September 18-19, 2016
Sep 18 00:22 The ACC's deeply held convictions? Sep 18 01:47 Crossroads Mall terrorist attack? Sep 18 04:20 PCAs, SEIU & decertification Sep 18 11:55 St. Cloud stabber was ISIS fighter Sep 18 18:55 Jason Falconer: a hero's hero Sep 19 03:34 The PR campaign starts Sep 19 05:19 Exposing CAIR's misguided thinking
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Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
The ACC's deeply held convictions?
When the ACC decided to move 7 athletic championships out of North Carolina , their statement said "As members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the ACC Council of Presidents reaffirmed our collective commitment to uphold the values of equality, diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination. Every one of our 15 universities is strongly committed to these values and therefore, we will continue to host ACC Championships at campus sites. We believe North Carolina House Bill 2 is inconsistent with these values, and as a result, we will relocate all neutral site championships for the 2016-17 academic year. All locations will be announced in the future from the conference office."
Franklin Graham's letter to the ACC highlighted the ACC's situational commitment to their "collective commitment to uphold the values of equality, diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination." A different way of putting that would be to say Franklin Graham highlighted the ACC's hypocrisy. Here's an example of how Rev. Graham highlighted their hypocrisy:
For example, the football championship game your conference voted to move from Charlotte in December is called the "Dr. Pepper ACC Football Championship." Dr. Pepper and its parent company, Cadbury Schweppes and Carlyle Group, proudly sell their products in countries where homosexuality is illegal. Will the ACC drop its title sponsor? And why isn't the LGBT community demanding you sever ties with such a "bigoted" corporate sponsor?
This doesn't have anything to do with a person's religious beliefs. It's about highlighting the ACC's consistent commitment to making money. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money. It's just that I'd appreciate them not pretending like they're people of integrity.
Here's another example:
The NCAA Policy on Transgender Student-Athlete Participation states, "Any transgender student-athlete who is not taking hormone treatment related to gender transition may participate in sex-separated sports activities in accordance with his or her assigned birth gender." This is precisely what supporters of HB2 have been requesting - that people use public restrooms in accordance with their assigned birth gender.
Apparently, the ACC's leadership and the NCAA's leadership believe in situational core beliefs. Add that to their core belief in making lots of money.
Posted Sunday, September 18, 2016 12:22 AM
Comment 1 by JerryE9 at 18-Sep-16 07:12 AM
What I simply do not understand is why the uproar. All the bill did was to codify current accepted practice, so nothing really changed for anybody, for good or ill. Sounds like a tempest in a teacup, more designed to annoy then to pursue any legitimate principle.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 18-Sep-16 10:54 AM
That's the point. With these activists, the status quo is unacceptable.
Crossroads Mall terrorist attack?
The St. Cloud Times is reporting that there's been a shooting at Crossroads Mall . Two hours after this article reported that "St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the incident took place around 8 p.m. local time. Police said the suspect yelled out "Allah" and asked shoppers if they were Muslim. Police said that the man was wearing a security uniform", the Times added that information to their article.
To be fair, the Times reported that "St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said [that an] off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction shot and killed the suspect. Anderson did not say where that officer serves." KVSC, the SCSU radio station, is reporting "One assailant is dead and another is in custody as St. Cloud Police continue to investigate the stabbing at Crossroads Mall. An officer, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the ongoing case, says the first suspect was shot."
As more information comes in, it's apparent that this was a terrorist attack. It's apparent, too, that this wasn't random, not with 2 assailants in the Mall at the same time. The thing that isn't clear is whether the terrorists were former Somali refugees. That's a distinct possibility because a high percentage of Muslims in St. Cloud are Somali refugees.
That isn't a bigoted statement. It's a statement of statistical fact, nothing more.
Posted Sunday, September 18, 2016 1:47 AM
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PCAs, SEIU & decertification
Will PCAs vote for decertification? If they're persuaded by Jason Flohrs' op-ed , the SEIU will see a significant drop in revenues.
Gov. Dayton and the SEIU got away with rigging an election. That's because "less than 6,000 of the state's 27,000 PCAs voted" to have the SEIU represent PCAs. The question that the SEIU and Gov. Dayton haven't answered is why all PCAs weren't given the right to vote to organize or not organize.
What's insulting is the fact that Gov. Dayton signed a bill that defined these PCAs as government employees. In many instances, they're family members taking care of other family members. According to SEIU, they're government employees "because they receive a small Medicaid subsidy to care for the disabled person." That's how in-the-bag for the government unions Gov. Dayton is.
It's important to distinguish between Gov. Dayton's love of public employee unions and his apathy towards pipefitters, heavy equipment operators and miners. If you're a miner, Gov. Dayton thinks you're a second-class citizen. But I digress.
As Kris Greene, a PCA in Minnesota told the Daily Caller, the union has "not benefited me or my family. I really feel it's about politics and not for me or my daughter: I just want to take care of my daughter in the best way that she needs and all this other stuff is just interference."
