Lyft driver uses firearm in self defense after Cape Coral man pulls knife

When a Cape Coral man pulled a knife on a rideshare driver on Tuesday morning, the victim retrieved his firearm in self-defense and forced the suspect out of the car, authorities said.

The suspect, Adam John Mormon, 28, now faces a charge of Aggravate Assault.

While the Lyft driver was driving around 1:10 a.m., the passenger retrieved a small, black knife and began dictating where to drive. According to the Cape Coral Police Dept. arrest report, at the intersection of Chiquita Blvd and El Dorado Pkwy, Mormon banged the dashboard with the knife while waving it in a “threatening manner.”

The driver told Mormon to exit the vehicle because he was in fear for his life. When Mormon did not listen, the victim pulled out a firearm and told Mormon once again to exit the vehicle. The arrest report states that Mormon complied and the victim left the scene.

It is against Lyft’s policy to have any kind of weapon, with the consequences of being banned from the company. People living nearby do not want to see the driver face any kind of consequences from the company.

“You have to look at the situation,” said Joanne and Bob Syversen, “before you clamp down on exactly what the rule says or what the law says.”

Police detained Mormon, who was found with a black pocket knife in his jeans. The victim later identified the detained suspect for officers with a request to press charges. Right now, Mormon is at Lee County Jail with a trial date on Feb. 10.

WINK News reached out to Lyft to see if the driver will face punishment for brandishing a gun to protect his life. So far, the rideshare company has not responded.


Akron pizza delivery driver pulls gun on would-be robbers

AKRON, Ohio — A man delivering pizzas pulled a gun on a three robbery suspects, scaring them off, police say.

It was one of two incidents involving pizza delivery drivers on Monday and investigators believe they are related. No one was injured in either incident, but police are still searching for the suspects.

At about 7 p.m., a 26-year-old driver for Papa John’s tells police he went to a house to make a delivery and realized it was vacant. Three teen males walked from behind the house toward the driver.

The driver tells police that one of the males began reaching for his waistband. The driver, who has a concealed carry permit, pulled out his handgun, causing the three suspects to run away, police say. No shots were fired.

The suspects were 15 to 18 years old. One was about 6-feet tall and was wearing a black hooded sweat shirt with a white stripe across the chest, police say.

An earlier robbery occurred at about noon Monday on the 1100 block of Fourth Avenue in East Akron. A 30-year-old driver for Domino’s tells police he was robbed by two teen males, one armed with a handgun, when he tried to deliver a pizza to a vacant home. The suspects took cash and a bag with two pizzas.

The suspects were 16 to 18 years old, with one about 5-foot-10 to 5-foot-11, 150 to 160 pounds, wearing a dark windbreaker and dark vest. The other suspect was wearing a white hooded sweat shirt with a colorful logo pattern.


Police Arrested Burglary Suspect Allegedly Fired Upon By San Rafael Homeowner

AN RAFAEL (CBS SF) — A burglary suspect who allegedly was thwarted by an armed San Rafael homeowner who fired several shots to defend his residence has been arrested, authorities said.

Police said Jamal Jay Bseiso, a 60-year-old man with no fixed address, was being held in Marin County Jail on burglary and burglary of an occupied dwelling charges.

The case began on Jan. 17th when San Rafael police received a 911 call from a homeowner in the 200 block of San Marino Dr. The homeowner was reporting that someone was breaking a window to his residence and was trying to enter his home.

Officers were dispatched to the home. While they were enroute, the homeowner called back saying he had fired shots towards the back of the house in the area where the suspect was trying to break into the residence.

The homeowner told officers he did not know if he struck the suspect. A search of the neighborhood failed to turn up any sign of the man.

A San Rafael police detective followed up on all leads which included a search for any video evidence, re-interviewed the victim, and re-interviewed witnesses who lived in the area.

Through this investigation, he learned that Bseiso was possibility the suspect in the burglary as well as other misdemeanor cases in the area involving vandalism and petty theft.

On Wednesday morning, detectives located Bseiso’s vehicle in the 1300 Block of Hamilton Parkway in Novato. They located Bseiso in the area and arrested him. He apparently was not injured by the homeowner.

VEXIT: West Virginia governor invites Virginia counties to join his state amid gun control push back
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, announced that legislation has been passed to send an open invitation to any Virginia county that wants to join West Virginia amid gun control push back in Richmond.

It’s an interesting idea.

The only problem is that the Virginia legislature as well as the U.S. legislature have to sign off on it too.

China counts 170 virus deaths, new countries find infections

BEIJING (AP) — China counted 170 deaths from a new virus Thursday and more countries reported infections, including some spread locally, as foreign evacuees from China’s worst-hit region returned home to medical observation and even isolation.

India and the Philippines reported their first cases, in a traveler and a student who had both been in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the new type of coronavirus first surfaced in December. South Korea confirmed a case that was locally spread, in a man who had contact with a patient diagnosed earlier.

Locally spread cases outside China have been a worrying concern among global health officials, as potential signs of the virus spreading more easily and the difficulty of containing it. The World Health Organization is reconvening experts on Thursday to assess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, another type of coronavirus.

