Ponderable

When a parking ticket turns into a tasing: NBA player’s arrest shows everyone’s on edge these days
6 hours
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NBA rookie Sterling Brown was tased for a parking ticket earlier this year. Now, the police video tells more. (Image source: YouTube screencap)
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Breck Dumas
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Milwaukee Bucks guard Sterling Brown was tased while being surrounded by local police following a citation for a parking violation on January 26 of this year.

The arresting officer subtly calls for back-up early on in his encounter with Brown, and additional officers arrive in less than three minutes during their initial discussion.

While the pair pauses in conversation for additional members of the force to arrive, the arresting officer explains “Oh, we’re going to wait. We’re going to wait for my partners…whether you’re getting a ticket…whatever.”

Brown then asks: “You can’t do that by yourself?”


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Subsequently, a number of police vehicles show up. In response, the first officer on the scene says repeatedly to his colleagues about their united front: “I just wanted one. I just wanted one squad car.”

Thereafter, things escalate.


Wait. What happened?
Brown reportedly took up three parking spaces when he decided to stop at a Walgreens that night. Okay, that’s…usually considered rude. And I know, that’s against the law, but it’s tough to see what harm was done by his actions. It was also 2am in a nearly-bare lot, so he wasn’t keeping anyone else from going about their business.

But that’s illegal.

Here comes a police officer. And Brown wasn’t overly polite when law enforcement approached.

The body cam coverage of the incident from the arresting officer has now been released, for all to see:



Upon engagement by the officer, both he and Brown took stances to show their authority.

The officer says, “I own this right here,” to which Brown says, “You don’t own me.”

Interestingly, when the officer asks Sterling Brown’s name and he responds with the truth, it seems like the officer thinks he’s playing games with him — surely this isn’t THE Sterling Brown.

In the follow-up inquiry, outgoing police chief Ed Flynn later said, “We wouldn’t be conducting an investigation into this if we were 100 percent satisfied with our application of our tactics in this manner. What we want to do is ascertain how a parking ticket turned into a tasing.”

I’m no attorney. But it seems a haphazard parking job in a private parking lot might be benign — and therefore of no concern. And for the record: I’m also not a fan of sports…at all. Never heard of Sterling Brown until this incident.

Regardless, the exchange between Brown and the officer left the policeman with the impression he expressed later that Brown had “physically resisted officers’ attempts to handcuff him and he was taken to the ground in a controlled manner.”

The officer also reported that Brown continued to “resist being handcuffed,” and therefore “a Taser had to be employed to get Brown in control with handcuffs.”

Later, Brown said the situation was “an attempt at police intimidation,” that “shouldn’t happen to anybody.”

Okay, what now?
Well, Brown says he’s suing. No charges were brought against him, but he received a $200 parking ticket after being detained for a few hours…and, ya know, the tasing thing.

And he probably has a darn good case. The whole dynamic between himself and the officers was a recipe for disaster, and his promised lawsuit might be just that for the Milwaukee Police Department.

What’s the take? So many questions.
After watching the video:

Does Brown seem disrespectful of law enforcement during the exchange? Yes. Does the police officer who initially approached him come across as overly aggressive to the average citizen for a parking violation in a private lot? Also, yes.

What is it that has escalated interactions with police to the point that distrust has become so elevated between officers and citizens, alike?

Is it race? Is it privilege? Is it entitlement? Is it intimidation? A combination of some sort? Or is it (at this point) two opposing narratives that align against each other virtually no matter the scenario —much like our country’s political parties today.

One can easily spell out what has become two “sides” of this issue, divided between those who support law enforcement no matter what occurs, and those who support anyone stopped by a police officer no matter what occurs.

A true discussion needs to be had about the role of police officers and what they “own,” as the video references. Surely, they have to maintain authority. But there are no clear boundaries — of course because neither law enforcement or citizens can set protocol or parameters for every situation that involves an officer.

But what about taking every case individually? On its merit?

