KAZAKHSTAN MOVING TOWARDS BEING A MAJOR PLAYER IN FINANCE

by Bob Walsh

Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world but is sparsely populated, with only about 18 million inhabitants.  It is also the largest land-locked country in the world and is part of the old Soviet Union.  

They decided a couple of years back that they wanted to be a major player in the world of finance.  They did it in an interesting way.  They imported the English legal system governing financial transactions.  This included importing the retied Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Harry Woolf and the former deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lord Jonathan Mance, as well as ten other English justices.  In addition they imported the English language, the court by law does all of it's business in English.  

They wanted a reliable and reputable system and so this arrangement was solidified into their constitution.  They believe that this will set them up to be seen as a reputable, reliable financial center for much of the Muslim world including for people who want to do business there.  The cultural and religious traditions of Islam make finance, especially international finance, an awkward proposition for many.  

They have also offered a "tax holiday" until 2066 for income derived from financial services and capital gains.

Not that I am much of an expert but I expect that a lot of major players may be hesitant to step into that part of the world due to the political unrest in the region.  The central location of the country also makes it right in the middle of the storm if things get "interesting."  The country is bordered by Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and is just a stones throw from Turkey and Iran.  Being close to the customers may mean being too close if the stinky stuff hits the air circulation device.  

I wish them well.  With a bit of luck they have a winning strategy and will start making tons of money for the betterment of their people. 

CITY OF CHICAGO SUES INDIANA GUN STORE

by Bob Walsh

The crime-ridden shithole of Chicago, Illinois is suing Westforth Sports in Gary, Indiana, alleging the store has engaged in a pattern of illegal gun sales that has resulted in hundreds of "illegal" guns hitting the streets in Chicago.

The suit, filed thru the EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUND, seeks unspecified damages and wants to require the store to cease practices contributing to gun trafficking.  

The suit alleges the store knowing sells to strawman purchasers, people who intend to illegally resell the guns in Chicago.  The suit further asserts that the store has been repeatedly cited by BATF for knowingly selling to straw purchasers and has twice recommended the stores license be revoked.

I personally know of one gun store in San Leandro where I used to live that had their license revoked.  A deep dive audit of their records by BATF revealed that over a period of several years several THOUSAND guns disappeared from their inventory with no record of disposition.  The clear implication was the store was routinely and regularly selling guns for cash with zero paperwork.

ANOTHER RECALL IN THE WORKS

by Bob Walsh

The teeming metropolis of Windsor, CA (Sonoma County, population about 28,000) is working at recalling it's mayor.  

Dominic Foppoli, 38, is under fire from the United Residents For Recalling Foppoli Committee is after has ass because he has refused to resign after being accused of sexual assault by several women.  The six complaints go back to 2002 and include rape as well as lesser offenses.  He has been mayor for about three years and can only be removed by recall or a felony conviction.  

The recall committee has 120 days to collect 3,376 signatures, which is 20% of the towns registered voters.  

Foppoli has asserted his innocence of all charges.  A lot of his former friends and political supporters are bailing on him, so they must either think he is actually guilty or they don't want to take the heat even if he is not.

BLAS IS A WALKING MORAL HAZARD

De Blasio’s ‘crime’ is stiffing the NYPD

 

By Michael Goodwin

 

New York Post

April  27, 2021

 

 

The dictionary defines “moral hazard” as the “lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences.” For an example, see Mayor Bill de Blasio’s budget. 

Thanks to the excessive federal bailout, the mayor is laughing all the way to the bank. He’s canceling pandemic-forced savings initiatives and throwing buckets of money at ideas without any concern about whether the ideas are good or the money will be well spent. 

At $98.6 billion, his spending plan is $7 billion more than the state of Florida’s. It’s $10 billion more than last year, and that’s before the City Council adds its expensive extras. 

Because de Blasio will be term-limited out of office next Jan. 1, he’s a walking moral hazard. He won’t face the consequences when the boom is followed by a bust and audits show gazillions were squandered or stolen. The next mayor will inherit the hangover and, inevitably, a sea of red ink. 

Unfortunately, there is one area where de Blasio is playing Scrooge: the NYPD. Its manpower budget is basically flat, except for a projected cut in overtime, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. 

Status quo, with about 35,000 uniformed members, would be understandable if dollars were tight and New Yorkers felt safe. But with the money spigots running full blast everywhere else and crime soaring, now is not the time to pinch pennies at the NYPD. 

Just one example: Transit officials agree with the vast bulk of riders that more cops are needed in the subways, to arrest criminals, deter others and give riders back the sense of safety they once had. 

De Blasio’s response was to scold the MTA for polling riders and releasing the results. To him, it’s better to suppress an inconvenient truth than tell it. 

Here’s another truth he won’t like: His failure to effectively address the bloody surge of criminal violence over the last two years will define his legacy.

It didn’t have to end this way. Back in 2016, the council and then-top cop Bill Bratton wanted to add about 1,500 cops to the force. De Blasio, trying to rebuild his relationship with the rank and file after a disastrous start, reluctantly agreed. 

By 2018, the uniformed force reached nearly 36,700, and crime, despite occasional spurts, was kept in check through 2019 and early 2020. 

But last year, in the midst of the pandemic, the protests and riots following the George Floyd police murder in Minneapolis went largely unchecked as the NYPD was held back. The criminals seized the upper hand and still have it. 

The 319 murders in 2019 grew to 468 last year. Burglaries went from 10,800 to 15,500 and car thefts soared. 

Meanwhile, the size of the police force has intermittently drifted lower because of increased retirements and because de Blasio agreed to cancel a rookie class at the height of the “defund the police” nonsense. 

Equally important, he keeps putting cops on an ever-tighter leash, making it harder for them to do their jobs and leaving many cops convinced City Hall doesn’t have their backs. Who can blame them? 

The result is the disaster New Yorkers see unfolding each and every day. Of course, some of those New Yorkers learn about the dangers and depravities from their new homes in safer climes. And who can blame them? 

Now an NYPD union has summed up the reality by giving New York a new name: City of Violence. 

The tag came from the Sergeants Benevolent Association, which cited the recent 250 percent surge in shootings, with NYPD data showing that 50 people were shot over the week ending Sunday. 

“Mayor de Blasio has allocated 30 million dollars to bring tourism to NYC,” the union tweeted Monday morning. “Welcome to the city of violence.” 

City of Violence. That is de Blasio’s legacy.

It will also be the next mayor’s problem. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa would hire more cops, and some of the Democrats are talking sensibly about public safety, namely Eric Adams, Andrew Yang and Ray McGuire. 

But I know of no Dem talking specifically about adding to the force and using the police more aggressively. 

The next mayor will either do both — or reap the whirlwind. 

It will be no comfort or excuse that the rise in crime is a national problem. That was also true in the three decades before Rudy Giuliani became mayor and made New York an example of how to cut crime. The rest of the nation followed in what became a virtuous cycle. 