Thursday’s figures for mainland China cover the previous 24 hours and represent an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,711. Of the new deaths, 37 were in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, and one was in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

Three of Japan’s confirmed cases were among a group of evacuees who returned on a government-chartered flight from Wuhan on Wednesday. Japan’s foreign ministry said a second flight carrying 210 Japanese evacuees landed Thursday at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever.

India’s health ministry said a student in Kerala state who had been studying in Wuhan was confirmed to have the virus after returning home during the Lunar New Year break. Philippine health officials say a woman who traveled to the country from Wuhan via Hong Kong had tested positive.

Vietnam, meanwhile, confirmed three new cases on Thursday— all people returned from Wuhan — bringing its total to five. The patients, who are receiving treatment in Hanoi and Thanh Hoa provinces, are all in stable condition, Do Xuan Tuyen, deputy minister of health, said in a statement.

The United States evacuated 195 Americans from Wuhan who are being tested and monitored at a Southern California military base. A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said additional evacuation flights were being planned for Monday or surrounding days.

Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya

…and there shall be famines and troubles…

Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades

Michael Bloomberg Isn’t Really Running For President, And That Should Worry You
The staff, the ad spending, the campaigning — Michael Bloomberg was going to do all of this to defeat President Donald Trump already. Doing it as a ‘candidate’ exempts him from limits on PACs and political donations.

Everyone was saying he was running just because he’s a narcissistic ass, but figuring it’s personal since they’re both NooYawk billionaires and he hates Trump’s guts is more reasonable. And just because he is a billionaire and apparently doesn’t mind spending a billion here and a billion there doesn’t mean if he can figure out a good deal, he won’t use it.

There is very good reason to believe Michael Bloomberg isn’t actually running for president.

Of course, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. For one, he declared he is. He’s also hired more than 1,000 staff and is still expanding, offering salaries far above campaign averages. This week, he became the first of the declared candidates to have campaigned in all 14 states of March 3’s Super Tuesday primary battle, and he’s spent a quarter billion on political advertising so far. All would point toward Bloomberg indeed running for president.

But here’s the snag: He wanted to do all of this anyway. Everything, that is, but the declaration bit. That, he was loathe to do. But the staff, the ad spending, the campaigning — he was going to do all of this to defeat President Donald Trump already, and we know this because he told us so.

As early as February 2019, the billionaire pledged he’d spend at least $500 million to defeat the president as either a candidate or as what Politico called “a shadow political party for the Democratic nominee.” That massive spend, the report continued, represents “just 1 percent of Bloomberg’s estimated net worth.”

Just a month later, the wealthy New Yorker laughed at the idea he would ever run for president, mocking “Amtrak Joe” Biden for apologizing “for being male, over 50 [and] white,” and Beh-tóh O’Rourke, who Bloomberg joked had “apologized for being born.” Well, a few months later he jumped in anyway. But does the world-renowned winner have any intention of actually winning the nomination?

We might all agree it is strange to hear the hyper-competitive Bloomberg declare he will pay his sizable staff to work on behalf of the people who are supposed to be his primary opponents. His “army of some 500 staffers will march on through the general election in November even if he loses the Democratic nomination, campaign officials [told] NBC News” back when he employed a measly 500 staffers.

Of course, Bloomberg has said the same of the now $2 billion he’s reportedly willing to spend for any campaign to defeat Trump.

This magnanimity in defeat doesn’t seem to square with Michael Bloomberg, cut-throat capitalist billionaire, but it does make sense when viewed in the light of his Bloomberg News empire, which loses money every year. The losses don’t seem to bother Bloomberg, because in this aspect of business he is a man who wants his ideas in the world and is willing to pay to make it happen.

So why declare? Simply put, the billionaire mayor gets a lot more for his money as a candidate than he ever could as a donor or even as the operator of a super PAC.

First, there are limits to what a donor can give a campaign, and $2 billion is way out of the question. Even so, Bloomberg could pour billions into an organization to sway elections, as Charles Koch and George Soros seek to do. Then, there’s something campaigns have that no PAC has — and that’s access to the best rates the market has to offer.

See, super PACs pay more for everything. And not a little more: Depending on the spend, these outfits pay maybe double what a candidate for office must pay for advertisements in digital, radio, cable, newspapers, network television, and even mail.

By law, candidates for office are entitled to the best treatment a station can give. “In the 45 days before a primary and the 60 days before a general election,” Radio & Television Business Report explains, “legally qualified candidates get the lowest rate for a spot that is then running on the station within any class of advertising time and particular daypart.”

If a private entity earned a bonus spot, the ability for his ads to preempt other ads, or any other perks, those must also be made available to the person running for office. Someone is getting a deal for buying in bulk? Then so is the candidate, even if the campaign isn’t buying in bulk. And on and on.

Concealed-Weapon Permits Have Tripled in North Carolina.

With an unprecedented number of shootings happening around Charlotte, an increasing number of residents are turning to concealed weapons for protection.