Here’s the truth: Police officers are scared, (especially nowadays) when they approach a prospective wrong-doer with a possible violation or worse. And with good reason. A hero of mine was killed in a routine traffic stop years ago. There’s no way she could have known what kind of monster she was approaching.

And citizens are scared when they’re pulled over, addressed by, confronted by, or whatever interaction they have with the police. That transcends all racial bounds.

I support, appreciate, and respect the police. But this was a parking ticket, people. Surely, law enforcement had bigger priorities that night — but if not, violations are nothing to go searching for.
 
Video showing just part of an aggressive traffic stop goes viral. Then some facts come out.
44 mins
traffic-stop-1280x720.jpg

Police have spoken out about a viral video featuring an aggressive traffic stop with a black man. (Image source: Twitter video screenshot)
29 Follow

Sarah TaylorStaff Writer
Video of a Friday traffic stop involving a black driver went viral on social media with all of the obligatory outrage to go along with such a clip.

However, police are now saying that the full context of the stop was not caught on video and have released details of the full interaction — details that were not caught on the video, nor were they shared by the driver or the passenger on social media.

What happened in the video?
Elizabeth Smith, identified by WWBT-TV as the passenger involved in Friday’s incident in Chesterfield, Virginia, filmed in the encounter. The video was posted Tuesday to the Twitter account of Elkanah Odembo, who has been identified as the driver and Smith’s boyfriend.

The video begins in Odembo’s driveway with an officer attempting to get Odembo out of the car after pulling him over. Smith reported that law enforcement stopped the car for a brake light infraction.



Throughout the video, Odembo is uncooperative and refuses multiple times to get out of the car, saying that he just wants to go inside his house.

As the incident escalates, Odembo gets louder and more verbally combative and repeatedly threatens to sue the officer — who says that he is detaining Odembo at this point.

Throughout the video, Smith can be heard in the background continuously asking the officer why Odembo is being detained. She later can be heard urging Odembo to simply comply with the officer’s demands that he exit the vehicle.

The situation finally erupts, and the officer forcibly pulls Odembo out of the vehicle.

Smith shared the video on Odembo’s Twitter page, with the caption, “A cop follows us into my boyfriends [sic] driveway and claims it is because we have a brake light out.”

“The cop calls backup immediately,” the caption added. “[The cop] proceeds to viciously pull [Odembo] out of the car for absolutely no reason.”

“I was forced to sit in the car until another cop came and detained me,” the caption concluded.



Smith told WWBT that she was afraid for her boyfriend during the stop, which she called “scary and frightening.”

“[The officer is] asking about the brake light, and next thing I know, he has his hand on Elly,” she explained. “After it was continuing to happen, I thought, ‘Okay, something bad is about to happen, and I need to record this.'”

Smith added, “Innocent black people are being targeted and killed every single day. How would you not be scared? We’ve seen so many stories time and time again, how many times does it have to happen?”

What are police saying now?
On Wednesday, Chesterfield County Police Col. Jeffrey S. Katz addressed the video and wrote, “Late last night, @conspiracyco tweeted about a traffic stop involving @CCPDVa. As most slept, that post went viral based upon the limited information provided.”

“While an effective tweet, it falls short of telling the entire story,” Katz cautioned. “Facts matter. Sincerely appreciate your empathy.”



The Chesterfield County Police Department released a statement Wednesday about the incident:

The officer attempted to stop a vehicle in the area Hollow Wood Court. The vehicle pulled into a driveway in the 3400 block of Hollow Wood Court. As the officer approached the vehicle, the driver had the car door open to exit the vehicle. The officer asked the driver for his identification. The officer told the driver he had been stopped because a tail light was out on the vehicle, and the officer had received information that the occupants of the vehicle had been gesturing and yelling things at a school bus.

