Sunday, July 31, 2016



Most of the Officers Charged by Marilyn Mosby Are Now Suing Her

Baltimore State Attorney General Marilyn Mosby's attempt to lock up the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray has come up short. In a turn of events, she is now the one facing charges.

Last year, after an independent investigation by her office, Mosby announced she was seeking charges against Officers William Porter, Edward Nero, Garrett Miller, Caesar Goodson, Lt. Brian Rice, and Sgt. Alicia White for the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died in their custody in a police transport van.

Following the acquittals of Nero, Goodson and Rice and the mistrial of Porter, Mosby announced last week she was dropping the remaining charges. Yet, she made it clear that justice was not served. In a press conference, she sounded more like a protester than a state attorney as she shouted that Gray was a victim of police brutality.

After all is said and done, the five of the six officers Mosby sought punishment for are returning the favor by filing a lawsuit against her, alleging she is guilty of defamation, false arrest, false imprisonment and more.

The complaint filed by Porter and White stated that Mosby "made statements for purposes of quelling the riots rather than prosecuting police officers who had committed a crime," and that Mosby "exceeded her authority" and "brought charges against police officers that were wholly unsupported by evidence and probable cause."
The officers, attorney Michael Glass claimed, were "humiliated" by Mosby. As such, she now has to play the role of defendant.

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White America Feeling Racial Bias?

The Washington Post recently conducted a poll surveying what Americans' opinions were regarding the current status of race relations across the nation. You know, after eight years of racial reconciliation, Obama style. According to the poll, a majority of Americans believe that race relations are in bad shape. When broken down by race, 72% of blacks and 63% of whites surveyed believe that race relations are bad.

What the Post found surprising was the percentage of white Americans who felt they had been increasingly experiencing racism. The Post went on to provide economic numbers regarding standard of living, which showed that whites — economically and educationally — are in better shape than black Americans. According to the Post’s analysis, while whites expression of feeling they’ve experienced increasing bias against them may be genuine, those feelings simply are not legitimate due to whites' generally better socioeconomic status.

But the Post makes the error of faulty comparison. The socioeconomic status of whites compared to blacks has little to do with the feeling of racial bias many white Americans say they’re experiencing. Likewise, leftists often posit the fallacy that because whites are in the majority and are in more places of power, they are therefore inherently racist. When terms like “white privilege” or “black lives matter” are thrown around and used to label groups of individuals based solely on their ethnicity, then these individuals are genuinely experiencing racial bias.

The bigger problem, however, is the continued pushing of identity politics peddled by those who would seek to divide Americans along the fault lines of race, sex and age, rather than encouraging Americans to look to those unifying principles of Liberty that we as Americans are so uniquely privileged to share in.

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Attack on French Church Puts Focus on ISIS’ Anti-Christian Hatred

French President Francois Hollande was due to hold emergency talks with religious leaders on Wednesday as France grapples with how to protect places of worship after Islamic terrorists took hostages in a Catholic church in Normandy during morning Mass and murdered an elderly priest.

The attack in St.-Étienne-Du-Rouvray by two men claiming allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) was the latest in a spate of violent assaults in Europe and beyond.

It came 15 months after a foiled plot on a church in Paris deepened concerns that radical Muslims sent or inspired by ISIS or other extremist groups would turn their attention to churches in the West. (Terrorists have targeted churches in countries like Iraq and Pakistan for years.)

On that earlier occasion, an Algerian arrested in Paris on suspicion of killing a woman was found to have been in contact with a jihadist in Syria about carrying out an attack on a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. Police found handguns, an AK47, bullet-proof vests, and ISIS and al-Qaeda documents.

According to France 24, there are some 45,000 Catholic parishes across France, in addition to approximately 4,000 Protestant, 2,600 evangelical and 150 Orthodox churches.

Of those, just over 1,200 have been given extra security since terrorists attacked the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in January last year.

“Those places were selected by officials after consultation with police prefects and religious leaders at the local level, and are subject to regular review,” France 24 reported. “Measures range from simple patrols during religious services to round-the-clock surveillance.”

Hollande told Pope Francis in a phone call Tuesday that “everything will be done to protect our churches and places of worship.”

According to a French government statement the president also “restated France’s commitment to the defense of Christians in the East, and in these extremely sad and shocking circumstances, he expressed his wish for the spirit of togetherness to triumph over hatred.”

