TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
Unmasking the Antifa Hoodlums
Jordan Candler
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San Fran’s New Prohibitionists
by STEVEN GREENHUT
{spectator.org} ~ San Francisco politicians and civic leaders love to think of themselves as cutting-edge free spirits who are so much more tolerant than the rubes found in America’s hinterlands... Hey, we have San Francisco values. We aren’t foolish Puritans when it comes to sexual behavior, substance use, and you name it. San Franciscans even debate whether it’s a fundamental right to waltz into a restaurant buck naked. Go ahead and see how that flies in Omaha. I spend a lot of time in the city and enjoy it, despite everything. But no one takes the free-spirit shtick seriously any more. San Francisco leaders — and many of its residents, too — are about as open-minded as any Bible-preaching yokel one might find in the backwoods. I recall the time I walked down the sidewalk smoking a cigar. I was far from any other human being and close to the world’s biggest air filter the Pacific Ocean, and yet someone hectored me. Had I been smoking weed, no one would have dared to say a word — nor should they have, given that marijuana is appropriately legal here. Welcome to tolerant San Francisco, where you have every right to live as you please as long as you choose only to do the things that are socially acceptable. If you want to shoot up or take a dump in the street, that’s OK given that you are a victim of society. If you want to, say, smoke tobacco or vape, forget about it. Earlier this week, Mayor London Breed signed into law a ban, passed 11-0 by the county board of supervisors, on the sale of e-cigarettes and all relevant paraphernalia. This far-reaching law says that “no person shall sell or distribute an electronic cigarette to a person in San Francisco” until the vape device has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — a slow-as-molasses federal agency that will do that around the time San Francisco elects a Republican to the Legislature. As CNN reported, the ban applies not only to physical stores but also to online businesses that ship to a San Francisco address. That will no doubt raise challenges and e-commerce issues, but this measure will put the kibosh on the legal sales of vape products in one of the nation’s largest cities. It will remain legal, however, for adults to own such products and use them in the city if they buy them somewhere else. For now, the work-around is easy: Just drive down to San Jose or the East Bay and stock up given that such products may still legally be sold there. Years ago, I lived in Tennessee next to a dry county, and the roadway leading into my non-dry county was lined by — you guessed it — liquor stores. Studies show that people who lived in dry places spent more money on alcohol than those living elsewhere. They merely stocked up during monthly trips to the city. We all know the rotten fruits of alcohol and marijuana prohibition, and any good San Francisco progressive can give a snarky laugh at those backward rednecks who still ban alcohol sales. They’ll do so without any sense of irony. The free-market think tank where I work, the R Street Institute, is involved in the vaping battle because of our concern about “harm reduction.” That’s the theory that government should not insist on abstinence e.g., Prohibition-style policies but should enable people to engage in safer alternatives. Engaging in risky sex, for instance, is, well, risky. But it’s out of bounds for government to arrest people for such behavior. It instead should encourage safer sex. I doubt a single San Franciscan would disagree with that statement... https://spectator.org/san-frans-new-prohibitionists/?utm_source=American%20Spectator%20Emails&utm_campaign=cbd24db928-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_05_12_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_797a38d487-cbd24db928-104608113 .
Criminal Justice Reform Comes Home to Roost
By Colin Flaherty
{ americanthinker.com } ~ “Why did they have to let him go?” That is what an anguished Anastasia Starr shrieked after watching career criminal Dietrich Thomas kill her husband Eric just a few days ago... Dietrich was out on bail for a similar shooting in February, just one in a long series of arrests for guns and violence. Now Eric’s family wants to know how that could have happened. Aren’t dangerous people supposed to be in jail so they can stop hurting people? That was the way it was, before Criminal Justice Reform. From the smallest district attorney to the President of the United States, the so-called Criminal Justice Reform movement is now the law of the land in places like Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore, and dozens of other cities. The same public officials who used to brag about how many criminals they arrested are now proud of how many they let go. In Chicago, the local papers run banner headlines touting the success of this new social-justice strategy -- as measured by the record low number of people in Chicago jails. The thinking is that we have to rethink how we treat black criminals. The talking heads and politicos agree that black people are victims of relentless white racism, all the time, everywhere, and that explains everything -- especially why so many black people are stopped, arrested, charged, convicted, sent to prison, released, then returned to prison in numbers that are so wildly out of proportion. And when black people are arrested, is it really fair to keep people like Dietrich Thomas in jail with a high bail before he is put on trial? Isn’t that just criminalizing poverty? Isn’t that just one more example of institutional racism? More and more public officials are giving that question a resounding “Yes.” The families of more and more victims are wondering how this kind of insanity created so many nightmares....