The driver did not have his ID, and the officer began to take his information (name, date of birth, etc.). The driver said he didn’t see a problem and attempted to exit the vehicle, and the officer told him to stay in the vehicle. The driver continued to not cooperate with the officer, so the officer told the driver he was being detained and asked him to step out of the vehicle. The driver then refused to exit the vehicle. The officer repeatedly directed the driver to exit the vehicle and attempted to remove the driver from the vehicle; the driver resisted.

At one point, a passenger in the vehicle exited the car and the officer ordered her back into the vehicle. The driver then exited the vehicle as he was being pulled by the officer; he pushed past the officer and fled around and then into the residence. The officer pursued the driver. The officer caught up to the driver and the two engaged in a physical altercation as the driver resisted being taken into custody. Other officers arrived on scene to help take the driver into custody, and the driver continued to resist, at one point reentering the residence.

The driver was tased and taken into custody. He continued to passively resist as officers escorted him from the house. The officer who conducted the traffic stop received non-life threatening injuries during the altercation and was taken to an area hospital.


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The driver, identified as Elkanah A. Odembo Jr., 19, was arrested and charged with assault on a law enforcement officer, three counts of obstruction of justice with force and defective equipment.

Anything else?
According to WWBT, the department says that they are reviewing the officer’s bodycam footage.

WWBT reported having seen the footage as well. According to the outlet, the four-and-a-half-minute video captures the interaction between Odembo and the arresting officer.

What’s not caught in Smith’s original video is Odembo fleeing from police after being pulled out of the car.

“We recognize there are going to be people who are fearful when we stop them,” Katz told WWBT. “I would say the best thing to do is be cooperative — this traffic stop would have and could have gone a very different way.”

He noted that it’s important to understand all of the facts of an incident such as this before formulating opinions that might otherwise be damaging and dangerous.

“My hope is that people will realize strong feelings don’t equate to strong facts,” Katz explained. “It is not a good representation of the entirety of that encounter, and that’s probably the downside of social media.”

According to WWBT, Odembo was released on bond after his arrest and appeared in court on Wednesday.

He is scheduled to make another court appearance in July.
 
SAD

May 24, 2018
Progressives on the Brink
By Jeffrey Folks
The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.

Because President Trump is reversing many Obama-era initiatives, the left's hostility toward him is unprecedented. Progressives are becoming increasingly rigid in their thinking – and increasingly aggressive toward any who disagree with them. The left's opinion of the president, echoed in every left-leaning corner of the media, is that he is illegitimate; incompetent; racist; sexist; and, in some vague and inchoate sense, "fascist."

Because they view President Trump in these extreme terms, progressives view themselves not as violent extremists, but as "the resistance." But resistance implies that there exists something worthy of resisting. The progressive resistance began just seconds after Trump was declared the victor on election night. The resistance was not engendered by anything Trump had actually done. It was just a refusal to accept any candidate who varied from the left's own line of thinking.

That sort of reaction, reminiscent of what happened with the election of George W. Bush, is a dangerous turn in American politics. It implies that the left refuses to accept any political action that does not accord with their own ideology. The left now demands the right to govern permanently and without opposition, regardless of the outcome of elections. This is evidence that the left today has lost respect for democratic institutions and that, if they were ever to find themselves firmly in control of government, leftists would not willingly relinquish power, even if voted out in a fair election.

The behavior of Obama partisans within the FBI and Justice Department, and of the Mueller probe that grew out of it, is precisely what one might expect of a radicalized opposition. It appears that under President Obama, high officials undertook to spy on the Trump campaign with the intent to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. In other words, the left sought to ensure that it retained control regardless of the will of the people. When Clinton lost, it appears that the left sought, through the unwarranted appointment of a special prosecutor, to discover grounds for impeachment. That probe is still underway, and it has employed unprecedented means such as the seizure of communication records between the president and his personal attorney. If it is willing to raid the office and home of one's personal attorney, place spies within an opponent's campaign, and file false documents in support of a FISA request, as alleged, how far is the left willing to go to retain power? It is not a large step from these actions to other, more forceful sorts of intimidation and outright election-rigging.

