Sunday, March 25, 2018



Germany is hostile to the Jews.  Are we still in the 1930s?

Germany co-operating with Tehran's ballistic missile program, which includes scores of medium-range rockets capable of striking Israel and sparking a regional war

U.S. officials are increasingly alarmed by a congressional block on President Donald Trump's pick to be the next ambassador to Germany, a holdup that comes as Berlin pursues a host of anti-Israel measures and is growing closer to Iran, according to multiple administration insiders who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

As Democrats in Congress continue to hold the nomination of Richard Grenell, a veteran Republican diplomat who was tapped by Trump to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Germany, the post remains vacant, sparking concerns the United States is ceding leverage amid sensitive discussions regarding the future of the landmark Iran nuclear deal.

The vacancy also has left the United States with little voice to combat a series of anti-Israel efforts being pursued by the German government. Trump administration insiders are becoming increasingly fed-up with the block on Grenell, telling the Free Beacon that U.S. diplomats currently helming the post have been bungling critical national security priorities, including the Iran portfolio and recent efforts by Germany to sell Tehran sensitive equipment used by the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria to produce chemical weapons.

"The current leader of the embassy is not an ambassador," said one senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of the situation, referring to Kent Logsdon, a former Obama administration official who is serving as the chargé d'affaires ad interim in Berlin.

German officials have declined to go along with a bid to crackdown on Tehran's ballistic missile program, which includes scores of medium-range rockets capable of striking Israel and sparking a regional war.

Recent reports also indicate that Germany is likely selling Iran technology that is being used to help the Syrian regime replenish chemical weapons stocks.

"The Germans have become key facilitators for Iran's dual use material and technology imports," said one Trump administration insider who works closely with the White House on Iran issues. "These are goods that ostensibly look civilian but can be used to help Iran advance its missile and nuclear programs."

"In talks with American negotiators, Germany has made it clear it does not believe Iran's missiles should be subject to a snapback of sanctions waived by the nuclear deal," the source disclosed. "Instead, the Germans say the West should simply keep waiving sanctions and offer to negotiate with Iran on its missile program by offering the regime more economic incentives in exchange for JCPOA-like concessions on missiles."

This has caused a tense diplomatic situation that has been exacerbated by the lack of a U.S. ambassador in Germany, the source said.

"At a time like this, we need a strong-willed, pro-Israel American ambassador in Berlin," said the source. "That man in Rick Grenell.  The sooner he hits the ground, the sooner we start taking it to the Germans for dragging their feet on Iranian missiles."

As the Iran issue takes top billing, Germany has also come under criticism for a series of anti-Israel efforts opposed by the United States.

In the latest kerfuffle, Germany has been blocking efforts by Israel to join the United Nations Security Council. Israel's presence on the council could send a significant international message and help thwart efforts by Arab nations to delegitimize the Jewish state at Turtle Bay.

There, too, Grenell could have an influence, sources say, referring to his vocal support of the Jewish state and efforts to combat deligitimization efforts.

Germany also has refused to take a tough line on the Iranian-tied terror group Hezbollah, according to recent report.

The German government is said to be opposed to efforts by the international community to designate Hezbollah as a terror group and crackdown on its rogue activities across the region.

As the diplomatic battle continues, the United States has had little to no voice in the discussion, sources say, again citing Grenell's holdup.

Richard Goldberg, a former senior Senate aide and current senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, described the block on Grenell as disastrous for U.S. national security and foreign policy.

"The number of bilateral issues facing the United States and Germany are mounting by the day," Goldberg said. "We need a thoughtful, strong-willed, confirmed ambassador in place as soon as possible.  On issues like trade, the Iran nuclear deal and Russia sanctions, the stakes are too high to drag this out any longer.  Leader [Mitch] McConnell should consider filing for cloture at the end of the week if the hold isn't lifted."

SOURCE





FBI Political Correctness Allowed This Islamist Teenager to Carry Out Attack

A sickening act of youth violence in Florida glinted across the news headlines last week, and then disappeared from view.

There will be no CNN town halls or student walkouts over the lost life and preventable tragedy, because there are no guns to blame. Only dropped balls.

As the exploiters of crisis know full well, bureaucratic screw-ups don’t make good fodder for partisan fundraisers and hipster T-shirts.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Palm Beach County police, 17-year-old Corey Johnson bought a knife last Sunday and brought it with him to a sleepover at longtime friend Kyle Bancroft’s house. At 4 a.m., he decided to kill Kyle’s mother, Elaine; his brother, Dane; and Dane’s friend, Jovanni Sierra Brand.