Now, with Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Detroit and most other major metropolitan areas also soaked in blood and grief, America needs another mayor and city to reverse the trend. 

Why not New York? It did it once and can do it again — if it picks the right mayor. 

And if that mayor picks the right police commissioner and has the right strategy. 

It’s also true that defeating crime is a team game. Albany, prosecutors and judges must get serious and stop coddling repeat offenders. Their kindness to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. 

But somebody has to lead the way, and that’s what a mayor must do. Starting Jan. 1, job 1 is making New York safe again.

'WELCOME TO THE CITY OF VIOLENCE'

NYPD union slams Big Apple as ‘city of violence’ amid surge in shootings

 

By Amanda Woods

 

New York Times

April 27, 2021

 

 

The NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association slammed the Big Apple as “the city of violence” amid a 250 percent surge in shootings last week, and a slew of other disturbing crimes citywide.

“Mayor de Blasio has allocated 30 million dollars to bring tourism to NYC,” the union tweeted Monday morning. “Welcome to the city of violence.”

The SBA included a screengrab showing nearly two dozen shootings across the five boroughs between Friday and Sunday.

“Shootings and Homicides plaque [sic] NYC and the numbers aren’t final,” the union tweeted.

NYPD data indicates that 50 people were shot in 46 separate incidents over a seven-day period ending Sunday evening.

The department said it logged 12 shootings with 14 victims during the same time last year — more than a month into the city’s COVID-19 lockdown, according to the weekly Compstat data.

The same week in 2019 saw nearly identical figures.

This past weekend alone, nearly two dozen shootings were reported, according to police.

The violence continued as the new week began — a 20-year-old man was shot dead in broad daylight Monday while sitting in a car on the Upper East Side.

A gunman walked up to the car just before 2:30 p.m. on East 95th Street between Lexington and Park avenues, and shot the man in the stomach, police said.

The victim, whose name was not released, was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died.

The gunman fled in a white sedan, cops said.

“Even the Upper East Side is not safe,” a police source said of the incident.

The union also cited the Friday East Harlem stomping attack that left a 61-year-old Asian man in a medically induced coma.

Jarrod Powell, a 49-year-old ex-con, was arrested in connection to that incident, and charged with two counts of felony assault.

'TRUMP WAS A MERCENARY OF THE ZIONIST REGIME'

Iran says Israel 'directed' assassination of Soleimani, sensitive recording 'stolen'

 

Israel Hayom

April 28, 2021

 

 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused on Monday Israel of being behind the US assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

"Trump was a mercenary of the Zionist Regime and all his actions were provoked by the Zionists," adding, "Of course, the previous US presidents were friends with the Zionists, but were not mercenaries".

"The martyrdom of General Soleimani was directed by the Zionists, even though Trump was the commander and killer," Rouahni said according to an official statement by the Iranian government.

Speaking at a cabinet session Rouhani also spoke about the resumption of nuclear talks in Vienna, in which Iran wants to secure the lifting of crippling sanctions. He said that the leaking of a secret recording in which Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif criticized Soleimani for trying to undermine the 2015 accord, was timed to embarrass Iran.

"Stealing a recording and publishing it, and that why it has been published in this critical juncture is something that needs to be closely looked into," he said.

"This recording was published by those who are against Iran, the people of Iran and the interests of our country exactly at the time when we are making the best achievements in Vienna in order to sow discord in our country," he said.

Zarif commented on the leaked recording on Wednesday in a post and expressed remorse for his comments. "I am very sorry that a theoretical and confidential discussion on the need to have diplomacy and acts on the ground work in lockstep has become an internal source of conflict," he said. "I didn't censor myself because that would have been a betrayal of our people."

EITHER IRAN OR THE HOUTHIS ATTACKED SAUDI PORT

Explosive-Laden 'Drone' Boat Targets Saudi Port of Yanbu

 

Associated Press 

April 27, 2021

 

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - A remotely piloted boat packed with explosives targeted the Saudi port of Yanbu in the Red Sea on Tuesday, the kingdom said, with the blast sending black smoke into the sky off the coast. 

Saudi Arabia claimed to have intercepted and destroyed the attack boat. However, private security firms suggested commercial traffic near the port may have been hit in the assault.

Details remained scarce, but the incident comes after a series of attacks on shipping in the wider Mideast region amid a shadow war between Iran and Israel and against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations between Tehran and world powers over Iran's tattered nuclear deal.

The incident also comes amid the kingdom's yearslong war against Yemen's Houthi rebels. The Houthis have in the past used bomb-laden drones and explosive-packed boats in attacks targeting the kingdom. However, the rebels did not immediately claim any assaults on Tuesday and did not respond to a request for comment.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted Saudi military spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki saying the port was targeted by the drone boat.

"The booby-trapped boat was dealt and destroyed according to the rules of engagement,” the report quoted al-Maliki as saying, without providing evidence to support his claim.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, run by the British navy, simply said it was "aware of reports of an incident” and that investigations were ongoing. Private maritime security firm Dryad Global said it had reports that a ship had been "attacked," without elaborating.

Maritime security firm Neptune P2P Group reported that black smoke was seen billowing near the south entrance of the Yanbu port.

British maritime security firm Ambrey reported an "incident” off western Saudi Arabia, between the ports of Yanbu and Rabigh. Earlier Tuesday morning, smoke was seen rising from a vessel off the Saudi oil-shipping port of of Yanbu, the firm said. Multiple tankers remain anchored or drifting in the area.

Yanbu port control broadcast a message by marine VHF radio, warning vessels to increase their level of alertness and monitor for any suspicious activity, Ambrey said.

The U.S. Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet declined to immediately comment on the incident.

Yanbu, 870 kilometers (540 miles) west of Riyadh, serves as the end point of the kingdom's crucial East-West Pipeline. It allows crude oil pumped in its eastern fields to be shipped directly via the Red Sea, avoiding the Persian Gulf's chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz. Yanbu is also home to an oil refinery that can process 400,000 barrels of crude per day.

 

 

In May 2019, then-U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed that Yanbu had been targeted in an attack never acknowledged by the kingdom.

Meanwhile, American and Iranian warships had a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, the first such incident in about a year, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

Footage released by the Navy showed a ship commanded by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April 2. 

The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a 5th Fleet spokeswoman. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea.

Iran did not immediately acknowledge the incident in the southern reaches of the Persian Gulf, which resulted in no injuries or damage.

"The U.S. crews issued multiple warnings via bridge-to-bridge radio, five short blasts from the ships' horns, and while the (Iranian) Harth 55 responded to the bridge-to-bridge radio queries, they continued the unsafe maneuvers," Rebarich said. "After approximately three hour of the U.S. issuing warning and conducting defensive maneuvers, the (Iranian) vessels maneuvered away from the U.S. ships and opened distance between them."

