More than 300,000 viewers of the Netflix series “Making A Murderer” have signed a petition to pardon Steven Avery who was convicted in 2007 of murdering photographer Teresa Halbach
“Making A Murderer” is a Netflix series on Steven Avery who was convicted by a Wisconsin jury in 2007 of murdering photographer Teresa Halbach. The ‘Hug a Murderer’ documentary, which Wisconsin authorities accuse of being one-sided, has generated an online petition calling for Avery to be pardoned that has been signed by more than 300,000 viewers.
This not the first ‘Hug A Murderer’ documentary that has generated online petitions with hundreds of thousands signatures, and it won’t be the last. The internet has become the tool for all kinds of mischief.
‘MAKING A MURDERER’ PROSECUTOR SAYS CRUCIAL FACTS OMITTED
Ken Kratz said viewers convinced of Mr. Avery’s innocence did not get to see important evidence that led a jury to convict him
By Daniel Victor
The New York Times
January 5, 2016
Since Netflix released the documentary “Making a Murderer” in mid-December, its imprisoned central character has received a wave of support, including more than 240,000 signatures on a petition asking President Obama to pardon him.
The 10-part series, by the filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, depicts a true-crime saga that seethes with troubling questions over whether Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man convicted of the 2005 murder of a young woman, was framed by law enforcement officials.
But the prosecutor in the case, Ken Kratz, said viewers convinced of Mr. Avery’s innocence did not get to see important evidence that led a jury to convict him.
The series “really presents misinformation,” Mr. Kratz said in an interview on Monday.
He portrayed the program as a tool of Mr. Avery’s defense and accused the filmmakers of intentionally withholding facts that would lead viewers to see his guilt.
Much less than a dispassionate portrayal of the case, the film is a result of the filmmakers’ “agenda” to portray Mr. Avery as innocent and stoke public outrage, Mr. Kratz said. “That is absolutely what they wanted to happen,” he added.
Ms. Ricciardi, Ms. Demos and one of Mr. Avery’s lawyers, Dean Strang, disputed Mr. Kratz’s remarks in interviews on Monday, arguing that the documentary couldn’t have included every facet of the case.
“Our opinion is that we included the state’s most compelling evidence,” Ms. Ricciardi said.
Mr. Strang echoed that view. “No one’s going to watch a 600-hour movie of gavel-to-gavel, unedited coverage of a trial,” he said.
“Making a Murderer” has given rise to an army of armchair detectives since its release the week before Christmas. Ten years in the making, the film tracks the legal troubles of Mr. Avery, the part owner of an auto salvage yard who, in 2003, was freed after 18 years in prison when DNA evidence cleared him in a 1985 sexual assault.
He later sued Manitowoc County, Wis., officials for $36 million. Then in 2005, shortly after several county officials were deposed over their handling of evidence in the case, Mr. Avery was accused once again. This time, he was charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer who had visited his property to take pictures of a vehicle for Auto Trader magazine.
In 2007, Mr. Avery was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The same year, his 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, was convicted of participating in the murder as well as the sexual assault of Ms. Halbach. He is serving life with the possibility of early release in 2048.
The documentary impugns the criminal justice system’s pursuit of Mr. Avery and Mr. Dassey at nearly every turn, pointing the finger at investigators, prosecutors and a defense lawyer who was assigned to Mr. Dassey.
The most explosive contention comes from Mr. Avery’s defense team — that law enforcement officials planted evidence to frame him.
On Monday, Mr. Kratz called the scenario “nonsense,” and he said the jury in Mr. Avery’s trial considered evidence either left out or glossed over by the filmmakers.
That evidence included DNA from Mr. Avery’s sweat found on a latch under the hood of Ms. Halbach’s Toyota RAV4, a discovery made by investigators after they were led there by Mr. Dassey, Mr. Kratz said.
Mr. Avery’s blood was found inside Ms. Halbach’s vehicle, and the documentary explains the defense theory that it could have been planted there by officers who had access to a vial of his blood. Sweat, however, never came up.
“How do you get Avery’s sweat underneath a hood latch of a vehicle?” Mr. Kratz said. “That is completely inconsistent with any kind of planting.”
Mr. Kratz also said a bullet with Ms. Halbach’s DNA on it found in Mr. Avery’s garage was matched to a rifle that hung over Mr. Avery’s bed. The gun was confiscated when officers searched his trailer on Nov. 5, 2005, and the bullet was found in the garage in March 2006, Mr. Kratz said.
“If they planted it, how did they get a bullet that was shot from Avery’s gun before Nov. 5?” he said.
Mr. Strang, the defense attorney, said on Monday that the DNA found under the hood was never identified as sweat and that its presence did not require that Mr. Avery touched the car. And bullet fragments were all over the property, where the family often shot guns. That Ms. Halbach’s DNA was on the bullet “really didn’t move the needle one way or another,” Mr. Strang said.
Mr. Kratz acknowledged some missteps in the handling of Mr. Avery’s case, saying he wished the Manitowoc County sheriff’s deputies had been less involved in the investigation. “That made the case a little more challenging for me, because I certainly took every step to keep those people out of it,” he said.
He also expressed regret about a news conference he held when Mr. Dassey was charged in early 2006. The documentary portrayed the prosecutor’s lurid description of the rape and murder of Ms. Halbach in front of a bank of news microphones as polluting the potential juror pool.
Mr. Kratz thought, at the time, that it was important to refute accusations of wrongdoing by law enforcement officers, he said.
“In retrospect, I wish I would have simply released the complaint and allowed the media to cover that however they wanted to,” he said.
Ms. Ricciardi and Ms. Demos on Monday disputed the idea that they were working on Mr. Avery’s behalf. They were inspired to create the documentary after reading about the new charges against him on the front page of The New York Times in 2005, Ms. Ricciardi said.
“He was uniquely positioned to take us and viewers from one extreme of the American criminal justice system to the other,” she said.
Ms. Ricciardi rejected the accusations of bias from Mr. Kratz, saying that his refusal to be interviewed for the documentary rendered them baseless. Mr. Kratz, who resigned as prosecutor in 2010, said he declined to participate because he did not believe the film would be impartial.
Neither the groundswell of outrage over the case, nor the attacks that have been directed at him personally, have shaken Mr. Kratz’s certainty that justice was served.
“Steven Avery committed this murder and this mutilation, and Steven Avery is exactly where he needs to be,” he said. “And I don’t have any qualms about that, nor do I lose any sleep over that.”
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
POLICE KILLED UP TO 1,200 PELE IN 2015 … AND ONE IN FIVE OF THEM WERE UNARMED
15% were young black males; 20% were unarmed; 43 were under age of 18
By Mia De Graaf
Daily Mail
January 3, 2016
American police officers killed up to 1,200 people in 2015, figures reveal.
Fifteen per cent of victims were black males under the age of 34, while two per cent were white men of the same age.
The data has emerged from a number of data projects set up by media outlets in recent years because the U.S. government does not have a database that documents this information.
At least six innocent bystanders were shot dead by police officers, according to The Counted, which was set up by The Guardian, The Washington Post's counting project, and the aggregation site Killed By Police.
More than 40 children under the age of 18 were killed last year, the data shows.
And one in five of the victims were not armed.
The bleak details which emerged this week have led many to question how effective the numerous anti-police violence protests have been.
Due to different criteria, the final tallies reached by the Washington Post, The Guardian and Killed By Police differ.
The Guardian found 1,134 people were shot dead by police in 2015. Killed By Police concluded 1,199, while the Post settled on 980.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch has now vowed to roll out the data project being tested by the government to track these figures on a federal level.
Addressing the issue in October, FBI director James Comey slammed the U.S. government's lack of data on police killings.
'It is unacceptable that The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper from the U.K. are becoming the lead source of information about violent encounters between police and civilians.
'That is not good for anybody,' he said, according to the Post.
'You can get online today and figure out how many tickets were sold to The Martian, which I saw this weekend... The CDC can do the same with the flu.
'It’s ridiculous — it’s embarrassing and ridiculous — that we can’t talk about crime in the same way, especially in the high-stakes incidents when your officers have to use force.'
By Mia De Graaf
Daily Mail
January 3, 2016
American police officers killed up to 1,200 people in 2015, figures reveal.
Fifteen per cent of victims were black males under the age of 34, while two per cent were white men of the same age.
The data has emerged from a number of data projects set up by media outlets in recent years because the U.S. government does not have a database that documents this information.
At least six innocent bystanders were shot dead by police officers, according to The Counted, which was set up by The Guardian, The Washington Post's counting project, and the aggregation site Killed By Police.
More than 40 children under the age of 18 were killed last year, the data shows.
And one in five of the victims were not armed.
The bleak details which emerged this week have led many to question how effective the numerous anti-police violence protests have been.
Due to different criteria, the final tallies reached by the Washington Post, The Guardian and Killed By Police differ.
The Guardian found 1,134 people were shot dead by police in 2015. Killed By Police concluded 1,199, while the Post settled on 980.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch has now vowed to roll out the data project being tested by the government to track these figures on a federal level.
Addressing the issue in October, FBI director James Comey slammed the U.S. government's lack of data on police killings.
'It is unacceptable that The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper from the U.K. are becoming the lead source of information about violent encounters between police and civilians.
'That is not good for anybody,' he said, according to the Post.
'You can get online today and figure out how many tickets were sold to The Martian, which I saw this weekend... The CDC can do the same with the flu.
'It’s ridiculous — it’s embarrassing and ridiculous — that we can’t talk about crime in the same way, especially in the high-stakes incidents when your officers have to use force.'
BOOK REVIEW: COURTING DISASTER BY MARC THIESSEN
In his book, Courting Disaster, Marc Thiessen documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence
From The Firearms Forum:
As President George W. Bush's top speech writer, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM)
White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen was locked in a secure room and given access to the most sensitive intelligence when he was tasked to write President George W. Bush’s 2006 speech explaining the CIA’s interrogation program and why Congress should authorize it. Few know more about these CIA operations than Thiessen, and in his new book, Courting Disaster, he documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence. Thiessen also shows how reckless President Obama has been in shutting down the CIA’s program and releasing secret documents that have aided our enemies.
Here is an excerpt from his riveting book, "Courting Disaster", How the CIA Kept America Safe:
Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi.
A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM.
Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."
Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location.
Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.
Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."
It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.
His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.
He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists,
KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.
In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.
Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.
In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot.
On the night of Aug. 9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven Trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:
* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p. m.;
* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p. m.;
* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p. m.;
* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p. m.;
* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p. m.;
* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p. m.;
* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p. m.
They seized bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared."
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much.
Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.
And still fewer realize the terrorists' true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda. Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us." Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work."
Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country." Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon.
John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied: "Would the U. S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes."
On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S. personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.
The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially non-concurring". The president went ahead anyway, overruling the objections of the agency.
A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors - including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"
In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk.
The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then ignored their advice.
With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America's national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history.
But how many people know this?
