Al Sharpton Sends His Condolences

D.W. Wilber  / Townhall Columnist

 

While watching the news coverage about the execution of New York Police Officers Wenjia Liu and Rafael Ramos I was struck by the fact that Fox News reported on a statement being issued by Al Sharpton in response to the shooting, and I wondered to myself why Fox News gave any mention of Al Sharpton at this time ?

Furthermore, who is Al Sharpton to even think a statement from him would be appropriate, or welcome at a time like this ? Then again, Sharpton’s certainly been a self-promoter, not to mention a liar, tax evader, and F.B.I. informant throughout his life, who elbowed his way into the racial discourse in this country years ago. Discourse that has deteriorated since he’s insinuated himself. I sincerely doubt the families of Officers Liu and Ramos are interested in anything Sharpton might have to say at this time.

While Sharpton, Mayor Bill De Blasio, Eric Holder and President Obama have all been extremely critical of law enforcement over the years, but particularly of late, they would all do well to take a second look at just what law enforcement regularly does on their behalf.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio can rest easy in Gracie Mansion knowing that his well-being, and the well-being of his family is assured by the NYPD officers assigned to his personal security detail.No one will threaten his safety while New York’s Finest are standing by.

Wherever he travels Al Sharpton is guaranteed that there are police officers providing security protection for Sharpton and his party when he arrives. Police stand at the ready protecting whatever venue Sharpton is making an appearance at, including at his recent protest march in Washington, D.C. where officers were providing traffic and crowd control support so that this protest could take place.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice oversees the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Holder never travels without a protective detail. During his recent visit to Ferguson, Missouri the attorney general also had countless local police officers insuring he was safe from harm.

The Strange Source of Our Cuba Policy

Steve Chapman / Townhall Columnist

For a long time, the U.S. ostracism of Cuba has been like the vintage American cars on the streets of Havana: obsolete but imperishable. It didn't topple the Castro government, didn't force human rights progress and didn't unite the world behind us. Yet failure was no enemy of longevity.

There are many reasons for its endurance. But if you're parceling out responsibility, you have to start with a curious invention of the founding fathers that we know as the Electoral College. Without it, our Cuba policy never would have persisted for so many years -- which is a reminder that our Cuba policy is not the only thing that needs changing.

Shortly before the 2000 election, I was invited to be part of a local TV panel that included an Illinois state senator I had never heard of: Barack Obama. The topic was the novel possibility that George W. Bush might win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College.

We were on to something, but we had it backward: On Election Day, it was Al Gore who managed this sad feat.

The outcome infuriated Democrats, who still bear a grudge against the Electoral College, but convinced Republicans that it is a priceless heirloom. They may change their minds once they grasp that its odd math now works to their distinct disadvantage.

After the 2012 election, Nate Silver of The New York Times figured out that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."

Political scientist Ben Highton of the University of California, Davis, has calculated that if voters split 50-50 in 2016, the Democratic nominee's chance of winning is at least 83 percent.

What does the Electoral College have to do with our shunning of Cuba? Plenty. Cuban-Americans make up just 0.6 percent of the American population -- hardly enough, you'd think, to warrant much notice from politicians. But they have nonetheless been able to dictate Washington's stance on Cuba.

Why? First, because for a long time they were united in their strong antipathy toward the Castro regime. Second, because they let candidates know any deviation on that issue was a deal-breaker.

None of this would have mattered, though, except for the Electoral College. Cuban-Americans are concentrated in Florida, where they make up more than 6 percent of the population -- enough to decide an election. It's a crucial swing state that is rich in electoral votes.

Presidential candidates of either party knew that if they urged a less hostile policy toward the Cuban regime, they would lose the Cuban-American vote, which could mean losing Florida, which could mean losing the election. They also knew that it cost them nothing to appease the Cuba lobby, because the issue is of minor importance to anyone else.

So they did the politically prudent thing. As Texas A&M University political scientist George C. Edwards III, author of "Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America," told me, "The Electoral College allowed a minority in a large state to determine U.S. foreign policy."

The fact that it didn't work was irrelevant. As long as it satisfied those voters it was beyond alteration.

VIDEO: NYPD officers turn away from Mayor de Blasio as he enters police presser for cops murdered by #jihad
Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Just a couple of weeks ago NYPD cops said Mayor de Blasio aka Red Bill was not welcome at police funerals because of his anti-cop rhetoric in the wake of Ferguson.

The NYPD should stop protecting de Blasio and his subversive administration. Stand down, NY’s finest.

