Friday AM ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
 2016             The truth will set you free 
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Featuring:
A Triumph for Disinterested Justice
by Heather MacDonald
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 No-Fly, No-Buy Doesn't Fly 
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As we noted last week, the House will hold a vote this week on legislation dealing with gun purchases and terrorist watch lists. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) is sponsoring a bill and said, "I have not met a single member of Congress who is in favor of terrorists being able to buy guns or explosives." That's an implicit rebuke of the typical rhetoric from the Demo-gogues, who like to hammer anyone opposed to their "no fly, no buy" proposals as wanting terrorists to get guns. "This isn't a debate over whether terrorists should be able to purchase guns or explosives," Zeldin explained. "This a debate over whether there should be due process for Americans."
          What do we mean? Well, here's yet another story of an American who erroneously ended up on a no-fly list. As a state senator in California, Tom McClintock, now a U.S. representative, found himself unable to fly home because, he later found out, he shared a name with an Irish Republican Army terrorist. After months of wrangling, including help from the California Senate working with federal officials, McClintock finally had his name removed. Not every American has a state legislature at their disposal. "If your fundamental constitutional rights can be withdrawn at a bureaucrat's whim" without due process, McClintock asserts, "then the Bill of Rights means nothing." Just as Democrats would have it.
          Don't forget — Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who led the anti-civil rights congressional sit-in last month, also found himself on the no-fly list. And he still wants to deny due process to Americans in the same situation. 
-The Patriot Post
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 Leftmedia Uninterested in Triple Homicide 
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It's been just over a year since Kathryn Steinle was murdered by Francisco Sanchez, a serial deportee and convict living in one of America's most notorious sanctuary cities. Despite having been evicted five times, Sanchez managed to meander his way back into San Francisco, where foolish protective measures for illegal immigrants provided him an opportunity to take an innocent life. The events of July 1, 2015, underscored two disturbing facts: America's immigration enforcement system is fragmented, and policymakers are partially to blame for Steinle's death.
          Sadly, those same policymakers are not learning any lessons. Not only did San Francisco reaffirm its commitment to shielding illegal immigrants, but on June 27 — nearly a year to the day of Steinle's death — three more people were fatally shot by an illegal immigrant, this time by Bonifacio Oseguera-Gonzalez in Woodburn, Oregon. Unbelievably, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Oseguera "has been repatriated to Mexico six times since 2003, most recently in 2013." In other words, immigration officials had six opportunities to stop more senseless bloodshed. If upon being deported Oseguera had been stopped from re-entering the U.S. and freely roaming our streets, the burials of three innocents could have been prevented. Steinle's death apparently wasn't enough to induce changes. How about a triple homicide? 
-The Patriot Post
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 OPINION IN BRIEF 
Thomas Sowell: "Today, too many Americans take freedom for granted, as just another entitlement, something that does not require them to take any personal responsibility. ... [H]igh-handed use of government powers has become increasingly common during the nObama administration. But an apathetic and uninformed public voted him a second term. That is not the 'eternal vigilance' required to preserve freedom. It is the widespread apathy and gullibility which accepts the coming of tyranny on the installment plan. Earlier generations of Americans fought and died to preserve freedom. Today’s generation cannot spare time from their selfies and twitters to think about such things. Neither the past nor the future seems to weigh on their minds. A generation that owes so much to the past acts as if they owe nothing to anybody. Their idea of freedom is exemption from laws or obligations. ... Freedom is not free. It requires, at a minimum, maturity and a sense of the realities of life. No society of human beings has ever been perfect. But we need only think of whatever person we love most and ask: Is that person perfect? Is a country that is not perfect nevertheless deserving of our respect, our gratitude or our love? The Fourth of July is a good day to ponder that question." 