Thankfully for Greene and the thousands of other Minnesota home caregivers who want to care for their loved one without the union skimming off the top, there is a remedy: Decertifying the union. If Greene and her fellow PCAs are able to collect enough signatures by Nov. 20, they will force another vote, in which a majority of caregivers who participate could select to be free from unionization. At www.decertify.org, Minnesota PCAs can fill out a card to be mailed in to add their signature in support of a decertification vote.
Rest assured of this: if there's a vote on decertification, SEIU is history as far as representing the PCAs. These PCAs see the SEIU for what they are: parasites skimming 3% of their Medicaid subsidy, then doing nothing in return for their 'representation.' It's time for these PCAs to rid themselves of these SEIU parasites.
Posted Sunday, September 18, 2016 4:20 AM
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St. Cloud stabber was ISIS fighter
According to this article , ISIS is taking credit for the stabbing spree at Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud.
This morning, they issued this statement, saying "The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition."
ISIS wasn't the only person issuing a statement Sunday morning. US Sen. Klobuchar issued a statement, saying in part "Everyone should feel safe in their community, whether they're at school or a movie theater or a shopping mall. Last night that feeling of safety was greatly shaken when an assailant stabbed eight people at the Crossroads Center Mall in St. Cloud. I have visited the mall many times, and I can't imagine the horror experienced by those visiting and working there. My heart goes out to the victims and all those who were there last night."
Noticeably missing from Sen. Klobuchar's statement was a call for knife control legislation. Noticeably missing, too, from Sen. Klobuchar's statement was her admitting that she supported President Obama's Iran deal, which transferred $150,000,000,000 to the biggest state sponsor of terrorism.
It's fitting to care about those who were attacked at Crossroads Mall last night. I don't have a problem with that. I just wish she was as passionate about stopping terrorists before they commit acts of terrorism. I'd appreciate it, too, if Sen. Klobuchar wasn't intent on inviting more terrorists into Minnesota :
MONTAGNE: Now, in a letter to the president earlier this year, you joined 13 other senators and cited a number suggested for the U.S. by a major coalition of U.S. refugee groups, 65,000 Syrian refugees. That was their number. That would be a dramatic increase. Do you think that's a realistic number?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, the U.S., since we sent the letter, has agreed to increase from the around 1,000 mark to 5 to 8,000. And Senator Durbin and I, who led the letter, see this as a positive sign and a good beginning. We're talking about it over a period of time, the 65,000. And it is actually 50 percent of what the U.N. commission on refugees suggested that we take. That's usually the ballpark of what our country does.
What type of idiot invites more potential terrorists into Minnesota? Sen. Klobuchar later said that "we have a very intense screening process for these Syrian refugees."
I wrote here that "Nicholas Rasmussen, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, admitted 'the intelligence that we have of this particular conflict zone is not as rich as we would like it to be.'"
Now that ISIS has infiltrated Minnesota and the United States, it would probably be wise to shut down the refugee resettlement program for at least a year.
Posted Sunday, September 18, 2016 11:55 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 18-Sep-16 06:59 PM
Shut it down for a least a year? Shut it down permanently and only let in those that pass an aggressive and thorough vetting process and not the liberal's idea of vetting, which is non-existent.
Jason Falconer: a hero's hero
Based on this article , it's clear that Officer Jason Falconer is a hero's hero. It's apparent that he didn't let the rampage turn deadly. For that, everyone in Crossroads Mall should thank Officer Falconer for his quick thinking and his high-quality decision-making.
According to the article, "Five minutes after authorities received the first 911 call, Jason Falconer, a part-time officer in the city of Avon, shot and killed the attacker. Anderson said Falconer fired as the attacker was lunging at him with the knife, and continued to engage him as the attacker got up three times."
One of the first things that I think might happen is that people will question whether Officer Falconer should've used deadly force. Based on the fact that the attacker kept lunging at Officer Falconer after he'd gotten shot, I think that point is settled. Officer Falconer used the right amount of force while preventing the loss of life.
If Officer Falconer is a hero, which he is, SCSU Interim President Ashish Vaidya isn't a hero after issuing this statement:
This statement is beyond laughable:
No known St. Cloud State students, faculty or staff were injured , however we understand that many from our campus community work at and frequent Crossroads Center and may have been directly impacted.
That doesn't mesh with this information:
A spokesman for St. Cloud State University confirmed that Adan was a student there , but has not been enrolled since the spring semester. Spokesman Adam Hammer said Adan's intended major was information systems, which is a computer-related field.
No SCSU students were injured but the terrorist was a former SCSU student. Talk about spinning.
Posted Sunday, September 18, 2016 6:55 PM
Comment 1 by eric z at 19-Sep-16 01:14 PM
There's an old saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight. So, there was a stabbing somewhere in St. Cloud.
I've paid more attention to Nolan West's web scrubs.
A few months back Brodkorb noted Jason Lewis had done a share of web scrubbing.
I guess all politics is local, and in St. Cloud, politics is about the stabbings and Somali community incorporation.
I think it and the New York City explosion are Trump staged events in support of his immigration posture.
