Tennessee's Governor Has Quite the Punishment for Left-wing Rioters That Will Definitely Bring Lawsuits

I don’t blame Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee for signing this bill into law. He increased punishments against those engaging in the type of mayhem seen in Portland, Seattle, and Chicago, some of which include the loss of voting rights. Yes, you can bet the liberal media, Democrats, and the American Civil Liberties Union is going to be immensely triggered by this law.

Oh wait; the ACLU state chapter already responded saying, “We are very disappointed in Governor Lee’s decision to sign this bill, which chills free speech, undermines criminal justice reform and fails to address the very issues of racial justice and police violence raised by the protesters who are being targeted” (via The Hill):

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) quietly signed a bill into law ramping up punishments for certain kinds of protests, including losing the right to vote.

The GOP-controlled state General Assembly passed the measure last week during a three-day special legislative session and was signed without an announcement earlier this week.

Among other things, the new law stipulates that people who illegally camp on state property will face a Class E felony, punishable by up to six years in prison. People found guilty of a felony in Tennessee lose the right to vote.

The new law also slaps a mandatory 45-day sentence for aggravated rioting, boosts the fine for blocking highway access to emergency vehicles and enhances the punishment for aggravated assault against a first responder to a Class C felony.

Look, this leftist mayhem that’s engulfed the nation that was intentionally suppressed from being mentioned at the Democratic National Convention—no shocker there—has to end. It’s been weeks of this nonsense, and it’s no longer about race, police reform, or George Floyd, the man at the center of this officer-involved fatality by the Minneapolis Police that set off this new wave of left-wing activism.

It’s not about Black Lives Matter anymore. It’s about Marxist revolution. How does threatening to blow up federal buildings have anything to do with furthering police reform, which many in the media said this was all about? Yes, federal buildings in Portland had to be evacuated Friday due to car bomb threats.

It’s time to put the mob down. Federal agents were deployed to protect these buildings, as they have every right to do and enforce law and order. The media smeared them as the SS-Gestapo. Withdraw and calm will reign, they said. That didn’t happen. The left-wing mob is now taking this nonsense to the suburbs.

Law and order must be restored.

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Americans Must Oppose the Tyranny That Is Rapidly Spreading Across US

Rebekah Gantner

As Adolf Hitler rose to power, he took control of churches, shut down businesses, encouraged neighbors to report each other, and created a public surveillance operation system. If these actions sound familiar, they should. Public officials and bureaucrats are now putting their own tyranny on full display, using the COVID-19 crisis to impose similar draconian tactics in the United States.

While Maryland officials keep the state in lockdown, they are encouraging citizens not only to snitch on one another for breaking “prevention guidelines,” but they are allowed to do so anonymously! The Maryland Emergency Management Agency, State Police, and Department of Health announced a “COVID Prevention Line” available 24 hours a day as well as an email address where citizens can “report situations of concern where prevention guidelines are being ignored and the potential for the spread of COVID-19 is high.” Reports will be followed up with a visit from the health department or law enforcement.

Since July 2, nearly 40 Anne Arundel County businesses and restaurants have received citations, including my church. After an anonymous reporting on August 11, a female employee from the Anne Arundel County Department of Health showed up at our Sunday morning service.

The health official presented our associate pastor with a citation and an "Order for Immediate Compliance." The order states that upon inspecting the church, “numerous deficiencies” were found “that result in an unreasonable risk of exacerbating the spread of COVID-19.” It threatens the church with closure if they do not comply.

The “deficiencies” checkmarked on the compliance form include “Employees and/or customers are not wearing required or proper face coverings that fully cover a person’s nose or mouth” and failure to follow “social distancing guidance.” The health official also referenced the “lively” singing which consisted of one piano and hymns on a screen.

It is important to note that while the "Order for Immediate Compliance" states an investigation was conducted, the health official never looked into the sanctuary. It is appalling that the Department of Health has taken it upon themselves to tell churches how to conduct their services. That they would deem a church unsafe and penalize it based on an anonymous report is also egregious.

My church is a small congregation of around 140 individuals and even fewer right now due to the health crisis. None of the church attendees are sick with COVID, hand sanitizer and masks are available, the church is cleaned regularly, and everyone who attends is there because they desire to worship God.

The health department official informed our associate pastor that she will return the following Sunday. Lack of compliance can result in the closure of the church, a misdemeanor charge, up to one year of imprisonment, and or a fine of up to $5,000.

History has shown time and again that tyrannical leaders who get a taste of power will abuse that power. Government bureaucrats have told churches over the past five months when they can and cannot meet, how many people can attend a service, that singing and home Bible studies are not allowed, and masks and social distancing are required. If government bureaucrats can make these demands, who is to say they won’t use or create a crisis to shut church doors forever?

My friend Kitty Werthmann lived in Austria under Hitler’s rule. She has traveled all across the country to warn American citizens about the dangers of totalitarianism. Austrians were arrested for attending church. If they worked for the government, church attendance meant that they were fired from their jobs. Kitty also shared the following experience in one of her speeches.

“We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.”

In his book Kingdoms in Conflict, Charles Colson describes a meeting between a Gestapo official and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who was martyred for his opposition of the Nazis. The official asked, “You do not really have much respect for the state, do you, Pastor?” Bonhoeffer responded, “I have enough respect for the state to protest when it does wrong.”

