Internet censorship is hurting conservative websites like DC Clothesline. If you enjoy our articles please consider making a small donation today. Thank YOU! ******************************************************************************** Earlier this week, CNN published a story titled “ White supremacists by default’: How ordinary people made Charlottesville possible,” which basically said that every single person that voted for Donald Trump to be president was a White Supremacist by Default. John Blake, CNN Enterprise writer/producer, is the article’s author. Blake blamed Trump voters for helping to advance white supremacy. How, you may ask? Because even the ordinary, non-racist Trump supporter was giving space for white supremacists to operate and are ultimately the reason for what took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. “It’s easy to focus on the angry white men in paramilitary gear who looked like they were mobilizing for a race war in the Virginia college town,” Blake wrote. “But it’s the ordinary people — the voters who elected a reality TV star with a record of making racially insensitive comments, the people who move out of the neighborhood when people of color move in, the family members who ignore a relative’s anti-Semitism — who give these type of men room to operate.” Now, Blake is a Black man. Given the fact he is writing at CNN, would it be safe to assume he supported Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro Soebarkah? If so, would it also, given the fact of his warped logic here, be fair to use his logic against him and say that he is responsible for the violence of the knockout game, Black Lives Matter and the advancement of Black Power movements like the New Black Panthers and Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam? Yeah, it makes a point, but it wouldn’t be fair to say, would it? Blake was not alone in putting this piece together. He cited Mark Naison, a political activist and history professor at Fordham University in New York City, who compared Trump supporters to the “nice people” in Nazi Germany and Rwanda. “That was the twisted formula that made the Holocaust and Rwanda possible and allowed Jim Crow segregation to survive: Nice people looked the other way while those with an appetite for violence did the dirty work,” Naison said. “You have to have millions of people who are willing to be bystanders, who push aside evidence of racism, Islamophobia or sexism. You can’t have one without the other.” Blake then went on to say that there are four groups of people who play a part in racial divisions in the country, based on Ms. Naison and others. “Many of the white racists who marched in Charlottesville were condemned because they openly said they don’t believe in integration or racial equality,” Blake wrote about Trump supporters. “But millions of ordinary white Americans have been sending that message to black and brown people for at least a half a century. They send it with their actions: They don’t want to live next to or send their children to school with black or brown people, historians say.” Then there are those who thought Trump’s comments about both sides having issues when it comes to racial hatred. “Trump’s ‘many sides’ response, though, wasn’t that abnormal in the context of US history,” wrote Blake. “It used to be the norm for white political leaders to draw a moral equivalence between racists and those who suffered from their acts of brutality, historians say. It’s the “yes, but” rhetorical maneuver — condemn racism but add a qualifier to diminish the sincerity of what you just said.” Trump’s comments were spot on for anyone paying attention. Obama had stirred up racial tensions in America to the point that even Black people were saying he was doing it. Then Blake decided to list a third group. This group is those who “choose chaos.” “Many voters knew Trump would bring something else to the Oval Office — chaos,” Blake wrote. “That’s why they chose him. He’s their first reality TV president, one writer says.” “Many voted for Trump because they liked the persona he cultivated as the star of ‘The Apprentice,'” he continued. “Reality TV rewards characters who say rude and reprehensible things, characters are often cast as racial stereotypes, and those who provoke the most chaos get the most attention, says Joy Lanzendorfer, author of the Vice article, ‘How Reality TV Made Donald Trump President.'” Again, he never mentions the chaos we saw across the country that was sparked by the Black Lives Matter crowds. To do that would demonstrate the hypocrisy of his article. Finally, there are those that Blake says “look the other way.” “If you want to know why those white racists now feel so emboldened, it may help to look at all the ordinary people around you, your neighbors, your family members, your leaders,” Blake wrote. “But first, start by looking at yourself.” Well, turn about is fair play. Perhaps, Mr. Blake should look in the mirror and then take a look at the lying, manipulative and deceitful propaganda