If a black attacks a cop, the cop is not allowed to strike back?

The female in the pink top clearly went for the cop and nearly pushed him over. Note that both females already had criminal records despite still being teenagers. A few more punches earlier on might have helped them to wake up to themselves



This is the moment a white American police officer punches a teenage black girl in the face after a dispute about how she and her friend crossed the road.

Video footage of Officer Ian Walsh lashing out at the 17-year-old in Seattle has shocked the U.S. The teenager reels backwards in shock from the blow before clutching her face while a bystander can be heard asking: ‘Are you serious?’

Police arrested the girl, Angel Rosenthal, and her friend, 19-year-old Marilyn Ellen Levias, both of whom have criminal records.

Seattle Police chiefs have launched an investigation into the alleged assault after viewing the video footage.

Civil rights activists are outraged and say the punch was an action of anger not self-defence.

The incident comes weeks after another two Seattle officers seen kicking a Hispanic robbery suspect who later turned out to be innocent.

James Kelly, who heads the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle group, said of the police: ‘Shame on you. The use of violence in the form of a full-blown fist to the face was wrong. ‘What the 17-year-old did was wrong,’ he told ABC News. ‘I'm not making any excuses for her, but two wrongs don't make a right.’

And a woman with whom the 17-year-old lives echoed his statements. ‘She's not a criminal,’ [Really??] the woman, who would not give her name, said as she waited for a juvenile court hearing for the teen yesterday. ‘She ran into a situation that maybe wasn't right, but two wrongs don't make a right.’

The confrontation began after Walsh spotted a man jaywalking - the American term for not crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or junction controlled by lights - and went to speak to him.

According to the police report a group of four girls were also spotted doing the same and the officer called them over to his patrol car. The women became verbally abusive and started to walk away ignoring the Walsh’s instructions to remain where they stood. When he tried to stop the teen two of them began grappling with him. As the 17-year-old, wearing a pink top, tried to push away Walsh, he lashed out with his fist.

Other officers who had answered a call for help arrived on the scene and handcuffed the 19-year-old. Both teens were charged with jaywalking and assaulting a police officer.

A police spokesman said they will review the video tape but said punching is a trained tactic for police officers. ‘There will be a thorough investigation into this incident,’ said a spokesman.

Both girls have now been released from custody.

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Spengler's mailbox

Dear Spengler,

I won the Nobel Peace prize for reconciling Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. I'm presently on a ship in the Mediterranean trying to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, but the Israelis won't let me. What should I do?
Baffled from Belfast

Dear Baffled,

Load your cargo onto camels and head for Kyrgyzstan. They need it more there.

Dear Spengler,

I am prime minister of a Muslim country with 75 million citizens. Our empire once ruled the Muslim world and a great deal besides, and we very much would like to do so again. Recently I have asserted our leadership of Muslim causes, for example, breaking Israel's blockade of Gaza. What should I do next?
Anxious in Ankara

Dear Anxious,

Your problem is that the sort of rhetoric that plays well with the local audience makes you sound like an evil clown in the United States. Whatever Israeli commandos did on the Mavi Marvara, it's not a "war crime" or an act of "state terrorism", as your government proclaims. You need to work on your image in order to avoid the impression that your country is crawling with violence-prone barbarians with a paranoid chip on their collective shoulder. The world still remembers the murder of perhaps three million Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians between 1914 and 1925, not to mention the killing of as many as 40,000 Kurds by Turkish security forces during the 1980s and 1990s.

It doesn't help when two groups of ethnic Turks, the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, slaughter each other. When you expostulate about Gaza but say nothing about massacres in Kyrgyzstan, your credibility goes down the drain. It betrays a narrowly political motivation, rather than religious or even national concern. My advice: Announce that you will go to Kyrgyzstan to mediate between the warring ethnic groups. Stay there as long as possible.