From The Firearms Forum:
As President George W. Bush's top speech writer, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM)
White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen was locked in a secure room and given access to the most sensitive intelligence when he was tasked to write President George W. Bush’s 2006 speech explaining the CIA’s interrogation program and why Congress should authorize it. Few know more about these CIA operations than Thiessen, and in his new book, Courting Disaster, he documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence. Thiessen also shows how reckless President Obama has been in shutting down the CIA’s program and releasing secret documents that have aided our enemies.
Here is an excerpt from his riveting book, "Courting Disaster", How the CIA Kept America Safe:
Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi.
A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM.
Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."
Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location.
Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.
Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."
It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.
His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.
He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists,
KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.
In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.
Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.
In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot.
On the night of Aug. 9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven Trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:
* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p. m.;
* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p. m.;
* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p. m.;
* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p. m.;
* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p. m.;
* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p. m.;
* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p. m.
They seized bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared."
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much.
Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.
And still fewer realize the terrorists' true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda. Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us." Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work."
Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country." Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon.
John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied: "Would the U. S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes."
On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S. personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.
The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially non-concurring". The president went ahead anyway, overruling the objections of the agency.
A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors - including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"
In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk.
The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then ignored their advice.
With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America's national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history.
But how many people know this?
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
MUSLIMS: HILLARY CLINTON, BARACK OBAMA AND BEN AFFLECK REBUFFED
(The right part of the screen is cut off. To view the whole screen, click on The Unconventional Gazette link below the photo of BarkGrpwlBite.)
‘AFFLUENZA KID’ SPENT MORE THAN $2,000 ON HOOKERS ONE NIGHT IN PUERTO VALLARTA
While on the run, Ethan Couch partied at Puerto Vallarta strip clubs, spending one night with two hookers in a back room at the Harem club
Freedom for Ethan Couch in Mexico was good while it lasted. The Daily Mail reports that the ‘Affluenza Kid’ partied the nights away at strip clubs in Puerto Vallarta. One of those clubs was the Harem which trumpets “Boobies and Booties Galore” on its entrance sign.
According to the Mail, Ethan spent the night with two hookers in a private back room of the Harem, running up a bill of more than $2,000 for their services. “The teenage Texan runaway was 'staggering drunk' and strip club workers had to hold him up to stop him from falling as they escorted him to his hotel room to wake his mother to get their dough.”
Ah, but all good things must come to an end. Now, a poor spoiled Ethan is idling away in a Mexican lockup while undergoing extradition proceedings which he is fighting.
Here’s wishing that when he is returned to Texas, a juvenile judge will declare Ethan an adult and remand him to an adult court, where hopefully he will be sentenced to prison for violating his 10-year probation sentence.
If he’s in prison, he will have numerous opportunities to engage in sex. During those prison sex parties, Ethan’s ass is likely to get very red.
Freedom for Ethan Couch in Mexico was good while it lasted. The Daily Mail reports that the ‘Affluenza Kid’ partied the nights away at strip clubs in Puerto Vallarta. One of those clubs was the Harem which trumpets “Boobies and Booties Galore” on its entrance sign.
According to the Mail, Ethan spent the night with two hookers in a private back room of the Harem, running up a bill of more than $2,000 for their services. “The teenage Texan runaway was 'staggering drunk' and strip club workers had to hold him up to stop him from falling as they escorted him to his hotel room to wake his mother to get their dough.”
Ah, but all good things must come to an end. Now, a poor spoiled Ethan is idling away in a Mexican lockup while undergoing extradition proceedings which he is fighting.
Here’s wishing that when he is returned to Texas, a juvenile judge will declare Ethan an adult and remand him to an adult court, where hopefully he will be sentenced to prison for violating his 10-year probation sentence.
If he’s in prison, he will have numerous opportunities to engage in sex. During those prison sex parties, Ethan’s ass is likely to get very red.
RAY KELLY’S CYNICAL STAT WAR
Under Kelly, strong pressures emanated from the NYPD leadership to manipulate crime reports in order to cast crime statistics in the most favorable light
By John Eterno and Eli Silverman
New York Daily News
January 3, 2016
Former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s questioning of the accuracy of the NYPD’s numbers under current Commissioner William Bratton is quite puzzling.
The evidence of crime reporting manipulation under Kelly was extensive and known to everyone, except apparently the former commissioner.
Our book “The Crime Numbers Game” and several peer-reviewed articles document it. Two surveys we conducted over those years with separate samples of retired officers demonstrated strong pressures emanating from the department’s leadership to manipulate crime reports in order to cast crime statistics in the most favorable light.
This evidence is buttressed with evidence from multiple whistleblowers. One whistleblower’s allegations were even supported by a long-suppressed memorandum from the NYPD’s Quality Assurance Division. Both the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association have publicly reported these pressures on their memberships.
The Ray Kelly now aiming claims of stat-distortion at his successor is remarkably the same Ray Kelly who summarily dismissed our questioning his crime statistics and our calls for independent analysis.
When asked to answer our extensive evidence at the time, a department spokesperson referred to “two significant, independent and more comprehensive studies” which found its crime reports to be “reliable and sound.” Yet one of those, an unpublished 2006 NYU study, was by its own admission limited in scope and rested on its “conversations with senior command staff and a review of written material.”
Significantly, during his tenure, Kelly also rebuffed an attempt by the city’s Commission to Combat Police Corruption to rigorously examine crime statistics. When more and more evidence of crime-report manipulation accumulated, he appointed a committee comprised of three former prosecutors which, despite being handpicked by the commissioner and dependent on NYPD staff, also reported significant shortcomings in the crime reports.
To his credit, Bratton has decried the previous NYPD administration’s pressures and preoccupation with quantity over quality. Obsession with judging everyone and everything solely based on quantitative data lends itself to manipulations and quotas, real or perceived, that distort policing.
Bratton has made significant strides in this area since taking the reins last year. Two commanders have been brought under the microscope for their fudging activities. That may be a sign that the new boss is taking the problem seriously — or it may point to a wider problem.
Additionally, recent revelations have noted that the NYPD, in conversations with the manufacturer, sought to lower the cost of frequently stolen Citi Bikes to under $1,000, thus reducing felonies — another numbers game. While not illegal, this is certainly similar to earlier efforts at creative crime accounting.
The NYPD’s statistics manifest themselves most prominently in the department’s performance management system, Compstat — which has many positive aspects and deserves most of the acclaim it has garnered. It is far better to try to measure crime accurately and adjust police resources accordingly than to base decisions on anecdote or intuition.
Yet again and again around the country, we have seen how the Compstat management system can be misused and thus produce distortions and dishonesty — in Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Orleans and Los Angeles (including while Bratton was the commissioner there).
The NYPD is an amazing law enforcement agency with exceptional personnel, one that has saved thousands of lives over the last 20 years. But it functions best when the rank and file are empowered to do their job without needless overwhelming pressures of producing the “right” numbers.
Which is why it is deeply disappointing that Bratton and Kelly, for all their disagreements, are in lockstep on one point: They resist the need for an independent agency to review the department’s crime statistics and reporting system. Bratton cites the fact that the department already has an inspector general — and must also report to a federal monitor as a result of the landmark stop-and-frisk court case.
But neither of these bodies has a mandate to systematically and continuously review and analyze the city’s crime statistics and reporting system.
Crime data needs to be correct and complete, as certified by an independent auditor. Such an audit should be ongoing and not just cover the tenure of any one commissioner.
Numbers increasingly fuel policing strategies. We must guarantee that the fuel is free of damaging contaminants.
Eterno, professor, associate dean and director of graduate studies at Molloy College, is a retired NYPD captain. Silverman is professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
By John Eterno and Eli Silverman
New York Daily News
January 3, 2016
Former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s questioning of the accuracy of the NYPD’s numbers under current Commissioner William Bratton is quite puzzling.
The evidence of crime reporting manipulation under Kelly was extensive and known to everyone, except apparently the former commissioner.
Our book “The Crime Numbers Game” and several peer-reviewed articles document it. Two surveys we conducted over those years with separate samples of retired officers demonstrated strong pressures emanating from the department’s leadership to manipulate crime reports in order to cast crime statistics in the most favorable light.
This evidence is buttressed with evidence from multiple whistleblowers. One whistleblower’s allegations were even supported by a long-suppressed memorandum from the NYPD’s Quality Assurance Division. Both the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association have publicly reported these pressures on their memberships.
The Ray Kelly now aiming claims of stat-distortion at his successor is remarkably the same Ray Kelly who summarily dismissed our questioning his crime statistics and our calls for independent analysis.
When asked to answer our extensive evidence at the time, a department spokesperson referred to “two significant, independent and more comprehensive studies” which found its crime reports to be “reliable and sound.” Yet one of those, an unpublished 2006 NYU study, was by its own admission limited in scope and rested on its “conversations with senior command staff and a review of written material.”
Significantly, during his tenure, Kelly also rebuffed an attempt by the city’s Commission to Combat Police Corruption to rigorously examine crime statistics. When more and more evidence of crime-report manipulation accumulated, he appointed a committee comprised of three former prosecutors which, despite being handpicked by the commissioner and dependent on NYPD staff, also reported significant shortcomings in the crime reports.
To his credit, Bratton has decried the previous NYPD administration’s pressures and preoccupation with quantity over quality. Obsession with judging everyone and everything solely based on quantitative data lends itself to manipulations and quotas, real or perceived, that distort policing.
Bratton has made significant strides in this area since taking the reins last year. Two commanders have been brought under the microscope for their fudging activities. That may be a sign that the new boss is taking the problem seriously — or it may point to a wider problem.
Additionally, recent revelations have noted that the NYPD, in conversations with the manufacturer, sought to lower the cost of frequently stolen Citi Bikes to under $1,000, thus reducing felonies — another numbers game. While not illegal, this is certainly similar to earlier efforts at creative crime accounting.
The NYPD’s statistics manifest themselves most prominently in the department’s performance management system, Compstat — which has many positive aspects and deserves most of the acclaim it has garnered. It is far better to try to measure crime accurately and adjust police resources accordingly than to base decisions on anecdote or intuition.
Yet again and again around the country, we have seen how the Compstat management system can be misused and thus produce distortions and dishonesty — in Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Orleans and Los Angeles (including while Bratton was the commissioner there).
The NYPD is an amazing law enforcement agency with exceptional personnel, one that has saved thousands of lives over the last 20 years. But it functions best when the rank and file are empowered to do their job without needless overwhelming pressures of producing the “right” numbers.
Which is why it is deeply disappointing that Bratton and Kelly, for all their disagreements, are in lockstep on one point: They resist the need for an independent agency to review the department’s crime statistics and reporting system. Bratton cites the fact that the department already has an inspector general — and must also report to a federal monitor as a result of the landmark stop-and-frisk court case.
But neither of these bodies has a mandate to systematically and continuously review and analyze the city’s crime statistics and reporting system.
Crime data needs to be correct and complete, as certified by an independent auditor. Such an audit should be ongoing and not just cover the tenure of any one commissioner.
Numbers increasingly fuel policing strategies. We must guarantee that the fuel is free of damaging contaminants.