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the incident, which involved the Iranian Harth support ship and three Iranian fast-attack craft. The Coast Guard units operate out of Bahrain as part of Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, its biggest unit overseas.

The interaction marked the first "unsafe and unprofessional” incident involving the Iranians since April 15, 2020, Rebarich said. However, Iran had largely stopped such incidents in 2018 and nearly in the entirety of 2019, she said.

In 2017, the Navy recorded 14 instances of what it describes as "unsafe and or unprofessional” interactions with Iranians forces. It recorded 35 in 2016, and 23 in 2015.

The incidents at sea almost always involve the Revolutionary Guard, which reports only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Typically, they involve Iranian speedboats armed with deck-mounted machine guns and rocket launchers test-firing weapons or shadowing American aircraft carriers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil passes.

Some analysts believe the incidents are meant in part to squeeze President Hassan Rouhani's administration after the 2015 nuclear deal. They include a 2016 incident in which Iranian forces captured and held overnight 10 U.S. sailors who strayed into the Islamic Republic's territorial waters.

"U.S. naval forces continue to remain vigilant and are trained to act in a professional manner, while our commanding officers retain the inherent right to act in self-defense,” Rebarich said.

The incident comes as Iran negotiates with world powers in Vienna over Tehran and Washington returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, talks due to resume Tuesday. It also follows a series of incidents across the Mideast attributed to a shadow war between Iran and Israel, which includes attacks on regional shipping and sabotage at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

GENOCIDE: ERDOGAN SAYS BIDEN NEEDS 'TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR'

Erdogan slams 'destructive' US recognition of Armenian genocide

 

Israel HYayom

April 27, 2021

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday denounced US President Joe Biden's recognition of the Armenian genocide as "groundless" and harmful to bilateral ties, French news agency AFP reported.

Erdogan had issued a carefully-worded statement moments before Biden made his landmark announcement on Saturday at a ceremony commemorating the tragic 1915-17 events.

But Erdogan did not hold back his anger in a televised address that he also used to point out the US history of slavery and persecution of Native Americans.

"The US president has made comments that are groundless and unfair," Erdogan said in televised remarks.

The Armenians – supported by historians and scholars – say 1.5 million of their people died in a genocide committed under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

Ankara accepts that both Armenians and Turks died in huge numbers as Ottoman forces fought tsarist Russia. But Turkey vehemently denies a deliberate policy of genocide and notes that the term had not been legally defined at the time.

Erdogan further added that Biden needed "to look in the mirror" when calling the century-old events a genocide.

"We can also talk about what happened to Native Americans, Blacks and in Vietnam," Erdogan said.

"The Native Americans, I don't even need to mention them, what happened is clear," he said, in reference to the treatment of Native Americans by European settlers. "While all these truths are out there, you cannot pin the genocide accusation on the Turkish people."

Biden's statement came at a time when Ankara and Washington have been struggling to repair ties, strained when Turkey bought S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, resulting in US sanctions, policy differences in Syria and legal matters.

Erdogan said he expected to "open the door for a new period" in ties and discuss all disputes with Biden at the NATO summit in June, but warned that ties would deteriorate further unless the allies could compartmentalize issues.

"We now need to put aside our disagreements and look at what steps we can take from now on, otherwise we will have no choice but to do what is required by the level our ties fell to on April 24," he said.

POLICE SHOOTINGS

The Cops Shoot People of Different Races for the Same Reasons

 

By Rich Lowry

 

National Review

April 27, 2021

 

 

 

The media are cherry-picking officer-involved shootings to establish a narrative that runs counter to the facts.

On April 18, two remarkably similar incidents played out in different parts of the country

In Burnsville, Minn., police got a report that a man, 30-year-old Bradley Olsen, had been involved in a carjacking. They pursued the vehicle Olsen was driving, he fired at them, and they returned fire, hitting and killing him.

In Fort Worth on the same day, police also responded to reports of a man trying to steal cars. The armed man fled on foot, and an officer told him to drop his weapon. As the officer pursued, 31-year-old Ryan Williams pointed his gun at the cop and fired a shot. The officer returned fire and killed him.

The difference between these two incidents was that Bradley Olsen was white, and Ryan Williams was black. Otherwise, the cases are largely indistinguishable — how they started, how they played out, and, emphatically, how they ended.

This is the overall sense that one gets from the Washington Post’s famous database of police-involved shootings. Reading through it, there is no stark racial difference that jumps out, rather a dreary sameness. The fact patterns that get people shot by the cops, whether they are white, black, or Hispanic, are largely the same.

There are the most extreme cases, when suspects engage in gun battles with cops. But pointing a gun, including a fake gun, at an officer also is likely to end badly. So is approaching a cop with a knife or even a metal pipe and refusing, despite repeated orders, to put it down. Resisting arrest is a common theme and, quite often, the people killed by the police were obviously mentally disturbed.

The Washington Post database suggests we have a violence problem in America and certainly a mental-health problem, but not — at least not on the face of it — a race problem.

Consider just the police-involved killings over the last month. Almost every type of incident has involved people of different races.

In Escondido, Calif., on April 21, police responded to a call about a white male hitting cars with a metal object. When the suspect, a mentally disturbed man with a long rap sheet, approached a police officer wielding a two-foot metal pry tool, and ignored repeated orders to drop the object and use-of-force warnings, he was shot and killed.

In Rockford, Ill., on April 10, police responded to a domestic-violence call from the wife of Faustin Guetigo. When Guetigo emerged from the basement with a metal pipe and reportedly knocked an officer unconscious, police shot and killed him. Guetigo, 27, was an immigrant from the Central African Republic.

Fake guns are a common element in police-involved shootings. In Leonardtown, Md., on April 13, a state trooper shot and killed Peyton Ham, a 16-year-old white male, after he pointed what turned out to be an airsoft gun at him. According to an eyewitness, after he got shot, Ham brandished a knife and tried to stand up, defying orders to drop the knife, and the officer fired again.

In Hawaii on April 5, police shot and killed Iremamber Sykap, a 16-year-old born in Guam, after pursuing a vehicle connected to a number of crimes and seeing what they believed was a firearm in that car. It turned out to be a replica gun.

Knives also make regular appearances, typically involving individuals with mental-health issues. In North Lauderdale on April 15, police shot and killed Jeffrey Guy Sacks, a 26-year-old white man, when he entered a store with a knife and, after officers arrived, ran at one of them with the knife despite warnings to stop. According to his family, Sacks was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

In Harris County, Texas, on April 14, police responded to a call about a man experiencing a mental-health crisis. He had a knife, approached officers, and reportedly refused to drop it. An officer attempted to Tase him and then shot and killed Marcelo Garcia, a 46-year-old Hispanic man. Family members reportedly said he suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In San Marcos, Texas, in April, police responded to reports of a man walking in traffic. They tried unsuccessfully to detain him and, when he charged them with a knife, shot and killed Rescue Eram, a 31-year-old man from Micronesia.

