Monday, April 01, 2019




Georgia House passes ban on ‘fetal heartbeat’ abortions

Georgia state legislators passed one of the nation’s most divisive abortion bans on Friday, which would prohibit the termination of a pregnancy after a fetal heatbeat is detected — as early as six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant.

The vote came shortly after Republican Representative Ed Setzler, who sponsored the legislation, called it an effort to establish full legal protections for fetuses and said it was an attempt to outlaw abortion, ‘‘in the highest courts of the land.’’

Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill into law, and he released a statement praising its passage.

The bill attracted national attention and prompted fierce protests from abortion rights advocates as Setzler called for Republicans to pass the measure so that Kemp can ‘‘recruit the best legal team in the nation’’ to gut Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide.

The legislation narrowly made it through the House on Friday, receiving 92 votes, just one more than the necessary to pass. Seventy-eight representatives opposed the measure. The Georgia Senate passed the bill earlier this month in a party-line vote.

Setzler said ‘‘common-sense Georgians’’ prevailed. ‘‘This bill recognizes the fundamental life of the child in the womb is worthy of legal protection,’’ he said.

Activists have rallied at the state house to protest the legislation, chanting ‘‘shame’’ and ‘‘dissent’’ while clad in the red cloaks and white bonnets of characters from ‘‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’’ a book and TV series that depicts a dystopian future where women are enslaved to rear children. The protestors have been an almost daily presence, along with heavy security.

On the other side, some antiabortion advocates have said the bill isn’t strict enough. Georgia Right To Life executive director Zemmie Fleck sent a letter to the group’s supporters Tuesday asking them to urge lawmakers to oppose the measure, arguing that the bill’s exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, and incest, when reported to police, are discriminatory toward the unborn.

‘‘Georgia Right to Life was hopeful,’’ Fleck wrote. ‘‘We are saddened that the bill discriminates against classes of innocent human beings.’’

The day before the vote, US Representative Lucy McBath, Democrat of Georgia, who was part of the historic wave of Democratic women elected to Congress in 2018, called on state leaders to oppose the bill.

Other prominent advocates — from Stacey Abrams, a rising star on the left who unsuccessfully ran for Georgia governor in 2018, to Hollywood activists like Alyssa Milano — took to social media throughout the week, asking legislators to reject the restrictions in Georgia.

They both signed a letter opposing the bill, joining the labor organizer Aij-en Poo, executives from Coca-Cola and Amazon and 90 other Georgia business leaders who said the measure would ‘‘take the state in the wrong direction.’’

Georgia is one of at least 11 states to introduce so-called heartbeat bills this year.

SOURCE  







Christchurch – and saying goodbye to so much

It’s not only its innocence that NZ has lost

Our saddest times are when those we love leave us. When there is not even time to say goodbye, the pain and confusion is even worse.

Everywhere the hearts and minds of New Zealanders – irrespective of their personal faiths – have reached out to the victims of the appalling massacre in Christchurch of Muslims; family people attending a mosque murdered in an act which few would have credited happening in this country.

There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned from this. What we should worry about is that some of these lessons may well be the wrong ones, and may be used to advantage those whom no country ever lacks; the few, very determined, radicalised individuals anxious to undermine the country, aided by history’s ‘useful idiots’ who, as always, are happy to play their part. Among those most likely to produce overreaching, knee-jerk regulation in response will be our politicians.

Ironically, what the media are avoiding mentioning is how very rare in the West is such an assault on a Muslim community – contrasted with the sustained attack upon Western democracies long mounted by Islamic fanaticism.

The latter is rejected by moderate Muslims in the West, who are in fact very often themselves targets, but, like all so called ‘ordinary people’ worldwide, basically just as conservative and motivated by love for their families and friends as those from all other countries.

Ordinary people? I recall once stopping at a Muslim coffee shop near Wellington. I’ll never forget the sheer kindness of its owner, Abdel, who insisted, without payment, on giving my sister and me a special cup of coffee and an almond biscuit when he found we had just left from farewelling my mother.

