The boy, Ayham Hussein, was discovered by ISIS
henchman as he was listening to a portable compact disc player.
ISIS operative decapitates a young boy.
(photo credit:ARAB MEDIA)
Just when you thought Islamic State had reached its limit of depravity, it manages to outdo itself.
According
to Kurdish media reports, the jihadist group that has captured wide
swaths of Syria and Iraq beheaded a 15-year-old boy in Mosul for the
crime of listening to Western pop music.
Reports cite officials
in the northern Iraqi city as saying that the boy, Ayham Hussein, was
discovered by ISIS henchman as he was listening to a portable compact
disc player.
Hussein was detained by ISIS operatives as he sat
inside a shop owned by his father in an open-air market in western
Mosul. The boy was beaten and tried in a local sharia court, which
sentenced him to be executed.
“The boy was executed by beheading in a town square in the center of the city,” a source told Kurdish media.
The execution shocked and angered Mosul residents, some of whom staged a protest at the home of the victim’s family.
If Barack Obama and those like him fail in their
goal of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” it
will be in large part because of United States Supreme Court Senior
Associate Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia. Sadly, Justice Scalia passed
away over the weekend.
Since his nomination to the Court by President Ronald
Reagan in 1986, Justice Scalia championed the view that the U.S.
Constitution should be interpreted according to the intent of those who
wrote it, not according to shifting social conventions or judicial
preferences. The Constitution, Justice Scalia once said, “means today
not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean,
but what it meant when it was adopted.” As William Murchison of the
Dallas Morning News wrote
on Tuesday, Scalia’s understanding of the constitution “came from his
respect for the wisdom of the document, which was tailored to preserve
freedom.”
Those of us who follow Second Amendment issues are most
familiar with Justice Scalia’s “originalist” or “textualist” approach to
interpreting the Constitution based upon the Court’s landmark decision
in District of Columbia v. Heller
(2008). In Heller, Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, stated
that the Second Amendment was intended to protect an “individual right
to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” without regard
to service in a state militia. That right, he said “extends, prima
facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that
were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
Gun control advocates immediately decried the decision,
falsely claiming that it invented an individual right out of thin air.
Predictably, they are continuing to do so after Justice Scalia’s
passing. However, the record clearly shows that Heller expressly
articulated, in greater detail, the individual right the Court had
recognized in previous Second Amendment-related cases and that our
Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment to guarantee.
Besides his majority opinion in Heller, Justice Scalia
also was known for his stinging dissents in cases in which he thought
the Court’s majority had improperly legislated from the bench. Columnist
George Will wrote
on Sunday, Scalia “often dissented in the hope of shaping a future
replete with majorities steeped in principles he honed while in the
minority.”
Whether those principles and the Heller decision survive
will depend in large part upon the actions of the current Senate and the
outcome of this year’s presidential election. Fellow Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who dissented from the majority opinion in
Heller and in McDonald v. Chicago
(2010) (which held that the Second Amendment was incorporated by the
Fourteenth Amendment to apply against state and local action) has said
she would like to see Heller overturned. Presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton also said as much on the campaign trail recently.
Anticipating his eventual departure from the Court,
Justice Scalia once said, “I would not like to be replaced by someone
who immediately sets about undoing what I’ve tried to do for 25, 26
years.” To prevent that from happening, from now until the polls close
on Election Day in November, support a candidate who will counter the
antigun agenda of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Michael Bloomberg,
and who will nominate Supreme Court justices who will honor and follow
the legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia.
“The Riots at New York — The
Rioters Burning and Sacking the Colored Orphan Asylum,” a wood engraving
from Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 1, 1863.Credit
New-York Historical Society Share This Page
Were more hateful words ever howled by a mob in New York history?
“Burn the niggers’ nest.”
This was one of the cries taken up by a crowd that descended on the Colored Orphan Asylum
during the first night of the draft riots in July 1863. The sentiments
left no doubt about the attackers’ goal: to kill African-American
children.
Providence
and quick thinking spared the 233 youths from death or injury, though
the riots would claim more than 100 lives. But the asylum, a Greek
Revival building that sat prettily atop a hillock off Fifth Avenue,
between West 43rd and 44th Streets, was destroyed by the mob.
“Some 500 of them entered the house,” the asylum managers reported on July 25, 1863, in a record book now kept at the New-York Historical Society.
“After despoiling it of Furniture, Bedding, Clothing, &c. &c. —
they deliberately sat fire to it, in different parts — simply because
it was the home of unoffending colored Orphan Children.”
It
has always been painful to contemplate the sack of the orphanage. It is
difficult even to picture it, at what is now a busy intersection in
Midtown Manhattan, next to the Century Association clubhouse and across
West 43rd Street from a Joe Fresh store and an Elie Tahari showroom in
the former Manufacturers Hanover bank, a landmark of the International
style.