President Trump has responded to these attacks with admirable restraint. Wisely, he has refrained from firing Mueller or Rosenstein, despite apparent cause, even as he has seen one individual after another "retire" from FBI and Justice just as incriminating evidence was about to be revealed. Now the most serious revelations are about to come out.

As Gregg Jarrett reports, there is "strong circumstantial evidence" to suspect that high officials colluded to undermine the Trump campaign and the presidency, and that they employed criminal means to do so. If true, this amounts to nothing less than "an insidious plot unprecedented in American history" – one that would, if successful, have destroyed American democracy and replaced it with what would amount to the beginnings of a permanent leftist dictatorship.

No American, regardless of party preference, should fail to see the seriousness of these events. The Watergate break-in and the cover-up that followed made for a serious crime, but it was nothing compared to what is now alleged on the part of members of the Obama administration or on the part of Obama himself. Disclosures are at last moving forward, with House committees pressing for FBI and Justice documents and Sen. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting communications among Bruce Ohr, Christopher Steele, and others relating to the anti-Trump dossier.

If it is true that President Obama ordered Attorney General Lynch and Director Comey to avoid bringing charges against candidate Clinton and to spy on the Trump campaign with the intention of throwing the election to Clinton, and if high officials at the FBI knowingly requested a FISA warrant on the basis of evidence known to be false, these actions will represent the most serious political crimes in the history of the country.

The present-day atmosphere of political division does not excuse criminal behavior on the part of members of either party. Yet the Democratic Party has been radicalized to the extent that illegal behavior now seems to be an everyday reality. Hopefully, leaders within that party will realize the dangerous ground they are on and pull back before further crimes take place. If not, America will suffer even more division – in effect, a political civil war – with great damage to our republic.

As the extent of criminal activities of progressives within the FBI and Justice Department becomes known, the American people must understand the seriousness of what has taken place. It's possible that the result will be a massive "red wave" in the fall elections with the Democratic Party marginalized for years to come, or until it returns to civil political discourse. That would be a positive outcome and a just one, considering the seriousness of the alleged crimes.

It's also possible, and more likely, that progressives will dismiss the seriousness of whatever crimes have been committed and engage in even more desperate measures. If that happens, only the political will of the American people will stand in their way.


The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.
 
Sheriff Joe said:
SAD

May 24, 2018
Progressives on the Brink
By Jeffrey Folks
The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.

Because President Trump is reversing many Obama-era initiatives, the left's hostility toward him is unprecedented. Progressives are becoming increasingly rigid in their thinking – and increasingly aggressive toward any who disagree with them. The left's opinion of the president, echoed in every left-leaning corner of the media, is that he is illegitimate; incompetent; racist; sexist; and, in some vague and inchoate sense, "fascist."

Because they view President Trump in these extreme terms, progressives view themselves not as violent extremists, but as "the resistance." But resistance implies that there exists something worthy of resisting. The progressive resistance began just seconds after Trump was declared the victor on election night. The resistance was not engendered by anything Trump had actually done. It was just a refusal to accept any candidate who varied from the left's own line of thinking.

That sort of reaction, reminiscent of what happened with the election of George W. Bush, is a dangerous turn in American politics. It implies that the left refuses to accept any political action that does not accord with their own ideology. The left now demands the right to govern permanently and without opposition, regardless of the outcome of elections. This is evidence that the left today has lost respect for democratic institutions and that, if they were ever to find themselves firmly in control of government, leftists would not willingly relinquish power, even if voted out in a fair election.

The behavior of Obama partisans within the FBI and Justice Department, and of the Mueller probe that grew out of it, is precisely what one might expect of a radicalized opposition. It appears that under President Obama, high officials undertook to spy on the Trump campaign with the intent to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. In other words, the left sought to ensure that it retained control regardless of the will of the people. When Clinton lost, it appears that the left sought, through the unwarranted appointment of a special prosecutor, to discover grounds for impeachment. That probe is still underway, and it has employed unprecedented means such as the seizure of communication records between the president and his personal attorney. If it is willing to raid the office and home of one's personal attorney, place spies within an opponent's campaign, and file false documents in support of a FISA request, as alleged, how far is the left willing to go to retain power? It is not a large step from these actions to other, more forceful sorts of intimidation and outright election-rigging.

