Friday, February 24, 2017


A disgraceful politically correct appointment

Cressida Dick is an open Lesbian. I do not hold that against her.  My late sister was one too.  But it is the only thing I can see which got her the very senior job below.  She was the person in charge at the darkest hour for the London police:  The killing of an innocent Brazilian electrician on a London underground train.  He was just sitting there bothering nobody -- but looked "woggy" -- when he was cut down without warning by police bullets from officers sitting opposite him.

The deed was obviously a huge bungle and the bungle happened because the police operation concerned was chaos.  And the chaos happened because of Dick's failure to lead.  She was little more than a spectator at a time when it was her job to take charge of what was happening. She had clearly been promoted beyond her level of competence.

I have observed over the years that masculine women, who may or may not be lesbians, tend to be overconfident of their abilities.  They think they know it all but sometimes show that they know very little -- and have to be bailed out by  a normal person -- male or female.  But Dick was in a situation where nobody could bail her out. And an innocent man died as a result of her incompetence.  Anybody else would have retired in disgrace.  I never thought I would have to revisit these matters.  More details here

She was also in charge of operation Elveden, which saw large numbers of British investigative journalists arrested in dawn raids -- none of whom were subsequently convicted of anything.  The London metropolitan police is in for a rugged time. One can only hope that innocent people will not die in the next bungle



Cressida Dick has been appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - becoming the first woman to lead the force in its 188-year history.

The 56-year-old, who retired from the Met as Assistant Commissioner three years ago, takes over from Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who has retired after five and a half years in the post.

Ms Dick, who first joined the Met as a constable in 1983, beat three other shortlisted candidates, and was appointed after a round of interviews in front of the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd and London Mayor, Sadiq Khan.

A source said she had been appointed, not because she was a woman, but because she was the best candidate, and the Mayor had been especially impressed with her qualities.

In a statement, Ms Dick said she was "thrilled and humbled" by the appointment.

She said: "This is a great responsibility and an amazing opportunity. I'm looking forward immensely to protecting and serving the people of London and working again with the fabulous women and men of the Met.

"Thank you so much to everyone who has taught me and supported me along the way."

She takes on the role at a time of intense pressure with the security threat at severe and violent crime on the increase across the capital.

Her appointment means three of the most senior figures in British policing are now women, with Lynne Owens, heading up the National Crime Agency and Sara Thornton, who lost out on the Met Commissioner job, the chair of the National Police Chief's Council.

Bringing vast operational experience to the role, Ms Dick headed up the force's anti-terror unit, before being controversially moved from the post by Sir Bernard in 2014.

In 2005 she was in charge of the operation which led to the shooting dead of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell underground.
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The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Cressida Dick will be the first female Commissioner of the Met in its 187-year history, and the most powerful police officer in the land.

"She has already had a long and distinguished career, and her experience and ability has shone throughout this process.

"On behalf of all Londoners, I warmly welcome Cressida to the role and I very much look forward to working with her to keep our capital safe and protected.

“This is a historic day for London and a proud day for me as Mayor.

"The Metropolitan Police do an incredible job, working hard with enormous dedication every single day to keep Londoners safe, so for me it was absolutely essential that we found the best possible person to take the Met forward over the coming years and I am confident that we have succeeded.”
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Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: "Cressida Dick is an exceptional leader, and has a clear vision for the future of the Metropolitan Police and an understanding of the diverse range of communities it serves.

"She now takes on one of the most demanding, high-profile and important jobs in UK policing, against the backdrop of a heightened terror alert and evolving threats from fraud and cyber crime.

"The challenges ahead include protecting the most vulnerable, including victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

"Cressida's skills and insight will ensure the Metropolitan Police adapt to the changing patterns of crime in the 21st century and continue to keep communities safe across London and the UK.

"Cressida is absolutely the right choice to lead the Metropolitan Police as this Government continues its work to reform the police, and I look forward to working with her to make a real difference to policing in the capital."

SOURCE





  
Teen Girl Sends Teen Boy 5 Sexts. His Choice: 350 Years in Prison, or Lifetime Registered as “Violent Sex Offender”

Zachary X, now 19, is in jail awaiting sentencing for five pictures his teenage girlfriend sent him of herself in her underwear. He faced a choice between a possible (though unlikely) maximum sentence of 350 years in prison, or lifetime on the sex offender registry as a “sexually violent offender”—even though he never met the girl in person. Here’s what happened.

About two years ago, when Zachary was a 17-year-old high school senior in Stafford County, VA, a girl in his computer club invited him over to visit. She introduced him to her younger sister, age 13. This younger sister told Zachary he reminded her of a friend: this friend, also a 13-year-old girl, shared Zachary’s love of dragons and videogames.