outlet he is working for, then maybe, he might get a clue at just how badly he has been indoctrinated before he points the finger at people who have light skin and labels them all racist because of some delusional logic that he possesses. Mr. Blake might also wonder how he is emboldening the racism of those in his own community. Courtesy of Freedom Outpost Tim Brown is an author and Editor at FreedomOutpost.com, SonsOfLibertyMedia.com, GunsInTheNews.com and TheWashingtonStandard.com. He is husband to his “more precious than rubies” wife, father of 10 “mighty arrows”, jack of all trades, Christian and lover of liberty. He resides in the U.S. occupied Great State of South Carolina. Tim is also an affiliate for the Joshua Mark 5 AR/AK hybrid semi-automatic rifle. Follow Tim on Twitter. Answer: phil
As the New Year 5778 begins, 88% of Israeli Jews say that they are happy and satisfied with their lives. This makes sense. Israel’s relative security, its prosperity, freedom, and spiritual blossoming make Israeli Jews the most successful Jewish community in 3,500 years of Jewish history. The same cannot be said for the Jews of the Diaspora. In Western Europe, Jewish communities that just a generation ago were considered safe and prosperous are now besieged. Synagogues and Jewish schools look like army barracks. And the severe security cordons Jews need to pass through to pray and study are entirely justified. For where they are absent, as they were at the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket in Paris in 2015, assailants strike. Western European Jewry’s crisis is exogenous to the Jewish communities. It isn’t the Jews who caused the crisis, which may in time cause the wholesale exodus of the Jews from Europe. The crisis is a function of growing levels of popular antisemitism spurred by mass immigration from the Islamic world and the resurgence of indigenous European Jew-hatred, particularly on the far Left. This is not the situation among American Jewry, which at the dawn of 5778 also finds itself steeped in an ever-deepening crisis. And while antisemitism is a growing problem in America, particularly on university campuses, unlike their European counterparts, American Jews could mount and win a battle against the growing anti-Jewish forces. But in large part, they have chosen not to. And they have chosen not to fight the anti-Semites because they are in the midst of a self-induced identity crisis. First, there is the problem of demographic collapse. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2013 study of American Jewry, nearly 60% of American Jews intermarry. Based on the Pew data, the Jewish People Policy Institute published a report in June that noted that not only are 60% of American Jews who get married marrying non-Jews, only half of American Jews are getting married at all. And among those who are getting married, less than a third are raising their children as Jewish in some way. Earlier this month, a study of American Jews was published by the Public Religion Research Institute. It found that not only hasn’t the situation improved since the Pew survey was published, the trend toward assimilation and loss of Jewish identity among American Jews has accelerated. In 2013, 32% of American Jews under 30 said that they were not Jews by religion. Today the proportion of Jews under 30 who say they have no relation to the Jewish faith has ballooned to 47%. Not surprisingly, the wholesale abandonment of Jewish faith by nearly half of young American Jews has taken a toll on the two liberal streams of American Judaism. According to the study, the percentage of American Jews who identify as Reform or Conservative Jews is in free fall. Whereas in 2013, 35% of American Jews identified as Reform, today, a mere four years later, only 28% identify as Reform. The situation among Conservatives is even worse. In 2013, 18% of American Jews identified as Conservatives. Today, only 14% do. Among Jews, under 30 the situation is even starker. Only 20% of American Jews under 30 identify as Reform. Only 8% identify as Conservative. To be sure, the trend toward secularism and assimilation among US Jewry is not new. And over the years, Reform and Conservative leaders have adopted varying strategies to deal with it. In 1999 the Reform movement tried to deal with the problem by strengthening the movement’s religious practices. Although the effort failed, the impulse that drove the strategy was rational. American Jews who seek spiritual and religious meaning likely want more than a sermon about Tikkun Olam. The problem is that they also want more than a rabbi donning a kippa and a synagogue choosing to keep kosher. This is why, as the number of Reform and Conservative Jews is contracting, the number of American Jews who associate with the Orthodox movement is growing. Between 2013 and 2017, the proportion of young American Jews who identify as Orthodox grew from 10% to 15%. Moreover, more and more American Jews are finding their spiritual home with Chabad. Today there are more Chabad