President Trump has responded to these attacks with admirable restraint. Wisely, he has refrained from firing Mueller or Rosenstein, despite apparent cause, even as he has seen one individual after another "retire" from FBI and Justice just as incriminating evidence was about to be revealed. Now the most serious revelations are about to come out.

As Gregg Jarrett reports, there is "strong circumstantial evidence" to suspect that high officials colluded to undermine the Trump campaign and the presidency, and that they employed criminal means to do so. If true, this amounts to nothing less than "an insidious plot unprecedented in American history" – one that would, if successful, have destroyed American democracy and replaced it with what would amount to the beginnings of a permanent leftist dictatorship.

No American, regardless of party preference, should fail to see the seriousness of these events. The Watergate break-in and the cover-up that followed made for a serious crime, but it was nothing compared to what is now alleged on the part of members of the Obama administration or on the part of Obama himself. Disclosures are at last moving forward, with House committees pressing for FBI and Justice documents and Sen. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting communications among Bruce Ohr, Christopher Steele, and others relating to the anti-Trump dossier.

If it is true that President Obama ordered Attorney General Lynch and Director Comey to avoid bringing charges against candidate Clinton and to spy on the Trump campaign with the intention of throwing the election to Clinton, and if high officials at the FBI knowingly requested a FISA warrant on the basis of evidence known to be false, these actions will represent the most serious political crimes in the history of the country.

The present-day atmosphere of political division does not excuse criminal behavior on the part of members of either party. Yet the Democratic Party has been radicalized to the extent that illegal behavior now seems to be an everyday reality. Hopefully, leaders within that party will realize the dangerous ground they are on and pull back before further crimes take place. If not, America will suffer even more division – in effect, a political civil war – with great damage to our republic.

As the extent of criminal activities of progressives within the FBI and Justice Department becomes known, the American people must understand the seriousness of what has taken place. It's possible that the result will be a massive "red wave" in the fall elections with the Democratic Party marginalized for years to come, or until it returns to civil political discourse. That would be a positive outcome and a just one, considering the seriousness of the alleged crimes.

It's also possible, and more likely, that progressives will dismiss the seriousness of whatever crimes have been committed and engage in even more desperate measures. If that happens, only the political will of the American people will stand in their way.


The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.
Click to expand...
The Genovese article I post gives some historical context to the libsters.
 
Sheriff Joe said:
SAD

May 24, 2018
Progressives on the Brink
By Jeffrey Folks
The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.

Because President Trump is reversing many Obama-era initiatives, the left's hostility toward him is unprecedented. Progressives are becoming increasingly rigid in their thinking – and increasingly aggressive toward any who disagree with them. The left's opinion of the president, echoed in every left-leaning corner of the media, is that he is illegitimate; incompetent; racist; sexist; and, in some vague and inchoate sense, "fascist."

Because they view President Trump in these extreme terms, progressives view themselves not as violent extremists, but as "the resistance." But resistance implies that there exists something worthy of resisting. The progressive resistance began just seconds after Trump was declared the victor on election night. The resistance was not engendered by anything Trump had actually done. It was just a refusal to accept any candidate who varied from the left's own line of thinking.

That sort of reaction, reminiscent of what happened with the election of George W. Bush, is a dangerous turn in American politics. It implies that the left refuses to accept any political action that does not accord with their own ideology. The left now demands the right to govern permanently and without opposition, regardless of the outcome of elections. This is evidence that the left today has lost respect for democratic institutions and that, if they were ever to find themselves firmly in control of government, leftists would not willingly relinquish power, even if voted out in a fair election.