I recall, too, years ago, the young Chinese university student from a sheltered building in almost torrential rain at Canterbury University. With the tarmac virtually a flooded lake, she saw me trying to juggle an umbrella and saturated map, and came to help me locate the building I needed – ending up equally saturated.

And strikingly, Cliff Emeny, the New Zealand fighter pilot to whom I dedicated my book The 100 days – Claiming back New Zealand – what has gone wrong and how we can control our politicians, who contacted me when I was a Dominion columnist, raising questions about what was happening to our democracy.

It was Cliff who sent me to check out the only genuine democracy in the world, Switzerland, whose people control their politicians – not vice versa. Shot down in Burma in World War II, tortured by brutal Japanese military to reveal the whereabouts of his squadron, Cliff was tied each day to a stake in the burning sun. However, Japanese night guards crept out to untie him, lying him down to sleep, giving him food and drink – retying him in the morning before the day shift took over.

What happened in Christchurch is an appalling, shocking reminder of the reality of evil. The alleged gunman’s actions, incomprehensible to us all, have brought home to New Zealanders the outreach of terrorism worldwide. Throughout Western countries there has been rising concern that Islamic fanaticism, even turning upon its own people, was reaching even further. That a terrorist act against moderate, family-minded Muslims could occur in NZ has been a wake-up call.

People worldwide have been deeply worried that Islamic fanaticism might achieve damaging mileage through the emotional pressures of the refugee movement. The consequences for societies such as Angela Merkel’s in Germany, where Isis members have openly boasted of successful infiltration – while posing as genuine refugees  –  have included the marked rise of terrorism, leaps in both violent crimes and attacks on Western women.

New Zealanders have only gradually become aware of the very real threat posed by transnational terrorism, which the Australian government identified in 2004 as a threat to Australia and its citizens. From 2000 onwards, tensions rose between Muslim immigrants and the wider [Australian] community, particularly given the convictions of a gang of Lebanese men sexually assaulting non-Muslim Australian women .

Reflecting on the humanity of people worldwide being used as political tools and cannon fodder by ambitious leaders, one can see the commonality between those who are now saying they have had enough, New Zealanders among them – albeit rather late in the day. Being somewhat over-sheltered, with no historically aggressive foreign countries pressing on our borders,  has led to our present, incredibly naive PM even dismissing the possibility of Russian spies in our country. And now, with Communist Chinese funding being questioned in relation to political donations, that our equally challenged National opposition contains an alleged former Communist Chinese spy trainer beggars belief.

Change has been so incremental that it is very late for non-politicised individuals to realise how much has regressed since we were regarded as ‘God’s own country’ and ‘the best place in the world to bring up children’. Contrast this with the Left’s now domination of the teacher unions; the dumbing down, quite shocking propagandising of the schools curricula replacing valuable, worthwhile content; and the abuse of children by its progressively worse ‘liberalising’ – to the extent where it is now proposed that destructive transgender indoctrination be forced on schoolchildren – irrespective of the objection of parents. The American College of Pediatricians’ warning – that ‘conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse’ – cuts no ice with our neo-Marxist infiltrators long gaining control of the directions of education, and of mainstream media in this country.

The result? The pernicious attack on free speech – the essential component of a genuine democracy – by those bludgeoning us with name-calling and labels such as ‘hate speech’, ‘racism’, ‘homophobia’, and so on. And foremost among New Zealanders’ concerns has been the fact that the unctuous calling for ‘diversity’ by virtue-signallers evades the fact divisiveness and division are wedges used to destroy the essential cohesiveness of a stable society.

A huge challenge lies ahead, to prevent the excuse of the dreadful event in Christchurch being used as a tool to further target those raising genuine concerns  about so much of the decision-making from which recent governments have very much excluded ordinary New Zealanders.

SOURCE  






Thierry Baudet: not your typical populist

His insurgent Dutch party cannot be so easily dismissed by the elite.