For months in the run up to the NYC mayoral election, I warned NYers. I ran subway ads and was widely derided for my opposition to this lowlife.

President Obama encouraged this slaughter with his “StayTheCourse” support of the Ferguson savages. If the country sees fit to elect an Obama and a be Blasio, the country is in ruins.

VIDEO: NYPD officers turn away from Mayor de Blasio as he enters police presser for murdered cops
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Obama releases four more jihadis from Guantanamo, returns them to Afghanistan

By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

“The Obama administration has released the four on the basis that charges cannot be brought against them and that it is possible to reintegrate the individuals back into society following the detention.” What will they do? Buy farms? Open restaurants? Isn’t it more likely that they will return to the trade they know — jihad?

“Four More Detainees Release from Gitmo,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, December 20, 2014:

Four more detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were released from the prison and sent to Afghanistan, according to an announcement made by the Pentagon on Saturday.

The four detainees—Shawali Khan, Khi Ali Gul, Abdul Ghani, and Mohammed Zahir—have been repatriated in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon, which announced the the transfer is part of a larger bid by President Barack Obama to fully shut down the prison facility at Gitmo.

“This repatriation reflects the Defense Department’s continued commitment to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo in a responsible manner,” Paul Lewis, the defense department’s special envoy for the closure of Guantanamo, said in a statement provided to the Free Beacon.

Just 132 detainees now remain imprisoned in Gitmo, which has seen a high of around 775 prisoners.

Each of those four released from Gitmo has been imprisoned for at least 10 years.

The Obama administration has relased [sic] the four on the basis that charges cannot be brought against them and that it is possible to reintegrate the individuals back into society following the detention….

Obama Issues Most Presidential Memoranda in History
NEWSMAX

President Barack Obama and the Democrats have touted the fact that that he has issued fewer executive orders than almost all of his predecessors.

But he has actually issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history.

And like executive orders, presidential memoranda don't require action by Congress, and they have the same force of law as executive orders.

Obama said in July: "I'm issuing executive orders at the lowest rate in more than 100 years."

Also in July, Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "While Republicans accuse President Obama of executive overreach, they neglect the fact that he has issued far fewer executive orders than any two-term president in the last 50 years."

Obama has issued 195 executive orders as of Tuesday, according to USA Today. But in addition, 198 of his presidential memoranda have been published alongside the orders in the Federal Registry. When the orders and memoranda are combined, Obama is on track to institute more high-level executive actions than any president since Harry Truman.

He has signed 33 percent more presidential memoranda in less than six years than George W. Bush did in eight years, and he is the first president to issue more memoranda than executive orders.

Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and George H.W. Bush all issued fewer than 50 presidential memoranda.

"The White House and its defenders can say, 'He can't be abusing his executive authority. He's hardly using any orders," Andrew Rudalevige, a presidential scholar at Bowdoin College, told USA Today. "But if you look at these other vehicles, he has been aggressive in his use of executive power."

Among his recent memoranda, Obama on Tuesday used one to declare Bristol Bay, Alaska, off-limits to oil and gas exploration.

Giuliani: Anti-Police 'Propaganda' Led to NY Police 'Assassinations'

NEWSMAX

The shooting deaths of New York Police Department officers Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, were assassinations that came after months of propaganda about how the police are the enemy of the black community, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday.

"What happened yesterday was an assassination, which we haven't had since 1988 with Officer [Edward] Byrne," Giuliani said on Fox and Friends Sunday, speaking of a young police officer who was murdered while on duty. "We have not had an assassination murder like this in a long, long time."

There no question from the words of killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley that the killings were connected to the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Missouri, said Giuliani. The two officers were shot at about 3 p.m. while sitting in their marked car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn after Brinsley posted messages on Instagram saying he was going to kill police officers.

Brinsley also wounded his girlfriend in a shooting in Baltimore before driving to New York and ambushing the officers.

"It could be connected in an insane way, but it's not unfair to create a connection between these two things," said Giuliani. "And it's certainly true that we have been treated to about three to four months of propaganda about how the police are the enemy. [About how] the police are the problem. [About how] they are the major problem between the police and the black community."

Giuliani said such statements and protests are propaganda because the police departments interactions with communities are a "reaction, it's not the cause."

And the "cause" was why officers Liu and Ramos were in Brooklyn on Saturday, where they were murdered.

"They were moved from one precinct to another because there was more crime in that precinct," said Giuliani. "They were there to protect the lives in this particular case of black people in that neighborhood. And the reality is that the problem here is citizen crime."