Photo
“Infant School, Colored Orphan Asylum,” circa 1860.Credit
The Jeffrey Kraus Collection
For
now, however, the south half of the asylum site is vacant, nothing more
than a 10,625-square-foot lot strewn with rubble, including brick
fragments. Many brick fragments. So many brick fragments that you begin
to wonder: Could any of these have been used to build the asylum?
If so, could there be artifacts strewn among them, plowed under the charred rubble long ago?
A broken hair comb?
An inky pen nib?
A small shoe buckle?
The moment has come to ask such questions because the developer Louis Ceruzzi plans to redevelop the site with a tower more than 70 stories tall that will certainly have retail space at the base and is likely to include a mix of hotel rooms and apartments above.
Photo
A developer plans to
redevelop the site where the asylum stood, on Fifth Avenue between 43rd
and 44th Streets, with a tower more than 70 stories tall that will
certainly have retail space at the base and is likely to include a mix
of hotel rooms and apartments above.Credit
Byron Smith for The New York Times
An
opportunity is at hand to examine the site closely in the hope of
finding some tangible remnant of the asylum. Even if there are no
archaeological finds, there is certainly a chance to commemorate the
asylum and memorialize its pillage in some form at the new building.
The New-York Historical Society has a trove of documents from the Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans,
founded in 1836, including admissions records that would make it
possible to create a roster of the children who were living in the
asylum at the time of the draft riots.
There was, for instance, Lucinda Ann Brown,
7, who had been brought to New York from New Orleans by one Catherine
Flint. Lucinda’s father was dead at the time. Her mother, though alive,
had remained in Louisiana. Lucinda was admitted on May 16, 1863.
Sarah Jones
was admitted to the asylum 13 days later, on her seventh birthday.
Because her adopted mother was working as a stewardess aboard the
steamship Ocean Queen, which traveled to Colón, Panama, Sarah was
institutionalized by the Commissioners of Public Charities.
Nine-year-old Irving R. White;
his younger sister, Martha Ann White; and their younger brother, Robert
Cooper White, were all admitted on June 2. Their mother was dead and
their father was in a temperance house in Albany run by Edward C. Delavan.
Then, on July 6, just a week before the riot, came William H. Judson, age and circumstances unrecorded.
Photo
An untitled tinted view of a playroom with boys and girls at the asylum, circa 1860.Credit
The Jeffrey Kraus Collection
Lucinda,
Sarah, Irving, Martha, Robert and William were all presumably there
when mobs protesting the inequitable military draft began to vent their
fury on any African-American unlucky enough to be in their way. Soon
enough, the rioters chose a target where they must have known resistance
would be unlikely: an orphanage.
“The
destruction of this Asylum, supported, as it was, solely by charity, is
certainly one of the worst and wickedest of crimes that were
perpetrated during this memorable day,” The New York Times said two days later,
“and clearly shows that resistance to the draft is but a cry raised to
cover the most atrocious crimes that human nature is capable of
committing.”
All that is believed to have survived intact is a Bible that an 8-year-old girl rescued by returning to the burning building. It, too, is in the hands of the New-York Historical Society.
Having
been sheltered in a police precinct house, the children were removed
safely to Blackwells Island (now Roosevelt Island). Though the
institution’s mission, name and location have changed since the Civil
War, its work is continued today by the Harlem Dowling-West Side Center for Children and Family Services.
To judge from his blog, Mr. Ceruzzi is fascinated by New York City history.
Whether that translates to support for an archaeological dig and
permanent memorial at 520 Fifth Avenue is another question. He did not
respond to emails for comment.
The
Landmarks Preservation Commission said through a spokeswoman that it
had reviewed the site in 2008 and determined that it was “unlikely to
contain intact archaeological resources.”
But 35 years of covering — and uncovering — the layers of New York City history have taught me that traces of the past are seldom eradicated entirely. And the story of the Colored Orphan Asylum seems too important to forget.
Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is not going away. In fact, it just keeps getting worse for her as the case unfolds. Most recently, it was revealed that
the former Secretary of State had information on her private unsecured
server that was so secret, lawyers involved in the case were not even
allowed to go over the evidence without getting higher clearances. That hasn’t stopped the army of
Clinton supporters within the media from minimizing and rationalizing
away the seriousness of the issue as well-respected legal scholars and
judges continue to weigh in on the side that is calling for Hillary’s
indictment. Geraldo Rivera of Fox News is one of
those who consistently defends Hillary on this issue. When he and Judge
Jeanine Pirro appeared on ‘Fox & Friends’ recently, the two debated
the issue. Judge Pirro, demonstrating a superior
knowledge of the law and this case in particular, completely destroyed
Geraldo’s apologist stance with the facts. When Geraldo accused the judge of
playing politics, she responded, “She made Americans vulnerable because
she had a non-secure server. This is about justice — this is about the
law. This is about a woman who is not above the law even though she
thinks she is.” Do you think the Judge go it right on this one? Do Hillary deserve to be indicted for this?