Critics of the police argued last week that the shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, apparently in the act of stabbing another girl, showed how police treat blacks differently. But the fatal shooting in Oneonta, N.Y., on April 6 of Tyler Green, a 23-year-old white man, puts the lie to this.

Involved in a domestic dispute in the front yard of a house, Green lunged with a knife at his girlfriend and a small child when the police arrived. As in the Ma’Khia Bryant case, it all unfolded very quickly. Green fell down, and an officer tried to kick the knife away from him. But as he held it and grabbed for the child from the ground, ignoring orders to drop the knife, the police shot him in the back and killed him.

One of the starkest disparities in police-involved shootings concerns how much attention is devoted to cases depending on the race of the person shot. Of course, police sometimes get it wrong in how they handle cases involving white people, too, but there is no activist and media apparatus devoted to finding and blowing up such cases, in part because it would run counter to the narrative of systemically racist police preying on black people.

The George Floyd video was awful to watch. But so is the video of the 2016 death of Tony Timpa in the custody of Dallas police officers. John McWhorter highlighted this case in a piece about police shootings and Byron York noted it in his Twitter feed. The Dallas Morning News wrote this report last year when it finally obtained the body-camera footage of the incident.

Suffering from mental-health problems, Timpa himself called the cops. He was unarmed but struggled when handcuffed behind his back. Police pinned him to the ground face down. He repeatedly said they were killing him, but the police didn’t realize he was having trouble breathing and, in fact, dying. When he stopped breathing, the police joked about him being asleep, and the cops and paramedics were slow to try to render life-saving aid.

It is the cherry-picking of officer-involved shootings and other incidents that makes it possible for the likes of Jim Acosta of CNN to casually refer to “a rash” of police killings of African Americans. This is a statement that shows a profound ignorance of the true landscape of officer-involved shootings, but is, sad to say, utterly characteristic of most of the commentary and activism around policing in America.

HIZZONER IS OBLIVIOUS TO WHAT'S GOING ON IN HIS CITY

Hey, Blas: It’s long past time to do something about the madness in city streets 

 

By Post Editorial Board

 

New York Post

April 26, 2021

 

 

 

All hell’s breaking loose in Hell’s Kitchen — indeed, all across the city. Yet Mayor Bill de Blasio seems even more oblivious than ever.

From Friday to Sunday, police recorded 28 shootings across Gotham, including 14 on Saturday alone. That compares to just four shootings over the same days last year. And it capped a weeklong gunfire spree that saw 50 people shot in 46 incidents, a whopping 300 percent surge from 2020.

“It’s a gold era” for gun thugs, says John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Eugene O’Donnell, an ex-cop. “The word is out that the risks of carrying a gun are really negligible.”

Actually, the risks of consequences from most crimes in the city have grown small. And the results predictable, as reputed gang member Takim Newson’s 12-hour crime rampage made clear.

Newson was charged with attempted murder just this month, but the judge still sprung him with no bail. Then cops stopped him Friday as his car blocked traffic — and Newson drove off, dragging one officer with him. Next, he broke into a house, threatened a 66-year-old woman and stole another car, police say.

Cops also had their hands full with Black Lives Matter protesters as they blocked traffic at the Brooklyn Bridge. (A few perps got . . . tickets. That’ll show ’em!)

And Hell’s Kitchen residents tell The Post that the homeless are taking over streets as the weather warms up. “This summer will be the night of the living dead,” one activist frets.

On top of all this, cops are retiring in droves: Some 5,300 uniformed officers retired or put in their papers last year, a stunning 75 percent spike from 2019.

“Cops are forming a conga line down at the pension section,” another John Jay adjunct prof and ex-cop, Joseph Giacalone, warns. He’s expecting a “long, hot summer,” especially after the City Council voted to make it easier to sue cops personally.

Labor leaders, meanwhile, have called for more cops in the subways to protect workers who rely on them, following pleas by business groups for de Blasio to do something about violent vagrants in Midtown.

In response, de Blasio’s rolling out a few programs unlikely to put a dent in the mayhem. The budget he unveiled Monday offers the NYPD virtually no new resources.

Hizzoner has a long record of ignoring business groups, cops and scared residents. But now even his labor allies are screaming for help. Surely he can do something meaningful to stop the madness.

NICHOLAS REARDON IS AN AMERICAN HERO FOR SHOOTING 16-YEAR-OLD MA'KHIA bRYANT,

A Great New Idea for Reducing Police Shootings 

 

By Dov Fischer

 

The American Spectator

April 26, 2021

 

Our country’s social stasis is disrupted terribly by police shootings. Now that police wear body cams and members of the public scour the streets for interesting events to film on smartphones and then to post to social media, more police shootings get disseminated than ever before. When the target of the shooting is Black, we become infused with the news. When the target is White, we instantly move on because a White target generates few clicks and followers and fails to accord with the left-media narrative. In the same way, on the rare occasion that an Arab Muslim is attacked, the media run wild, but when a Haredi Jew is attacked in broad daylight on the streets of Brooklyn it barely merits a mention in the Food & Wildlife section.

As with the left-media cartel’s preferred and disdained targets, it is much the same when it comes to shooters who generate their interest. A Bernie Sanders supporter shot Rep. Steve Scalise at a baseball practice session. Not interesting, so just one story. Gabby Giffords was shot by her own  Democrat supporter. Not interesting. A nut with orange hair shot up a movie theater showing Batman. Not interesting. An Arab Muslim shot up a military site. Workplace violence. The active Colorado supermarket shooter a few weeks ago generated a storm of interest. Then the media found out that the arrested guy is named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa. End of that coverage.

If a mentally ill Caucasian shoots up a bunch of sleazy massage parlors that offer services not covered by health insurance as part of a medically prescribed rehab program, and if those operations happen to be sites whose women the shooter actually preferred patronizing, and if they happen to be women of Korean or other Asian descent, suddenly we have a national campaign generated by Democrats and their left-media cartel regarding anti-Asian hate. These campaigns “against anti-Asian violence” get launched and intensified by the same exact anti-Asian bigots on the left who keep worthy and deserving Asian-Americans out of many of our best universities. Thus it is fine to discriminate against Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, and Vietnamese Americans in our universities and at the workplace — but let’s take to the streets to defend those neighborhood massage parlors.