According to North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigations, concealed-carry gun permits  increased from 177,787 in 2010 to 647,553 last year. Current permit holders make up about 8% of our population – the 10th highest level in America.

All that is required to obtain the permit is an 8-hour course, a gun firing test, and a criminal and mental health background check.

The permits allows the owner to conceal their firearms in all places guns are not prohibited. It also allows NC residents to buy an unlimited number of guns with no additional background checks required for each new purchase.

VA started pushing crazy gun laws, so residents just bought 74,000 more firearms – in one month.

RICHMOND, VA- It’s not surprising to see that the residents within Virginia purchased nearly 74,000 firearms in December of 2019.

Gun control bills and measures have been a hot topic in the state of Virginia, and with good reason.

Democrats within Richmond have been adamant in bringing forth legislation that can be contorted to strip citizens of their second amendment rights. As a result, citizens of the state thought it a good idea to purchase their weapons while they still could.

According to the Associated Press, December of 2019 saw an increase of 47% over the number of firearm sales when compared to December of 2018.

The tallied number of guns sold totaled out to 73,849. The outlet reported that the increase in sales was likely “due to growing fears of increased firearms restrictions backed by Democrats who control the state government.”

In the past 30 years, there was only one month that toppled the sales from this past December, and that would be December of 2012. That holiday season saw an estimated 75,120 firearm sales, which might have had something to do with then-Governor McDonnell removing the restriction of only being allowed to buy one gun a month.

Several gun store owners made mention of the notable increases in both foot traffic and purchases within their shops. Some customers mentioned that they were first-time buyers, while others were looking to acquire firearm accessories they thought might be subject to banning later on.

One of the first-time gun purchasers was a 66-year-old grandmother of eight. Ida Wright expressed concerns that the impending legislation championed by Democrats within Virginia geared her toward purchasing a weapon:

“I didn’t think I would ever be buying a gun, but things are changing so drastically. If we don’t protect ourselves, who else is going to protect us?”

One of the managers from Bob Moates Sports Shop, Richard Hill, noted the increase in customers filing into the store in December:

“On the basis of what we would have been doing a year ago at this time, you’re looking at a 500 to 1000% increase depending on the day.”

Hill mentioned that with all the bills being pushed forward that aim to restrict lawful gun owner’s rights, it’s creating an increased demand overall. He was also critical of the fact that political pundits in Richmond haven’t addressed the fact that there are criminals already in violation of existing gun laws:

“I have yet to see a single law that addresses what we are going to do with the criminals we’ve already got that are violating untold numbers of laws.”

Gerald Stauffer Jr., who is the manager of Southern Gun World in Chesterfield County, also stated that in the wake of everything going in the state Senate and House, business is booming.

He pointed out that while the rally was going on in Capitol Square, there was a remarkable number of sales from attendees:

“About noon we saw a very steady amount of people coming in with their stickers on, most of them buying a new firearm. They were motivated.”

This outcome is hardly surprising, as there’s been previous studies that show when lawful gun owners think their rights are going to be infringed upon, gun sales experience an uptick.

Maurizio Porfiri, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Tandon School at New York University, found that whenever the media or legislators attack gun rights then there’s a near immediate bump in sales.

The study, which gathered data between January 1999 and December 2017, cross examined whether gun purchases increased following mass shootings or when media attacks and reporting of oncoming gun reform happened.

The study proved there to be zero fundamental link between an actual mass shooting and gun purchases – just gun sales increasing when people try to relieve lawful gun owners of their weapons. A testament that the “fear of loss” inevitably creates demand.

Virginia passes ‘red flag’ laws. Cops: Good luck finding someone to enforce them.

Even though 22,000 people gathered to protest unconstitutional gun laws, lawmakers went ahead and passed the bills anyway.

While Virginia was forced to strike down the extremely controversial SB 16, which was the assault weapons ban, that didn’t stop them from moving forward with the “red flag” law getting passed over to the House to consider.

Police across the Commonwealth have already begun raising their voices in opposition, essentially telling lawmakers “Good luck” in finding authorities who would enforce such unconstitutional measures.

The Virginia Senate approved legislation this past Wednesday that gives law enforcement the authority to confiscate guns and ammunition, devoid of any real due process. This unconstitutional legislation is rife with exploitable areas that can be used by vindictive people and entities and deprive law abiding citizens of their God-given rights.

The stance was made clear on Wednesday, showing how divided the Republicans and Democrats are on the issue of “red flag” laws. SB 240 only passed on a party line vote of 21 Democrats in favor with 19 Republicans opposing the measure.

Despite the fierce opposition posed by both Republicans and thousands of citizens who demonstrated at a rally contesting the unconstitutional law, the Democratic-led Senate used their clout to push the law through over to the House.

GOP Senator Amanda Chase described supporters of SB 240 as “traitors”, and that the law would only enable criminals and pose harm to law-abiding citizens.

Senator Chase’s stance was at odds with Democrats in the Senate, who claimed that a “red flag” law would inevitably deter mass shootings. Citations were made on how well these laws were performing in 17 other states, but there’s hardly any quantifiable data that proves these laws have ever stopped a mass shooting.

