Archive for July 9th, 2016

The worst day of his career was perhaps Dallas Chief David Brown’s finest hour

Posted by Kit in Police on Saturday, 9 July 2016

By Jacquielynn Floyd
Dallas Morning News
8 July 2016

Dallas Police Chief David Brown is not an especially polished speaker. He doesn’t love the cameras; he doesn’t always have carefully prepared remarks ready to deliver with a politician’s effortless grace. When he can, he leaves it to somebody else.

That makes his remarkable performance on what was surely the most anguished day in the Dallas Police Department’s history so moving, and so persuasive. In the hours after five officers – four Dallas policemen and one Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer – were murdered by a deranged sniper, Brown’s delivery was pitch-perfect, unrehearsed and straight from the heart.

“We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred in our city,” Brown told reporters early Friday, less than eight hours after his officers were mowed down while escorting a peaceful protest through downtown Dallas.

“All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.”

With those words, he spoke for every police department in America – many of which have far worse relationships with their minority communities than ours.

“We don’t feel much support most day,” he said. “Let’s don’t make today most days. We need your support.”

The nobility in that direct appeal was profound. If he had responded with tough talk about hunting ’em down, vowed vengeance, assigned blame, it would have been understandable, given the depth of the tragedy.

If he felt such rage, Brown kept it to himself. He was matter-of-fact about the measures taken to negotiate with and ultimately kill the gunman. Read the rest of this entry »

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Will the public release of the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB lead inevitably to Najib’s departure as Prime Minister and UMNO President?

Posted by Kit in Corruption, Financial Scandals, Najib Razak on Saturday, 9 July 2016

The whistleblower site Sarawak Report today made a third consecutive-day revelation about the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB, which had been “conditionally” presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and was the basis of the PAC Report on 1MDB, but which was not presented to Parliament when the PAC Report on 1MDB was tabled in Parliament on April 7, on the ground that it was still classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).

There have been two official responses so far to Sarawak Report’s exposes of the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB – the call for investigations by the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak for breach of the OSA on the ridiculous ground that the AG’s Report on 1MDB is classified for the purpose of “national security” and the confirmation by the Deputy Home Minister and former PAC Chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamad that police are probing the Sarawak Report leak of the AG’s Report.

As DAP MP for PJ Utara and PAC Member, Tony Pua pointed out, the right thing to do at the moment is for the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB to be declassified and made public immediately, instead of allowing the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his administration to suffer the global attrition of what is left of its credibility and integrity not only among Malaysians but also internationally with the continued expose of the Auditor-General’s Report on the 1MDB about 1MDB’s global embezzlement, money-laundering and corruption.

The OSA classification of the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB went against the very spirit and intent of Najib’s directive in March 2015 to the Auditor-General to investigate 1MDB and submit its report to the PAC, and that the AG’s and PAC’s 1MDB Reports were meant to be final and conclusive measures in laying to rest all doubts about the 1MDB.

The very opposite has occurred – with the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB classified for fear that its publication would stir a hornets’ nest about 1MDB global embezzlement, money-laundering and corruption! Read the rest of this entry »

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