This is America 2021. Of course we are amid a horrible once-in-a-century pandemic, but systemically we have no real societal problems — so we make up our own problems. With a generation and more of comparative peace outside the Muslim Arab world, with any foreign entanglements adequately handled by our heroes in our all-volunteer army, no one of college age has faced a military draft for half a century. The last remaining vestiges of racism in America ended at least a quarter century ago, as we institutionalized giving preferential treatment to discrete minorities applying for schools, for jobs, for government loans, for housing assistance. We even elected a Black head of government — twice — something that no other White country has done: not England, not France, not Italy, not Scotland, not Ireland, not Germany, not Greece, not Belgium, not Russia. Throughout Asia: China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam always have been headed only and exclusively by people in the dominant racial and ethnic majority. Meanwhile, the rest of the world — except where Muslim terror dominates — is so much improved racially and ethnically. There is no more apartheid. No more military junta in Greece or in Chile. Just repressive and murderous communist dictatorships like the ones in China, Cuba, and Venezuela, but the left-media cartel, the Democrats, and academia don’t care about those.

The Left has absolutely no real problems it can find in today’s America, so it fabricates new ones that do not exist:  Systemic racism. White privilege. A new falsified history called “The 1619 Project,” to be taught to children instead of such toxicities as cursive writing and Dr. Seuss.

They fabricate “systemic racism.” They start canceling conservative professors, as though students’ minds will be broadened in an echo chamber where they do not get challenged with a single antithesis in the five or six years they vegetate for their undergraduate degrees. The Left changes school curricula to replace reading, writing, and arithmetic with critical race theory and gender-fluidity studies. Faced with a  single academic sanctuary from the madness — the final redoubt for normalcy in “STEM” courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — they now advance woke math, where precise accuracy no longer will exist. Thus, 8+6 = 14 … but that is only “your truth.” By contrast, “my truth” is that 8+6 = 3. If you insist otherwise, you are manifesting White privilege. And, of course, racism.

This is America 2021. Nothing is honest anymore. Maybe it never was. Really, the news has been fake for at least a century. The New York Times covered up the Holocaust. They covered up Stalin’s Holodomor mass murder of Ukrainians. Hearst did not really start the 1898 Mexican–American War, but he leveraged his newspapers to help foment the mood. Fittingly, the highest prize journalists give each other is named for the Father of Yellow Journalism: Joseph Pulitzer. What other field of endeavor names its highest honor for its most disreputable player? Does Broadway name its Tony Awards instead for someone who repeatedly forgot the lines on stage? Yes, Meryl Streep publicly celebrated Harvey Weinstein as “God” to a cheering, agreeing Hollywood audience. But does Hollywood name its award for Ed Wood, the guy who gave us Plan 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda, and a posse or rafter of other golden turkeys?

The “news” that is plated for us mostly is fake. It is not the Torah. It is an enterprise that seeks to generate profit among us by baiting us into clicking and into becoming “followers” and ginning up their ratings, all while the media also seek to sway public opinion. Hitler proved with Der Stürmer that an entire country could be brainwashed and turned politically by newspapers. Stalin proved the same with Izvestia and Pravda. Americans have proven no different, no less gullible and malleable. A concerted full-court press by CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Twitter, and Facebook is enough to sway elections. Lies may abound before the voting, with other uncomfortable news stories suppressed like the one about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Then, after the final election tallies are announced, a day or two of apologies for lying can be offered to Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley at Senate hearings, and that refreshes the ground until next time. We live amid lies.

High among today’s lies in an era when America no longer has racial bias — except insofar as keeping worthy and deserving Asian-Americans from gaining as many university admission as they have earned and deserve, by attributing to them unmeasurable stereotypical attributes (too quiet, not curious, too insular) — are lies regarding policing.

We Jews have a joke that runs a century and more, in a wide range of iterations, about Jewish mothers wanting their sons to be doctors and mourning the news when a son announces he will be only an attorney or, if an utter disappointment, an accountant. So be it. But is it fathomable how any sane person today, of any nationality or ethnicity or religion or creed, would sign up to be a police officer? How explain it? Why would anyone who has not already committed the years to police academy and to the years needed for pension eligibility, now choose such a career?

They are among our best. The police are selfless and respond before anyone else. They protect us. They maintain the peace. Without them, our entire society would be a jungle of predators. Data show what happens in cities where they lose popular support. When a shooter is loose, we turn to the police. When a spouse is beating up another, the police risk personal harm to bring th peace. When a senior citizen who is ill, infirm, and alone falls on the floor, a 911 phone call brings First Responders from the police or fire department to the scene to raise the person gently, clean him or her compassionately, and place him or her on a bed. As I was taught as a boy in yeshiva elementary school — and as still is true today: the police officer is your friend.

The police are to be loved and to be honored. Blue Lives Matter. Feel for them. Tell them you support them. When a journalist is in personal mortal danger, they don’t call the news desk; they call 911. Just give a careful listen to Pelosi and Ocasio after January 6: Sure, defund all the other police and ICE — but beef up the Capitol Police.

And yet the inevitable police shootings of civilians continue to happen. One asks oneself, as if talking to a cop: “For goodness sakes, Fool, why did you discharge that gun? What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you get the memo?”

Say His Name: Nicholas Reardon — American hero.

There was a news story the other day about some 16-year-old sweet innocent Black girl in Ohio named Ma’Khia Bryant. She had called the police for them to protect her, darling that she is, but instead those racist animals came and murdered her in cold blood. “What is wrong with them?” one may well have wondered. And then the extra few seconds of video came out. The original news story had been all lies. The officer, Nicholas Reardon, turns out to be an American hero. Were it not for him, a young Black lady would have been brutally murdered in broad daylight, stabbed to death. If hat person ever has any more children, they all should be named “Nicholas Reardon,” even if female. That brave and heroic officer risked his career — which he surely knew he was imperiling by discharging his gun — to stop a vicious knife-wielding person at the very last possible moment. Ma’Khia Bryant got exactly what our society expects when people try to stab others in broad daylight. Nicholas Reardon is an American hero.

Maybe some other stuff will come out in the media as the left-news cartel now research all they can to discredit him. It would be a terrible shame if there is a social media post out there, or something he said in elementary school, that will tarnish what he did by shooting Ma’Khia Bryant exactly as he did. But at that moment of truth he did what he was trained to do, what we hope a police officer will do as he or she sees a knife-wielding stabber in the act of stabbing perilously: he shot to take down the stabber. Good for him.

At a split-second moment like that, a cop cannot be expected to aim his pistol at the knife blade. This is not skeet shooting at the Olympics, and the slightest miss would kill the intended victim instead. If the cop aims for the legs of the stabber whose arm already is thrusting forward, with knife inches from the intended victim’s chest, the murderous stabbing will be completed. Officer Reardon is a hero.