The latest challenge to the European Union political oligarchy comes from the Netherlands, where Thierry Baudet and his Forum voor Democratie emerged as the main winner in last week’s provincial elections. What is remarkable about the FvD’s success is that this is the first time it ran in these elections. It was launched in 2016 and won two seats in the parliamentary elections in 2017. It has made remarkable progress since then. The elections last week determined the composition of the senate, and the FvD won 13 seats.

The FvD is often described by its enemies as a far-right, xenophobic populist party. But in a different era its politics would have been characterised as socially conservative with a dash of classical liberalism. It is critical of the EU and opposed to inflicting the costs of environmentalist measures on the people of the Netherlands. It argues for the adoption of the Australian system of immigration control. Its leaders argue for cultural policies that support and defend what they perceive to be the foundational values of Western civilisation.

The reaction to the leadership of the Forum – Henk Otten, Theo Hiddema and especially Thierry Baudet – is almost as interesting as the meteoric rise of the party itself. Opponents of the FvD resent the fact that its leaders are intelligent and highly educated people. They cannot be dismissed as populist simpletons or trashy deplorables.

Commentaries on Baudet often say that he is obsessed with drawing attention to his intellectual accomplishments. Commentators frequently make fun of his so-called highbrow cultural pursuits. The reaction of The Times to last week’s vote is typical in this respect: ‘Baudet, who has a law doctorate, typically showed off his learning in his victory speech on Wednesday, declaring that the “owl of Minerva has descended”, referring to the Roman god of wisdom.’

It is a symptom of the philistinism of the official media that it considers references to classical culture by public figures as weird and likely to be a symptom of an inferiority complex. These journalists are obviously ignorant of the rhetoric used by serious politicians in the 19th and most of the 20th century. Unlike the technocratic and intellectually empty rhetoric used by mainstream politicians today, their forebears made constant allusions to Greek and Roman culture.

In the Netherlands, the mainstream media has attempted to construct a cordon sanitaire around the FvD and its leaders. The attitude of the Dutch media to the FvD makes the orientation of the British media towards Brexiteers seem positively neutral and fair in comparison. As one commentator acknowledged, programmes such as De Wereld Draait Door continually transmitted a sense of contempt towards Baudet during the weeks leading up to the election. One commentator acknowledged that the broadcast on 19 March ‘was almost an orgy of Forum aversion’. Baudet was described as a ‘rat catcher’ and his colleague, Hiddema, was castigated as a ‘louche lawyer’.

Judging by the FvD’s electoral success, the media hysteria against the party clearly didn’t work. Typically, many commentators claimed that the success of the FvD was due to the proximity of the elections to the recent shootings in Utrecht, which led to the deaths of three people. This explanation overlooks the fact that, for many weeks, pollsters had predicted that prime minister Mark Rutte’s governing centre-right coalition would lose its senate majority.

What is particularly interesting about the success of the FvD is that it took votes from three of the four parties of the ruling coalition, as well as from the left-wing Socialist Party and Geert Wilders’ right-wing Party for Freedom. The FvD’s capacity to attract voters across the political divide indicates that it has the potential to become a serious electoral force.

Unlike most of the new so-called populist parties in Europe, the FvD has made a serious attempt to develop and find a new political language through which to critique and offer an alternative to what it calls the existing political cartel. It is still early days, and it has some way to go before it succeeds in developing the intellectual and cultural resources necessary to force the Dutch political establishment on the defensive. However, its success demonstrates that the contemporary political terrain is hospitable to movements that can appeal to people’s aspiration for solidarity and for a culture that is positive about national sovereignty.

SOURCE  





Australian man wrongly jailed for 32 days after wife’s fake rape claim sues government

"Believe the woman" bias in action, most probably

A man who spent 32 days in jail after his paediatrician wife faked a rape claim against him is suing the NSW Government.

A Sydney man is seeking more than half a million dollars in damages from the NSW Government for maliciously prosecuting a false rape claim made against him by his North Shore paediatrician wife.