Dear Spengler,

I'm the legitimate, internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and the prospective president of a future Palestinian state, but I get no respect. My security people got knee-capped and pushed off rooftops in Gaza when Hamas took over in 2007. Now even the Americans are talking about lifting the embargo on Gaza - not to mention the Europeans - which would make Hamas look like a legitimate representative of the Palestinians and leave me in the cold. What should I do?
Rattled in Ramallah

Dear Rattled,

You're suffering from a martyr gap with the competition. Hamas gets respect because its supporters are happy to commit suicide. As they keep saying, "You love life; we love death." The Turks sent a boat full of prospective martyrs eager to die at the hands of the Israelis, and managed to produce nine corpses. Hamas rocket attacks on Israel are designed to draw Israeli counter-attacks which produce corpses, civilian or not. The horror evoked by suicide hurts Western morale more than the fear of terrorism. Muslims perpetrated 1,944 suicide attacks between 2001 and 2008, not counting the efforts of Hamas, Hezbollah, and others to provoke Israel into counter-attacks that claim civilian lives as collateral damage. The West is founded on the notion of redemption, that is, the hope that in every human being there exists some inclination towards the good. Suicide is a real conversation-stopper. The West cringes in horror at thought that a combatant culture can field an arbitrarily large number of suicides.

All the evidence in the world that the prospective shahids on the Mavi Marmara intended to die won't cure the queasiness of Western stomachs. The fact of nine corpses on the deck overwhelms the sensibilities of Western liberals, no matter how they got there. Your problem is that you don't have enough corpses to lay out for the news media.

If you don't like how you're being treated, ask a few of your security people to kill themselves in front of your office every morning. If they won't do that, order them to kill some Hamas people in retaliation for all the murders of your people in Gaza. The first will get you sympathy, and the second will get you respect. If you can't persuade your people to do either, even after all the American training and weapons they've received during the past few years, you're out of options. Seek political asylum in another Muslim country - Kyrgyzstan, maybe.

Dear Spengler,

I'm the prime minister of a small Jewish country in the Middle East. No matter what we do, we get blamed for brutality. We tried to handle the Gaza blockade-runners like errant hippies, and boarded the Mavi Marmara with paintball guns. We have videos proving that our soldiers acted in self-defense and nobody seems to care. We've captured whole shiploads of Iranian missiles headed for Gaza. The French blew up a Greenpeace ship and nobody treated them this way. What can I do to get a fair hearing in the world?
Jittery in Jerusalem

Dear Jittery,

There isn't a lot you can do, except in the United States, where most people still believe in fairness, and a lot of people think that the Biblical reasons for your country's founding are valid. You might want to produce a brief television commercial showing some of the 7,000 Gazan patients treated each year at Israeli hospitals; the Israeli field hospital in Haiti manned by a 200-person relief team that was first on the scene after the earthquake; and other humanitarian aid provided by your country. And you might want to contrast this with footage of the effect of terrorist bombings and rocket attacks, as well as the video footage from the boarding of the Mavi Marmara. That won't make much of a difference, because American support for Israel already is at a record high.

Your success, even your existence, is an affront to most Muslims. Polls show that only a fifth of Arabs would accept a Jewish state in the Middle East under any circumstances. That is because the return of the Jewish people to Zion, not to mention their military, commercial, scientific and cultural achievements, undermines Islamic triumphalism. Muslims ask themselves: How can the Koran be God's final revelation, if the perfidious Jews enjoy strength and riches, and their false prophets appear vindicated, while the faithful wallow in weakness and humiliation?

As for the Europeans, there isn't anything you can do to bring them around. They have abandoned the Christian faith that created Europe in the first place and have reconciled themselves to extinction. They abhor the idea of a Jewish state, because they abhor anything that calls to mind their own Judeo-Christian foundation. And they like to think of Jews as malefactors because it assuages their lingering guilt over the Holocaust. Worst of all, they wish to appease a growing Muslim population which over time will replace their own infertile people. The Europeans, in short, are a race of cowards for whom truth does not exist if it is inconvenient.

Your trading partners in Asia all have substantial Muslim minorities and have no reason to rile them up by supporting you. Most of them privately hope that you will succeed, but will not say so.