A brief stop at a gas station after leaving work late at night
brought about a string of events that targeted a Manchester, New
Hampshire resident. The woman, who wished to remain unidentified, took
notice of her surroundings and paid attention to a dark sedan that
followed her out of the parking lot and to the parking lot of her home.
The woman said
she tried to park as close to the door as possible, but the other car
pulled in not far from her. She swiftly exited her car, but heard a car
door close right after hers. As she walked toward the door, she heard
someone walking behind her and briefly turned around to see a man, who
was wearing a dark-colored hoodie, following her.
“Something in my head said to take the gun out of my purse,” the woman told a local ABC affiliate.
The woman took her gun from her purse and placed it in her coat pocket, keeping her hand on it all the while.
“Ten feet from the front stairs. That’s when he caught up to me, and
he came around me and stood right in front of me. Right in my face,” the
woman said.
As the suspect began yelling at her, the woman took action when he
reached to grab her. She shot him a single time, directly in the chest.
Her assailant, identified as Michael Bontaites, was later located by law
enforcement at a local hospital. Bontaites was arraigned from his
hospital bed, and charged with felony robbery.
The gun-toting Grandma has been a valid carry permit holder for ten
years, and this was the first time she ever fired her gun. Nice
shooting, ma’am.
NRA has been criticized by our opponents for
contending that those seeking to wreak mass violence on innocents choose
their targets based on the likelihood that they will meet armed
resistance, and that armed citizens could assist in halting this type of
violent attack. As part of their efforts, gun control activists and
their allies in the media have frequently lampooned NRA Executive Vice
President Wayne LaPierre’s astute remarks that “The only thing that
stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The bankruptcy of
this anti-gun position was exposed late last week when details from an FBI terrorism investigation revealed that an alleged ISIS supporter chose the target for a planned terrorist attack because it was a gun-free zone.
A notable example of our opponents’ error on this matter
is a commentary from March 25, 2013 edition of USA Today penned by
Mother Jones Editor Mark Follman. Titled, “The NRA's gun-free zone
myth,” the item characterizes NRA’s argument as “killers deliberately
choose sites where firearms are forbidden, gun-rights advocates say, and
because there are no weapons, no ‘good guy with a gun’ will be on hand
to stop the crime,” then labels it, “Sound bite sophistry.” USA Today
has exhibited an appetite for this position, as on December 11, 2015
they gave platform to another commentator for an item titled “The 'good
guy with a gun' myth.” The writer contended that if a terrorist were to
be met with armed resistance, “we’d have a lot more dead innocents.”
For its part, Bloomberg’s Everytown has gone to great
lengths to perpetuate the notion that the ability to lawfully carry is
not a deterrent to mass killers, going so far as to produce a misleading
analysis of mass shootings since 2009. The Everytown analysis contended
that 86 percent of mass public shootings took place in areas where guns
were permitted. However, a closer inspection by former University of
Chicago Professor John Lott revealed numerous errors in Everytown’s
work. Lott concluded that a mere 8 percent of mass shooting occurred in public places where people were allowed to carry.
Following an FBI investigation that culminated last week,
the dubious speculations of media commentators or the flawed findings of
Everytown should hold little purchase.
On February 4, federal authorities filed a criminal complaint
against a Dearborn Heights, Mich. man in the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for a violation of 18 U.S.C.
922(g)(3), which makes it unlawful for anyone “who is an unlawful user
of or addicted to any controlled substance” to possess a firearm. The
complaint alleges that on two occasions the subject lied on ATF Form
4473 while purchasing a firearm, as he was in fact a drug user.
The FBI began investigating the man in May 2015 after
learning of threats he made about “committing acts of terror and
martyrdom… on behalf of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State
of Iraq and Levant.” The complaint goes on to note that the individual
repeatedly promoted the terrorist group on using social media.
During its investigation, the FBI engaged with the man
using an undercover asset. The man told the undercover asset, “I tried
to shoot up a church one day. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s
close to my job. It’s one of the biggest ones in Detroit. Ya, I had it
planned out.” The subject then told the asset why he chose the church,
stating, “It’s easy, and a lot of people go there. Plus people are not
allowed to carry guns in church.”
Policymakers across the country should allow the heinous
statements of this ISIS supporter to inform their policy decisions
regarding the efficacy of gun-free zones. Moreover, Michiganders should
know that Michigan Compiled Laws section 28.425o(3) bans Right-to-Carry
permit holders from carrying on “Any property or facility owned or
operated by a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or other place of
worship, unless the presiding official or officials of the church,
synagogue, mosque, temple, or other place of worship permit the carrying
of concealed pistol on that property or facility.” Church officials
should use their discretion wisely in light of these events.