Eterno, professor, associate dean and director of graduate studies at Molloy College, is a retired NYPD captain. Silverman is professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
IF YOU GIVE A MAN A GUN
The evolutionary psychology of mass shootings
By Frank T. McAndrew
The Conversation
December 4, 2015
Men commit over 85% of all homicides, 91% of all same-sex homicides and 97% of all same-sex homicides in which the victim and killer aren’t related to each other.
These startling statistics are driven home with each new mass shooting (though the most recent tragedy in San Bernardino, California is a bit unusual in that a married couple were the shooters).
In any event, politicians and the media are trotting out the usual suspects to explain the tragedy, whether it’s the lack of attention paid to mental illness or the easy availability of guns.
But these explanations dance around the big questions: why is there always a man behind these shootings? And why is it almost always a young man?
Evolutionary psychology can provide some clues.
Precarious manhood
Psychologists Joseph Vandello and Jennifer Bosson have coined the term “precarious manhood” to describe a dilemma that only men seem to face.
In a nutshell, they argue that “manhood” – however an individual male’s culture might define it – is a status that must be continually earned. And one’s self-worth is tied to being perceived as a “real man.”
It’s precarious because it can be easily lost – especially if the man fails to measure up to the relentless challenges that life throws at him, be they tests of physical bravery, or competition with other men for respect and status.
When I introduce this concept to my male students, they instantly recognize what I’m talking about. But when I ask the women if there’s a female equivalent, I’m often met with confused looks. (Some do note that the inability to have a child could be a threat to womanhood.) Indeed, it quickly becomes clear in the ensuing discussion that “manhood” is more precarious than “womanhood.”
The roots of this male dilemma reside deep in our prehistoric past. Throughout the animal kingdom, the sex that invests the least in the reproduction of offspring (almost always males) competes among themselves for sexual access to mates.
Historically, powerful men have always enjoyed greater sexual access to women than men lower in the pecking order, and violence can often be traced to this grim struggle for status. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon spent years studying the Yanomamo people of South America. He discovered that men who had killed other men acquired significantly more wives than men who hadn’t killed anyone. And by all indications, a man’s status in the group was often dependent upon how believable his threats of physical violence were.
In different cultures, the male “quest for dominance” may play out in different ways. Regardless, it is clearly a universal motivating principle among males, with the achievement of dominance satisfying and rewarding for those who attain it. As scholar Jonathan Gottschall put it:
To physically dominate another man is intoxicating.
And so, violence committed against the right people at the right time became a ticket to social success.
Competitive drives
For sound evolutionary reasons, younger men find themselves especially concerned with status and dominance.
In early human societies, competitive success or failure in early adulthood determined a man’s standing in a social group for the rest of his life. It wasn’t possible to simply hit the “reset” button and join another group, so what happened during the teen years mattered a lot.
For this reason, high-risk competition between young males provided an opportunity for “showing off” the abilities needed to acquire resources, exhibit strength and meet any challenges to one’s status. Consequently, heroic or even recklessly daredevil behavior was rewarded with status and respect – assuming, of course, that the young man survived the ordeal.
Today, the widespread promotion of sport in our culture undoubtedly developed as a constructive alternative for dealing with the proclivities of young males that evolved in a very different time. In a legally sanctioned gladiatorial arena, young men are able to exhibit the same skills – throwing, clubbing, running, wrestling, tackling, hand-eye coordination – that would have made them successful fighters or hunters in the ancestral environment.
Young Male Syndrome
It’s no secret that most people fear violent behavior by young men more than violent behavior by older men. There’s a sound basis for this fear.
In fact, the tendency of young men to engage in risky, aggressive behavior prompted the Canadian psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly to give it a name: Young Male Syndrome.
The duo studied the relationship among age, sex and homicide victimization in the United States in 1975. They found that the likelihood of a woman being a murder victim doesn’t change dramatically throughout the course of her life. The pattern for the males, on the other hand, is striking. At age 10, males and females have an equal probability of being murdered. But by the time men are into their 20’s, they become six times more likely to be murdered.
Consistent with Wilson and Daly’s data, 87% of the 598 homicide victims in the city of Chicago in 2003 were males, and 64% of the victims were between the ages of 17 and 30. The likelihood of being the victim of lethal violence peaks for men between the late teens and late 20’s, before steadily declining for the rest of their lives.
Nature fuels the fires of male violence by equipping young men with the high levels of testosterone necessary to get the job done.
Studies on chimpanzees – our closest primate relative – have shown that high-ranking male chimpanzees exhibit the highest levels of aggression and the highest levels of testosterone. Furthermore, all adult male chimpanzees experience their highest testosterone levels when they’re in the presence of females who are ovulating. This is associated only with higher levels of aggression – not significant increases in actual sexual activity.
Researchers such as myself who study the relationship between testosterone and aggression in humans have concluded that testosterone-fueled violence is more likely to occur when males are competing with other males, or when the social status of a male is challenged in some way. The increased testosterone facilitates whatever competitive behaviors are needed to meet the challenge, which could mean physical violence.
Many studies have shown that testosterone levels in males rise and fall according to whether the individual wins or loses in competitive sports, like tennis and wrestling – even chess.
Sports fans experience the same spike watching sports, which helps explain the violence and destructive rioting that can take place after big games (win or lose).
Adding guns to the mix
So how do guns figure into this violent equation?
In 2006 I coauthored a laboratory study on men’s responses to guns in the journal Psychological Science with my colleague Tim Kasser and one of our students. We demonstrated that males who interacted with a handgun showed a greater increase in testosterone levels and more aggressive behavior than males who interacted with the board game Mouse Trap.
In the study, each participant dismantled either a gun or the mousetrap, handled its components and then wrote instructions for how to assemble the objects. Then we gave them the opportunity to put hot sauce into water that was going to be consumed by another person. The participants who handled the gun put in significantly more hot sauce – and were also more likely to express disappointment after learning that no one was going to actually drink the concoction.
Thus, cues tied to threats often won’t result in aggressive responses unless testosterone is involved. Elliot Rodger, the disturbed college student whose violent 2014 rampage through Santa Barbara, California, was foretold in a chilling YouTube video, clearly experienced a testosterone surge upon purchasing his first handgun.
“After I picked up the handgun,” he explained, “I brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?”
Mass shooter = low-dominant loser?
Young male violence is most likely to be initiated by young men who don’t command respect from others. They’ll often feel like slighted outcasts, deprived of what they want or feel they deserve.
British clinical psychologist Paul Gilbert has developed something he calls the Social Attention Holding Theory. According to Gilbert, we compete with each other to have other people pay attention to us; when other people take notice, we build status. The increased status that comes from having others attend to us leads to all kinds of positive emotions. But persistently being ignored by others produces much darker emotions – especially envy and anger.
It’s no mystery why the media will often describe mass shooters and terrorists as misfits or loners. In many cases, they are.
Nicolas Henin was a Frenchman who was held hostage by ISIS for ten months. Here’s how he described his young, murderous, Jihadi captors:
They present themselves to the public as superheroes, but away from the camera are a bit pathetic in many ways: street kids drunk on ideology and power. In France we have a saying – stupid and evil. I found them more stupid than evil. That is not to understate the murderous potential of stupidity.
Apparently, a lack of attention from others results in a lack of status, resulting in a lack of access to women. Combined with a young man’s testosterone, it creates a toxic, combustible mix.
There may not be much we can do to change the structure of the young male mind that evolved over the course of millions of years. However, ignoring or denying its existence doesn’t do us any favors.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
In a nutshell: Ugh, me Tarzan, you Jane. Ugh, you give me gun, then me king of apes. Ugh, and then you let me poke pecker in you.
By Frank T. McAndrew
The Conversation
December 4, 2015
Men commit over 85% of all homicides, 91% of all same-sex homicides and 97% of all same-sex homicides in which the victim and killer aren’t related to each other.
These startling statistics are driven home with each new mass shooting (though the most recent tragedy in San Bernardino, California is a bit unusual in that a married couple were the shooters).
In any event, politicians and the media are trotting out the usual suspects to explain the tragedy, whether it’s the lack of attention paid to mental illness or the easy availability of guns.
But these explanations dance around the big questions: why is there always a man behind these shootings? And why is it almost always a young man?
Evolutionary psychology can provide some clues.
Precarious manhood
Psychologists Joseph Vandello and Jennifer Bosson have coined the term “precarious manhood” to describe a dilemma that only men seem to face.
In a nutshell, they argue that “manhood” – however an individual male’s culture might define it – is a status that must be continually earned. And one’s self-worth is tied to being perceived as a “real man.”
It’s precarious because it can be easily lost – especially if the man fails to measure up to the relentless challenges that life throws at him, be they tests of physical bravery, or competition with other men for respect and status.
When I introduce this concept to my male students, they instantly recognize what I’m talking about. But when I ask the women if there’s a female equivalent, I’m often met with confused looks. (Some do note that the inability to have a child could be a threat to womanhood.) Indeed, it quickly becomes clear in the ensuing discussion that “manhood” is more precarious than “womanhood.”
The roots of this male dilemma reside deep in our prehistoric past. Throughout the animal kingdom, the sex that invests the least in the reproduction of offspring (almost always males) competes among themselves for sexual access to mates.
Historically, powerful men have always enjoyed greater sexual access to women than men lower in the pecking order, and violence can often be traced to this grim struggle for status. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon spent years studying the Yanomamo people of South America. He discovered that men who had killed other men acquired significantly more wives than men who hadn’t killed anyone. And by all indications, a man’s status in the group was often dependent upon how believable his threats of physical violence were.
In different cultures, the male “quest for dominance” may play out in different ways. Regardless, it is clearly a universal motivating principle among males, with the achievement of dominance satisfying and rewarding for those who attain it. As scholar Jonathan Gottschall put it:
To physically dominate another man is intoxicating.
And so, violence committed against the right people at the right time became a ticket to social success.
Competitive drives
For sound evolutionary reasons, younger men find themselves especially concerned with status and dominance.
In early human societies, competitive success or failure in early adulthood determined a man’s standing in a social group for the rest of his life. It wasn’t possible to simply hit the “reset” button and join another group, so what happened during the teen years mattered a lot.
For this reason, high-risk competition between young males provided an opportunity for “showing off” the abilities needed to acquire resources, exhibit strength and meet any challenges to one’s status. Consequently, heroic or even recklessly daredevil behavior was rewarded with status and respect – assuming, of course, that the young man survived the ordeal.
Today, the widespread promotion of sport in our culture undoubtedly developed as a constructive alternative for dealing with the proclivities of young males that evolved in a very different time. In a legally sanctioned gladiatorial arena, young men are able to exhibit the same skills – throwing, clubbing, running, wrestling, tackling, hand-eye coordination – that would have made them successful fighters or hunters in the ancestral environment.
Young Male Syndrome
It’s no secret that most people fear violent behavior by young men more than violent behavior by older men. There’s a sound basis for this fear.
In fact, the tendency of young men to engage in risky, aggressive behavior prompted the Canadian psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly to give it a name: Young Male Syndrome.