It is difficult to fathom what motivates such heroism, such willingness to risk one’s life on the beat every single day and to face a career-ending media onslaught when the inevitable law-enforcement moment comes when one is called upon to act. But this much may be known: There is a very creative way to reduce these shootings, going forward. It is Nobel Peace Prize–worthy: The Fischer Plan to Reduce Police Shootings ®:

1. Don’t wield a knife in broad daylight and start to stab someone as a police officer says to stop.
2. Don’t wrestle a Taser gun out of a police officer’s hands and then shoot the Taser at him as he pursues you.
3. If a police officer starts cuffing you and says “Get into the car,” then get into the car.
4. If a police officer enters a home searching for drugs, don’t shoot at the officer.
5. Don’t (i) wear bullet-proof armor and (ii) then crash your car into a police car and (iii) then position your hand behind your back as though holding a firearm and (iv) then, while glaring at the cop in front of you, start counting “3, 2, 1.”
6. Don’t wrestle a police officer for his gun while he is arresting you and placing you in his car.
7. When a cop stops you, never argue with him or her. Maybe briefly explain your side of the incident, and maybe not even that.
8. When encountering a cop, know when to hold, know when to fold, but never walk away, and, for goodness sakes, don’t run. There’ll be time enough for accounting later with a lawyer and judge.
9. Even if the cop is a bad apple — and there absolutely are police bad apples, as there are in all fields of endeavor including even kindergarten teachers, clergy, and medical doctors — remember that he or she has a gun, handcuffs, and a badge. Just suck it up. Don’t test them. If they want to see your registration and proof of insurance, and it is in your glove compartment or inside your coat, tell them so respectfully and ask their permission to open that compartment or to put your hand inside that coat. Later, if they have been evil, you can get them fired and can sue for damages. To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the heavens.

Has any other worthy advice been overlooked here? Feel free to add it below, and maybe we can share a Nobel Peace Prize together.

CLOSE ONLY COUNTY IN HORSE SHOES AND HAND GRENADES

by Bob Walsh

Had New York State been able to find 79 more residents living in cardboard boxes in central park or squatting in abandoned buildings they would have held on to one representative seat in the house.  CA was a lost cause, just too many people beat feet.

Texas picked up two seats.  Florida and N C gained one each.  Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lost one.  

Now comes the real fun.  The cat fights in the respective state houses over exactly where the lines get drawn.  The party in power always wants to gerrymander things so that they maintain the most seats and the party not in power looses the most seats.  Fair has nothing to do with it, because they are a pack of self-centered whores for the most part.  Many of the redistricting plans will end up in court, perhaps most of them will do so.

The formerly great state of California still outnumbers Texas by about 10 million, even with it's net population loss.  

The total official U S population was 331, 449, 281 on census day last year.

YET ANOTHER LAWSUIT AT NEW FOLSOM PRISON

Family Of Inmate Murdered By His Cellie Is Suing

by Bob Walsh

The dead guy is Tou Thao.  He was 3 years into a six year beef for second degree robbery.  He was beaten to death inside his cell about 18 months ago by Jose Antonio Negrete, a much larger man, a convicted violent sex offender of dubious mental stability who wanted to be single celled and announced that he would kill anybody they attempted to cell with him.  Negrete is doing life for sodomy, kidnapping, sexual battery and other various forms of nastiness.

Negrete, 46, is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity in the murder.  

Negrete has contacted the family of the dead man in writing, offering to provide help in the civil suit.

The family is asserting that the prison and the Acting Warden failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the physical safety of Tou Thao by housing him with a much larger known violent lifer who had flat-out threatened to kill him to get on single cell status.  I think the family might have a legitimate beef here.

INPEACH THE ARROGANT COMMIE BASTARD

by Bob Walsh

On Monday the Secretary of State of the formerly great state of California determined that there are enough valid signatures to move forward with the recall attempt against the God-Emperor Gavin Newsom.

The election will probably be sometimes in October or November.  It will be a single issue election.  Choice one will be DO YOU WANT TO RECALL THIS ARROGANT TURD.  Choice two will be IF HE IS RECALLED WHO DO YOU WANT TO REPLACE HIM.

Last time around there were about 130 people on the ballot.  The pundits are speculating it could be double that or even more than double that this time around.

Howie Katz for Governor.  Works for me.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks but no thanks.  However, I know a couple of  orangutans at the Houston Zoo, either of which would fit right into the job. 

 

 

 

 

And they spit at people they don't like.  Sometimes even at people they do like.

NO MORE RACIST MATH IN VIRGINIA

By Bob Walsh

The state of Virginia, in recognition of the fact (???) that math has been in the past inherently racist, is proposing that, in grades K-10, ALL students in each grade level will be taught math at exactly the same level.  No more bonehead math classes, no more advanced math classes.

Some of the parents, at least the ones who can read English and are aware of this academic abomination, are screaming like mashed cats.  

I would not care to hazard a guess as to whether or not this proposal will proceed as I do not know how badly the Virginia school systems and legislature have been infiltrated by D C transplants..

OUTRAGE OVER DRUG DEALER GETTING 'EXECUTED' BY NORTH CAROLINA COPS

Andrew Brown Jr. was shot in the back of the head by police, family attorney says

 

CBS News

April 27, 2021

 

                                       Andrew Brown Jr.

Attorneys representing the family of Andrew Brown Jr. said Monday that North Carolina sheriff's deputies shot the 42-year-old Black man in the back of the head as they were serving a warrant last week. Brown's son, who was allowed to view what the family's attorneys said was 20 seconds of police body camera video, called the shooting in Elizabeth City an execution.

"My dad got executed just by trying to save his own life," Khalil Ferebee told reporters during an afternoon press conference.

Family attorney Harry Daniels said Brown was shot in the back of the head, and he called for the officers involved in the shooting to be arrested "right now." 

Another family attorney, Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, said the bodycam video showed Brown posed no threat to police during Wednesday's incident. She said the video showed Brown in his car in his driveway with his hands on the steering wheel.

The video started with officers firing at Brown, Cherry-Lassiter said. At least five officers were facing the driver's side of the vehicle pointing their weapons at Brown, she said. Some were calling for Brown to show them his hands.

"They're shooting and saying, 'Let me see your hands,' at the same time," Cherry-Lassiter said.

Attorneys representing the family of Andrew Brown Jr. said Monday that North Carolina sheriff's deputies shot the 42-year-old Black man in the back of the head as they were serving a warrant last week. Brown's son, who was allowed to view what the family's attorneys said was 20 seconds of police body camera video, called the shooting in Elizabeth City an execution.

"My dad got executed just by trying to save his own life," Khalil Ferebee told reporters during an afternoon press conference.

Family attorney Harry Daniels said Brown was shot in the back of the head, and he called for the officers involved in the shooting to be arrested "right now." 

Another family attorney, Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, said the bodycam video showed Brown posed no threat to police during Wednesday's incident. She said the video showed Brown in his car in his driveway with his hands on the steering wheel.

The video started with officers firing at Brown, Cherry-Lassiter said. At least five officers were facing the driver's side of the vehicle pointing their weapons at Brown, she said. Some were calling for Brown to show them his hands.