The Russians believe that America needs you as an ally in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the president of the United States seeks to reduce rather than aggrandize America's influence in the world; apart from his sentimental predilection for Islam, he is in principle against allies that strengthen America. Therefore the Russians will do everything in their power to wreck your relationship with Washington, the better to hurt America. If by chance you survive, they will be happy to buy your drones and sell you military aircraft.

My advice is to defend yourselves as you see fit. You only have to make sure to win. And remember: No good deed goes unpunished.

SOURCE






"Emergent" Christianity

by Mike Adams

Today, I was reading a book called Blue Like Jazz by a guy named Don Miller. About 100 pages into the book I came across this quote: “I don’t believe I will ever walk away from God for intellectual reasons. Who knows anything anyway?” After hearing the author admit that he didn’t know anything I tossed his book in the trash and lit a cigar. Then I sat down to write this column.

I wish I could say that Don Miller is just another author getting wealthy peddling a watered-down version of Christianity that appeals to people who want a little religion but have no desire to change their behavior. But Don Miller isn’t an isolated case. He’s part of the so-called Emergent Church movement that is making significant inroads among young Americans.

Rob Bell, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a good example of what passes for a leader in the Emergent Church movement. He assumes the position of a pastor, one I’ve always assumed is supposed to lead people to God, without any real idea of where he’s going. He says the following in one of his best-selling “Christian” books:

“Our words aren’t absolutes. Only God is absolute, and God has no intention of sharing this absoluteness with anything, especially words people have come up with to talk about him.”

Heartening, isn’t it? According to Miller, we can’t know anything. According to Bell, we can’t know anything about God because he won’t tell us with things like words. Go ahead and toss your Bible in the trash along with Blue like Jazz. It’s just a bunch of words from a bunch of people.

Brian McLaren, one of the best-selling authors and leaders of the Emergent Church movement, doesn’t seem to have many answers either. He once stated “I am no doubt wrong on many things. I am very likely wrong in my personal opinions on homosexuality.”

That’s weird. The Emergent Church guys pride themselves on being open-minded. But one of their leaders clings to one of his views even after he decides it is “very likely wrong.” That used to be called stubborn, or narrow-minded. Now it’s hip.

I’m not sure how many of these hip Emergent Church leaders have read Matthew 14:31 where Jesus asks Peter “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” My guess is that most of these guys like to doubt because being unsure of all things at all times guarantees they will never have to stand up for anything or risk offending anyone.

Of course, most people enjoy having some kind of destination, not to mention some idea of where they are right now. But not Rob Bell’s wife Kristen who said this: “I grew up thinking we’ve figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again …”

At times, the leaders of the Emergent Church seem to want to do anything to postpone making a moral judgment. Brian McLaren once said, “Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. We’ve heard all sides, but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say ‘it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us’ … Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements … Then in five years, if we have clarity, we’ll speak; if not, we’ll set another five years for ongoing reflection.”

Personally, I hope Brian McLaren does decide to shut up for at least five years. That way, he won’t say anything as stupid as the following commentary on God’s decision to send Jesus to die on the Cross: “That just sounds like one more injustice in the cosmic equation. It sounds like divine child abuse. You know?”

It’s edgy. It’s provocative. It sells books. And it’s blasphemy. It’s the kind of blasphemy that can land a soul in hell.

But, if you’ll pardon the rhyme, Rob Bell doesn’t really believe in hell. He says “When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, and slaughter – they are all hell on earth. What’s disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now.”

The Emergent Church is cool, isn’t it? No hell, no death, and no resurrection. Just really good coffee and really good dialogue with guys who really aren’t sure they know anything or ever can.

Actually, Brian McLaren does know something. He knows how to ridicule people who aren’t convergent with the Emergent: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you don’t love God back and cooperate with God’s plans in exactly the prescribed way, God will torture you with unimaginable abuse, forever – that sort of thing.”

Above all, Don Miller and his friends in the Emergent Church want us to understand that Christianity is not about rules. It’s about a relationship. We don’t really know what the rules are and there’s no way God would want to share his “absoluteness” with “words” that could be used to form “propositions” which could result in “doctrine.”