The duo studied the relationship among age, sex and homicide victimization in the United States in 1975. They found that the likelihood of a woman being a murder victim doesn’t change dramatically throughout the course of her life. The pattern for the males, on the other hand, is striking. At age 10, males and females have an equal probability of being murdered. But by the time men are into their 20’s, they become six times more likely to be murdered.
Consistent with Wilson and Daly’s data, 87% of the 598 homicide victims in the city of Chicago in 2003 were males, and 64% of the victims were between the ages of 17 and 30. The likelihood of being the victim of lethal violence peaks for men between the late teens and late 20’s, before steadily declining for the rest of their lives.
Nature fuels the fires of male violence by equipping young men with the high levels of testosterone necessary to get the job done.
Studies on chimpanzees – our closest primate relative – have shown that high-ranking male chimpanzees exhibit the highest levels of aggression and the highest levels of testosterone. Furthermore, all adult male chimpanzees experience their highest testosterone levels when they’re in the presence of females who are ovulating. This is associated only with higher levels of aggression – not significant increases in actual sexual activity.
Researchers such as myself who study the relationship between testosterone and aggression in humans have concluded that testosterone-fueled violence is more likely to occur when males are competing with other males, or when the social status of a male is challenged in some way. The increased testosterone facilitates whatever competitive behaviors are needed to meet the challenge, which could mean physical violence.
Many studies have shown that testosterone levels in males rise and fall according to whether the individual wins or loses in competitive sports, like tennis and wrestling – even chess.
Sports fans experience the same spike watching sports, which helps explain the violence and destructive rioting that can take place after big games (win or lose).
Adding guns to the mix
So how do guns figure into this violent equation?
In 2006 I coauthored a laboratory study on men’s responses to guns in the journal Psychological Science with my colleague Tim Kasser and one of our students. We demonstrated that males who interacted with a handgun showed a greater increase in testosterone levels and more aggressive behavior than males who interacted with the board game Mouse Trap.
In the study, each participant dismantled either a gun or the mousetrap, handled its components and then wrote instructions for how to assemble the objects. Then we gave them the opportunity to put hot sauce into water that was going to be consumed by another person. The participants who handled the gun put in significantly more hot sauce – and were also more likely to express disappointment after learning that no one was going to actually drink the concoction.
Thus, cues tied to threats often won’t result in aggressive responses unless testosterone is involved. Elliot Rodger, the disturbed college student whose violent 2014 rampage through Santa Barbara, California, was foretold in a chilling YouTube video, clearly experienced a testosterone surge upon purchasing his first handgun.
“After I picked up the handgun,” he explained, “I brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?”
Mass shooter = low-dominant loser?
Young male violence is most likely to be initiated by young men who don’t command respect from others. They’ll often feel like slighted outcasts, deprived of what they want or feel they deserve.
British clinical psychologist Paul Gilbert has developed something he calls the Social Attention Holding Theory. According to Gilbert, we compete with each other to have other people pay attention to us; when other people take notice, we build status. The increased status that comes from having others attend to us leads to all kinds of positive emotions. But persistently being ignored by others produces much darker emotions – especially envy and anger.
It’s no mystery why the media will often describe mass shooters and terrorists as misfits or loners. In many cases, they are.
Nicolas Henin was a Frenchman who was held hostage by ISIS for ten months. Here’s how he described his young, murderous, Jihadi captors:
They present themselves to the public as superheroes, but away from the camera are a bit pathetic in many ways: street kids drunk on ideology and power. In France we have a saying – stupid and evil. I found them more stupid than evil. That is not to understate the murderous potential of stupidity.
Apparently, a lack of attention from others results in a lack of status, resulting in a lack of access to women. Combined with a young man’s testosterone, it creates a toxic, combustible mix.
There may not be much we can do to change the structure of the young male mind that evolved over the course of millions of years. However, ignoring or denying its existence doesn’t do us any favors.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
In a nutshell: Ugh, me Tarzan, you Jane. Ugh, you give me gun, then me king of apes. Ugh, and then you let me poke pecker in you.
BRAM KOHLHAUSEN MAKES SITTING DUCKS OUT OF THE OREGON DUCKS AS HE LEADS TCU TO HISTORIC COMEBACK
Down 31-0 at halftime, TCU roars back to beat Oregon 47-41 in triple-overtime at the Alamo Bowl
Bram Kohlhausen, TCU’s backup quarterback, wasn’t supposed to play in Saturday’s Alamo Bowl. But two days earlier, starting quarterback Trevone Boykin got into a barroom brawl for which he was suspended by coach Gary Patterson. Things looked bleak for the Horned Frogs in their pending battle with the Oregon Ducks. In steps Kohlhausen for his first start as a college quarterback.
Down 31-0 at halftime, Kohlhausen made sitting ducks out of the Ducks in the second half. For his first start, he completed 28 of 45 passes for 351 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran in for two more scores, including the game winner in triple-overtime. Not bad for a TCU walk-on.
Oregon lost its starting quarterback in the first half, but unlike Kohlhausen, their backup wasn’t up to the task and from then on the ducks were dead ducks.
TCU’s 47-41 victory was the greatest comeback in college football bowl history.
It’s too bad that TCU won’t be able use Kohlhausen next football season. His first game as a starter was also his last game as a college football player.
Bram Kohlhausen, TCU’s backup quarterback, wasn’t supposed to play in Saturday’s Alamo Bowl. But two days earlier, starting quarterback Trevone Boykin got into a barroom brawl for which he was suspended by coach Gary Patterson. Things looked bleak for the Horned Frogs in their pending battle with the Oregon Ducks. In steps Kohlhausen for his first start as a college quarterback.
Down 31-0 at halftime, Kohlhausen made sitting ducks out of the Ducks in the second half. For his first start, he completed 28 of 45 passes for 351 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran in for two more scores, including the game winner in triple-overtime. Not bad for a TCU walk-on.
Oregon lost its starting quarterback in the first half, but unlike Kohlhausen, their backup wasn’t up to the task and from then on the ducks were dead ducks.
TCU’s 47-41 victory was the greatest comeback in college football bowl history.
It’s too bad that TCU won’t be able use Kohlhausen next football season. His first game as a starter was also his last game as a college football player.
Monday, January 04, 2016
OBAMA PROMISES TO TAKE EXECUTIVE ACTION ON MORE GUN CONTROLS
The President said he would meet with the Attorney General to see how he could bypass Congress
President Obama has promised that in the remaining year of his presidency he will bypass Congress to enact more gun controls by means of executive action.
Here are Obama’s remarks on Friday about gun violence from his weekly radio address:
Last month, we remembered the third anniversary of Newtown. This Friday, I’ll be thinking about my friend Gabby Giffords, five years into her recovery from the shooting in Tucson. And all across America, survivors of gun violence and those who lost a child, a parent, a spouse to gun violence are forced to mark such awful anniversaries every single day.
And yet Congress still hasn’t done anything to prevent what happened to them from happening to other families. Three years ago, a bipartisan, commonsense bill would have required background checks for virtually everyone who buys a gun. Keep in mind, this policy was supported by some 90% of the American people. It was supported by a majority of NRA households. But the gun lobby mobilized against it. And the Senate blocked it.
Since then, tens of thousands of our fellow Americans have been mowed down by gun violence. Tens of thousands. Each time, we’re told that commonsense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, so we shouldn’t do anything.
We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something – anything – to protect our kids from gun violence?
A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence. And on Monday, I’ll meet with our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to discuss our options. Because I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids, to sit around and do nothing. I get letters from responsible gun owners who grieve with us every time these tragedies happen; who share my belief that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms; and who share my belief we can protect that right while keeping an irresponsible, dangerous few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.
Nifty words. But what Obama is doing is politicizing the deaths of the Sandy Hook children and the lives of others taken in mass shootings. When Obama meets with and hugs the families of shooting victims, it’s a great photo-op for him.
One of Obama’s main goals is to close the loophole that allows private gun owners to set up tables at gun shows and sell guns without running the background checks required of licensed gun dealers. And he wants to prevent persons on the ‘no fly list’ from acquiring guns.
I see a big problem with turning to the ‘no fly list’ because there are way too many people on that list who do not belong there. They are on that list only because they have names like or similar to persons suspected of holding beliefs attributed to terrorist groups.
Look for whatever executive orders Obama issues on gun control to be challenged in the courts. If he prevails, what’s next? Perhaps background checks required for private sales where a person wants to buy a gun owner’s gun.
President Obama has promised that in the remaining year of his presidency he will bypass Congress to enact more gun controls by means of executive action.
Here are Obama’s remarks on Friday about gun violence from his weekly radio address:
Last month, we remembered the third anniversary of Newtown. This Friday, I’ll be thinking about my friend Gabby Giffords, five years into her recovery from the shooting in Tucson. And all across America, survivors of gun violence and those who lost a child, a parent, a spouse to gun violence are forced to mark such awful anniversaries every single day.
And yet Congress still hasn’t done anything to prevent what happened to them from happening to other families. Three years ago, a bipartisan, commonsense bill would have required background checks for virtually everyone who buys a gun. Keep in mind, this policy was supported by some 90% of the American people. It was supported by a majority of NRA households. But the gun lobby mobilized against it. And the Senate blocked it.
Since then, tens of thousands of our fellow Americans have been mowed down by gun violence. Tens of thousands. Each time, we’re told that commonsense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, so we shouldn’t do anything.
We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something – anything – to protect our kids from gun violence?
A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence. And on Monday, I’ll meet with our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to discuss our options. Because I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids, to sit around and do nothing. I get letters from responsible gun owners who grieve with us every time these tragedies happen; who share my belief that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms; and who share my belief we can protect that right while keeping an irresponsible, dangerous few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.
Nifty words. But what Obama is doing is politicizing the deaths of the Sandy Hook children and the lives of others taken in mass shootings. When Obama meets with and hugs the families of shooting victims, it’s a great photo-op for him.
One of Obama’s main goals is to close the loophole that allows private gun owners to set up tables at gun shows and sell guns without running the background checks required of licensed gun dealers. And he wants to prevent persons on the ‘no fly list’ from acquiring guns.
I see a big problem with turning to the ‘no fly list’ because there are way too many people on that list who do not belong there. They are on that list only because they have names like or similar to persons suspected of holding beliefs attributed to terrorist groups.
Look for whatever executive orders Obama issues on gun control to be challenged in the courts. If he prevails, what’s next? Perhaps background checks required for private sales where a person wants to buy a gun owner’s gun.
MISSISSIPPI COUNCILMAN: THROW ROCKS AT POLICE
Jackson Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes isn't backing down after suggesting residents throw rocks, bricks and bottles at police officers
Officer.com News
January 2, 2016
A Mississippi lawmaker isn't backing down after suggesting residents throw rocks, bricks and bottles at police officers.
Jackson Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes said Friday that he wasn't trying to incite a riot when he made his feelings known about officers from jurisdictions who chase misdemeanor suspects into the city, according to The Clarion-Ledger.
"My position is this: When you have these police officers coming from other jurisdictions and they will not respect human life, then I said we should use rocks, bricks or bottles to try to get the message over: stop endangering our children," Stokes told the newspaper. "Now I have supported police officers in police departments all over this state from when I was a (Hinds County) supervisor when we voted for new cars and equipment for police officer. I opened and closed the last council meeting an honor of an officer who had died. I have named streets after officers in this city."