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FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let
liar-Hillary Off the Hook
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine, liar-Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18)... With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary liar-Clinton was "extremely careless" and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services. Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States...  http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-to-let-hillary-off-the-hook?f=must_reads
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Stop Importing Jihadists- A Policy Prescription
by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ A new poll suggests that large majorities of Americans agree with the common sense proposition that we should stop importing jihadists. A murderous attack in Orlando heightened concern that we already have too many here... A public opinion survey conducted this month by Opinion Savvy found that 71% of respondents support "identifying foreign supporters of Sharia law prior to their admission to the United States." Of those favoring such identification, 80% believe Sharia-supremacists should not be admitted into the country. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump put this issue on the political map last year by calling for a temporary pause in admissions of Muslims until a way can be found to determine whether they are potential terrorists. He cited troubling findings of a 2015 poll of U.S. Muslims conducted for the Center for Security Policy. Twenty-five percent of respondents believed "violence against Americans here in the United States could be justified as part of the global jihad" and fifty-one percent believed "Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed by Islam's totalitarian Sharia" code, rather than the Constitution...  http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/stop-importing-jihadists-a-policy-prescription?f=must_reads
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Others In ‘Similar Situation’
Would be Punished, But NOT liar-HILLARY
by Jeff Dunetz
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{lidblog.com} ~ Strange?  FBI Director Comey said liar-Hillary screwed up big time, he raked her over the coals, saying she lied about saying there was nothing on her server that was classified before she received it... while he can’t discern whether she was hacked he knows people who she emailed to were hacked.  He actually seemed disgusted when he said liar-Hillary Clinton was reckless, and that in other cases she would lose access to top secret information. But in the end he said the FBI would not recommend prosecution because no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges (more on that later). Comey began by saying he had not coordinated his statements with anyone in the administration and then gave a 15 minute detailed statement about the investigation.. He said they found 58 email chains which contain classified information at the liar-Clinton received them.  He also said that some of the information sent by Mrs liar-Clinton did contain these classified markings so Mrs. liar-Clinton has publicly said nothing was marked classified at the time. Comey went on to say that someone in her position and the others around her should have recognized the sensitivity of the information they were handling and that is gross negligence...
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DOUBLE STANDARD! Five Americans nObama Jailed
For Mishandling Classified Information
by Jeff Dunetz
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{lidblog.com} ~ On Tuesday morning FBI Director James Comey said “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statute regarding the handling of classified information, no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”... Really? Since nObama took office in 2009, seven people have been charged under the Espionage Act — all for leaking classified or sensitive information. Five—John Kiriakou, Shamai Leibowitz, Jeffrey Sterling, former State Department official Stephen Kim, and Bradley Chelsea Manning — got jail time.” Skipping Bradley Chelsea Manning because his leak was in a category of its own, the other four shows that there are “reasonable” prosecutors who will bring charges in such cases...  http://lidblog.com/double-standard-five-americans-obama-jailed-for-mishandling-classified-information/
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Can the Palestinians
Hold Free and Fair Elections?
by Khaled Abu Toameh
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{gatestoneinstitute.org) ~ The Palestinian Authority's recent decision to hold municipal elections on October 8 has sparked fear among Palestinians that the move will lead to even more security chaos and anarchy, especially in the West Bank... The word on the Palestinian street is that the elections will be anything but fair and free. The decision to hold new elections was taken during a meeting of the Palestinian Authority (PA) government, headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, on June 21 in Ramallah. The elections are slated to take place in 407 municipalities -- 382 in the West Bank and 25 in the Gaza Strip. The last Palestinian local elections were held in 2012, but only in the West Bank. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, did not participate in those elections. The elections were supposed to be held in 2010, but were delayed for two years because of the continued power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, the ruling faction that dominates the PA in the West Bank...  http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8365/palestinians-free-fair-elections
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Paul Ryan, GOP officials blast liar-Clinton