The two 13-year-olds started skyping Zachary together. Eventually Zachary and the dragon-lover struck up a online friendship, which developed into a online romance. By the summer, a month after Zachary turned 18, the girl sent him five pictures of herself in her underwear. Her face was not visible, nor were her private parts.

Even so, Zachary was arrested and charged with 20 felonies, including indecent liberties with a minor, using a computer to propose sex, and “child porn reproduce/transmit/sell,” even though he did not send or sell the pictures to anyone. All this, from five underwear pictures. If convicted, Zachary’s father told me, he faced a maximum sentence of 350 years.

Instead, he took a plea bargain. This is what prosecutors do: scare defendants into a deal. Zachary agreed to plead guilty to two counts of “indecent liberties with a minor.” For this, he will be registered as a violent sex offender for the rest of his life.

Yes, “violent”—even though he never met the girl in person.

Zachary’s dad wrote to the authorities asking about this, and got a letter back from the Virginia State Police reiterating that, “This conviction requires Zachary to register as a sexually violent offender.”

The letter added that in three years, “a violent sex offender or murderer” can petition to register less frequently than every three months.

“How do you like that?” said the dad in a phone conversation with me. “Same category as a murderer.”

As part of the plea, Zachary also agreed never to appeal. He will be sentenced on March 9. Until then, he remains in jail.

If this sounds like a punishment wildly out of whack with the crime, welcome to the world of teens, computers, and prosecutors who want to look tough on sex offenders. The girl did not wish to prosecute Zachary, according to his dad. He told me the pictures came to light because she had been having emotional issues, possibly due to her parents’ impending divorce. Eventually she was admitted to a mental health facility for treatment, and while there she revealed the relationship to a counselor. The counselor reported this to her mother, the police, or both (this part is unclear), leading the cops to execute a search warrant of Zachary’s electronic devices where they found the five photos and the chat logs.

Until that day, Zachary had never been suspected of, or charged with, any criminal activity other than one count of distracted driving, which he paid off with 15 hours of shelving library books. He was, at the time of his arrest, attending community college in computer graphics and delivering Domino’s Pizza. He was also, by his account, a virgin.

The family hired two psychologists to evaluate Zachary, which I read. One psychologist, Mike Fray, found him to be “not a physical threat to this girl or to any other young girls.” The other, Evan S. Nelson, summed up this case and what is wrong with all the cases Zachary’s story represents:

    This psychologist cannot count the number of adolescent sex offenders I have met who have a sense that what they are doing is ‘wrong’ but were ignorant that their conduct was criminal, let alone a felony, or actions which could put them on the Sex Offender Registry. In the teenage digital social world, if both parties want to talk about sex, that seems like ‘consent’ to them. Ignorance does not excuse this conduct, but it does help to explain why he did this, and to the degree that ignorance was an underlying cause of his crime, this problem can be easily fixed with education.

Zachary’s not a sexual predator, in the psychologist’s view. He’s a teen who did something stupid—that he quite plausibly didn’t understand was illegal. And yet the state of Virginia, and in particular prosecutor Ryan Frank, has chosen to pretend that the only way to keep Zachary from feverishly preying on young flesh is to destroy his life.

This is so obviously flawed that Virginia Speaker of the House of Delegates William J. Howell has written a letter on Zachary’s behalf:

    Based on the information I have, I believe Zachary was unaware of the magnitude of impropriety in his behavior… It is my understanding that the local sheriff’s office performed a forensic analysis on Zachary’s computer and found zero incidents of pornography or trolling for females. While the aforementioned incident was highly inappropriate, it appears that there are no signs of general deviance in his character but rather immaturity and naivete….

    As my record indicates, I am certainly not soft on crime and I am not suggesting that Zachary be spared any consequence of his actions. That said, I do believe this may be more of an incident of adolescent immaturity and poor judgment than of inherently deviant behavior and thus may not warrant being placed on the sex offender registry.

Outraged readers should root for two things. First, that this case prompts the Virginia legislature to review the laws that enable draconian persecutions like the one against Zachary.

Second, that Zachary be given a punishment that truly fits the “crime.” If you recall the case of another Zach—Zach Anderson, a 19-year-old who had sex with a girl he honestly believed was 17 (because she said so) but was actually 14—he was originally sentenced to 25 years on the sex offender registry. But after public outcry, he got two years’ probation instead, on a “diversion program.” A program like this is sometimes available for first-time offenders. It sounds far more reasonable. Or maybe Zachary could do some community service—like speaking at high school assemblies to warn students that what seems like consensual teenage shenanigans could land them on the registry for the rest of their lives.