Stokes' remarks were in response to a reported high-speed police pursuit in Jackson on Christmas Eve involving police officers from surrounding areas.
"These kind of chases put children in danger," Stokes said. "They said parents were trying to get their children out of harms way. Now, it is our position that if it is a misdemeanor, you shouldn't be putting children and the elderly in danger."
Madison County Sheriff Randy Tucker said in a Facebook post to Stokes that law enforcement will not be intimidated by him.
"Any Madison County law enforcement that is attacked because your ignorant statements, I will hold you responsible," he wrote. "I fully intend to contact the MS Attorney General and inquire if your statements constitute assaults on officers by threat."
Jackson Mayor Tony Yarber said that while there is a need to demand respect of jurisdictional boundaries, he would never condone violence against police.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It is unrealistic to expect officers from jurisdictions outside the City of Jackson to stop a police chase when it reaches the city limits. Whether or not they should be chasing a misdemeanant is another matter.
Officer.com News failed to mention that Councilman Kenneth Stokes is an African-American. While he has a good point in saying that cop car chases endanger innocent lives, Stokes was clearly out of line with his dangerous call for the cops to get pelted with rocks, bricks and bottles. How would he like it if people were to throw rocks, bricks and bottles at him?
Officer.com News
January 2, 2016
A Mississippi lawmaker isn't backing down after suggesting residents throw rocks, bricks and bottles at police officers.
Jackson Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes said Friday that he wasn't trying to incite a riot when he made his feelings known about officers from jurisdictions who chase misdemeanor suspects into the city, according to The Clarion-Ledger.
"My position is this: When you have these police officers coming from other jurisdictions and they will not respect human life, then I said we should use rocks, bricks or bottles to try to get the message over: stop endangering our children," Stokes told the newspaper. "Now I have supported police officers in police departments all over this state from when I was a (Hinds County) supervisor when we voted for new cars and equipment for police officer. I opened and closed the last council meeting an honor of an officer who had died. I have named streets after officers in this city."
Stokes' remarks were in response to a reported high-speed police pursuit in Jackson on Christmas Eve involving police officers from surrounding areas.
"These kind of chases put children in danger," Stokes said. "They said parents were trying to get their children out of harms way. Now, it is our position that if it is a misdemeanor, you shouldn't be putting children and the elderly in danger."
Madison County Sheriff Randy Tucker said in a Facebook post to Stokes that law enforcement will not be intimidated by him.
"Any Madison County law enforcement that is attacked because your ignorant statements, I will hold you responsible," he wrote. "I fully intend to contact the MS Attorney General and inquire if your statements constitute assaults on officers by threat."
Jackson Mayor Tony Yarber said that while there is a need to demand respect of jurisdictional boundaries, he would never condone violence against police.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It is unrealistic to expect officers from jurisdictions outside the City of Jackson to stop a police chase when it reaches the city limits. Whether or not they should be chasing a misdemeanant is another matter.
Officer.com News failed to mention that Councilman Kenneth Stokes is an African-American. While he has a good point in saying that cop car chases endanger innocent lives, Stokes was clearly out of line with his dangerous call for the cops to get pelted with rocks, bricks and bottles. How would he like it if people were to throw rocks, bricks and bottles at him?
HOW A 16-YEAR-OLD WHITE BOY ROSE TO BECOME A CHINESE MAFIA BOSS
'White Devil' was a down-and-out orphan in Boston until the Ping On mob gave him the life - and woman - of his dreams
By Ollie Gillman
Daily Mail
January 3, 2016
Down on his luck and with nowhere no turn, 16-year-old John Willis made a phone call that would transform his life.
With his father long gone and his mother dead, he was taking steroids to beef himself up and convince the owner of a club in Boston that he was 18 and therefore old enough to be a bouncer.
After helping a young Asian man called Woping Joe out of a fight at the club, he was handed a card with a phone number and told to ring it if he ever needed help.
Days later, with just 76 cents to his name and nowhere to sleep, he found himself dialing the number for a lift. Just minutes afterwards he was picked up by two BMWs car packed with young, Chinese men.
At the time he was just looking for a warm meal and a roof over his head, but a decade later he would be the Chinese mafia's number two, known as Bac Guai John - or White Devil.
The FBI say he is the only man to reach anywhere near the top of the Chinese mafia, which usually keeps itself to itself and rarely mixes with crime syndicates of other ethnicities.
But the Ping On gang took to bright-eyed Willis, who quickly picked up Chinese in two different dialects - Cantonese and Toisanese - as well as Vietnamese, after a family took him in.
He realized he had to learn the language quickly, not only because a lot of the people he dealt with on a day-to-day basis did not speak English but also because he needed to have a grasp of Chinese to pick up women.
After listening in on conversations, as well as watching Chinese films and listening to Chinese music, he soon had a convincing accent, Vice reported.
He started out as a small time loan collector, ensuring those higher up in the gang were never left out of pocket by their clients.
But his loyalty and diligence soon saw him rise through the ranks until he was the chief bodyguard to Bai Ming, who was high up the chain of command in Boston's Chinese mafia.
According to Bob Halloran, who interviewed the gangster - who is currently in prison - for his book White Devil, Willis' role would see him check Ming's car for bombs and collect money from underground gambling dens.
He would do whatever it took to finish a job and his success saw him become Ming's right-hand man.
Ming was only sixth or seventh in command at the time, but after a few arrests here and some gangland killings there, he suddenly found himself at the helm of the mafia - with the White Devil as his number two.
Willis did time in prison in the 90s and came out with connections in the marijuana trade.
He was warned away from drugs by other members of the mafia - who largely made their money from gambling, massage parlors and prostitution - but carried on selling narcotics because of the vast profits he made.
Soon, however, he was dealing cocaine and eventually moved into dealing oxycodone, trafficking it from Florida to Boston and also selling it in Cape Cod.
He is thought to have shifted 260,000 pills in a racket worth $4million, but he told investigators it was worth at least 10 times that.
Willis - who was branded in court as 'the kingpin, organizer and leader of a vast conspiracy' - was eventually caught by the police and, in 2013, was jailed for 20 years.
Halloran says Willis' greatest regret is not the lives he damaged as part of the mob or through trafficking drugs, but is the fact he can no longer see his Vietnamese-American girlfriend and her daughter.
According to Rolling Stone, Willis was with his lover Anh Nguyen on her daughter's ninth birthday when his crimes finally caught up with him.
They had met in 2005, when he approached and told her in English that she was 'drop-dead gorgeous'.
She thought he was just 'a white kid with an Asian fetish', but fell for him after hearing him break up a fight in Chinese.
For a member of the mob, Willis' life was relatively stable, but as he lay in bed with Nguyen in March 2011, his empire of fast cars, speedboats and beachside homes in Florida was about to come crashing down.
He had kept his life of organized crime separate from his family life - only admitting to his girlfriend that he was a gangster after she questioned cuts on his hands - but even she had to accept a plea of tampering with a witness when Willis, who is now 44, faced trial.
While it is unheard of for a white teenager to rise to the top of the Chinese mafia, it is not surprising that a troubled child growing up in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, in the 1970s wound up in the wrong company.
Notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger also grew up in Dorchester. He infiltrated the Boston office of the FBI and bought off agents who protected him.
Some feared he would never be caught and he was soon placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List - at one point he was only second to Osama Bin Laden.
Bulger fled Boston in 1994 and remained a fugitive until he was captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. He was convicted of participating in 11 murders while running Boston's Winter Hill Gang for two decades and is now serving two life sentences.
(White Devil comes out on January 12 and is available to pre-order from Amazon.)
By Ollie Gillman
Daily Mail
January 3, 2016
Down on his luck and with nowhere no turn, 16-year-old John Willis made a phone call that would transform his life.
With his father long gone and his mother dead, he was taking steroids to beef himself up and convince the owner of a club in Boston that he was 18 and therefore old enough to be a bouncer.
After helping a young Asian man called Woping Joe out of a fight at the club, he was handed a card with a phone number and told to ring it if he ever needed help.
Days later, with just 76 cents to his name and nowhere to sleep, he found himself dialing the number for a lift. Just minutes afterwards he was picked up by two BMWs car packed with young, Chinese men.
At the time he was just looking for a warm meal and a roof over his head, but a decade later he would be the Chinese mafia's number two, known as Bac Guai John - or White Devil.
The FBI say he is the only man to reach anywhere near the top of the Chinese mafia, which usually keeps itself to itself and rarely mixes with crime syndicates of other ethnicities.
But the Ping On gang took to bright-eyed Willis, who quickly picked up Chinese in two different dialects - Cantonese and Toisanese - as well as Vietnamese, after a family took him in.
He realized he had to learn the language quickly, not only because a lot of the people he dealt with on a day-to-day basis did not speak English but also because he needed to have a grasp of Chinese to pick up women.
After listening in on conversations, as well as watching Chinese films and listening to Chinese music, he soon had a convincing accent, Vice reported.
He started out as a small time loan collector, ensuring those higher up in the gang were never left out of pocket by their clients.
But his loyalty and diligence soon saw him rise through the ranks until he was the chief bodyguard to Bai Ming, who was high up the chain of command in Boston's Chinese mafia.
According to Bob Halloran, who interviewed the gangster - who is currently in prison - for his book White Devil, Willis' role would see him check Ming's car for bombs and collect money from underground gambling dens.
He would do whatever it took to finish a job and his success saw him become Ming's right-hand man.
Ming was only sixth or seventh in command at the time, but after a few arrests here and some gangland killings there, he suddenly found himself at the helm of the mafia - with the White Devil as his number two.
Willis did time in prison in the 90s and came out with connections in the marijuana trade.
He was warned away from drugs by other members of the mafia - who largely made their money from gambling, massage parlors and prostitution - but carried on selling narcotics because of the vast profits he made.
Soon, however, he was dealing cocaine and eventually moved into dealing oxycodone, trafficking it from Florida to Boston and also selling it in Cape Cod.
He is thought to have shifted 260,000 pills in a racket worth $4million, but he told investigators it was worth at least 10 times that.
Willis - who was branded in court as 'the kingpin, organizer and leader of a vast conspiracy' - was eventually caught by the police and, in 2013, was jailed for 20 years.
Halloran says Willis' greatest regret is not the lives he damaged as part of the mob or through trafficking drugs, but is the fact he can no longer see his Vietnamese-American girlfriend and her daughter.
According to Rolling Stone, Willis was with his lover Anh Nguyen on her daughter's ninth birthday when his crimes finally caught up with him.
They had met in 2005, when he approached and told her in English that she was 'drop-dead gorgeous'.
She thought he was just 'a white kid with an Asian fetish', but fell for him after hearing him break up a fight in Chinese.
For a member of the mob, Willis' life was relatively stable, but as he lay in bed with Nguyen in March 2011, his empire of fast cars, speedboats and beachside homes in Florida was about to come crashing down.