over FBI email findings
by Eliza Collins
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{1776coalition.com} ~ House Speaker Paul Ryan blasted FBI Director James Comey’s decision Tuesday not to recommend charges against liar-Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server at the State Department... saying the “announcement defies explanation.” “While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation. No one should be above the law. But based upon the director’s own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law,” Ryan said in a statement. “Declining to prosecute Secretary liar-Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent.” A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said that even though the FBI did not recommend charges, the facts laid out were a “clear indictment” nonetheless... http://www.1776coalition.com/featured-content/paul-ryan-gop-officials-blast-clinton-over-fbi-email-findings
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Muslim 'refugees' threaten
Minnesota community with rape
by Leo Hohmann
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{wnd.com} ~ A mob of up to 30 young Somali men paraded through one of Minneapolis’ more upscale neighborhoods last week, yelling disparaging comments and threats against homeowners... A female resident of the neighborhood, obviously shaken in a TV interview, related how she was screamed at by a Somali man who threatened to kidnap and rape her. “They were screaming at the house that they were going to kidnap you and they were going to rape you,” one Minneapolis resident told KSTP TV. “It was a very traumatizing experience.”...These young Somali should be sent back from where they came from. If not, they will get away with their threats.  http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/muslim-refugees-threaten-minnesota-community-with-rape/#!
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liar-Hillary Gets Away with Violating
the Espionage Act – For Now
by Matthew Vadum
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{frontpagemag.com} ~ FBI Director James Comey said in essence yesterday that liar-Hillary Clinton’s email adventures violated the Espionage Act but refused to recommend the former U.S. secretary of state be prosecuted for her crimes... With her hacker-friendly private email servers that appear to have been penetrated by foreign intelligence agencies, liar-Clinton is now in the company of Aaron Burr, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden all of whom betrayed the public trust. The failure to hold her accountable is yet more proof that the liar-Clintons are above the law. No matter what they do the legal system always treats them with kid gloves. The congenitally corrupt liar-Clintons created the private email system to frustrate Freedom of Information Act requesters, shield liar-Hillary's correspondence from congressional oversight, and steer money to the international cash-for-future-presidential-favors clearinghouse known as the Bill, liar-Hillary and Chelsea liar-Clinton Foundation, which, amazingly enough, still enjoys tax-exempt status...
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The Rule of Law is Dead in America
by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
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{noisyroom.net} ~ I have lost all faith in both parties and our government. Yesterday, the rule of law in America officially died. There was no fanfare or pretense… only corruption... As Ayn Rand said: “When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.” That just about sums it up. Time to go to Galt’s Gulch. FBI Director James Comey pronounced liar-Hillary Clinton innocent of all wrong doing in the email scandal that has engulfed her now for well over a year. A man who was thought to be ethical and had integrity proved beyond a shadow of a doubt he was anything but. I have said from the beginning, when you lose the unbiased nature of our military and intelligence agencies, you are toast and he has unfortunately proven me exceedingly right...  http://noisyroom.net/blog/2016/07/06/the-rule-of-law-is-dead-in-america/
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New D.C. Circuit Court Ruling to Fire Up Civil Suits!
by Josh Gerstein
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{politico.com} ~ On the same day that the FBI announced that the criminal investigation of liar-Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server is likely to conclude without any charges... a federal appeals court issued a ruling that could complicate and prolong a slew of ongoing civil lawsuits over access to the messages liar-Clinton and her top aides traded on personal accounts. In a decision Tuesday in a case not involving liar-Clinton directly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that messages contained in a personal email account can sometimes be considered government records subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The case ruled on by the D.C. Circuit focused on a relatively obscure White House unit: the Office of Science and Technology Policy...
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A Triumph for Disinterested Justice
by Heather MacDonald
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{city-journal.org} ~ The ill-fated prosecution of six Baltimore police officers for the accidental death of Freddie Gray in April 2015 was the spawn of the Black Lives Matter movement. The preposterously unjustified charges against the officers grew out of the BLM conceit that cops are racist murderers. On May 1, 2015, state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby invoked Al Sharpton’s extortionist chant of “No Justice, No Peace” as a motivation for her charging decisions, after rioters had destroyed the livelihoods of dozens of Baltimore’s workers and small businessmen.