In fact, in one of the most cited pieces of “proof” that claims these laws save lives, even the authors of the study claim it can’t be proven.

“It is impossible to know whether violence would have occurred had [extreme risk protection orders] not been issued,” they claim.

At this point, the bill is making its way over to the House, which it’s likely that it will pass under the Democratic majority at the General Assembly. Democrats in Richmond have made it clear that they couldn’t care less about the 22,000 people that protested the “red flag” law.

In previous years, there were attempts to pass these kinds of laws, but the Republican-controlled committees struck down the bills before they could make any significant progress. Clearly, Democrats are showing that they intend to push everything on their agenda, without paying any mind to methods of bipartisan compromise…………

Two hundred Americans to face quarantine in California

Some 200 US citizens are due to be quarantined in California after arriving from Wuhan, China amid the coronavirus oubreak.

The passengers, mostly diplomats, were evacuated via a chartered flight that landed on US soil on Wednesday.

They will be quarantined for at least 72 hours, but could be kept isolated for up to two weeks if they have any symptoms, officials said.

The flight landed at a US air base near Riverside, California.

Earlier, the flight stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, to refuel while the 201 were given an initial screen for symptoms. None exhibited any signs of the coronavirus, according to the state’s chief medical officer. Five cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the US as of Tuesday.

The Department of State, which chartered the flight, said places aboard were offered to government workers, with unfilled seats sold to US citizens on a “reimbursable basis”, though it was unclear if the agency was offering to pay back the reported $1,000 per ticket cost.

It was originally scheduled to land at the civilian Ontario International Airport, some 30 miles (48km) from Los Angeles, but was diverted to the March Air Reserve military base.

The Ontario airport had prepared for the arrival of the chartered flight on Tuesday by setting up showers, bathrooms and beds in a hangar. The decision to move the flight to the air base came that evening.

The switch was made for logistical reasons, Curt Hagman, a San Bernardino county official said.

Yeah, the logistic idiocy of housing these people in a ‘hurry-up’ barracks at a public airport instead of flying them direct to a military base with the attendant security already in place.

Mexican children pictured taking up rifles for community police force after cartel attack

Grupos de autodefensa juvenil para la victoria!

Children who have been recruited as soldiers in Mexico

I feel the need, the need for AKs.

Nearly two dozen Mexican children whose fathers, all musicians, were killed last week in an attack blamed on a drug cartel were photographed taking up arms for an indigenous community’s police force.

Around 20 children, who range in age from 8 to 14 years old, according to the BBC, were depicted holding rifles and carrying out military-style exercises in the town of Chilapa, 200 miles south of Mexico City.

A total of 10 musicians were killed in an ambush while returning home from a performance — and some of the boys in the photos are believed to be their sons, the BBC added…….

A group that represents local indigenous people told the BBC that the children are being trained to defend Chilapa from gangs. Community police forces are said to be common in the region.

Local media claimed the photos were taken to send a message to Mexico’s president that there needs to be more security forces sent there.

Sutter County Sheriff Alerts CCW Permit Holders About Public Records Request From SF Newspaper

YUBA CITY (CBS13) – The Sutter County Sheriff is alerting concealed carry weapons holders after a public records request prompted him to release some of their information.

Sheriff Brandon Barnes says the San Francisco Chronicle recently put in the request for information about CCW permit applications and permit holders.

The sheriff says he “personally” declined to release much of the information requested, but was advised by the county counsel to provide some data. CCW permit numbers, the names of permit holders, and the dates of issue and expiration have been released.

Exactly what the Chronicle is using the information for has not been stated, according to the sheriff’s office.

I know what they want the information for, to ‘out’ people who have CC permits no matter the denials.

On Tuesday, the sheriff’s office posted the letter they will be sending out to CCW permit holders in the coming weeks.

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In response to the sheriff’s decision to publicize the Chronicle’s request and to notify CCW permit holders, San Francisco Chronicle Editor In Chief Audrey Cooper issued the following statement:

“I am deeply disturbed by how some sheriffs have handled a routine request for public information from a respected and established news outlet. As a result, they have put our journalists in personal danger for their own political gain.

“It is a journalist’s job to investigate trends, and we do not intend on publishing personal information of private citizens. Unfortunately, the sheriffs sought to play up distrust in media when it became clear that they cannot deny access to public information.”

Cooper later added the newspaper would refine its Public Records Act request out of concern for their reporter’s safety. His name will be removed. Cooper will instead use her name in the Chronicle’s request for the data.

Sheriff Barnes says he will alert CCW permit holders if any more information is requested.

What that CNN clip of Don Lemon, Rick Wilson, and Wajahat Ali tells us about the election ahead

By now, nearly every citizen near a television or computer has seen the clip of Don Lemon, Rick Wilson, and Wajahat Ali mocking and degrading Trump and his supporters in a particularly poisonous way.  Andrea Widburg today points out what a gift this is to the Trump campaign, and the GOP has already released an ad using it.