He had kept his life of organized crime separate from his family life - only admitting to his girlfriend that he was a gangster after she questioned cuts on his hands - but even she had to accept a plea of tampering with a witness when Willis, who is now 44, faced trial.
While it is unheard of for a white teenager to rise to the top of the Chinese mafia, it is not surprising that a troubled child growing up in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, in the 1970s wound up in the wrong company.
Notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger also grew up in Dorchester. He infiltrated the Boston office of the FBI and bought off agents who protected him.
Some feared he would never be caught and he was soon placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List - at one point he was only second to Osama Bin Laden.
Bulger fled Boston in 1994 and remained a fugitive until he was captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. He was convicted of participating in 11 murders while running Boston's Winter Hill Gang for two decades and is now serving two life sentences.
(White Devil comes out on January 12 and is available to pre-order from Amazon.)
Sunday, January 03, 2016
MAN-MADE EMISSIONS NOT BEHIND GLOBAL WARMING
(The right part of the screen is cut off. To view the whole screen, click on The Unconventional Gazette link below the photo of BarkGrpwlBite.)
SAUDI ARABIA PUTS TEXAS TO SHAME
The Saudi Kingdom executed 47 people in one day
On Saturday, the Saudis executed 47 people, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shiite cleric. But most of those executed were Sunnis.
According to the Daily Mail, the Saudi Interior Ministry said the 47 had been convicted of adopting the 'takfiri' [radical Sunni] ideology, joining 'terrorist organizations' and implementing various 'criminal plots'.
The executions took place in 12 cities, either by firing squads or beheadings.
Although all but four of the 47 executed were Sunnis connected to al-Qaeda, Shiites as far away as India were outraged. Iranians burned down the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, “The Saudi government supports terrorists and takfiri extremists, while executing and suppressing critics inside the country.” (That’s sort of like the kettle calling the pot black.)
And Reuters reports that Lebanon's Supreme Islamic Shi'ite Council called Saturday's execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr a "grave mistake", and the Hezbollah group termed it an assassination.
All that Shiite bullshit aside, dammit if those fucking Saudis haven’t put us Texans to Shame. Up to now, Texas has been labeled ‘the execution capital of the world.’ Now Saudi Arabia has left us in the dust by a country mile. Sumbitch!
On Saturday, the Saudis executed 47 people, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shiite cleric. But most of those executed were Sunnis.
According to the Daily Mail, the Saudi Interior Ministry said the 47 had been convicted of adopting the 'takfiri' [radical Sunni] ideology, joining 'terrorist organizations' and implementing various 'criminal plots'.
The executions took place in 12 cities, either by firing squads or beheadings.
Although all but four of the 47 executed were Sunnis connected to al-Qaeda, Shiites as far away as India were outraged. Iranians burned down the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, “The Saudi government supports terrorists and takfiri extremists, while executing and suppressing critics inside the country.” (That’s sort of like the kettle calling the pot black.)
And Reuters reports that Lebanon's Supreme Islamic Shi'ite Council called Saturday's execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr a "grave mistake", and the Hezbollah group termed it an assassination.
All that Shiite bullshit aside, dammit if those fucking Saudis haven’t put us Texans to Shame. Up to now, Texas has been labeled ‘the execution capital of the world.’ Now Saudi Arabia has left us in the dust by a country mile. Sumbitch!
FARRAKHAN ON TRUMP
Nation of Islam leader says “if Trump becomes president he will take America into the abyss of hell.”
Daily Mail
January 2, 2016
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has warned Americans that Donald Trump will take the country 'into the abyss of hell' if he is elected president of the United States.
Farrakhan spoke out against the Republican presidential hopeful on The Cliff Kelley Show last month, saying his leadership was not rooted in justice.
'Mr Trump is tearing away the skin of the onion of white civility,' he said.
'And the more he pulls the skin of that onion back, he's beginning to show something in the character of the whites that follow him. That they don't care what he says.'
Farrakhan said Trump has done 'great things' in the business world, but that he was now exacerbating the race situation in America.
'I will guarantee you if he becomes president he'll take America exactly where America is heading,' Farrakhan said.
'He'll take you there on a rocket ship. If he becomes your president, you'll be just like him.'
Farrakhan also called out Trump for saying 'we'll go into Iraq and we'll just take the oil', saying that was the 'thug coming out'.
'When you get leadership that is not rooted in justice, then they begin to make the people just like themselves,' Farrakhan said, issuing Americans a warning.
'Be careful America. You're headed into the abyss of hell.'
'And if you make a mistake in choosing your leaders, maybe you'll go there faster.'
Farrakhan also touched on America's justice system and the death of Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by police in Chicago.
'This is pointing not to getting rid of a mayor, or getting rid of a police chief or getting rid of a state's attorney,' Farrakhan said.
'What the hell difference does it make if you get rid of them and the system that produces them is still in place?'
'There is no such thing as reforming this. This has to completely be taken down. Who is strong enough to say that the system of justice in America is an injustice to the American people?'
'It should all be destroyed and something new and better put in place.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m not worried about Trump taking us into the abyss of hell. The race-baiting, Jew-hating Farrakhan is much more likely to take us there.
Daily Mail
January 2, 2016
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has warned Americans that Donald Trump will take the country 'into the abyss of hell' if he is elected president of the United States.
Farrakhan spoke out against the Republican presidential hopeful on The Cliff Kelley Show last month, saying his leadership was not rooted in justice.
'Mr Trump is tearing away the skin of the onion of white civility,' he said.
'And the more he pulls the skin of that onion back, he's beginning to show something in the character of the whites that follow him. That they don't care what he says.'
Farrakhan said Trump has done 'great things' in the business world, but that he was now exacerbating the race situation in America.
'I will guarantee you if he becomes president he'll take America exactly where America is heading,' Farrakhan said.
'He'll take you there on a rocket ship. If he becomes your president, you'll be just like him.'
Farrakhan also called out Trump for saying 'we'll go into Iraq and we'll just take the oil', saying that was the 'thug coming out'.
'When you get leadership that is not rooted in justice, then they begin to make the people just like themselves,' Farrakhan said, issuing Americans a warning.
'Be careful America. You're headed into the abyss of hell.'
'And if you make a mistake in choosing your leaders, maybe you'll go there faster.'
Farrakhan also touched on America's justice system and the death of Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by police in Chicago.
'This is pointing not to getting rid of a mayor, or getting rid of a police chief or getting rid of a state's attorney,' Farrakhan said.
'What the hell difference does it make if you get rid of them and the system that produces them is still in place?'
'There is no such thing as reforming this. This has to completely be taken down. Who is strong enough to say that the system of justice in America is an injustice to the American people?'
'It should all be destroyed and something new and better put in place.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m not worried about Trump taking us into the abyss of hell. The race-baiting, Jew-hating Farrakhan is much more likely to take us there.
BRATTON BLASTS KELLY OVER CRIME STATS CLAIM
NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and his predecessor, Ray Kelly, are in a battle over Kelly’s claims the city was playing around with crime statistics
by Anthony M. DeStefano
Newsday
December 31, 2015
NEW YORK -- After months of polite sparring, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and his predecessor, Ray Kelly, took off the gloves Tuesday and got into battle over Kelly’s claims the city was playing around with crime statistics.
At a news conference about New Year’s Eve security, Bratton laced into Kelly for alleging a week ago during a radio interview that the current NYPD administration was redefining crimes, particularly shooting incidents, to make crime statistics look better.
“It is amazing the comments you will make when selling a book,” Bratton said with a touch of sarcasm, referring to a book Kelly released earlier this year. “Quite frankly, those comments were outrageous.
“My cops work hard, very hard, to reduce gun violence in the city. So for him to denigrate their hard work as the result of shootings being reduced significantly in this city, to claim in some fashion that we are playing with the numbers, shame on him. Let him back up that allegation,” an increasingly angry Bratton said.
In response, Kelly, who last week didn’t reply to requests for comment by some reporters, acknowledged Tuesday night that he had no firsthand information about fudged crime data, but said he had been told about it by people still in the NYPD.
“Members of the New York City Police Department have informed me that the current administration has changed the way shooting victims are calculated,” Kelly said. “For example, a victim who incurs a graze wound are often not counted as a shooting victim, as was done previously. Similarly, a victim who sustains wounds by flying glass caused by a shooting is not recorded as a shooting victim.”
Kelly said he had been told wounds sustained by a victim who refuses to cooperate with a police investigation have been recorded as self-inflicted. He also said that in homicides, the category of “cause undetermined pending police investigation” has been misapplied to manipulate murder totals.
“This information, supplied by active members of the department themselves, in no way denigrates the hard work of our police officers,” Kelly said. “Rather, it reveals an administration willing to distort the reality of what they face on the street.”
But Dermot Shea, NYPD deputy commissioner for operations, said for at least the last four years, including during Kelly’s administration, the definition of shooting has not changed whatsoever. He said the classification of “cause undetermined pending police investigation” is a term used and defined by the medical examiner and not the NYPD.
by Anthony M. DeStefano
Newsday
December 31, 2015
NEW YORK -- After months of polite sparring, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and his predecessor, Ray Kelly, took off the gloves Tuesday and got into battle over Kelly’s claims the city was playing around with crime statistics.
At a news conference about New Year’s Eve security, Bratton laced into Kelly for alleging a week ago during a radio interview that the current NYPD administration was redefining crimes, particularly shooting incidents, to make crime statistics look better.
“It is amazing the comments you will make when selling a book,” Bratton said with a touch of sarcasm, referring to a book Kelly released earlier this year. “Quite frankly, those comments were outrageous.
“My cops work hard, very hard, to reduce gun violence in the city. So for him to denigrate their hard work as the result of shootings being reduced significantly in this city, to claim in some fashion that we are playing with the numbers, shame on him. Let him back up that allegation,” an increasingly angry Bratton said.
In response, Kelly, who last week didn’t reply to requests for comment by some reporters, acknowledged Tuesday night that he had no firsthand information about fudged crime data, but said he had been told about it by people still in the NYPD.
“Members of the New York City Police Department have informed me that the current administration has changed the way shooting victims are calculated,” Kelly said. “For example, a victim who incurs a graze wound are often not counted as a shooting victim, as was done previously. Similarly, a victim who sustains wounds by flying glass caused by a shooting is not recorded as a shooting victim.”
Kelly said he had been told wounds sustained by a victim who refuses to cooperate with a police investigation have been recorded as self-inflicted. He also said that in homicides, the category of “cause undetermined pending police investigation” has been misapplied to manipulate murder totals.
“This information, supplied by active members of the department themselves, in no way denigrates the hard work of our police officers,” Kelly said. “Rather, it reveals an administration willing to distort the reality of what they face on the street.”
But Dermot Shea, NYPD deputy commissioner for operations, said for at least the last four years, including during Kelly’s administration, the definition of shooting has not changed whatsoever. He said the classification of “cause undetermined pending police investigation” is a term used and defined by the medical examiner and not the NYPD.
RACIST DATING SERVICE?
Large Utah highway billboard advertises for a ‘Where White People Meet’ dating service
A large highway billboard in West Valley City, Utah advertises for the dating service WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com. The billboard reads:
WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com
Join for free today!