Corey repeatedly stabbed Jovanni in his bed and slit his throat. Then he attempted to murder Elaine as she approached the boys’ bedrooms in response to Jio’s last gasps. Dane rescued his mom and sustained 32 stab wounds. Both were hospitalized and survived. Jio was buried last Friday—less than a week after celebrating his 13th birthday at a pizza party attended by Corey.

The accused killer told police he “stabbed the victims because of his Muslim faith,” watched videos of “Muslim jihadists” on his cellphone, and “was reading the Quran from his phone just prior to the attack to give him courage to carry out his intentions.”

Perhaps he read the sword verses for inspiration? Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Hasan quoted from them in his presentation to classmates and superiors at Walter Reed Medical Center: “I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah.”

Or maybe it was Surah 9:5: “Fight and slay the idolaters wherever ye find them and seize them, confine them, and lie in wait for them in every place of ambush.”

Corey’s brutal attack was no bolt out of the blue, no unexpected incidence of sudden jihad syndrome. Local school officials and police in Palm Beach County, along with federal and international law enforcement authorities, had encountered more red flags in their years of dealing with Corey than at a Communist May Day parade in Havana.

In middle school, Corey had reportedly stalked a student and sexually harassed her. She told school police. Nothing happened. He dabbled in white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and gay-bashing, and then immersed himself in radical Islam—rising at 5 a.m. daily to pray and revere the Syrian flag.

Corey’s online jihad agitation, physical abuse, and addiction to ISIS beheading videos prompted his sister in 2016 to confide in a school therapist, who contacted the local sheriff’s office.

Corey’s mom, the sister told school officials, was in denial. The sister so feared for her life she slept with a knife under her bed.

Law enforcement officers at the Jupiter Police Department and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office convened at Corey’s high school last January to investigate the self-radicalized teen’s contact with ISIS as he sought to join the terror group.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force became involved after European intelligence counterparts told them Corey had used Instagram to issue security threats to a Catholic high school in England. The threats “were so severe in nature,” local officials discovered, “that up to 100 students were removed from the school fearing some kind of attack.”

One of the messages threatened: “By Allah, we will kill every single Infidel student at this school.” Corey told FBI agents he “was supportive of known terrorist Anwar al Awlaki”—the spiritual patron of lone-wolf jihadists.

The FBI’s plan of action? Inaction. The agency watched and waited and wanly admonished Corey to knock it off because authorities “believed a redirection approach would be the most beneficial regarding his conduct.”

“Redirection” is akin to the alternative social justice strategies school officials and police used in Parkland, Florida, before 17 innocent students and teachers died at the hands of a teen shooter who was a walking neon sign for a mental health catastrophe.

No referrals, no charges, no records, no problems.

Except for the fact that Corey ignored the FBI and continued his Islamic instigation online. After nearly a year of foot-dragging, the FBI gathered enough evidence to bring federal charges against Corey for his social media terror threats.

According to records released by the Jupiter Police Department, local officials were told the charges would be brought in the summer of 2017. But on the early morning of the jihad stabbings at Palm Beach Gardens last week, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office had yet to take action on a known radicalized threat who had menaced his family, his schoolmates, and innocents abroad.

It’s a familiar narrative for the FBI—from the Boston Marathon bombers to the Orlando nightclub shooter to the Fort Lauderdale airport jihadist to the San Bernardino terrorists. Family members, teachers, neighbors, and co-workers saw something and said something. Investigators investigated. But nobody did nuttin’ till it was too bloody late.

SOURCE






The Police Shooting of Stephon Clark - Beyond the Hysteria and Screaming Headlines

A black man with two small children was shot and killed by Sacramento, California police. His only crime? Holding a cellphone while standing in his own backyard.

That seems to be the Left’s narrative, anyway, regarding the death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, who was indeed shot by police in his grandmother’s yard on Sunday night. And given today’s political climate along with mainstream media headlines and activist tweets on the topic, it’s no wonder so many people are outraged.

The tweet that perhaps went viral the fastest, with well over 100,000 likes and retweets, came from First Coast News journalist Lana Harris, who wrote, “Stephon Clark. Officers reportedly shot at him 20 times in his backyard because they thought he was holding a tool bar. It was his cellphone. Someone will have to explain this to the two little boys he leaves behind - one and three years old.”

Race baiter Shaun King called Clark’s death a “brutal police execution” of someone who “posed no risk whatsoever.”

BLM activist Qasim Rashid called it a “cold-blooded execution.”

“Clark was in his own backyard when officers shot at him 20 times,” read the Huffington Post byline. The site’s main headline on Wednesday night read, “Cops Kill Unarmed Man *In Own Yard* 20 Shots Fired.”