Increase of Hezbollah Members in
German State, Says Intel Report
by BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
{ jpost.com } ~ The intelligence agency for Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia revealed on Thursday that the number of Hezbollah members rose in 2018... According to the intelligence document reviewed by The Jerusalem Post, the number of Hezbollah members climbed from 105 in 2017 to 110 in 2018 in North Rhine-Westphalia. The report wrote that “for more than 20 years, the Islamic Center (Imam-Mahdi-Zentrum) in Münster has been a platform and meeting place for Hezbollah supporters in North Rhine-Westphalia and western Germany. Other focal points: Essen/Bottrop, Dortmund and Bad Oeynhausen.” The 363-page intelligence report, which covers threats to the security of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, referenced the Lebanese terrorist entity Hezbollah 21 times. Hezbollah has centers in Hamburg, Berlin and Münster, according to the report. Hezbollah’s aim “of annihilation of the state of Israel and the establishment of ‘Islamic rule’ over Jerusalem remain unchanged to this day,” wrote the intelligence agents. The intelligence agency noted that “in order to achieve these goals Hezbollah also uses terrorist means. For years it Hezbollah has been responsible for attacks in northern Israel, posing a direct threat to the state of Israel.” The intelligence agency wrote that “Hezbollah continues to be an internationally well-networked terrorist organization that endangers the foreign affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany through the use of force or preparatory acts directed at it. For this reason, and because of its activities against the idea of international understanding, it is monitored by the North Rhine-Westphalia constitutional protection agency.” The North Rhine-Westphalia agency for the Protection of the Constitution is the formal name of the state’s domestic intelligence agency – a rough equivalent to Shin Bet....
Open Your Eyes. The Planet’s Not Dying
(At Least Not Here in America.)
By Alicia Colon
{ americanthinker.com } ~ In a way, I can’t blame those who grew up in the Cold War for being pessimistic about the future. We lived then in an age of potential nuclear annihilation and Hollywood made sure that we knew about what would happen if it occurred... The studios rolled out film after film of post-apocalyptic dystopian worlds from Planet of the Apes to Soylent Green. These films were usually shot in vast desert areas in foreign countries because the truth is that America is still very, very beautiful. I recently returned from a road trip to Florida and marveled at the lushness along highway I-95. Huge 40-foot trees lined the way in North and South Carolina then Georgia. Flowering plants grew wildly behind these mammoth giants of nature. Grassy plains spread far and wide along the Virginia route as cattle grazed behind the fences. I happen to live in the greenest borough of New York City: Staten Island. We have tons of parks, 3 golf courses and the best tasting tap water in the country. In the center of the island we have Moses Mountain, a testament to the efforts of conservationists who rallied again the construction of an expanded highway that would cut through the Green belt. Due to local opposition, this section was never completed. The mound of rock and soil remained where it was and came to be known as Moses Mountain after Robert F. Moses, the City Parks Commissioner and head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, who had planned the parkway in the first place. Today Moses Mountain is well covered with a variety of trees and other vegetation. What started as barren rock and loose soil is now a wooded ecosystem that more resembles Vermont than NYC. Therein is the difference between genuine conservationists whose primary goal is to provide clean air and water; and environmental wackos who want to control our behavior with useless governmental mandates in a Green New Deal. Vice President scumbag-Al Gore became a global warming alarmist and billionaire with his ridiculous carbon credit scheme. So many people fell for his Inconvenient Truth film that nobody bothered to check its flawed data. I have never been swayed by the hoax because the first thing I recognized is that it was based on data that was only a few hundred years old and our planet has existed for several billions of years before we did. Also there has never been a scientific consensus about global warming and if anyone tries to spout the nonsense that a majority of ‘climate scientists’ agree on climate change, they are conning you....