Paid Memberships only $4
That dating service has come under a lot of fire for being exclusive. Some critics implied that the dating service is racist.
According to Fox 13 News, the lead-in paragraph in the About Us section of the dating service website reads:
"I am sure some of you are wondering about the concept and need for a dating website titled “Where White People Meet.Com”. Our answer to that would be why not? There are various dating websites that promote and cater to just about every origin, race, religion and lifestyle out there. So again, why not “Where White People Meet.Com”?
To that I say, Why Not?
Anyway, what’s the big deal? The website claims only “111 members in total,” and for those of you who are looking to find the right woman, those members could be mostly men. Besides that, while it may not be politically correct, what's wrong with white people wanting to date only whites?
A large highway billboard in West Valley City, Utah advertises for the dating service WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com. The billboard reads:
WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com
Join for free today!
Paid Memberships only $4
That dating service has come under a lot of fire for being exclusive. Some critics implied that the dating service is racist.
According to Fox 13 News, the lead-in paragraph in the About Us section of the dating service website reads:
"I am sure some of you are wondering about the concept and need for a dating website titled “Where White People Meet.Com”. Our answer to that would be why not? There are various dating websites that promote and cater to just about every origin, race, religion and lifestyle out there. So again, why not “Where White People Meet.Com”?
To that I say, Why Not?
Anyway, what’s the big deal? The website claims only “111 members in total,” and for those of you who are looking to find the right woman, those members could be mostly men. Besides that, while it may not be politically correct, what's wrong with white people wanting to date only whites?
Saturday, January 02, 2016
THANKS TO HILLARY CLINTON
Al-Shabaab releases recruitment video featuring Donald Trump
Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda-affiliate group in Somalia, has released a recruitment video featuring Donald Trump’s remarks about shutting Muslims out of America. And where do you think they got the idea? From none other than Hillary Clinton!
During the Democratic debate on December 19, Clinton said this about Trump’s remarks on keeping Muslims from entering the United States:
"He [Trump] is becoming ISIS's best recruiter. They [ISIS] are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists."
Hillary flat out lied because there was no such video!
Now even an imbecile could have figured out that sooner or later ISIS or some other Islamist militants would pick up on Hillary’s lie and produce such a recruitment video. And that’s exactly what Al-Shabaab has done, thanks to Hillary.
Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda-affiliate group in Somalia, has released a recruitment video featuring Donald Trump’s remarks about shutting Muslims out of America. And where do you think they got the idea? From none other than Hillary Clinton!
During the Democratic debate on December 19, Clinton said this about Trump’s remarks on keeping Muslims from entering the United States:
"He [Trump] is becoming ISIS's best recruiter. They [ISIS] are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists."
Hillary flat out lied because there was no such video!
Now even an imbecile could have figured out that sooner or later ISIS or some other Islamist militants would pick up on Hillary’s lie and produce such a recruitment video. And that’s exactly what Al-Shabaab has done, thanks to Hillary.
THE NUMBERS ARE IN: BLACK LIVES MATTER IS WRONG ABOUT POLICE
The police use force mainly to protect human life, the use of force against unarmed suspects is rare, and the use of force against black Americans is largely proportional to their share of the violent crime rate
By David French
National Review
December 29, 2015
Ever since the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement, Americans have been bombarded with assertions that black men face a unique and dangerous threat — not from members of their own community but from the very law enforcement officers who are sworn to “serve and protect” them. Hashtags such as #DrivingWhileBlack and #WalkingWhileBlack have perpetuated a narrative that black Americans risk being gunned down by police simply because of the color of their skin. Using individual anecdotes of police misconduct and the now-discredited “hands up, don’t shoot” rallying cry, Black Lives Matter has built a case that American police are out of control.
The conservative response is clear: While no one believes the police are perfect, on the whole they tend to use force appropriately to protect their own lives and the lives of others. Moreover, racial disparities in the use of force are largely explained by racial disparities in criminality. Different American demographics commit crimes at different rates, so it stands to reason that those who commit more crimes will confront the police more often. Yes, there are rogue officers — and those rogue officers should be prosecuted — but the police are still a force for good in our society.
In response to the allegations of Black Lives Matter activists, the Washington Post launched an unprecedented, case-by-case study of police shootings. After a year of research, the data are in, and they confirm the conservative position: The police use force mainly to protect human life, the use of force against unarmed suspects is rare, and the use of force against black Americans is largely proportional to their share of the violent crime rate.
According the Post, as of December 24, American police had fatally shot 965 people in 2015. (The Guardian, in the midst of its own study, reports a slightly higher number of shootings). 564 of those killed were armed with a gun, 281 were armed with another weapon, and 90 were unarmed. In fully three-quarters of shootings, “police were under attack or defending someone who was.”
But what of race? The kinds of shootings that launched the Black Lives Matter movement — white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent “less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings.” The Post does its best to hype the racial injustice of this statistic, proclaiming that while “black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year.” But that claim is misleading on a number of counts.
Crime doesn’t break down on neat, proportionate demographic lines. Criminals are overwhelmingly male (police killed very few women this year, but no one argues that law enforcement is sexist), and violent criminals are disproportionately black. In fact, blacks “commit homicide at close to eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined.” Even worse, “among males between the ages of 14 and 17, the interracial homicide commission gap is nearly tenfold.” In 2014, for example, while black Americans constituted only about 13 percent of the population, they represented a majority of the homicide and robbery arrests. 82 percent of all gun deaths in the black community are from homicide. For whites, 77 percent of gun deaths are suicides.
Given these disturbing disparities, no rational person would expect police shootings to precisely track with demographics. Police follow crime, and they tend to operate in high-crime areas. It would be alarming if there were statistically significant racial variations in the use of force even after adjusting for crime rate, but the Post’s report doesn’t make this distinction. Even the “hugely disproportionate” ratio — “3 in 5” — of blacks and Hispanics shot to death after “exhibiting less threatening behavior” than brandishing a gun isn’t out of line with violent-crime rates.
The report does highlight areas where law-enforcement agencies could do better — improved training in handling fleeing or mentally ill suspects could save lives, for example — and while police are generally responsible in the use of force, that doesn’t mean that all use of force is lawful. There are individual racist cops, and there are departments that will close ranks behind corrupt colleagues. But the chances of an innocent black man being gunned down by racist cops are vanishingly small. And that is good news indeed.
While I am no fan of social movements built on false narratives, Black Lives Matter did inspire the Post’s valuable study — a study that, fairly read, should defuse national tensions. It won’t, however. The narrative is too strong, and too many powerful people have too much to gain by ratcheting up racial tensions. So Black Lives Matter will likely roll on, and still more black Americans will be taught to hate and fear law enforcement, fed on a steady diet of lies about their own country. America is a better place than they’ve been led to believe. Radical racial politics will only make it worse.
By David French
National Review
December 29, 2015
Ever since the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement, Americans have been bombarded with assertions that black men face a unique and dangerous threat — not from members of their own community but from the very law enforcement officers who are sworn to “serve and protect” them. Hashtags such as #DrivingWhileBlack and #WalkingWhileBlack have perpetuated a narrative that black Americans risk being gunned down by police simply because of the color of their skin. Using individual anecdotes of police misconduct and the now-discredited “hands up, don’t shoot” rallying cry, Black Lives Matter has built a case that American police are out of control.
The conservative response is clear: While no one believes the police are perfect, on the whole they tend to use force appropriately to protect their own lives and the lives of others. Moreover, racial disparities in the use of force are largely explained by racial disparities in criminality. Different American demographics commit crimes at different rates, so it stands to reason that those who commit more crimes will confront the police more often. Yes, there are rogue officers — and those rogue officers should be prosecuted — but the police are still a force for good in our society.
In response to the allegations of Black Lives Matter activists, the Washington Post launched an unprecedented, case-by-case study of police shootings. After a year of research, the data are in, and they confirm the conservative position: The police use force mainly to protect human life, the use of force against unarmed suspects is rare, and the use of force against black Americans is largely proportional to their share of the violent crime rate.
According the Post, as of December 24, American police had fatally shot 965 people in 2015. (The Guardian, in the midst of its own study, reports a slightly higher number of shootings). 564 of those killed were armed with a gun, 281 were armed with another weapon, and 90 were unarmed. In fully three-quarters of shootings, “police were under attack or defending someone who was.”
But what of race? The kinds of shootings that launched the Black Lives Matter movement — white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent “less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings.” The Post does its best to hype the racial injustice of this statistic, proclaiming that while “black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year.” But that claim is misleading on a number of counts.
Crime doesn’t break down on neat, proportionate demographic lines. Criminals are overwhelmingly male (police killed very few women this year, but no one argues that law enforcement is sexist), and violent criminals are disproportionately black. In fact, blacks “commit homicide at close to eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined.” Even worse, “among males between the ages of 14 and 17, the interracial homicide commission gap is nearly tenfold.” In 2014, for example, while black Americans constituted only about 13 percent of the population, they represented a majority of the homicide and robbery arrests. 82 percent of all gun deaths in the black community are from homicide. For whites, 77 percent of gun deaths are suicides.
Given these disturbing disparities, no rational person would expect police shootings to precisely track with demographics. Police follow crime, and they tend to operate in high-crime areas. It would be alarming if there were statistically significant racial variations in the use of force even after adjusting for crime rate, but the Post’s report doesn’t make this distinction. Even the “hugely disproportionate” ratio — “3 in 5” — of blacks and Hispanics shot to death after “exhibiting less threatening behavior” than brandishing a gun isn’t out of line with violent-crime rates.
The report does highlight areas where law-enforcement agencies could do better — improved training in handling fleeing or mentally ill suspects could save lives, for example — and while police are generally responsible in the use of force, that doesn’t mean that all use of force is lawful. There are individual racist cops, and there are departments that will close ranks behind corrupt colleagues. But the chances of an innocent black man being gunned down by racist cops are vanishingly small. And that is good news indeed.
While I am no fan of social movements built on false narratives, Black Lives Matter did inspire the Post’s valuable study — a study that, fairly read, should defuse national tensions. It won’t, however. The narrative is too strong, and too many powerful people have too much to gain by ratcheting up racial tensions. So Black Lives Matter will likely roll on, and still more black Americans will be taught to hate and fear law enforcement, fed on a steady diet of lies about their own country. America is a better place than they’ve been led to believe. Radical racial politics will only make it worse.
WILL ‘POT BREATHALYZER’ PASS THE SMELL TEST?
Hound Labs announced this month that it had developed technology that can determine with one or two breaths whether someone has recently smoked marijuana
By William Bender
Philadelphia Daily News
January 1, 2016
PHILADELPHIA -- It's all happening so fast.
Just three years ago, marijuana was illegal for recreational use nationwide.
That changed when voters in Colorado and Washington legalized it in 2012. Oregon, Alaska. and the District of Columbia passed similar legislation last year.
Philadelphia has reduced possession of a small amount of marijuana to a $25 citation, and Mayor-elect Jim Kenney -- South Philly Mummer turned pot-friendly progressive -- has said he would like to eliminate weed citations altogether.