“I know I’d never do it again because I don’t want to go back to jail again in my life,” Zachary told Nelson during his psychological evaluation. “And if nothing else, this has given me a fear of women.”

SOURCE





Leftist antisemitism is still alive and well

Here’s some disturbing news. Over the weekend two elected Democrats attended a hate group convention to applaud an anti-Semite — and the mainstream media didn’t say a thing about it:

A Michigan state senator and the president of the Detroit City Council attended the annual convention of the Nation of Islam, a black supremacist group headed by notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan, who once called Hitler a “very great man,” railed against Jews and called for a separate black nation in his speech at the convention on Sunday.

State Sen. Bert Johnson and Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones were among those on stage with Farrakhan during his speech, according to the Detroit Free Press. Jones served as a delegate for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.

In his speech, Farrakhan called for “the end of the [white] world and the beginning of a brand new reality that all human beings will enjoy peace, freedom, justice, and equality under the rule of Allah.”

If that’s not bad enough, even the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes the Nation of Islam as a hate group:

The left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the Nation of Islam as an extremist organization. “Its theology of innate black superiority over whites and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate,” SPLC’s website states.

Can you imagine the outrage if Republican politicians attended a Klu Klux Klan convention? Why is this permissible?

SOURCE





The “day without immigrants” became a teachable moment

Do you remember that “day without immigrants” protest that we talked about last week? It took place as predicted (and in fact demanded by activist organizers on the left). But in at least one location in Tennessee some of the participants learned a rapid and likely lasting lesson about the intersection of free speech and personal responsibility.

Bradley Coatings, Inc. found out at the last minute that their tightly packed customer schedule was going to go up in flames when nearly 20 of their employees announced with roughly 12 hours notice that they would be taking part in the poorly defined protest and not participating in their job assignments. They made good on the threat and their employer responded in pretty much the way you would probably expect. (KTNV)

A total of 18 people were fired from a Tennessee business after joining the nation-wide protest “A Day Without Immigrants.”

The 18 employees at Bradley Coatings, Incorporated in Nolensville, Tennessee told their supervisors on Wednesday they’d be taking part in the nationwide movement. Then, on Thursday, they were told they no longer had jobs.

“We are the team leaders directly under the supervisors and they informed us last night that we could not go back to work and the boss said we were fired,” one employee said.

Is anyone honestly surprised at this turn of events? The employer is operating a business providing painting services in a highly competitive market with a tight schedule to keep. They did not set up shop to run a social justice operation. Their customers doubtless have many options to choose from when seeking such services. Also, it’s not as if the employer did not offer fair warning. Upon being informed that the workers were planning to take the day off, not because of sickness or disaster but simply to take part in this highly misleading media event, management let them know that if they chose to do this they would no longer have a job to return to.

As our colleague Mickey White pointed out at Red State, responsibility is a two-way street.

This is reality. If you don’t show up to work you can get fired. Actions have consequences. Consider this a “teachable moment”.

My favorite part was when the man complained that his boss was being “unfair”. Imagine how the boss must have felt when 20 of his workers didn’t show up to do their jobs on Thursday.

Deadlines don’t change because of social justice holidays. They had orders to fill. The same worker referenced his “years” of work for this company, something the man probably should have considered before walking out the door. Doesn’t Bradley Coatings deserve some loyalty if they’ve employed you for years? Instead you leave them unmanned in the middle of the week to prove a point?

As Mickey goes on to say, a day without immigrants is not a day without consequences. But even more to the point, the specific conditions of the now unemployed workers tell a large part of the story which I’m not seeing discussed on cable news. What they probably should have realized and taken into account was the fact that all 18 of them had jobs. That’s because their employer clearly had no problem whatsoever in hiring people without regard to their immigration status. The employer they were punishing was obviously not part of the perceived problem they supposedly wanted to address.

Also, as I attempted to point out when this stunt was first announced, there is a key distinction being ignored in the media coverage of this event which is highly deceptive. There is a huge difference between immigrants and illegal immigrants. Assuming all of the fired workers were of the legal variety, what do they gain by showing solidarity with those who knowingly and intentionally break the law, jump to the head of the line and don’t put in the same effort to immigrate the correct way as they did? Nobody is trying to “crack down” on legal immigrants who come to this country and work for their share of the American dream.

Perhaps these 18 former employees will have sufficient time to reflect on these questions while they seek new jobs.

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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