.

SS mobile task forces were used to do this work.

What these men did was so horrible and stressed them so much that it was finally decided to exterminate masses of Jews in a more "gentle" way for the SS men , namely with gas.

The picture above was taken in Ukraine.

A mobile task force had the order to shoot very many Jews individually and by head shot.

There were 28,000 of them.

They were told they would be counted, all the Jews in the area.

They were told to undress and step forward.

The first in line were those who were lucky in a way.

They were shot in the head and fell into an empty pit, behind them was the endless queue of those who were next in line.

Naked women with their children, they all must have been so scared, hell on earth.

The front ones had to shovel baking soda on the corpses to promote their decomposition and ensure a minimum of "hygiene".

Often the bodies were still twitching in their death throes.

Then they too were shot.

Children were given a blow on the head to save ammunition. Then they were silenced or thrown into the pit, crying.

The mothers watched and then they were shot.

Three days and three nights this went on.

The man at the pit was the last.

The picture was found among the photos of a soldier, after the war.

It is very unlikely that they killed all the Jews of the area.

Most Ukrainian Jews who survived then fought in the resistance .

It's so crazy.

There were so many Jews against so few men.

How can so few men dominate so many and do evil to them?

I ask myself this all the time.

What is paralyzing the people? Why didn't they all turn on the SS men at once?

And these men often became so sick from it.

How terrified is a soldier, maybe in his mid-twenties, that he would do that? How traumatized must he be by that?

How can you ever explain that?