Don Lemon is actually the stupidest man on television, as Mark Levin often remarks, so no one expects anything other than rank infantile behavior from him. He is a child in an adult body and fortunately has no children.

Rick Wilson bills himself as a Republican strategist, but he has long been a vicious anti-Trump hysteric. He is no Republican; if he were, he would embrace President Trump, who has implemented more conservative policies than Reagan did in his first three years. Like all the other NeverTrumps, he hates this president more than he believes in his own previously held conservative principles.

Thanks to President Donald Trump, we now all know who the phony conservatives were and are. Their objections to Trump are to him personally, the fact that he is not one of them. This club of self-appointed super-elite elites simply cannot abide a clever fox in their henhouse. They are a pathetic bunch of whiners, but not all of them are as cluelessly vicious as Rick Wilson. He’s a really big player; his most recent job was working for Evan McMullin’s presidential campaign. The most distressing thing, if you read his bio, is that he has adult kids! And we wonder how and why so many young people are so venomous and spiteful. Perhaps it is not just social media. Perhaps they are learning it at their parents’ knees……………

What we saw on that CNN clip of Lemon and Wilson isn’t shocking; the underlying attitudes are the norm on that network, as they are on MSNBC as well.  The big three networks are very nearly on the same page.  George Stephanopoulos, formerly of the Clinton War Room, couldn’t bear to allow Jay Sekulow to answer questions for reporters after the day’s impeachment trial in the Senate last Friday and ordered the video feed cut.  SNL and all of the late-night comics are even more brutal toward the president and his supporters.

This is who the Left is today: cruel, vicious, disrespectful of any opinions that differ from its own.  And because those are the only outlets the Left sees, leftists think this brand of personal attacks is not only acceptable, but necessary, their coin of the realm…………………

The Only Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Struggle is Another War

“Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!” — Patrick Henry

The Editors of The Washington Post are stuck on an ideal of a Middle East peace plan that has not brought any success over the last 52 years.

Trump and Netanyahu have made Mideast peace an even more distant prospect

By Editorial Board | January 28, 2020 | 7:45 p.m. EST

The Mideast peace plan that President Trump unveiled at the White House Tuesday amounts, as a practical matter, to another one-sided gift to the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Trump promised U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and all of the settlements Israel has constructed in the West Bank — a radical shift in a half-century-old American policy.

Mr. Netanyahu, who gleefully pledged to immediately “apply Israeli law to all areas the plan recognizes,” reciprocated by calling Mr. Trump “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.” Mr. Trump can be expected to flog that endorsement as he seeks reelection this year. Mr. Netanyahu, in turn, will present himself to Israeli voters in a March election as the leader who extracted once-unimaginable concessions from Washington. Both leaders can hope to distract from ongoing scandals: Mr. Trump from his impeachment trial and Mr. Netanyahu from his indictment Tuesday on corruption charges.

U.S. sanctions for the annexation of settlements will meanwhile deliver a devastating blow to the prospects for a two-state resolution between Israelis and Palestinians. Those who actually favor that, as we do, will have to hope that the remainder of the plan is soon forgotten. Otherwise, it may provide a new set of benchmarks that will make peace impossible and from which future Israeli and U.S. governments will find it hard to retreat.

The supposed outlines of a split-the-differences Arab-Israeli peace deal have been known since 1967. At the end of his term, President Clinton got then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to agree to a plan, but Palestinian ‘President’ Yassir Arafat threw them back in his face. Mr Clinton told Mr Arafat that it was the best deal he could ever hope to have gotten, but it wan’t good enough for him. Former President Jimmy Carter supposedly said that had Mr Arafat accepted the deal, he would have been assassinated by his own people, which is probably true.

The Post’s editorial position stems from one thing: the Western belief that good people can settle any dispute peaceably, if they’ll just try hard enough. Such an attitude led Neville Chamberlain to believe that he could make a deal with Adolf Hitler. But the notion fails the test in the Middle East on two points:

The notion that both parties are accept Western ideas and genuinely want peace; and The notion that there are good people on both sides.
The first problem is that, for far too many of the Palestinians, the only peace that they want is the peace achieved from victory, a peace which would accrue from their oft-stated desire to push all of the Jews out of the Middle East. They do not want peace with Israel; they want to conquer Israel, to destroy Israel as a Jewish nation.

In World War II, the last war we actually won, it was won but the wholesale slaughter of German and Japanese troops, by virtually destroying those two nations through massive bombing campaigns, by killing civilians, men, women, children and the elderly until Hell wouldn’t have it any more, and by not only killing the soldiers in combat, but much of the next group of boys who would soon reach fighting age. There simply weren’t many adolescent boys in Germany and Japan who were itching for their turn in uniform, to reverse and avenge their countries’ defeats.

That isn’t what has happened in the Middle East. The Israelis have fought four major wars with the Arabs, but when the Arabs sued for peace when bloodied but hardly destroyed, the Israelis agreed. That left the adolescent boys to grow up, thinking that they could have won, and would win the next skirmishes, the next war. The Israelis left hope, hope of victory, alive in the Palestinians.