houses in the US than Reform synagogues. Unable to compete for Jews seeking religious fulfillment, the Reform and Conservative movements have struck out for new means of rallying their bases and attracting members. Over the past year, two new strategies are dominating the public actions of both movements. First, there is a selective fight against antisemitism. While antisemitism is experiencing a growth spurt in the US progressive movement, and antisemitism is becoming increasingly overt in US Muslim communities, neither the Reform nor Conservative movements have taken significant institutional steps to fight them. Instead, both movements, and a large swath of the Jewish institutional world, led in large part by Reform and Conservative Jews, have either turned a blind eye to this antisemitism or supported it. Take for instance the case of Davis, California, imam Amman Shahin. On July 21 Shahin gave a sermon calling for the Jewish people to be annihilated. His Jewish neighbors in the progressive Jewish communities of Davis and Sacramento didn’t call the police and demand that he be investigated for terrorist ties. They didn’t demand that his mosque fire him. Instead, led by the Oakland Jewish Federation, local rabbi Seth Castleman, and the JCRC, they embraced Shahin. They appeared with him at a public “apology” ceremony, where he failed to apologize for calling for his Jewish colleagues, and every other Jew, to be murdered. All Shahin did express regret that his call for genocide caused offense. On the other hand, the same leaders stand as one against allegations of antisemitic violence stemming from the political Right. In the face of an utter lack of evidence, when Jewish institutions were subjected to a rash of bomb threats last winter, Reform and Conservative leaders led the charge insisting that far-right antisemites were behind them and insinuated that the perpetrators supported President Donald Trump. When it worked out that all of the threats were carried out by a mentally ill Israeli Jew, they never issued an apology. So, too, the Reform and Conservative movements, like the rest of the American Jewish community, treated the Charlottesville riot last month like a new Reichstag fire. They entirely ignored the violence of the far-left, antisemitic Antifa protesters and behaved as though tomorrow neo-Nazis would take control of the federal government. They jumped on the bandwagon insisting that Trump’s initial condemnation of both groups was proof that he has a soft spot for neo-Nazis. The problem with the strategy of selective outrage over antisemitism is that it isn’t at all clear who the target audience is. Survey data shows that the more active Jews are in the synagogue, the less politically radical they are and the more devoted to Jewish causes they are. So it is hard to see how turning a blind eye to leftist and Muslim antisemitism will rally their current membership more than they already have been rallied. Moreover, the more radicalized Jews become politically, the more outlets they have for their political activism both as Jews and as leftists. No matter how anti-Trump Conservative and Reform leaders become, they can never rival the progressive forces in the Democratic Party. Prospects for success of the second strategy are arguably even lower. The second strategy involves cultivating animosity toward Israel over the issue of egalitarian prayer at the Kotel. Last June, the government overturned an earlier decision to build a passageway connecting the Western Wall Plaza with Robinson’s Arch, along with the Southern Wall, where egalitarian prayer services are held. The government also rescinded a previous decision to have representatives of the Conservative and Reform movements receive membership in the committee that manages the Western Wall Plaza. The government’s first decision was non-political. The Antiquities Authority nixed the construction of the passage due to the adverse impact construction would have on the antiquities below the surface. As to the second decision, it is far from a matter of life and death. The committee has no power to influence egalitarian prayers for better or for worse. And yet, rather than acknowledge that the decision was a setback but it didn’t harm the status of egalitarian prayer at the Wall, the Reform and Conservative movements declared war against the government and dragged much of the organized Jewish establishment behind them. The Reform leadership canceled a scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Jewish Agency Board followed suit. Six hundred Conservative rabbis signed a letter to Netanyahu accusing him of betraying Diaspora Jewry and announcing they would be forced to reconsider their support for Israel. Ambassador David Friedman, who had just taken residence in Israel a month before the explosion, used his first public remarks as ambassador to call his fellow American Jews to order. Friedman said, “Yesterday, I heard something that I thought I’d never heard before. And I understand the source of the frustration