“Police shot at a man 20 times in his own yard, thinking he had a gun. It was an iPhone,” headlined the Washington Post.

CNN’s read, “Sacramento police shot man holding cell phone in his grandmother's yard.”

To get to the actual facts, or at least some explanation that doesn’t involve Clark sitting in his backyard on a work conference call when two police officers strolled by and simultaneously thought “hey, let’s shoot a black guy today...” - one had to read beyond the screaming headlines, but not very far.

Turns out, the incident involved some serious property destruction, a multi-yard chase involving fences... and a helicopter. Yes, a helicopter and yes, I’m pretty sure they don’t bring those things out to look for jaywalkers.

As it so happens, far from a night of shooting random black people just for the fun of it, these two officers were responding to a 911 call about a man breaking vehicle and home windows with what the helicopter pilot thought was a toolbar. When encountered, the man led them on what the Washington Post called “a frantic foot pursuit through darkened streets.”

Even the Huffington Post couldn’t help but cite the inconvenient details later in their coverage:

“Disturbing helicopter footage of the incident, released Wednesday, shows thermal images of Clark running through his neighborhood and hopping fences as two officers begin to close in on him. He stops at the home he shared with his grandparents and two sons. Seconds later, officers shoot him dead.”

While an investigation is being conducted and the truth will be ascertained about whether or not officers should have pulled the trigger when they did, one fact is incontrovertible - Clark could have surrendered at any point during his multi-yard pursuit, yet chose not to.

It should also be noted that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, hardly a “law and order” conservative by any conceivable definition, chose not to “second guess the split-second decisions” of the officers.

Even so, Leftists have already turned it into a race thing. In their coverage of the incident, VOX wrote, “Police killings of unarmed black men helped fuel the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Now a new tragedy — the shooting death of an unarmed black man in his own backyard — is raising new questions about how much things have changed, if at all.”

VOX then goes on to cite the Washington Post’s Fatal Force database statistics that show that out of 230 people killed by police in 2018, 38 were identified as black.

That’s 17 percent, out of a population that makes up about 13 percent of America. Slightly more than their representation, but hardly the “significant racial disparities” VOX complained about later in the piece so they could attribute it to “high levels of housing segregation and economic inequality” and stuff.

The Washington Post also feels like there’s an “overrepresentation of African Americans” in the statistics, citing statistics last year showing that of unarmed people killed by police, “30 were white, 20 were black and 13 were Hispanic.”

Given the fact that black offenders actually commit 52 percent of homicides, or well over their 13 percent representation of the population, the fact that the number is significantly less than white suspects shot is a testament to police restraint, not racism.

Granted, pulling that trigger should be the absolute last thing police do when confronting any criminal suspect. On the other hand, bashing in windows and running away from police should also be the last thing anyone who doesn’t want to get even inadvertently shot should engage in.

Even though we see things differently, Left and Right should be able to agree on this: Stephon Clark’s death was a needless tragedy, and yes, it was entirely preventable.

SOURCE






Australia: 'Racist to its core': Outrage as nurses are subject to a new code where they must announce their 'white privilege' before treating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients

Australian nurses and midwives are being forced to announce their 'white privilege' before treating Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander patients -  a move which has been slammed as 'racist to its core'.

The term 'white privilege' defines the unearned social and cultural advantages awarded to people with white skin which are not enjoyed by people of colour or non-white backgrounds.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board believes the cultural safety of Indigenous or Torres Strait Islander patients is just as important as their clinical safety.

But Graeme Haycroft, spokesperson for the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, (NPAQ) told Sky News the addition to the code of conduct could have serious consequences for nurses and is simply 'racist'.

The Board describes the move as 'a decolonising model of ­practice based on dialogue, communication, power sharing and negotiation, and the acknowledgment of white privilege'.

Mr Haycroft said 50 per cent of NPAQ members were opposed to the new rule. 'They have said "this is wrong, do something about it",' Mr Haycroft told host Peta Credlin.

The inclusion of 'white privilege' in the code of conduct was first exposed by Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives. Senator Bernardi heavily criticised the move, labelling it as 'another virtue signal' and 'nonsensical'.

'This is just another example of where PC and this identity politics has captured the professional class or the political class,' he told 2GB.

Following backlash, the Board released a statement which said the codes required midwives and nurses to 'acknowledge that Australia has always been a culturally and linguistically diverse nation'.

Medical staff are also asked to consider the impact historic factors such as colonisation have had on indigenous peoples' health.

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

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