And the Israelis left the Palestinians in place. If Israel had wanted to keep the lands it conquered in 1967, it should have expelled all of the Arabs living in the conquered territory. It would have been inhumane and brutal, but had it been done, Israel today would have shortened, more defensible borders. By leaving the Arabs in place, the Israelis allowed a captive and restive population to live under their rule, always resentful, always plotting, always seeking to reverse their fortunes. The Israelis of 1967-68 left their successors in an untenable and unsustainable position.

The second problem is that they really are not good people on both sides. The Palestinians are in a position unique in history, having the ability to win their war of independence, if a two-state solution is really what they want, by not fighting, by stopping the low-level terrorist attacks. If they would just quit fighting, it wouldn’t take many years before the Israelis, tired of the incessant, low-level war, would force their government to grant the Palestinians their state.

But as long as the Palestinians keep fighting, the easier it becomes for Israel to plant more and more settlements in Judea and Samaria. There probably are some good people among the Arabs, but there are enough not good people, in Hamas, in Hezbollah, in al Fatah, who are far less interested in peace than they are in fighting. Until the Palestinians suppress, rather than supporting, the fighters, there will be no peace.

There is an obvious truth, one from which Western minds recoil: the only solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute is another war, an all-out war in which one side is so thoroughly defeated that surrender and evacuation is the only alternative to death. It is jarring to our Western minds and morés and ideals to think about that, but it makes it no less true.

Panic About Peaceful Protest Reveals Gun Controllers’ Bigotry: Erroneous Predictions of Violence at the Richmond Rally Conflated Civil Libertarians With Militant Racists

After a gun rights rally in Richmond came and went last week without the “violence, rioting, and insurrection” predicted by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, Talia Lavin could not believe her eyes, and she urged the rest of us not to believe our eyes either. “It seems myopic at best to describe the Monday event as ‘peaceful,'” Lavin wrote in a GQ article about the rally, which attracted thousands of armed Second Amendment supporters energized by Northam’s gun control agenda.

Lavin’s reality-bending assessment reflects a Manichean attitude, all too common among gun control supporters, that casts sincere policy disagreements as a battle between good and evil. That attitude explains why so many activists, politicians and journalists found it easy to equate a gathering of civil libertarians, organized around the defense of constitutional rights, with an invasion by white supremacists determined to sow chaos and provoke a race war.

Explaining his executive order banning firearms from Richmond’s Capitol Square during an annual demonstration organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Northam invoked the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, which featured explicit racism, clashes between protesters and counterprotesters and deadly vehicular violence. Northam said the VCDL rally, which had been held without violence for nearly two decades, this year justified a “state of emergency” because “credible intelligence gathered by Virginia’s law enforcement agencies” suggested it would attract militant racists bent on “storming the Capitol.”

Northam’s gun ban, which implicated the First Amendment as well as the Second given the obvious expressive value of bearing arms at a rally defending the right to do so, seemed blatantly illegal. A 2012 Virginia law that Northam himself supported as a state legislator bars the governor from using a state of emergency as an excuse to “prohibit the rights of the people to keep and bear arms,” including the “otherwise lawful” public possession of guns. The only exception is for restrictions “necessary to ensure public safety” in “an emergency shelter.”

The factual basis for Northam’s order was nearly as weak. The Associated Press reported that “Northam has grown increasingly concerned about numerous ominous-sounding postings on social media from forces outside Virginia,” but “the state does not have intelligence that the groups are planning a specific act of violence.”

The strongest evidence of incipient violence was the FBI’s Jan. 16 arrest of three Neo-Nazi knuckleheads who had talked about attending the VCDL demonstration in the hope of triggering a “full-blown civil war.” Lavin averred that the men “had planned to open fire into the crowd” — not the smartest strategy given what she described as “a spectacular arsenal of weaponry” possessed by that crowd.

The press nevertheless did its best to make Northam’s nightmare seem plausible. The New York Times mentioned Gun Owners of America, a Virginia-based organization dedicated to defending the Second Amendment, in the same breath as the out-of-state “hate groups” that supposedly planned to turn the rally into a “boogaloo” — “an event that will accelerate the race war they have anticipated for decades.”

The Times also described VCDL President Philip Van Cleave as an “extremist,” based on this Goldwater-esque quote from a letter to the editor he wrote last July: “There’s nothing wrong with being extreme in the preservation of our civil rights. VCDL is proud to be categorized as an extremist organization, and we fully intend to continue being such!” Hence the print headline over the paper’s profile of Van Cleave: “Self-Described Extremist Calls for ‘Peaceful Event.'”

Northam predictably attributed the lack of violence at the rally to his prudent preparations. But while police, per his order, prevented the 6,000 or so protesters who entered Capitol Square from carrying firearms, many more — some 16,000, according to local authorities — participated from outside the perimeter, where guns were very much in evidence.

“Today showed that when people disagree, they can do so peacefully,” Northam said. When the subject is guns, unfortunately, they cannot do so without being tarred as brutal bigots.