It is therefore fitting that Mosby’s vendetta is collapsing all around her, based as it is on an ideology composed of demonstrable lies about law enforcement. Judge Barry Williams handed Mosby her third and most devastating defeat on June 23, acquitting Officer Caesar Goodson of all seven counts against him, including the ludicrous second-degree murder charge.

Gray, a 25-year-old drug dealer with a long criminal record, had been arrested for possession of an illegal knife on April 1, 2015, after running from a bike patrol officer who had made eye contact with him. During transport in a police van driven by Officer Goodson, Gray suffered a spinal cord injury that led to his death a week later. The exact timing and cause of that injury are still in dispute.

A hostile crowd was forming at the site of Gray’s arrest, so the arresting officers put Gray in Goodson’s van and instructed Goodson to drive to another location where they could complete the paperwork without interference. Goodson would make five more stops thereafter; he never spoke to Gray. Gray’s injury occurred at some still unknown point during that journey. At stop two, the three arresting officers removed Gray from the wagon, placed leg shackles and flexicuffs on him, documented the arrest, put him back in the wagon on his stomach, and left. Gray had been going limp and passively resisting the officers during that second stop; once they left him in the van he began screaming, kicking, and throwing himself around so violently that outside observers saw the van rocking. At stop three, Goodson went to the back of the van for less than 11 seconds, and then called for assistance. Judge Williams found that there was not enough time at stop three for Goodson to actually check and assess Gray. Officer William Porter answered Goodson’s call for assistance at stop four. Porter asked Gray, who was on the floor on his stomach as at stop two, how he was doing; Gray answered: “Help.” Porter asked him what he wanted help with, and Gray responded: “Help me up,” according to Porter’s testimony. Porter helped Gray get on the bench inside the van. Porter asked Gray if he wanted to go to the hospital; Gray answered yes. Porter did not believe that Gray was in need of medical treatment, but told Goodson after stop four that he did not think that Gray would be admitted to Central Booking, and that for purely administrative reasons they should take him to the hospital instead. Goodson did not call for medical assistance but proceeded to stop five to pick up another arrestee, Donta Allen. At stop five, Porter saw Gray kneeling on the floor and leaning on the bench. Porter again asked Gray if he wanted to go to the hospital; Gray again answered yes. Gray seemed lethargic but was otherwise breathing normally and showed no other signs of distress. By the final, sixth stop, Gray was unconscious, not breathing, and in visible need of urgent medical care. Goodson called for help and took him to the hospital.

Donta Allen, the arrestee picked up at stop five, told the police the day of the incident that he heard Gray banging his head against the metal “like he was trying to knock himself out or something.” The head-banging suggested to Allen that Gray was a “dope fiend.” Allen also said that it was a “smooth ride.” Allen would subsequently deny to the media his initial statement to the police.

Medical experts for the prosecution and the defense differed sharply on the timing and consequences of Gray’s spinal injury. The timing is critical to determining when Goodson should have been on notice that Gray was seriously injured. The state argued that Gray was hurt sometime between stops two and four, but that the consequences of that spinal injury would only have slowly manifested themselves, allowing Gray to continue speaking and using his muscles. The defense argued that the injury was so catastrophic that it could only have happened after stop five, since as an anatomical matter, Gray would not have been able to talk or get himself onto the bench, even with assistance, at stops four and five. The state’s position is internally contradictory, since it holds both that the catastrophic injury occurred early, creating criminal liability on Goodson’s part for not responding, and that it was not so severe as to manifest itself immediately in outward symptoms. The judge rejected the state’s theory. Even if Gray’s injuries occurred early in the ride, Williams said, they were not so obvious as to put Goodson on notice that he needed immediate medical care. The prosecutors in effect wanted to make it a crime not to take a prisoner to a hospital every time he asks to go there, Williams said, demurring from such a rule. Williams did not mention in his verdict that Gray reportedly had a history of deliberately injuring himself for the purpose of collecting cash settlements—a practice common enough among criminals to have earned a nickname, “crash-for-cash.” The prevalence of malingering and other faked or self-inflicted medical injuries among arrestees underlines the wisdom of Williams’ decision not to impose blanket criminal liability on officers for failure to honor every non-supported claim of injury by someone in his custody.

The judge also eviscerated the government’s theory that Goodson had maliciously given Gray a “rough ride.” The state claimed that video evidence showed Goodson rolling through a stop sign after stop two; the judge found that the video was inconclusive as to whether Goodson halted or not, but that in any case, Goodson was not travelling at excessive speed. The prosecutors also pointed to a wide right turn that briefly crossed the yellow line after stop two, but nothing in that turn demonstrated malicious intent, according to Williams. The rough ride charge was “inflammatory,” Williams said, but the state had failed to provide any evidence to support it.

The state’s final effort focused on making Goodson’s failure to belt Gray a crime. The judge found that a duty on Goodson’s part to belt Gray would only have arisen at stop four; before then, other officers at the scene were responsible for Gray. But there was no evidence that Goodson knew that failing to belt Gray would cause a lethal injury. Failing to seat belt a prisoner is not inherently criminal, Williams said.