The ‘Blue Dog’ Solution to the Debt Crisis
by JOHN MERRIFIELD AND BARRY POULSON
{ spectator.org } ~ Moderate Democrats in Congress are finally showing some backbone. A “Blue Dog” coalition of 27 Democrats is supporting a joint resolution proposing a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution... Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah) introduced the legislation, H.J. Resolution 55. In the current legislative session, Republicans have introduced 16 resolutions calling for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. With such bipartisan support, enacting a resolution for a balanced-budget amendment should be a slam dunk. As McAdams noted, “Both parties have behaved in a way that is fiscally irresponsible … the Day of Reckoning is coming.” The McAdams resolution would require the president to submit, and Congress to enact, a balanced budget each year. Congress could override this requirement with a supermajority vote. An exception to the requirement would be applied in years of war and during military conflicts declared by Congress. An exception to the annual balanced-budget requirement would also be made in years when the U.S. economic growth rate is negative or the unemployment rate exceeds 7 percent. This exception would give Congress the flexibility needed to respond to rapidly fluctuating economic conditions. Automatic stabilizers could then be used to offset revenue shortfalls in periods of recession, and contractionary fiscal policies could be pursued when unemployment exceeds the 7-percent threshold. A companion resolution, S.J. Resolution 18, introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), would also provide exceptions for outlays relating to natural disasters. This would give Congress the flexibility to adjust spending in response to clearly defined emergencies. The resolutions would take effect in the fifth year after ratification of the balanced-budget amendment. This would give Congress a transition period to move from current fiscal policies, which now include trillion-dollar deficits, to an annual balanced budget. Both resolutions would apply the balanced-budget requirement to total revenue and total expenditures, with an exemption for debt service. The exemption for debt service is mandated by the Constitution....
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Unmasking the Antifa Hoodlums
Jordan Candler: Earlier this week we documented the reprehensible attack on journalist Andy Ngo, who was assaulted while chronicling an antifa confab in Portland, Oregon, this past weekend. Several others were assaulted as well.
“Serious questions need to be asked about the Portland Police Department,” says Fox News’s Todd Starnes. “Why were there no officers on the scene? Were the police ordered to stand down? And if so, by whom?” National Review’s David French adds, “It was appalling to watch masked Antifa thugs attack Andy Ngo, and it was also appalling that the police weren’t immediately present to arrest his attackers. Antifa’s propensity to violence is well known, and while I’d love to hear a sympathetic explanation for the absence of police, the lack of response looks a lot like a dereliction of duty.”
Law enforcement’s indifference to antifa — which was the optical upshot in Portland, even if it wasn’t the objective — is one area that certainly warrants review. But French highlights another problem, which is antifa’s countrywide proclivity to “protest” while donning masks. French offers this solution:
There is … a simple and well-known legal reform that will go a long way towards deterring Antifa violence — even when police aren’t close by, but iPhones are. It’s called an anti-masking law. They’ve long existed in the South as a check on Klan violence, and they not only make it easier for police to immediately identify and arrest criminals, they also allow witnesses to preserve the pictures and videos of violent attackers for later criminal or civil action. … Anti-masking laws can be unconstitutional when applied to peaceful demonstrators seeking to protect their identities as a matter of personal safety, but that reasoning doesn’t apply to Antifa. Its members seek to engage in violence and destruction with impunity, and the mask protects them from legal accountability. … While anti-masking laws aren’t a perfect cure, one thing is definitely true — it’s hard to throw a punch when you’re hiding your face with your hands.
Ironically, faux Russian-collusion witch hunters were fine with unmasking Trump officials. But antifa hoodlums are more or less being treated as a protected class because they engender “social justice” and “deservedly” malign or assault those on the Right who may or may not support President Donald Trump. And as long as they’re allowed to conceal their identity, their crimes will continue unabated. ~The Patriot Post
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