and the source of the anger. But I heard a major Jewish organization say that they needed to rethink their support for the State of Israel. “That’s something unthinkable in my lifetime, up until yesterday. We have to do better. We must do better,” he said. But in the intervening months, the Conservative and Reform movements have not relented in their attacks. They have ratcheted them up. The thinking appears to be that if they can make this problem look like a life or death struggle between Israel and progressive Jewry, they can both keep their dwindling bases engaged and attract members of the increasingly anti-Israel Jewish far Left. The problem with this is that just as they cannot outdo the Democratic Party in their hostility toward Trump, so the Conservative and Reform movements cannot be more anti-Israel than Jewish Voices for Peace and other anti-Israel Jewish groups. The question for Israelis is what this failure of the mainstream American Jewish leadership means for the future of Israel’s relationship with American Jewry. Jewish survival and continuity through the ages have been predicated and dependent on our ability as Jews to uphold the commandment of the sages that all Jews are responsible for one another. As the most successful Jewish community in history, Israel has a special responsibility for our brethren in the Diaspora. The first step toward fulfilling our duty is to recognize the basic fact that while it is true that the American Jewish community is in crisis, the leaders of that community are in an even deeper crisis. And the key to strengthening and supporting the community is to bypass its failed leadership and speak and interact directly with American Jews. Reprinted with author’s permission from Caroline Glick Answer: phil
Officers from the BFE, Germany’s special police unit, modelled their elaborate gear at a special press conference in the city. Haenel assault rifles, heavy-duty ballistic protection helmets and body armour are items amongst the long-list of equipment that at least 70 police officers received to use in the event of a terrorist attack. According to the German news website NDR.de, the decision to equip the police force with the expensive heavy-duty equipment was due to the ongoing threat posed by Islamic State. The Survivor 1 armoured personal carrier, which will be used for anti-terror police operations, can deal with chemical, nuclear and biological warfare agents in order to protect officers inside the vehicle from exposure. Mon, July 25, 2016 The heavy-duty SK4 rated protection gear can even stop a round fired from an AK-47 rifle. Germany splashed the cash on the Hamburg’s police unit a few weeks after ISIS claimed responsibility for the stabbing of two people in Hamburg on October 16. A few days later, German police officers were called to raid refugee centres and homes in Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia to find suspects who were involved in organised criminal actives such as bodily harm, blackmail, illegal restraint and harassment. Germany splashed the cash on the Hamburg’s police unit a few weeks after ISIS claimed responsibility for the stabbing of two people in Hamburg on October 16. A few days later, German police officers were called to raid refugee centres and homes in Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia to find suspects who were involved in organised criminal actives such as bodily harm, blackmail, illegal restraint and harassment. Answer: steven
Dozens of students walked out of Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday. One student sported a rainbow cape, while a number of others who walked out in protest bore rainbow flags on their graduation caps. Pence, a former governor of Indiana, has a history of hostility toward the LGBTQ community. In his remarks at the Indiana university, the vice president criticized what he called campus “safe spaces” and urged students not to suppress free speech. “While this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness ― all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech,” he said. “These practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge.” Pence is not the only political speaker who’s received a mixed welcome at the university. In 2009, then-President Barack Obama faced protests over his support for abortion rights, with some graduates choosing to skip the ceremony altogether. Answer: steven