A jury acquitted the man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, of rape, domestic violence, assault and other charges in 2017 after Sydney District Court Judge Mark Williams issued a rare Prasad direction.

A Prasad direction allows a jury to find a defendant not guilty any time after the close of the Crown in cases where there is insufficient evidence to justify a conviction.

On legal advice, the man had pleaded guilty to two counts of domestic violence — relating to an email and damage to his then-wife’s mobile phone (after discovering explicit text messages between her and another man) but the judge dismissed those charges without recording a conviction.

The man spent 32 days in jail on remand, an “extraordinarily difficult” experience given he had no criminal record and one that continues to haunt him to this day.

“I was never far from ending it all after my release from prison,” he told news.com.au yesterday. “The actions of police were so deliberate and savage that it made me doubt everything.”

The judge slammed the case against the man as “most unsatisfactory” and said prosecutors had failed to take into account “cogent and consistent objective evidence” that backed up the man’s claim that the sexual encounter at the heart of the rape charge was in fact consensual.

Defence lawyer Greg Walsh told the court the man and his legal team took photographic evidence that corroborated his story and discredited hers to the police, but it was ignored. “Was it ideological, was it wilful blindness? I don’t know,” Mr Walsh said. “All the evidence pointed to the fact that this was an innocent man who should not have been charged.”

“Cops worked on this case for two years,” the man told news.com.au.

“Judges, courts and jurors were used. It probably cost the tax payers over a million dollars in man hours alone. What a huge waste of time and money.”

She claimed she was raped another two times shortly afterwards. But it was all an elaborate lie and the defence proved it by tendering photographic evidence from a security camera in the home which showed the sex to be consensual.

“I had installed cameras in the house a day earlier but she didn’t know that when she went to police,” the man told news.com.au.

A text message exchange between the pair the following night in which she wished her husband a “safe flight” hours before he flew to Europe on a work trip was produced in court.

Four days after he left the country, the former wife walked into Gordon Police Station on Sydney’s North Shore and made claims of rape, assault and domestic violence that would ultimately be dismissed by a judge.

When he returned, police were waiting for him at Sydney Airport, arresting him in a dramatic swoop in full view of fellow travellers.

The basis of the man’s legal claim is that police and the DPP went ahead with the charges against him despite having been alerted to evidence that proved the so-called victim was lying.

That included video footage of the sexual encounters on June 15, 2015 which proved they were consensual.

In issuing a Prasad direction and dismissing proceedings against the man, Judge Williams acknowledged the case should never have gone to trial.

The man’s statement of claim, obtained by news.com.au, lists the defendants as the State of NSW (Commissioner of Police), the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions and his ex-wife, who remains employed as a paediatrician at a Sydney hospital.

The man told news.com.au that his legal team have yet to put a final figure on the compensation he will be seeking but estimated it would be in excess of $500,000.

That included an estimated $200,000 in lost income, $110,000 in legal fees plus damages stemming from his horror month in jail.

While Judge Williams awarded the man court costs following his acquittal, he was only able to recoup just over half of his mammoth $270,000 legal bill.

“They accepted $260,000 of that and then they applied the government cap which meant I received $160,000, leaving a $110,000 shortfall,” the man told news.com.au.

The statement of claim describes the man’s dramatic arrest at Sydney Airport on August 20, 2015, which saw police seize his laptop, iPod and hard drive.

“The Plaintiff was refused bail at Mascot Police Station (and) remained in custody for thirty two days until he was granted conditional bail,” the document states.

Under his bail conditions, he was required to surrender his passport and report daily to police, making it impossible to travel overseas for work commitments, resulting in a significant loss of income.

“The arrest and imprisonment of the Plaintiff was wrongful, whereupon the Plaintiff has suffered loss and damages and is entitled to damages, aggravated damages and exemplary damages,” the document states.

“The arrest and imprisonment of the Plaintiff caused him severe mental anguish and distress.”

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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