Williams’s conclusions regarding the alleged “rough ride,” the likely timing and visibility of Gray’s injury, and the failure to belt Gray disposed of all the murder and manslaughter charges against Goodson. But the lesser charges in Mosby’s previous failed or flailing cases reveal the same agenda of criminalizing ordinary policing. Mosby had accused Officer Edward Nero, who was present during the initial arrest, of engaging in second-degree assault. Because Gray’s arrest was allegedly unlawful (the officers contest that allegation), the state’s attorneys argued, any contact that Nero had with Gray amounted to an assault. Such a theory was an unprecedented extension of the law. Williams pointedly asked the prosecution during Nero’s trial if every arrest without probable cause would therefore become a criminal act. The judge ultimately ruled more narrowly, finding that Nero had not touched Gray during the arrest, and threw out the case against him.

The prosecutors’ behavior during the Freddie Gray litigation was as unprofessional as the initial rushed charges. They repeatedly held back relevant evidence from the defense team—not disclosing, for example, that Donta Allen had restated to them his initial description of Gray’s head-banging. Though Judge Williams denied the defense team’s motions to throw out the case in punishment for the prosecutorial misconduct, he did allow in otherwise inadmissible hearsay evidence, such as a detective’s testimony that the coroner had twice told the police that she thought Gray’s death was a “freakish accident,” not a homicide. (The coroner would subsequently deny making that statement.) Prosecutor Jan Bledsoe, who had defended Gray in a 2012 heroin case, had referred to Baltimore officers “jacking up” ordinary citizens, a gratuitous smear on the department. Police detectives investigating the Gray death had learned that the deceased had a history of deliberate self-injury but were told by Bledsoe not to pursue the information, since that would “do the defense attorneys’ jobs for them,” according to defense counsel. Mosby’s grandstanding announcement early on that her office would conduct its own investigation of the Freddie Gray death, independent of the Baltimore police department, unjustly impugned the department’s integrity, as the Baltimore Sun has editorialized.

Bloodshed has enveloped Baltimore since the riots in April 2015. Under the relentless hostility directed at them in the streets and in the media, officers have backed off of proactive policing. Drug arrests plummeted in the aftermath of the riots, and shootings soared. In May 2015, 45 people were killed, 43 of them black. Baltimore’s per capita homicide rate in 2015 was the highest in its history, taking the lives of ten children under the age of ten. The anarchy continues today. On June 11, a gang member with a long criminal history fatally shot a 13-year-old boy who just happened to be standing near a gang rival of the shooter; the murderer, Anthony Jerome Clark Jr., AKA “Trouble,” opened fire at officers the next day as they tried to arrest him. On June 16, a 14-year-old boy stole a Jeep, fled from officers, and sped through an intersection against a red light, killing a nine year-old girl outside her elementary school. The day before Goodson’s acquittal, a Freddie Gray associate, Donzell Canada, was fatally shot in West Baltimore, a far more likely outcome for black males in Baltimore than death in police custody or death by police shooting.

Black Lives Matter agitators have not protested against this mayhem. Instead, they continue to claim that Freddie Gray’s death represents an epidemic of homicidal assault by the police against blacks and that the officers involved in his arrest should be in prison. Activist Duane “Shorty” Davis groused to the New York Times after the Goodson acquittal: “Black lives don’t matter to white America.” Never mind that the judge was black, as was Goodson and two other indicted officers. The Reverend Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon released a statement after the acquittal: “It’s sending a message that the lives of poor people, people of color don’t matter.” Never mind that the police are the one government agency most dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter; police officers put their lives on the line every day to remove gun-toting felons from the streets before they mow down more innocents.

Judge Williams was under enormous pressure to deliver guilty verdicts. That he scrupulously analyzed the evidence and carefully applied the statutory law is a triumph for disinterested justice. Had Williams agreed with the prosecution’s strained theories, proactive policing in Baltimore and the rest of the country would have taken another severe blow. But the poisonous ideology that drives this ongoing prosecution remains as dominant as ever, resulting in a national disengagement from discretionary, proactive enforcement. Homicides rose 17 percent in the nation’s largest cities last year, with homicide spikes between 50 percent and 90 percent in cities with large black populations. It is long past time for politicians to adopt the same analytical skepticism toward the lies of the Black Lives Matter movement that Judge Williams showed toward the prosecutors’ case in Baltimore—and to stand up for the truth about policing.
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