Mandates Won’t Immunize Against Crime

Cities imposing vaccine requirements on public employees are making their police-retention problems worse—and endangering public safety.

In recent weeks, police unions, in step with thousands of police officers in major American cities, have vigorously resisted and protested vaccine mandates, leading to the possibility that many departments will soon face crippling labor shortages. While providing questionable public-health benefits, mandates thus threaten to make the problem of rising violent crime even worse.

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The Media’s Verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse

Why so many got this story so wrong.

Here is what I thought was true about Kyle Rittenhouse during the last days of August 2020 based on mainstream media accounts: The 17-year-old was a racist vigilante. I thought he drove across state lines, to Kenosha, Wisc., with an illegally acquired semi-automatic rifle to a town to which he had no connection. I thought he went there because he knew there were Black Lives Matter protests and he wanted to start a fight. And I thought that by the end of the evening of August 25, 2020, he had done just that, killing two peaceful protestors and injuring a third.

It turns out that account was mostly wrong.

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Malign Foreign Influence: China’s United Front

China obsesses over what the world thinks of it. Its rise to rival the US as the world’s greatest economic superpower includes a strong psychological element. China seeks not to be feared, but as having peaceful intentions. Looking at its use of “united front” tactics reveals how China’s messaging seeks to convince gullible people in the West that Chinese interests are really their interests, too. This is one example where Chinese communism borrows “Russian characteristics,” using the old Soviet tactic of “united front” groups that wittingly or not do their bidding.

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Biden fails to mention top fentanyl exporter China in comments on 100K US drug overdoses

President Biden on Wednesday released a statement mourning the more than 100,000 Americans who died last year from drug overdoses — without mentioning China’s leading role exporting fentanyl, which drove the 29 percent annual increase in deaths.

Nearly two-thirds of deaths were caused by fentanyl and related synthetic opioids that can kill a person at extremely low doses. Fentanyl is increasingly added to non-opioid drugs such as cocaine and counterfeit prescriptions.

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More people are referred to UK’s Prevent programme for having extreme far-right views than Islamist radicalisation for first time … PC bias suspected

Under the Prevent programme, local authority staff and other professionals such as doctors, teachers and social workers have a duty to flag concerns about an individual being radicalised or drawn into a terrorism.

Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project, today suggested research was needed about what was driving referrals and why they were ‘out of kilter’.

He told MailOnline: ‘Nobody can dispute these statistics as a matter of fact. Nor is it sensible to ignore extreme right wing ideology as a driver of violent extremism.

‘But we should also be asking about what is driving these referrals and why they are so out of kilter with the clear and present danger of Islamist extremism which in terms of lethality and potential dwarfs extreme right wing ones.’

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Federal health research funding agency cuts ties with Carrie Bourassa, who falsely claimed Indigenous ancestry

Canada’s federal agency for funding health research has cut ties with University of Saskatchewan Prof. Carrie Bourassa, following a CBC News investigation casting doubt on her claims to Indigeneity.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) made the announcement Wednesday afternoon.

Until recently, Bourassa was the scientific director of the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health (IIPH), one of 13 CIHR institutes. It provides much of the funding in Canada for health research focused on Indigenous people.

What motivates this behavior? I suspect in some instances it originates in a good place that ends up a twisted delusion. Certainly money and career advancement are the sole motivators for some. Pity Archie ain’t round to enlighten us.

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Feds Indict Iranians For Election Interference Effort To Pose As Proud Boys Engaged With Trump Campaign & Threaten Democrats

Federal agents say hackers pretended to be Proud Boys in messages to Republican lawmakers and targeted Democratic voters with threats.

Two Iranians ran a “targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans,” a top Justice Department official said Thursday.

Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, were charged in an indictment unsealed on Thursday.

The indictment alleges that the hackers got information off of state voter information websites, pretended to be “Proud Boys volunteers” in sending messages to Republican elected officials and members of Donald Trump’s campaign, and intimidated Democratic voters. They also tried to use stolen credentials to get into an American media company’s system.

Sure this wasn’t Comey?

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‘Jump-kick man’ who was filmed kicking Kyle Rittenhouse in the head before the teen shot at him is revealed as a woman beating career criminal

A career criminal and convicted felon with an open domestic violence charge has claimed to be the unidentified male at whom Kyle Rittenhouse shot twice at close range but missed, on the night of August 25, 2020.

Rittenhouse has been charged with First Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety of the man known in trial only as ‘jump-kick man,’ for the flying kick he took at the teenager’s head as Rittenhouse was attacked minutes after he shot Joseph Rosenbaum dead.

Now Maurice Freeland, 39, has admitted that he was the one who kicked Rittenhouse in the head and narrowly avoided being shot as a result, after the then 17-year-old stumbled to the ground as he attempted to flee.

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FDA Asks Court for 55 Years to Fully Release Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Data

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked a federal judge on Nov. 15 to give it until the year 2076 to fully release the documents in its possession tied to the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA’s request was made in a filing as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by a medical transparency group. The government told the court it has 329,000 pages of documents responsive to the FOIA request and proposed releasing 500 pages per month to allow for redactions of exempt material. At that rate, the FDA would fully release the records in question in just under 55 years.

h/t SDMatt, Ingenui

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Renowned gunsmith killed in Toronto police raid. Family, experts want to know why

‘When you enter the shop of a gunsmith, what the heck do you expect to see?’ asks Kotanko family lawyer

Jeffrey Kotanko says he was planning to visit his 70-year-old brother Rodger on Nov. 3 and go fishing with him later that day.

The two brothers met almost every day for the past 14 years. They lived minutes away from one another in Norfolk County, deep in southern Ontario near Lake Erie.

But that Wednesday, they didn’t go fishing.

Possible “No Knock” warrant? On a gunsmith?

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