Hillary Clinton was boring and exceptionally well-prepared. Donald Trump was exciting but embarrassingly undisciplined. He began with his strongest argument — that the political class represented by her has failed us and it’s time to look to a successful dealmaker for leadership — and kept to it pretty well for the first 20 minutes. Then due to the vanity and laziness that led him to think he could wing the most important 95 minutes of his life, he lost the thread of his argument, he lost control of his temper and he lost the perspective necessary to correct these mistakes as he went. Methodically and carefully, Hillary Clinton took over. Her purpose was to show she was rational and policy-driven, the kind of person who could be trusted to handle a careful and delicate job with prudence and sobriety — and that he was none of these things. And she succeeded. By the end of the 95 minutes, Trump was reduced to a sputtering mess blathering about Rosie O’Donnell and about how he hasn’t yet said the mean things about Hillary that he is thinking. Most important, he set ticking time bombs for himself over the next six weeks. As she hammered him on his tax returns, he handed her an inestimable gift by basically saying he pays no federal taxes despite his billions — and moreover, that if he had done so, it would have been “squandered” anyway. By the end of the 95 minutes, Trump was reduced to a sputtering mess blathering about Rosie O’Donnell and about how he hasn’t yet said the mean things about Hillary that he is thinking. That’s not going to go away, nor is her suggestion that his refusal to release his returns is the result of his either not being as rich as he says or not being as charitable as he claims. Clinton quoted him saying in 2006 that he hoped for a housing meltdown because it would provide buying opportunities and thereby goaded him into saying “that’s called business, by the way.” To which she quickly replied that 9 million people lost their jobs and 5 million lost their homes in the housing meltdown he was so excited about. Blammo. His reply to Hillary’s recitation of the fact he’d begun his career settling a Justice Department lawsuit about racial discrimination in Trump housing was that there was “no admission of guilt,” which is the sort of thing the villain said at the end of “LA Law” and sounded no better in real life. Even when he could have taken her down, he was so incompetent he didn’t go for it. A question about cybersecurity was the perfect opportunity to hammer Clinton on her outrageous mishandling of classified information. Instead, he went into a bizarre digression in which he alternately wondered whether his son Barron might grow up to become a hacker and defended Vladimir Putin from the accusation Russia had tapped into the Democratic National Committee’s emails (which the FBI says almost certainly happened). That has to count as the biggest choke of his political life. By the time the last 15 minutes rolled around, he was reduced to yammering about Rosie O’Donnell being mean to him and Hillary running mean commercials about him and praising himself because there are some really terrible things he could have said about Hillary but hasn’t. By this point, even his smart closing zinger — “she has experience but it’s bad experience” — was buried inside a weird word salad that reduced its effectiveness to almost nil. His supporters should be furious with him, and so should the public in general. By performing this incompetently, by refusing to prepare properly for this exchange, by not learning enough to put meat on the bones of his populist case against Clinton, he displayed nothing but contempt for the people who have brought him this far — and for the American people who are going to make this momentous decision on Nov. 8. Answer: phil
brightcove.createExperiences(); Donald Trump is one step closer to securing the Republican nomination for president. Following Tuesday night’s primary in Indiana, the GOP front-runner was named the presumptive nominee after Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced that he was suspending his campaign. “Donald Trump will be presumptive GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton,” Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus tweeted. Although, Trump and Cruz were far from cordial opponents throughout the race, the billionaire businessman said what Cruz did was a “brave thing to do because we want to bring unity.” While Cruz revealed he was leaving the race as there no longer seemed to be a “viable” path to the White House, Ohio Governor John Kasich has not announced the end of his campaign. However, even with Kasich still in the race, Trump sits in a comfortable position to officially take the nomination if he secures the required 1,237 delegates needed to win his party. “Tonight’s results are not going to alter Gov. Kasich’s campaign plans,” Kasich’s chief strategist John Weaver said, according to CNN. “Our strategy has been and continues to be one that involves winning the nomination at an open convention.” While Kasich’s camp continues to be optimistic, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton‘s campaign – which also took a blow to her campaign when Senator Bernie Sanders won Indiana – released a statement, condemning the announcement that Trump is the Republican party’s presumptive nominee. “Fundamentally, our next president will need to do two things: keep our nation safe in a dangerous world and help working families get ahead here at home,” the statement, obtained by PEOPLE, read. “Donald Trump is not prepared to do either. Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has demonstrated that he’s too divisive and lacks the temperament to lead our nation and the free world. “With so much as stake, Donald Trump is simply too big of a risk. Hillary Clinton has proven that she has the strength to keep us safe in an uncertain world and a lifelong record of fighting to break down the barriers – economic and social – that hold working families back. While Donald Trump seeks to bully and divide Americans, Hillary Clinton will unite us to create an economy that works for everyone.” While Trump ignored any criticism, saying during his victory speech at Trump tower, “We’re going to win in November”, he faced backlash from another opponent in the form anti-Trump adds that the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has released in an accelerated campaign against Trump. According to a press release from the PCCC, the ads will highlight Trump’s “hate-mongering, his disrespect for women, and his belief that American wages are ‘too high’.” “We have already begun running ads across the nation hitting Donald Trump – defining him early and moving the debate to our turf. This is key to winning.” Other opponents of the real estate mogul quickly vocalized their opinions, including former adviser to Jeb Bush Tim Miller who currently serves as the spokesman for an anti-Trump super-PAC, Our Principles PAC. “Never ever, ever Trump. Simple as that,” Miller tweeted Despite lots of criticism, the presidential hopeful did find support in Sarah Palin, who has endorsed the former reality star before, but also took to Facebook sharing a video in which she calls for unity “on the road to making America great again.” Trump also spoke about unity on Tuesday night, adding in his speech that his focus is on bringing the Republican Party together after “and amazing evening.” Answer: steven
We have made great strides in the policing of thought in this country. Just ask Brendan Eich, one of the founders of Mozilla, developers of the web browser Firefox. Eich had just landed a promotion to the big chair as Mozilla’s CEO. He lasted all of nine days. The reason? Back in 2008 Eich donated a thousand dollars to support Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage. The unearthing of this donation led to protests from gay rights activists and the h igh profile call for a boycott of Firefox by dating site OkCupid.com. Eich, as many people in circumstances such as his, was stricken with the sudden desire to “spend more time with his family” and quietly resigned. Regardless of your position on same sex marriage, those activists who led to Eich’s resignation should be ashamed. Their basic message? “You’d better be tolerant. Or else we will show you a display of true tolerance. By crushing you.” In fact, it is no longer enough to be tolerant. Prior to his resignation, Eich told tech site CNET “[i]f Mozilla cannot continue to operate according to its principles of inclusiveness, where you can work on the mission no matter what your background or other beliefs, I think we’ll probably fail.” In the same interview, he said that he wished for those who were calling for his ouster to know that “without getting into my personal beliefs, which I separate from my Mozilla work — when people learned of the donation, they felt pain. I saw that in friends’ eyes, [friends] who are LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered]. I saw that in 2012. I am sorry for causing that pain.” Wow. Eich sounds like an intolerant jerk! No, strike that. He sounds like a dedicated and thoughtful professional who was able to separate his work and personal lives–as well he should have been. But to the activist crowd, it’s not enough that people are tolerant. They must offer affirmation of the LGBT agenda or pay the price. Their much vaunted toleration doesn’t extend to those who might have opposing viewpoints, like Eich. Of course, gay rights activists claim that Eich’s views are not deserving of toleration because he sought to strip them of their rights. This may or may not be the case, but I’d wager that many of them aren’t such dogged defenders of rights when asked about, say, the Second Amendment. And I’m hearing curiously little from these champions of freedom about the fact that 70 percent of California’s African Americans and over 50 percent of Hispanics voted for Prop 8. The uncomfortable fact for the left is that 2008 was the same election in which minority voters pulled the levers in droves for President Obama. Even more uncomfortable? President Obama himself was opposed to same sex marriage in 2008. But, then, it’s not about principle. It’s about ramming through the “right” outcomes. An Associated Press piece about Eich’s resignation asks “whether the episode undercuts the well-groomed image of Silicon Valley as a marketplace of ideas and diversity of thought, and whether, in this case, the tech world surrendered to political correctness enforced through a public shaming on social media.” Geez, ya think? Andrew Sullivan, the unreliably conservative columnist had this to say: Will [Eich] now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us. The trite knock at the religious right is to be expected from a regular guest on Bill Maher’s show, but Sullivan is right to call the gay rights activists out on their bullying tactics. And the man has skin in the game, as an openly gay man who has long supported same sex marriage. Kudos to Sullivan for recognizing that support for an issue doesn’t require the squashing of all dissenting viewpoints. Liberals like to mock those who speak of the “gay agenda.” The real agenda, they claim, is for homosexuals to be able to live out their lives in dignity with their loved ones. Such efforts at destroying opposition unfortunately make that more difficult to believe. And activists forget that perhaps next time, they won’t be the ones to define which thought crimes should be prosecuted. In a society which encourages the personal destruction of dissenters, any one of us can develop the desire to “spend more time with family” at any time. Answer: phil
JOHNSTON, Iowa — An Iowa woman faces multiple charges after police said she left her four children home alone while taking a trip to Europe. Erin Lee Macke, 30, of Johnston, is charged with four counts of child endangerment – substantial risk, and one count of transfer of pistol or revolver to a person under 21. Johnston police Lt. Tyler Tompkins told KCCI that Macke left her children ages 12, 12, 7 and 6 alone at home Sept. 20 while she traveled to Germany. Tompkins said the children were left alone for 24 hours before the police department and Iowa Department of Human Services received a tip and visited the children. The children told police, “Mom left them and left the country,” police said. Tompkins told KCCI that police contacted Macke Sept. 21 and that Macke told officers she planned to be in Germany until Oct. 1. "All of her sitter options fell through, and she left the kids in the care of the two 12-year-olds," Tompkins said. He admitted that the case is well out of the ordinary. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” Tompkins said. “We have situations where parents go next door or parents may go out for the night, and while that’s not advisable either depending on the age of the children, obviously leaving the country is a totally different situation. This, where a parent has left the country and left the kids home alone, I’ve never heard of it before.” Authorities said they convinced Macke to return to the United States before Oct. 1. She arrived Wednesday evening and was arrested Thursday morning. Police said the 12-year-old children are staying with family and the seven- and six-year-old children are with their father. Macke is charged with one count of transfer of pistol or revolver to a person under 21 because there was a firearm within reach of the children in the home, according to police. Answer: steven
Stephen Paddock has been identified as the sole suspect in the Las Vegas concert shooting that took place on Sunday night. Police say that Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort &amp; Casino, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more. Police found “ more than 10 rifles” in Paddock’s hotel room. The 64-year-old Mesquite, Nevada, resident is deceased, according to police. It has been reported that he committed suicide. Just about 12 hours following the attack, the Associated Press reported that ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that Paddock converted to Islam “months ago.” BREAKING: Without providing evidence, Islamic State claims Las Vegas attack, says shooter converted to Islam months ago. — The Associated Press (@AP) October 2, 2017 “The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the mass shooting in Las Vegas, saying that the perpetrator was ‘a soldier’ who had converted to Islam months ago, without providing any evidence to support the claim… It did not name the suspected shooter…but said he had ‘executed the operation in response to calls to target countries of the coalition’ batting the extremist group in Iraq and Syria,” reports the Associated Press. ISIS has not released any kind of video to support their claims. Many people are skeptical about Paddock’s involvement with the group and officials have yet to confirm or deny any ties between ISIS and Paddock. Paddock’s brother, Eric, spoke to the Daily Mail about the shooting. He told the outlet that his brother didn’t have any political or religious affiliation. Eric also clearly stated his opinion on the shooting, saying it was “not a terror arrack.” “He was just a guy. Something happened, he snapped or something. We know absolutely nothing, this is just, we are dumbfounded,” Eric Paddock explained. “He has no political affiliation, no religious affiliation, as far as we know. This wasn’t a terror attack…He’s my brother, we don’t have a very close relationship but we talk occasionally. There’s no rhyme or reason here, it makes no sense,” Eric added. The FBI is not currently investigating any ties between ISIS and Paddock. Answer:
steven