Not really. But if I'd left it there your other readers would have done a big jump-on.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 19-Sep-16 04:24 PM
Pull your head out of your ass, Eric. There wasn't a stabbing somewhere in St. Cloud. There was a religiously-motivated terrorist attack at the biggest shopping mall in St. Cloud. Further, the terrorist attack is mostly about whether citizens of St. Cloud, of which I am one, can trust the Somali community because it's apparent that the Somali community is becoming radicalized. (That isn't my belief just because of the terrorist attack but also because of other things that've happened below-the-radar in St. Cloud schools.
Comment 2 by LadyLogician at 19-Sep-16 05:55 PM
Eric - if this had been a mass shooting instead of a mass stabbing you would have been all over this, like white on rice, demanding more gun control. The only reason you are SAYING you are not paying attention (because if you really weren't paying attention to it, you would not have even read this post) is because it doesn't match your agenda.
LL
The PR campaign starts
Predictably, the PR campaign has started after the terrorist attack Saturday night at Crossroads Mall. Members of the Somali community and other community leaders held "a nationally televised press conference on Sunday afternoon at Lake George."
This article contains quotes from a number of leaders. One of the quotes that I find upsetting is from Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR. He said "This is a tragedy and we hope from this tragedy we can build a better, stronger community here. A strong St. Cloud that is inclusive and welcoming for all people."
With all due respect, I don't feel inclusive when terrorists attack law-abiding citizens while they're shopping on a Saturday night. Forget about condemnations of violence. What's expected is assimilation into the American culture. It's been expected of every immigrant and refugee in US history. The US is multi-ethnic. It isn't multicultural. Period. The system that this nation's Founding Fathers put into place is pretty incredible.
That's the standard. We don't change. We expect immigrants and refugees to adapt. That's how it's done since our nation's inception.
Hassan Yussuf, community activist: "This incident should not be used to spread hate. It should be used to bring us together because it has affected me, it has affected you, it's affected everybody."
What a bunch of crap. The citizens of St. Cloud simply want neighbors that obey the rule of law. Where Islamic religious teachings depart from US law, the citizens of St. Cloud expect everyone to comply with the laws of this city and state. It isn't that complicated. If that isn't to someone's liking, there are other places to live.
UniteCloud: "Never again in our town should we see something like this. So let's find solutions. This is a test for all of us as a community. How we come out of this defines us as a community."
This isn't a test for the entire community. The entire community didn't commit a terrorist attack. The question that must be answered is whether the Somali community will conform to St. Cloud's and Minnesota's laws. If they do, they're welcome. If they won't, they aren't welcome.
It's that simple.
Pete Hegseth puts it perfectly:
It'll be interesting to see how Minnesotans react to this terrorist attack. If they're more worried about terrorism than Minnesota Nice, Hillary might spend the last 50 days getting nervous.
Posted Monday, September 19, 2016 3:34 AM
Comment 1 by Patrick-M at 20-Sep-16 06:42 AM
Very well said Gary. Would love to post this to my Facebook newsfeed if you don't mind.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 20-Sep-16 11:58 AM
Go for it. Just link back to my post.
Comment 2 by Patrick-M at 20-Sep-16 01:06 PM
will put link in the post, Thanks
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 20-Sep-16 06:16 PM
Thanks Pat.
Comment 3 by Dave steckling at 22-Sep-16 08:57 AM
The Somali leaders that stepped up to the microphone for a photo op were not there with sincerity in their hearts. The bulk came to protect their own personal businesses. Any forthcoming moratorium on refugee assistance in STC would slow down their cash flow.
They could care less about native born citizens.
Exposing CAIR's misguided thinking
It's time to put CAIR to the test. This article highlights CAIR's wrong-headed thinking.
It's insulting to read Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, say "We are hopeful that the community will come together in a difficult tragedy." I'm not the least bit worried that the community will come together. I've lived here 60 years and I've never seen a situation where the law-abiding citizens of St. Cloud didn't come together after a tragedy. That isn't the problem.
When I hear CAIR say that "there is concern about retaliation in St. Cloud because of a history of anti-Muslim sentiment here", I start getting upset. What's gotten the citizens of St. Cloud upset is the unwillingness of portions of the Somali population to assimilate. CAIR preaches inclusivity and tolerance constantly but they've never demanded that Muslim refugees assimilate.
What's troublesome is that a significant percentage of Somali refugees in Minnesota have gotten radicalized by ISIS. Until Saturday night, ISIS was just a terrorist organization that conducted terrorist attacks in Europe or that beheaded journalists in Iraq. Now, they've claimed credit for attacking a mall in the city where I've lived my entire life.
Things just got more personal for me.
"We are all responsible for the safety of community members," he said. "We are all responsible to not take an isolated incident and generalize it to reflect the larger community."
That's insulting. There is no we in this. CAIR would have us believe that the law-abiding citizens of St. Cloud are as guilty as the terrorist. We aren't. CAIR apparently thinks that not trusting Muslims is the equivalent of committing a terrorist attack. They aren't even close.
I can't repeat this enough. It's up to the refugee population to assimilate. If that happens, which I doubt, things will be just fine.
Posted Monday, September 19, 2016 5:19 AM
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