"They're shooting and saying, 'Let me see your hands,' at the same time," Cherry-Lassiter said.

Brown tried to drive away from the officers, who continued to fire, she said. The vehicle eventually crashed into a tree.

"We in Black America don't understand why when a Black person is going away from you you think it's allowable to shoot them in the back and kill them," said attorney Ben Crump, who is also representing the Brown family.

Cherry-Lassiter said at least seven officers total were at the scene of the shooting. Attorneys called for the release of footage from other body cameras and from any police dashboard cameras. Authorities have not publicly released any video from the incident, despite calls to do so from the community and local officials.

 

                          Sheriff Tommy Wooten II (right) and Chief Deputy Daniel Fogg

 

In a video statement posted to Facebook on Monday, Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Daniel Fogg said the office would comply if the court ordered a release of the body camera footage, but said "those people who claim that the sheriff's office has the ability to release [the footage] either don't know North Carolina law, or they are trying to purposefully inflame a tragic situation."

In the same statement, Sheriff Tommy Wooten II said the incident "was quick and over in less than 30 seconds," adding that "body cameras are shaky and sometimes hard to decipher." 

"They only tell part of the story," Wooten added. 

Seven Pasquotank County sheriff's deputies have been placed on paid administrative leave. Ahead of the family viewing the video, Elizabeth City Mayor Bettie Parker declared a state of emergency in the wake of protests following the shooting.

Wooten has said deputies from his department were attempting to serve drug-related search and arrest warrants when Brown was shot. The warrants included two arrest warrants on drug-related charges, including possession with intent to sell cocaine for Brown, who had past drug convictions.

JOHN KERRY BETRAYED ISRAEL ..... MOST CERTAINLY WITH THE APPROVAL OF OBAMA

Israel has no choice but to act on its own to stop Iran since Biden's foreign policy team is composed almost entirely of Obama administration veterans

By Jonathan S. Tobin

 

JNS

April 27, 2021

 

The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and the government's national security adviser is in Washington this week on an important mission that has failed even before it began.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki made it clear last week that the Israelis are wasting their time. When asked if Israeli pleas about the danger to the region if the United States rejoins the 2015 nuclear deal would have any impact on President Joe Biden's plans, Psaki answered "no." She went on to say that the Israelis are free to keep "challenging" the administration's goal of returning to a weak pact that gives Tehran a legal path to a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade, but the best they could hope for is to be "kept abreast" of America's plans.

That contemptuous attitude was of particular significance because the day before the Israeli security officials arrived, news broke about how former Secretary of State John Kerry had shared intelligence with Iran about Israeli covert operations seeking to stop their nuclear program. According to an audiotape of comments made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif that were obtained by The New York Times, he said, "It was former U.S. Foreign Secretary [sic] John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria."

There is a lot to unwrap in that one sentence and not just because the Times buried this revelation at the bottom of its story.

 

Barack Obama Nominates John Kerry to Secretary of State B

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/21/barack-obama-nominates-john-kerry-as-next-secretary-of-state-3326983/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Barack Obama Nominates John Kerry to Secretary of State B

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/21/barack-obama-nominates-john-kerry-as-next-secretary-of-state-3326983/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

                               John Kerry (right) and friends

 

Kerry, for whom Psaki served as spokesperson during the nuclear negotiations from 2013 to 2015, currently acts as President Joe Biden's special presidential envoy of climate. We already knew that in 2018, Kerry consulted with Zarif advising his former negotiating partner not to work with the Trump administration, which withdrew from the nuclear deal as part of a "maximum pressure" campaign to force the Iranians to agree to a new tougher agreement that would eliminate sunset clauses, as well as include bans on Tehran's role as the world's leading state sponsor of international terrorism and its illegal missile-building. Kerry told Zarif to simply wait out Trump and then deal with a more pliant Democrat that he hoped would be elected in 2020.

That's exactly what happened, and now the Iranians are reaping the benefits. Biden's foreign-policy team, composed almost entirely of veterans of the administration of former President Barack Obama, are again resuming their past practice of appeasing the Iranians with concessions in the works in order to entice Tehran to return to a deal with little hope of improving upon it.

Kerry's collusion with Iran is important because it comes in the context of the growing tension with Israel over its efforts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. Unlike in the past, when it was clear that the United States and Israel were cooperating in a joint effort to derail the Islamist regime's nuclear ambitions, the administration went out of its way to disavow any role in Israel's recent successful attack on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

The implication of these off-the-record comments from "senior administration officials" is that the administration regarded Israel's efforts as seeking to forestall an American push to re-engage with Iran. A news analysis published in The Washington Post filled with quotes from anonymous American and European sources, as well as some on-the-record potshots from former Obama administration figures, said the Jewish state was trying to play "the spoiler" in order to undermine Biden's diplomacy. The liberal magazine Slate labeled the attack as an act of a "sneaky saboteur," as if there was something inherently illegitimate about actions that sought to prevent a terrorist theocracy from acquiring a nuclear weapon that could fulfill the ayatollah's genocidal threats against Israel.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) fulminated about the attack, saying he would demand a full security briefing on it while sending a message to the Israelis that he—and other members of his party—take it as a matter of faith that diplomacy is the "only" acceptable path for relations with Iran and that Israel's efforts were bound to fail.

As Martin Peretz pointed out in Tablet, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken's messaging on Iran has sounded a moderate tone, he has essentially outsourced the nuclear issue to Robert Malley, Biden's special envoy on Iran. Malley was not only one of the chief architects of the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran; he is a veteran appeaser and critic of Israel.

In essence, right now the United States is asking Israel to back off on its efforts to stop Iran and to trust Biden's team to deliver a diplomatic solution to the problem. But given that Malley has demonstrated no interest in strengthening the nuclear pact so as to forestall an Iranian bomb or stop the regime's terrorism, that's a leap of faith that no responsible Israeli government can make.

More to the point, Zarif's revelation about Kerry's sharing of intel about their anti-Iran operations makes it clear to the Israelis that the administration isn't merely wrongheaded in its approach but may actively be seeking to undermine their country's security and that of its regional allies.

Not only did Psaki refuse to answer a question about Kerry's astonishing betrayal during her regular press conference on Monday, she didn't even make an attempt to say something that might reassure the Israelis that the administration regarded this as an issue of concern, let alone something about which an apology should be forthcoming. An investigation into this scandal is imperative. So is Kerry's resignation from his current post.

The implication here is something that advocates for Obama's signature foreign-policy accomplishment have always been at pains to contradict. Democratic apologists for the deal have spent the last six years trying to claim that the agreement was the best way to safeguard Israel against an Iranian nuclear weapon. However, critics pointed to the way the deal empowered and enriched a rogue regime, and asked whether the goal was very different from the one Obama had discussed.