Citizens who value liberty and religious freedom must remain vigilant and make their voices heard. We must stand up and fight, and the time is now. Bureaucrats are waging a war on our churches and businesses. They are fabricating a dilemma, pitting a false sense of safety against our constitutionally guaranteed rights as citizens of the United States. America will only remain the land of the free so long as we oppose the tyranny that is rapidly spreading across our country. As my friend Kitty says, “After America, there is no place to go.”

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How San Francisco’s Progressive Policies Made the Homelessness Crisis Worse

San Francisco is falling apart. The city is the wealthiest metropolitan area in the United States, but also has become a haven for tent encampments, drugs, trash, and violence—conditions that are even more desperate and disordered than slums in many developing countries.

Progressive political leaders insist that this stark contrast is the result of capitalism, racism, and predatory housing development. San Francisco’s elected officials preach unlimited “compassion,” but their policies have resulted in a system of incredible cruelty, with record-high levels of homelessness, addiction, and overdose deaths.

Earlier this month, I released a short documentary exploring the contradictions of San Francisco’s homelessness policies.

The city now spends more than $1 billion per year on homelessness—including shelters, permanent housing, law enforcement, and medical programs—but the number of those living on the streets has risen 32% in the past decade.

As I demonstrate in the film, the core problem is that the city’s political leaders cannot grasp the true causes and consequences of widespread street homelessness.

Despite good intentions, the city’s policies amount to a regime of extreme permissiveness: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors insists on a policy of free housing for the homeless and, at the same time, the city’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, has decriminalized public camping, drug consumption, prostitution, and other “quality-of-life crimes.” 

The result is sadly predictable. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s policies have created an “influx of about 450 chronically homeless people a year,” who migrate to neighborhoods such as the Tenderloin District because they have become a “sanctuary for people who are unwilling to participate in programs designed to get them off, and keep them off, a life in the streets.”

No matter how many “permanent supportive housing” units the city builds, it never can keep up with the rate of migration—dooming these policies to failure.

As homelessness has compounded over the years, the outcome is astonishing: according to the Department of Public Health, San Francisco now has a population of 18,000 homeless individuals, 4,000 of whom suffer from the “perilous trifecta” of homelessness, addiction, and mental illness—which is enormously costly in terms of services and street disorder.

As journalist Erica Sandberg told me: “If our problems could be solved with money, our problems would have been solved a long time ago. It’s not the funding, it’s policy.”

Fortunately, there is a better way. As I explain in a recent Heritage Foundation report, we have a promising alternative to San Francisco’s permissive approach to homelessness.

Rather than focusing on “housing first,” a policy that shelters the homeless while leaving them trapped in a cycle of addiction and mental illness, the most successful homelessness programs prioritize “treatment first.” This approach provides housing, but requires participation in a rigorous program of drug treatment, psychiatric care, and employment training.

According to a three-decade study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the treatment first approach can deliver strong positive outcomes for the homeless. In one trial program, 44% of men were stably housed and 53% of men were stably employed after 12 months—breaking the cycle of homelessness and setting them on a path to self-sufficiency.

The lesson from San Francisco is clear: A policy of permissiveness is a road to ruin. Policymakers must focus on the human aspect of homelessness—addressing addiction, mental illness, and unemployment—if they want better outcomes.

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Australia: Diversity has once again let Victoria down

Victoria’s commitment to diversity has once again landed the state in hot water, and I’d be saying ‘I told you so’ if the situation weren’t so dire, writes Andrew Bolt.

I would thank the lunatic Victorian government for making my critics look stupid, if it wasn’t that so many people have died.

Two months ago I was savaged by the mob for saying this second wave of infections “exposes the stupidity of that multicultural slogan ‘diversity makes us stronger’”.

I said diversity had instead weakened us.

I won’t go through all my evidence: how the virus was worst in the most multicultural suburbs, housing commission towers, workplaces and an Islamic school, after slipping out of quarantine hotels where many guards were immigrant workers, badly trained.

Nor will I again go through all the admissions by the Victorian government that public health messages were not reaching ethnic groups where English was poor.

Let me instead point out even more evidence — crazy stuff — that’s come out since activists said they’d ask the Press Council to punish me for my heresy.

Last week, a public servant working in Victoria’s highly infectious quarantine hotels told an inquiry he’d been given an hour of training in “equity and diversity”, but none on personal protective equipment.

Don’t think this must be an anomaly. The self-destructive preaching of “diversity” seems to run right through what should have been a single-minded war to stop the virus.

About 90 per cent of the infections in this second wave have been traced back to a hotel where security was handed to Unified Security, which was not a preferred tenderer but did boast it was “Indigenous-owned”.

And it seems the government hasn’t learned its lesson.

Check its extraordinary ads now for a manager and several policy officers for its COVID-19 Forward Strategy and Co-ordination Branch.

In the nine-paragraph job descriptions, there are four paragraphs stressing the branch’s commitment to diversity, and not one to its commitment to stopping people getting sick.

It declares: “We are building an inclusive workplace that embraces diversity of backgrounds and differences”, and “we encourage job applications from Aboriginal people, people with disabilities, LGBTI and people from culturally diverse backgrounds”.

Only later, in the job summary, is there one fleeting reference to what should be the most urgent part of the job, “the development of policy advice on measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19”.

But for all this yammer about “diversity”, what happened? A second wave of infections that’s hit the most “diverse” communities worst

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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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