Christians and other religious minorities have borne the brunt of ISIS atrocities in Syria and Iraq – actions which the U.S. and several other governments have determined amount to genocide.

In its online propaganda, the terrorist group leaves no doubt that it considers Christians to be a primary foe, with Christian terms and symbols frequently used in describing the enemy.

The two most recent editions of the terrorist group’s Dabiq magazine, for instance, refer to “cross-worshippers,” “crusader Europe,” “crusader warplanes,” “crusader nations,” “crusader supporters,” “crusader Belgium,” “crusader coalition,” “American crusaders,” “crusader strategy” and “crusader borders.”

Although ISIS writings also cite other religious adherents, especially Jews but also Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Shi’a and other “apostates,” followers of Jesus appear to be particularly reviled.

“Every Muslim should get out of his house, find a crusader and kill him,” said one article.

“[T]he Islamic State is here to stay. It is a state that inflicts just terror against its infidel, pagan, and apostate enemies,” says another. “And it will continue to expand until its banner flutters over Constantinople and Rome. Until then, let the crusaders get used to the sound of explosion and the image of carnage in their very own homelands.”

The cover of an earlier edition of the magazine featured a photoshopped photo of the black ISIS flag flying over the Vatican. The jihadist group predicted that at some future point “the slave markets will commence in Rome by Allah’s power and might.”

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted,” the magazine quoted ISIS spokesman Mohammed al-Adnani as saying.

The anti-Christian creed is clearly presented as having its roots in the Qur’an and Hadiths – sayings or traditions ascribed to Mohammed – with some of the latter said by one Dabiq writer to “indicate that the Muslims will be at war with the Roman Christians.”

(One Hadith sometimes cited by radical jihadists says in part, “the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah ...”)

Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said in response to Tuesday’s attack that “the Holy See was “particularly shocked because this horrible violence took place in a church, in which God’s love is announced, with the barbarous killing of a priest and the involvement of the faithful.”

“This is the face of evil,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “To invade a sanctuary open to all – a place of worship and refuge – to kill and terrorize innocent people who devoted their lives to the teachings of Christ lays bare the barbarism of radical jihadism.”

“I am outraged for the families of the victims, for our ally France, for the Catholic Church, and for humanity,” Cotton said. “This attack joins a lengthening string of jihadist attacks around the world, and it should steel our collective resolve to defeat ISIS abroad before they attack us at home and put an end to this madness.”

SOURCE






Justice Department sues Pennsylvania town for rejecting mosque

The Justice Department is taking a Pennsylvania town to court over a municipal board’s denial of a zoning application for a mosque, accusing officials of discriminating against a local Muslim organization on the basis of religion.

The Bensalem Township violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act when its zoning board in 2014 rejected a zoning request that would have allowed the Bensalem Masjid to build a mosque in the town, Justice Department attorneys wrote in a complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“Our Constitution protects the rights of religious communities to build places of worship free from unlawful interference and unnecessary barriers,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will continue to challenge unjustified local zoning actions around the country when they encroach upon this important civil right.”

Members of the local Muslim community sought to build a mosque after years of renting a local fire hall for worship services. In 2012, the Bensalem Masjid organization met with elected officials to discuss options for building a 17,000-square-foot mosque on land adjacent to the township.

But as plans moved forward and the group attended a series of meetings before the Bensalem Township Zoning Hearing Board, the complaint alleges that Bensalem Masjid was treated differently than other religious and non-religious groups that had sought similar zoning variances. The board, which ultimately rejected the application in a 4-0 vote, treated other groups “more favorably than it treated the Bensalem’s Masjid’s application throughout the variance process.”

Specifically the complaint alleges that in other instances the board required only one hearing to make a zoning variance application while there were six hearings conducted as part of the Bensalem Masjid’s application.

“As another example, the Board asked questions of the Bensalem Masjid that it did not ask of many of these other applicants, including whether its membership would increase and whether it would attract members from outside of Bensalem Township,” the complaint states.

No Bensalem Township officials could immediately reached for comment on the Justice Department’s civil rights lawsuit.
The Philadelphia Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations previously filed a federal lawsuit against the township alleging the rejection of the zoning approval for the mosque violated constitutional protections for freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and equal treatment. That lawsuit is still active in federal court and is scheduled for trial next year.

SOURCE

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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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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