The behavior of Obama partisans within the FBI and Justice Department, and of the Mueller probe that grew out of it, is precisely what one might expect of a radicalized opposition. It appears that under President Obama, high officials undertook to spy on the Trump campaign with the intent to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. In other words, the left sought to ensure that it retained control regardless of the will of the people. When Clinton lost, it appears that the left sought, through the unwarranted appointment of a special prosecutor, to discover grounds for impeachment. That probe is still underway, and it has employed unprecedented means such as the seizure of communication records between the president and his personal attorney. If it is willing to raid the office and home of one's personal attorney, place spies within an opponent's campaign, and file false documents in support of a FISA request, as alleged, how far is the left willing to go to retain power? It is not a large step from these actions to other, more forceful sorts of intimidation and outright election-rigging.

President Trump has responded to these attacks with admirable restraint. Wisely, he has refrained from firing Mueller or Rosenstein, despite apparent cause, even as he has seen one individual after another "retire" from FBI and Justice just as incriminating evidence was about to be revealed. Now the most serious revelations are about to come out.

As Gregg Jarrett reports, there is "strong circumstantial evidence" to suspect that high officials colluded to undermine the Trump campaign and the presidency, and that they employed criminal means to do so. If true, this amounts to nothing less than "an insidious plot unprecedented in American history" – one that would, if successful, have destroyed American democracy and replaced it with what would amount to the beginnings of a permanent leftist dictatorship.

No American, regardless of party preference, should fail to see the seriousness of these events. The Watergate break-in and the cover-up that followed made for a serious crime, but it was nothing compared to what is now alleged on the part of members of the Obama administration or on the part of Obama himself. Disclosures are at last moving forward, with House committees pressing for FBI and Justice documents and Sen. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting communications among Bruce Ohr, Christopher Steele, and others relating to the anti-Trump dossier.

If it is true that President Obama ordered Attorney General Lynch and Director Comey to avoid bringing charges against candidate Clinton and to spy on the Trump campaign with the intention of throwing the election to Clinton, and if high officials at the FBI knowingly requested a FISA warrant on the basis of evidence known to be false, these actions will represent the most serious political crimes in the history of the country.

The present-day atmosphere of political division does not excuse criminal behavior on the part of members of either party. Yet the Democratic Party has been radicalized to the extent that illegal behavior now seems to be an everyday reality. Hopefully, leaders within that party will realize the dangerous ground they are on and pull back before further crimes take place. If not, America will suffer even more division – in effect, a political civil war – with great damage to our republic.

As the extent of criminal activities of progressives within the FBI and Justice Department becomes known, the American people must understand the seriousness of what has taken place. It's possible that the result will be a massive "red wave" in the fall elections with the Democratic Party marginalized for years to come, or until it returns to civil political discourse. That would be a positive outcome and a just one, considering the seriousness of the alleged crimes.

It's also possible, and more likely, that progressives will dismiss the seriousness of whatever crimes have been committed and engage in even more desperate measures. If that happens, only the political will of the American people will stand in their way.


The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.
Click to expand...
HAPPY
 
Sheriff Joe said:
SAD

May 24, 2018
Progressives on the Brink
By Jeffrey Folks
The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.

Because President Trump is reversing many Obama-era initiatives, the left's hostility toward him is unprecedented. Progressives are becoming increasingly rigid in their thinking – and increasingly aggressive toward any who disagree with them. The left's opinion of the president, echoed in every left-leaning corner of the media, is that he is illegitimate; incompetent; racist; sexist; and, in some vague and inchoate sense, "fascist."

Because they view President Trump in these extreme terms, progressives view themselves not as violent extremists, but as "the resistance." But resistance implies that there exists something worthy of resisting. The progressive resistance began just seconds after Trump was declared the victor on election night. The resistance was not engendered by anything Trump had actually done. It was just a refusal to accept any candidate who varied from the left's own line of thinking.