Trump makes Palestine an offer too good to refuse.

Click for a larger image.

Today, President Trump followed through with a Middle East proposal that creates a Palestinian state, opens Temple Mount to all three Abrahamic religions, and invests $50 billion to create a million jobs for Palestinians…….

The plan states, “The sovereign capital of the State of Palestine should be in the section of East Jerusalem located in all areas east and north of the existing security barrier, including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis, and could be named Al Quds or another name as determined by the State of Palestine.”

That’s a huge concession by Israel.

Palestinians angrily reject Trump Mideast peace plan.

They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said “a thousand no’s” to the Mideast peace plan announced Tuesday by President Donald Trump, which strongly favors Israel.

The Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem, Abbas said at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered.

“After the nonsense that we heard today we say a thousand no’s to the Deal of The Century,” he said.

The plan would create a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank, but would allow Israel to annex its settlements in the occupied territory. The plan would allow the Palestinians to establish a capital on the outskirts of east Jerusalem but would leave most of the city under Israeli control.

“We will not kneel and we will not surrender,” Abbas said, adding that the Palestinians would resist the plan through “peaceful, popular means.”

The Islamic militant group Hamas rejected the “conspiracies” announced by the U.S. and Israel and said “all options are open” in responding to the Trump administration’s plan.

Biden Prods Man in Tense Confrontation at Campaign Event: ‘Go Vote For Someone Else.’

One gaffe after another.

Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden repeatedly prodded a man in the chest before telling him to “go vote for someone else,” during a campaign event in Iowa this week, after the man asked about Biden’s stance on gas pipelines.

“I’m gonna support you if you win the nomination because we’ve got to get rid of Trump, but what are we going to do about climate change?” asked the man. “Now, you say you’re against pipelines, but then you want to replace these gas lines, and that’s not gonna work. We’ve got to stop building and replacing pipelines.”

Biden responded by moving in close to the man and prodding his chest, before telling him to “go vote for someone else.”

Paul mentioned this in a comment on a previous post.
It bears serious reading.

Why Liberals Can’t Listen

When Cathy Newman’s absurdly hilarious interview with Jordan Peterson exploded across the internet, it wasn’t just because it was so funny. To a lot of conservatives, myself included, it sounded way too familiar. What we’ve known for a long time, Cathy Newman made blindingly obvious: Liberals really don’t listen. Maybe liberals can’t listen.

I’m seeing it again in a book I’m reading on the history of America’s culture wars. Conservatives’ opposition to new views on morality in the 1910s and 20s was “driven by fear,” the author says. Never mind that when the Pope Pius XI weighed in on the question, his answer was balanced, focused both on the real good that comes for all from true morality, and what dangers may follow upon straying from it. No, it was all “driven by fear.”

Liberals don’t see both sides. In fact, it’s almost as if they can’t. Or maybe we should drop “almost” from that sentence. For there’s some fascinating — and disturbing — research that says conservatives have the ability to understand liberals, but liberals literally can’t understand conservatives.

It has a lot to do with seeing moral issues from multiple points of view. The Pope could do it; can liberals?

I’m sure they think they can. Suppose you went out and struck up a conversation with a liberal friend of yours, or a teacher or a co-worker. Suppose you asked them, “Who’s better at seeing moral issues from more than one point of view: liberals or conservatives?” What would you bet they’d claim they could do it better? I’d put a lot of money down on that one.

Five Moral Foundations

But then along comes New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He and his research team set out on a global project seeking to understand human morality. They found that wherever you go, you’ll find five basic “moral foundations”: Caring, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity. He explains all this brilliantly in a TED talk, if you can overlook some lingering bias. (In his book The Righteous Mind he includes a sixth, Liberty.)

But there’s more. Haidt found a glaring difference between people on the left and people on the right. Conservatives, by and large, tend to live with all five of these moral dimensions in balance. Liberals don’t. They’re strong on Care and Fairness, but they’re weak on Loyalty, Authority and Purity.

And that’s a problem. Jonathan Haidt, who viewed himself as a liberal before doing this study, extended his research to look at what societies need in order to maintain stability and security. And he realized it isn’t just the left’s favorite pair. It takes all five moral categories. He paid attention: he’s a moderate now.

Conservatives could do it. Liberals couldn’t.

The Really Interesting Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives

But hang on — we’re just now getting to the interesting part. Haidt asked liberals and conservatives to put themselves in one another’s shoes; to imagine how the other side would answer a list of ethical questions. Conservatives could do it. Liberals couldn’t. People on the right had the ability to understand people on the left; even to empathize with them to a degree. People on the left couldn’t do the same in return.

The reason, Haidt says, is because liberals’ moral scope is unbalanced. They’re so focused on Care and Fairness, they can’t imagine anyone thinking other values being important. Therefore, he says in this excerpt from his book The Righteous Mind, “If you don’t see that Reagan is pursuing positive values of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity, you almost have to conclude that Republicans see no positive value in Care and Fairness.”