This Sunday I’ve decided to take a friend to the local Emergent Church. I plan to steal from the offering plate, rape the pastor’s wife, and then kill anyone who gets in my way. Then, I’ll remind the congregation that Christianity is not about rules. It’s about a relationship with God. And one has nothing to do with the other.

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The FTC, FCC and FEC are going to war on free speech in America

This week may prove to be the most important week for free speech the nation has ever seen. With a three-way assault being waged on our First Amendment rights, it is little surprise that the Obama administration would use the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Elections Commission to regulate free speech. After all, the Obama administration has made it clear that if you speak out against their agenda, you are an enemy of “progress”.

Let’s start with the FTC. This morning, the FTC will hold a public forum in Washington D.C. to discuss the findings of their commission that is tasked with discovering how to make the news reporting business profitable again. This is no short order, as dinosaur news organizations such as the New York Times have lost extreme amounts of readership. But as most outside of D.C. know all too well, bailouts don’t work and lead to companies that peddle government-influenced junk to appease their financiers.

Instead of allowing the market to work its magic, the FTC seems to believe that government intervention can remedy the decisions made by consumers who moved away from the news organizations of the past. In their opinion, they can “bail out” the nearly dead news agencies with ideas such as an Ipad tax to subsidize the nearly forgotten news agencies.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission will hold an open meeting to discuss Net Neutrality. After the FCC was dealt a set-back in the recent Comcast Corp. v. FCC decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the FCC will be considering other options to enforce regulations on Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) known as Net Neutrality.

The FCC, in its announcement of the meeting, mentions two possibilities for the regulations, while jokingly inserting what they refer to as a “third way” that would result in no regulations, leaving the Internet alone as it currently stands. The FCC is attempting to lump ISP’s under archaic regulations that were passed for the telecommunications industry decades earlier. If the FCC succeeds with this effort, they will be able to control your ISP. This will result in a regulated Internet, raising costs for consumers and regulation of the content that consumer’s access.

Include all of the above with legislation that is expected to hit the Senate floor later in the week. This next assault on free speech will be introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Schumer has proposed what he is calling the DISCLOSE Act, which would empower the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to regulate political commentary. Curiously, Labor Unions and traditional news outlets are exempted from this legislation. Which leads one to wonder what the purpose of the bill actually is? Well, according to the AFL-CIO’s Josh Goldstein, who supports the legislation “… the final bill should treat corporations different than Democratic organizations such as unions.”

Taken together, these are flagrant assaults on free speech and press.

Government officials in Washington, D.C. want the public to believe that they can fix the traditional news media organizations that are failing with the flick of a magic wand. One has to wonder if their true objective is to create a national state-run media. These same Obama officials would have the power to compete unfairly with media outlets with which they disagree.

A bailout of news organizations will prove to be far more dangerous than anyone can even comprehend. If any news media organization is bailed out, the independence that a credible news organization should have from its stories to provide honest journalism will be lost. News organizations that are the recipients of a “bailout” will be in a tough spot when covering anything that casts the government or a particularly supportive politician in an unfavorable light. The “bailout” cash will have strings attached that will further discredit and ruin news organizations that are already zombies.

By forcing bloggers to disclose their connections with political operations, the Obama administration and Congress are making a blatant move to keep an eye on and potentially coerce the very people that their newspaper/national media investments are in direct competition with.

The administration has proven where it stands on this matter. When it comes to free speech, only those that agree with their agenda should be permitted to freely exercise freedom of speech guaranteed to all under the First Amendment. The administration has shown all Americans that they will go to any length to expand their regulatory powers to ban speech that they deem as inappropriate while protecting their supporters and allied organizations.

If the DISCLOSE Act comes to pass and the FTC moves forward with rescuing the newspaper industry, while the FCC grabs the reins of the Internet, the First Amendment will have been shredded and those supposed defenders of the Fourth Estate will be wholly-owned subsidiaries of the very government they are supposed to monitor.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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