What Newt's Reading | June 24, 2020

What Newt’s Reading Strict gun control plus fewer, more cautious cops equals a surge in shootings and murders. – Newt When Cops Aren’t on the Beat By The Editorial Board Wall Street Journal This past weekend in Chicago, 104 people were shot and 14 of them died. Among the dead was a 13-year-old girl. In New York City, meantime, shootings are soaring “after police disbanded the plainclothes anti-crime units that helped to keep guns off the streets.” The offers were reassigned to other units as part of the shutdown of “stop and frisk” policing, which progressives targeted in the courts. “New York and Chicago have strict gun laws, but don’t blame police if they’re cautious in enforcing them these days. The price for this caution will be more violent crime.” A Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor caved to the mob in a rush to prosecute the police officers involved in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks. – Newt Brooks Shooting: The Political Prosecutor Caves In to the Mob By Andrew C. McCarthy National Review In Georgia, Fulton County prosecutor Paul Howard Jr. has charged former police officer Garrett Rolfe with felony murder in connection with the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks. Brooks was violently resisting arrest and attempting to flee the scene. “But in the wake of George Floyd’s recent killing by Minneapolis police officers, the Black Lives Matter demagogues refuse to wait for evidence-based conclusions. They will tolerate no storyline other than the slanderous fiction that we are all expected not just to abide but endorse: Institutionally racist cops are hunting down black men.” So, Howard did not wait for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to finish investigating the killing and instead charged Rolfe. The allegation is ludicrous, but this is what happens when political leaders submit to the mob. Ignorance is dangerous. Those trying to erase our history (good or bad) should educate themselves on who historic figures were before we rewrite our past. – Newt Liberal Media and Democrats Fan the Flames of Civil Rights Ignorance By Scott Walker Washington Times Ignorance is dangerous. Rioters recently defaced the statue of Matthias Baldwin outside of the city hall in Philadelphia. Clearly, the rioters knew nothing about Baldwin, who lived an incredible life and spoke out for the abolition of slavery. The rioters are not the only ones who are ignorant. Indeed, “several media outlets have referred to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who infamously stood in the schoolhouse door to try and block black students from entering schools with white students, as a Republican. He was a Democrat.” Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, and anti-desegregation. In fact, recently released letters show Joe Biden asking for support for a bill that opposed busing to desegregate schools. Republicans, meanwhile, were the party of Lincoln, Reconstruction, anti-lynching laws, and the civil rights acts. “Vandals should actually learn about many of the leaders for equality and freedom that we honor in our memorials across America.” Democrat Gov. Ned Lamont is right about not extending unemployment benefits. How long before his progressive leaders in Washington punish him for stepping out of line? – Newt Ned Lamont Says the Unspeakable By The Editorial Board Wall Street Journal Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is a progressive Democrat, but he recently said he opposes an extension of the federal government’s $600-a-week enhanced unemployment benefit when it expires on July 31. He argued that the benefit is unnecessary and discourages work. “Better hire a food taster, governor. That position is contrary to the universal view among Democrats in Washington.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D., Calif.) Heroes Act, for example, which passed the House, would extend the benefit through January 2021. There is tension between governors who want their state economies to recover and Democrats in Washington who “want to supplement lost private incomes with government transfer payments.” China’s recent aggression against India is part of its broader push to reshape a distracted world to its own benefit. This effort threatens America, which must lead an international effort to counter Chinese belligerence. – Newt From India’s Himalayan Border to Our Local Cell Networks, It’s Time to Push Back Against China By Cleo Paskal Quillette High in the Himalayan mountains last week, Chinese troops ambushed Indian soldiers on the Indian side of their shared border. Twenty Indians were killed. China won’t disclosed how many Chinese were killed. The clash, the deadliest confrontation on the border in more than four decades, has raised tensions between Beijing and New Delhi. More broadly, it is “part of a larger recent pattern with China. From the South China Sea, to Taiwan, to Hong Kong, Beijing has been seeking to change facts on the ground in a way that benefits its own strategic and economic interests.” Indeed, in recent weeks, there have been Chinese incursions at several points along The Line of Actual Control separating China and India. “The Indian border is only one of the many fronts on which China has been taking advantage of the worldwide economic downturn and political paralysis caused by COVID-19 to move aggressively.” The US under President Trump has taken important steps to push back against China’s aggression. Other countries are helping, but there is more work to do. “From the mountains of the Himalayas, to the capital markets, to your local cell phone tower, China is trying to reshape the international order to its own benefit. Even in a world distracted by many other crises, this should be recognized as a threat that demands a unified international response.”

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