And if we don’t value Care and Fairness — liberals’ most important values, by far — then we must be Really Awful People.

Misunderstanding Conservatism

Think I’m overstating it? Go back to the link and re-read the rest of the excerpt. Read the New York theater critic who wrote, “Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. … I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm).”

It isn’t just that liberals don’t want to understand us. Many of them simply can’t. Not without considerable effort and coaching, at any rate; but which of them puts in that effort? Why would anyone want to empathize with Really Awful People? “Many readers,” writes Haidt, “ stayed locked inside their Care-based moral matrices and refused to believe that conservatism was an alternative moral vision.” He continues, “One reader … thought it was ‘sad’ that Republican narcissism would prevent them from understanding my perspective on their ‘illness.’”

We could go on all day explaining our positive reasons for the positions we take; all they’ll hear is us playing cover-up games. We must be driven by fear. Or power, or hate. Anything but decency. “What you’re really saying is…”

They can’t even imagine anything better of us. Why? According to Haidt, they don’t have a place in their minds to process Loyalty, Authority or Purity. For a large proportion of the liberal world, those values don’t even belong in the “ethics” category — even though human societies can’t survive without them.

So What Do We Do?

Need I say it? There’s no magic formula to fix this. It’s going to take time, and patience, and even love on our part, along with constant clear explanation of who we are and what we believe. It’s going to take real relationships, in other words.

Even that, though, may be difficult, since both conservatives and liberals have gotten ourselves fenced off in different towns and cities, or different parts of town, and certainly on different parts of the internet. It’s going to take real relational outreach on our part, in other words.

And even then nothing is guaranteed. Considering how many people ignored Jesus right up until the end of His life — and how eager some of them were to end His life — we need to be realistic with our expectations.

Yet some responded to Him then, and some will respond still today. I’m not giving up. And in the meantime, I for one find this insight from Haidt to be very interesting — and helpful.

WHO Has Admitted an Error in Its Assessment of Wuhan Coronavirus Risk.

The World Health Organization, which has sometimes been criticised for its handling of past disease outbreaks, admitted an error on Monday in its risk assessment of China’s deadly virus.

The Geneva-based UN agency said in a situation report late Sunday that the risk was “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”

In a footnote, the WHO explained that it had stated “incorrectly” in its previous reports on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that the global risk was “moderate”.

The correction of the global risk assessment does not mean that an international health emergency has been declared.

The WHO on Thursday stopped short of declaring the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern – a rare designation used only for the worst outbreaks that would trigger more concerted global action.

The virus, which was first identified in the city of Wuhan in China on December 31, has since infected more than 2,700 people worldwide, including a few cases identified in over a dozen other countries.

Eighty-one people have died – all of them in China.

A ‘sizeable’ mistake

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is visiting China this week to discuss ways of containing the outbreak, came under intense questioning from reporters on Thursday over his decision not to declare the emergency.

Some reporters asked whether the decision was politicised.

At the briefing at WHO headquarters, however, Tedros had said that the designation could be changed at any moment and that the global risk from the outbreak was “high”.

“This is an emergency in China but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one,” he said.

“WHO’s risk assessment is that the outbreak is a very high risk in China, and a high risk regionally and globally.”

Brown County 13-year-old shoots man assaulting teen’s grandmother

Yet, the demoncraps want any access to a gun to be illegal for anyone younger than 21. Tell that to grandma.

Brownwood News – According to a press release from the Brown County Sheriff’s Department, on Sunday, January 26, 2020, Brown County deputies responded to a domestic disturbance with reported shots fired.

Deputies arrived and found an adult male with a gunshot wound to his lower back. Deputies learned that the subject that had been shot was actively assaulting his mother. Another family member, a 13 year-old male, shot the subject with a .30-30 cal. rifle because he was fearful that his grandmother was going to be killed. Deputies also learned that the subject that was shot had threatened several members of the family and had threatened to kill a juvenile family member.

The subject that was shot was transported by helicopter to an out of town hospital. No arrests are anticipated, according to the Brown County Sheriff’s Department.


Armed gas station clerk shoots perp in the leg to stop attempted knifepoint robbery

DULUTH, Ga. — A gas station clerk shot a man and stopped an alleged attempted robbery at knifepoint before it really began early Tuesday morning, according to Duluth Police.

The department said that around 3:35 a.m., 21-year-old Christian Saint Amour rushed with a knife into the gas station mart at a Shell on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

“Surveillance video showed a black male run into the Shell, with a red shirt covering his face armed with a knife,” a release said.

Police described how the “male continued to run in the store towards the cashier area still armed with the knife,” before he was stopped in his tracks by the store’s armed cashier.

“At this time, the cashier shot the armed male one time in the left leg,” the release said.

According to police, the cashier then called 911. When officers arrived, they found Saint Amour lying on the floor of the store, and they gave him first aid.

He was taken to the hospital by the Gwinnett County Fire Department. Police have since charged Saint Amour with attempted armed robbery, aggravated assault, possession of a knife during the commission of a felony and wearing a mask to conceal identity.