That sort of reaction, reminiscent of what happened with the election of George W. Bush, is a dangerous turn in American politics. It implies that the left refuses to accept any political action that does not accord with their own ideology. The left now demands the right to govern permanently and without opposition, regardless of the outcome of elections. This is evidence that the left today has lost respect for democratic institutions and that, if they were ever to find themselves firmly in control of government, leftists would not willingly relinquish power, even if voted out in a fair election.

The behavior of Obama partisans within the FBI and Justice Department, and of the Mueller probe that grew out of it, is precisely what one might expect of a radicalized opposition. It appears that under President Obama, high officials undertook to spy on the Trump campaign with the intent to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. In other words, the left sought to ensure that it retained control regardless of the will of the people. When Clinton lost, it appears that the left sought, through the unwarranted appointment of a special prosecutor, to discover grounds for impeachment. That probe is still underway, and it has employed unprecedented means such as the seizure of communication records between the president and his personal attorney. If it is willing to raid the office and home of one's personal attorney, place spies within an opponent's campaign, and file false documents in support of a FISA request, as alleged, how far is the left willing to go to retain power? It is not a large step from these actions to other, more forceful sorts of intimidation and outright election-rigging.

President Trump has responded to these attacks with admirable restraint. Wisely, he has refrained from firing Mueller or Rosenstein, despite apparent cause, even as he has seen one individual after another "retire" from FBI and Justice just as incriminating evidence was about to be revealed. Now the most serious revelations are about to come out.

As Gregg Jarrett reports, there is "strong circumstantial evidence" to suspect that high officials colluded to undermine the Trump campaign and the presidency, and that they employed criminal means to do so. If true, this amounts to nothing less than "an insidious plot unprecedented in American history" – one that would, if successful, have destroyed American democracy and replaced it with what would amount to the beginnings of a permanent leftist dictatorship.

No American, regardless of party preference, should fail to see the seriousness of these events. The Watergate break-in and the cover-up that followed made for a serious crime, but it was nothing compared to what is now alleged on the part of members of the Obama administration or on the part of Obama himself. Disclosures are at last moving forward, with House committees pressing for FBI and Justice documents and Sen. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting communications among Bruce Ohr, Christopher Steele, and others relating to the anti-Trump dossier.

If it is true that President Obama ordered Attorney General Lynch and Director Comey to avoid bringing charges against candidate Clinton and to spy on the Trump campaign with the intention of throwing the election to Clinton, and if high officials at the FBI knowingly requested a FISA warrant on the basis of evidence known to be false, these actions will represent the most serious political crimes in the history of the country.

The present-day atmosphere of political division does not excuse criminal behavior on the part of members of either party. Yet the Democratic Party has been radicalized to the extent that illegal behavior now seems to be an everyday reality. Hopefully, leaders within that party will realize the dangerous ground they are on and pull back before further crimes take place. If not, America will suffer even more division – in effect, a political civil war – with great damage to our republic.

As the extent of criminal activities of progressives within the FBI and Justice Department becomes known, the American people must understand the seriousness of what has taken place. It's possible that the result will be a massive "red wave" in the fall elections with the Democratic Party marginalized for years to come, or until it returns to civil political discourse. That would be a positive outcome and a just one, considering the seriousness of the alleged crimes.

It's also possible, and more likely, that progressives will dismiss the seriousness of whatever crimes have been committed and engage in even more desperate measures. If that happens, only the political will of the American people will stand in their way.


The Trump era has exposed the dark, vindictive, and oppressive side of liberalism, but that side has always existed. "Progressives," as they prefer to be known, have a long history of extremism going back to Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 and FDR's many power-grabbing activities, including the 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Progressive thinking, because it attempts to impose an extreme vision of society on a public that resists its measures, is by its very nature authoritarian, antidemocratic, and elitist. Liberalism is not the "party of the people," as it has long claimed to be: it is, rather, a despotic philosophy that because of its intention of imposing "advanced" thinking on the masses can govern only through deceit and force.
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You probably should have waited to post this until after the Gang of 8 meeting, sucker.
 
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