Obama said it was a chance to give Iran the opportunity to "get right with the world" by giving up its nuclear ambitions. Instead, the deal may have been part of an effort to shift American policy in the region from one of an alliance with Israel and the Gulf states to one in which Iran would supplant them as America's best friend in the region. Few would have believed this claim in 2015. And yet, the impact of the agreement on the region, coupled with Kerry's actions and the efforts of Obama alumni to return to the deal on Biden's watch, lend some credibility to this theory.

Whatever Obama intended or what Biden may want now, the inescapable conclusion from these events is that the Israelis should be in no doubt about the fact that they are being abandoned by the United States with respect to Iran. This leaves Israel with no good options. Nevertheless, the Jewish state has no choice but to proceed as if its future safety lies solely in its own hands. If the Biden administration or the Democratic Party don't like that, they can reverse course and start acting as if they take the Iranian nuclear threat seriously. Otherwise, they should pipe down and let the Israelis do what they must to stop an existential threat to their existence.

ABBAS HAS TEMPER TANTRUM, CURSES CHINA, RUSSIA, THE US AND ALL THE ARABS

Palestinian President Curses Half the Planet

 

By Edy Cohen

 

Israel Today

April 27, 2021

 

It has been a tough week for our Palestinian neighbors. A week they would rather forget.

It started with the decision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to rebuff Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime for the use of chemical weapons in recent years. The condemnation was expected, as was the fact that a number of Assad’s allies, like Russia, voted against the motion. But the big surprise was the Palestinian Authority’s opposition to the resolution.

Thousands of Syrian opposition activists in turn condemned the Palestinians for opposing the motion, and vowed that Syrians in the future would no longer help or cooperate with “Palestinian issue” (e.g. condemning Israel).

The criticism was unprecedented, as thousands came out of the woodwork to slam the Palestinian Authority (PA) over its support for one of the biggest dictators in the Arab world today. How is it, they wondered, the Palestinians, who claim to be freedom fighters, can back a dictator who has killed a million Syrian people and forced more than 10 million more to flee the country, to say nothing of the millions more wounded and the vast destruction. There is no doubt that the Palestinian cause has lost some support following the vote.

But if you thought this was the scandal of the week then you were wrong. Just a few days ago a tape was leaked in which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was heard cursing the whole world including China, Russia, the United States and most importantly, all the Arabs!

 

 

The recording was allegedly made during a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee on April 19. One of the participants [Abbas Zaki] asked President Abbas if he had anything to say following the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party, since Abbas Zaki is in charge of ties with China.

In response Mahmoud Abbas lost his temper and started cursing right and left. 

This recording made waves in the Arab world and became the talk of the day. How could a president express himself in this manner?

Many media outlets in the Arab world awkwardly quoted the remarks and even conducted investigations. As expected, the PA and those close to Mahmoud Abbas claimed that it was a forgery. They insisted the voice in the recording was not that of the president, and that the entire episode was a conspiracy against him ahead of upcoming elections. Others have argued that this is his voice and that this is not the first time Abbas has spoken out against presidents or states. In the past, he cursed US President Trump.

In any case, millions of Arabs on social media have been exposed to the blunt words of Mahmoud Abbas, including those countries that have helped Palestinians, like China, which recently transferred tens of thousands of vaccine doses to the Palestinian Authority. Is that the gratitude they get in return? What about the US? The Biden Administration has renewed financial and political assistance to the Palestinian Authority, and is this their reward? Many Arabs have been left scratching their heads.

But what’s really got people buzzing is why Abbas’ string of curses didn’t include Israel. If we consider all the nations he did curse, we are talking about billions of people, more than half the planet. That’s certainly got the conspiracy theorists thinking. At any rate, Abbas will no doubt make up for leaving out the Jewish state at his earliest opportunity.

HARDLY A DAY GOES BY WITHOUT BAD COPS MAKING ALL COPS LOOK BAD

‘Ready for the Pop?’ Cops Laughed at Body-Cam of Violent Arrest of ‘Ancient’ Woman With Dementia, Video Shows

 

Colorado officers Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali arrested Karen Garner, a 73-year-old with dementia and fractured her arm, after she apparently forgot to pay for her Walmart groceries

 

By Jamie Ross

Daily Beast

April 26, 2021

 

 

 

Two Colorado cops violently arrested a 73-year-old woman who has dementia—then were caught on camera celebrating and laughing when they reviewed their horrific body-cam footage hours later at the police station.

The two officers have been identified as Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali of the Loveland Police Department. They arrested 73-year-old Karen Garner on June 26, 2020, after she left a Walmart with $13 of goods that she hadn’t paid for. Garner’s family says she forgot to pay because of her condition.

According to the Denver Post, Hopp found Garner walking home after Walmart staff had reported her. Body-cam footage released this month showed Hopp tackling the terrified woman to the ground when she refused to stop walking way from him, then he handcuffed her and pushed her hard against his cruiser. A concerned citizen can be seen stopping by the side of the road to ask Hopp if so much force was necessary.

The cops fractured the woman’s arm and dislocated her shoulder during the arrest, her family has said, and it’s this horrific body-cam footage that the officers were caught on surveillance camera watching as Garner sat in a nearby cell for hours after her ordeal at the hands of the police.

 

'Ready for the pop?' Hopp is heard saying in apparent reference to Garner's arm coming out of its socket as she was pressed up against a police car

“Ready for the pop?” Hopp said to Jalali and another officers while they gathered round to watch the footage of the violent arrest. “What popped?” another officer asked. “I think it was her shoulder,” Hopp replied. These comments can be heard at 48:30 in the video.

Hopp can be heard saying “I can’t believe I threw a 73-year-old on the ground,” while Jalali comments: “It’s like live TV... Body-cams are my favorite thing to watch, I could watch livestream body-cams all day.” The third officer can be heard suggesting “The Body-Cam Show” as a title for a proposed television special, and says to Hopp: “Impressive, buddy.”

After releasing the video on YouTube, Garner’s attorney, Sarah Schielke, said in a statement: “This is utterly disgusting. These videos cannot be unseen or unheard. I am sorry to have to share them with the public. This will be traumatic and deeply upsetting for everyone to see.”

“But as it often goes with bad police departments, it seems this is the only way to make them change,” the attorney went on. “They have to be exposed. If I didn’t release this, the Loveland Police’s toxic culture of arrogance and entitlement, along with their horrific abuse of the vulnerable and powerless, would carry on, business as usual.”

Garner’s family filed a federal lawsuit against the police officers earlier in April. Schielke said Monday that two more officers have been added as defendants in the suit, alleging they knew that Garner was hurt but didn’t give her medical care for six hours while she was in custody.

The Loveland Police Department has placed Hopp on administrative leave and re-assigned Jalali to desk duties while an internal investigation continues. Garner’s attorney said, to date, her client has received no apology from the officers, the police department, or the city.

The police department is yet to comment on the new video.