A total of 23 states have passed medical-marijuana laws, and at least five more are expected to vote on recreational-use ballot questions next year.
Smoke it for your glaucoma. Smoke it to chill. Or don't smoke it at all. But pot is here to stay. It's likely only a matter of time before most American adults can get a prescription for marijuana or buy it as easily as a six-pack of beer.
But things get murky when it comes to driving. Motor-vehicle laws have not kept pace with the legalization trend.
The problem: Marijuana's main psychoactive component, THC, remains in blood longer than alcohol, so you could get busted for drugged driving well after the effects of your last joint have passed.
Mike Lynn, an emergency-room doctor and reserve deputy sheriff in California, wants to change that.
The proposed solution: a pot breath analyzer.
Oakland-based Hound Labs announced this month that it had developed technology that can determine with one or two breaths whether someone has recently smoked marijuana.
The company is working with scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, to build a handheld device that cops could use for roadside tests -- to test for alcohol and weed.
"We are creating this marijuana breathalyzer that not only detects THC in breath but also measures the level," said Lynn, Hound Labs' chief executive. "By measuring levels, you can actually start correlating those levels with true driving impairment, then create standards like we have with alcohol."
Lynn said THC remains in someone's breath for only two to three hours. Blood tests, such as those used by Philadelphia police, often can detect THC or its metabolites many hours -- or, sometimes, days -- after smoking. Lynn said that makes it difficult to distinguish between a chronic user who smoked the day before driving and someone who was ripping a bong just before getting behind the wheel.
"People are worried they're going to be arrested for testing positive when they're not impaired. But we don't want people that are truly stoned on the road," Lynn said. "This is a way of helping solve that problem."
Hound Labs plans to start clinical trials early next year with the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco General Hospital, and conduct tests with law enforcement officials. The breathalyzer could be on the market by the end of 2016.
"We need to identify those people that shouldn't be driving. This is about saving lives and preventing tragedies," Lynn said. "The guy that smoked yesterday and didn't get behind the wheel, that's not the person we're focused on at all."
'Holy grail and unicorn'
Hound Labs isn't the only company working on this technology, but it says its prototype can accurately measure THC levels using a proprietary method that is more than one million times more sensitive than alcohol breathalyzers.
But some cannabis activists, drug-recognition experts, and law enforcement officials are skeptical.
Chris Goldstein, a PhillyNORML board member who last year lobbied Kenney, then a councilman, to decriminalize marijuana in Philadelphia, calls the breathalyzer "both the holy grail and the unicorn of regulation and law enforcement when it comes to marijuana."
Cops would love to have an instrument that could instantly confirm a suspicion that someone is high. But establishing an impairment threshold for marijuana has been elusive.
What does it actually mean to be stoned? Can the effects of marijuana be reduced to a single number on a machine, like those of alcohol?
"The real crux of the issue is that there is no standard for what actually constitutes impairment for marijuana," Goldstein said. "The science is just not there yet to show us what real impairment means."
Pot affects people differently. A regular user could be several times over Pennsylvania's ultra-strict threshold -- one nanogram of THC per milliliter of blood -- and demonstrate little to no impairment. But someone who rarely smokes could be high as a kite with a THC level in the same range.
Different strains of marijuana can produce sedative or uplifting effects with varying cognitive impact. Some tend to induce "couch lock" and dull the senses, while others can spur creativity and heighten awareness.
"Unlike alcohol, the impairment standard can be very different among individuals," Goldstein said.
George Geisler, a drug-recognition expert who provides technical assistance to Pennsylvania law enforcement officials, said a breathalyzer that only detects marijuana smoked within a few hours could cast a narrow net -- clearing drivers who perhaps shouldn't be on the road, due to the lingering effects of smoking.
Geisler, who has examined drugged drivers at Philadelphia DUI checkpoints, said that in his experience, the "Cheech and Chong effect" of marijuana might last only a few hours, but it can affect a person's attention span and the ability to perform complex tasks significantly longer.
"Although it has short-term effects as far as obviously being impaired, the psychophysical impairment we see lasts up to 24 hours, and I've seen that personally," Geisler said.
Philadelphia Police Sgt. Joseph Rossa of the Accident Investigation Division said relying on a breathalyzer for marijuana would miss other drugs that would be caught by a drug test, such as PCP and Xanax.
"When we do blood, it tells us pretty much everything that's in there. I see it more as limiting," Rossa said of the pot breathalyzer.
"It might be good for parents to buy to see if their kids are getting high," he said. "Maybe they're looking at the wrong market."
Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said, "The data on whether relaxing marijuana laws increases impaired driving is still very rudimentary, since this trend of relaxing marijuana laws is relatively new. But we're monitoring it, and if there's a clear causal connection then we'll look for ways to address it."
Quantifying 'stoned'
Lynn, of Hound Labs, said the next step is to use his device to evaluate how well a person can operate a vehicle on a course at varying THC levels.
He hopes that will lead to a discussion about the need for national marijuana-impairment standards that are more accurate than current tests using blood or oral swabs.
"It's really pretty darn arbitrary," Lynn said of current testing methods.
Robert McGrory, a former California Highway Patrol lieutenant whose son was killed by a driver who tested positive for marijuana use, said the Hound Labs breathalyzer would expose stoned drivers who argue -- either on the road or in court -- that the THC in their blood is days old.
"It will totally eliminate that argument," said McGrory, who has been working with Lynn in developing the breathalyzer. Conversely, he said, "it's going to help us not arrest people that shouldn't be arrested."
Dwight "Spike" Helmick, a former California Highway Patrol commissioner who is working with Hound on the breathalyzer, said cops need to be prepared if increased marijuana availability leads to an uptick in stoned driving.
Helmick said he tries to avoid the debate over legalization, mostly because it's a moot point.
"The reality is, it's coming," he said, "so my concern is the safety of the motoring public."
EDITOR’S NOTE: As most of you know, the legalization of marijuana, both for medical purposes and for recreational use, does not pass the smell test for me!
By William Bender
Philadelphia Daily News
January 1, 2016
PHILADELPHIA -- It's all happening so fast.
Just three years ago, marijuana was illegal for recreational use nationwide.
That changed when voters in Colorado and Washington legalized it in 2012. Oregon, Alaska. and the District of Columbia passed similar legislation last year.
Philadelphia has reduced possession of a small amount of marijuana to a $25 citation, and Mayor-elect Jim Kenney -- South Philly Mummer turned pot-friendly progressive -- has said he would like to eliminate weed citations altogether.
A total of 23 states have passed medical-marijuana laws, and at least five more are expected to vote on recreational-use ballot questions next year.
Smoke it for your glaucoma. Smoke it to chill. Or don't smoke it at all. But pot is here to stay. It's likely only a matter of time before most American adults can get a prescription for marijuana or buy it as easily as a six-pack of beer.
But things get murky when it comes to driving. Motor-vehicle laws have not kept pace with the legalization trend.
The problem: Marijuana's main psychoactive component, THC, remains in blood longer than alcohol, so you could get busted for drugged driving well after the effects of your last joint have passed.
Mike Lynn, an emergency-room doctor and reserve deputy sheriff in California, wants to change that.
The proposed solution: a pot breath analyzer.
Oakland-based Hound Labs announced this month that it had developed technology that can determine with one or two breaths whether someone has recently smoked marijuana.
The company is working with scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, to build a handheld device that cops could use for roadside tests -- to test for alcohol and weed.
"We are creating this marijuana breathalyzer that not only detects THC in breath but also measures the level," said Lynn, Hound Labs' chief executive. "By measuring levels, you can actually start correlating those levels with true driving impairment, then create standards like we have with alcohol."
Lynn said THC remains in someone's breath for only two to three hours. Blood tests, such as those used by Philadelphia police, often can detect THC or its metabolites many hours -- or, sometimes, days -- after smoking. Lynn said that makes it difficult to distinguish between a chronic user who smoked the day before driving and someone who was ripping a bong just before getting behind the wheel.
"People are worried they're going to be arrested for testing positive when they're not impaired. But we don't want people that are truly stoned on the road," Lynn said. "This is a way of helping solve that problem."
Hound Labs plans to start clinical trials early next year with the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco General Hospital, and conduct tests with law enforcement officials. The breathalyzer could be on the market by the end of 2016.
"We need to identify those people that shouldn't be driving. This is about saving lives and preventing tragedies," Lynn said. "The guy that smoked yesterday and didn't get behind the wheel, that's not the person we're focused on at all."
'Holy grail and unicorn'
Hound Labs isn't the only company working on this technology, but it says its prototype can accurately measure THC levels using a proprietary method that is more than one million times more sensitive than alcohol breathalyzers.
But some cannabis activists, drug-recognition experts, and law enforcement officials are skeptical.
Chris Goldstein, a PhillyNORML board member who last year lobbied Kenney, then a councilman, to decriminalize marijuana in Philadelphia, calls the breathalyzer "both the holy grail and the unicorn of regulation and law enforcement when it comes to marijuana."
Cops would love to have an instrument that could instantly confirm a suspicion that someone is high. But establishing an impairment threshold for marijuana has been elusive.
What does it actually mean to be stoned? Can the effects of marijuana be reduced to a single number on a machine, like those of alcohol?
"The real crux of the issue is that there is no standard for what actually constitutes impairment for marijuana," Goldstein said. "The science is just not there yet to show us what real impairment means."
Pot affects people differently. A regular user could be several times over Pennsylvania's ultra-strict threshold -- one nanogram of THC per milliliter of blood -- and demonstrate little to no impairment. But someone who rarely smokes could be high as a kite with a THC level in the same range.
Different strains of marijuana can produce sedative or uplifting effects with varying cognitive impact. Some tend to induce "couch lock" and dull the senses, while others can spur creativity and heighten awareness.
"Unlike alcohol, the impairment standard can be very different among individuals," Goldstein said.
George Geisler, a drug-recognition expert who provides technical assistance to Pennsylvania law enforcement officials, said a breathalyzer that only detects marijuana smoked within a few hours could cast a narrow net -- clearing drivers who perhaps shouldn't be on the road, due to the lingering effects of smoking.
Geisler, who has examined drugged drivers at Philadelphia DUI checkpoints, said that in his experience, the "Cheech and Chong effect" of marijuana might last only a few hours, but it can affect a person's attention span and the ability to perform complex tasks significantly longer.
"Although it has short-term effects as far as obviously being impaired, the psychophysical impairment we see lasts up to 24 hours, and I've seen that personally," Geisler said.
Philadelphia Police Sgt. Joseph Rossa of the Accident Investigation Division said relying on a breathalyzer for marijuana would miss other drugs that would be caught by a drug test, such as PCP and Xanax.
"When we do blood, it tells us pretty much everything that's in there. I see it more as limiting," Rossa said of the pot breathalyzer.
"It might be good for parents to buy to see if their kids are getting high," he said. "Maybe they're looking at the wrong market."
Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said, "The data on whether relaxing marijuana laws increases impaired driving is still very rudimentary, since this trend of relaxing marijuana laws is relatively new. But we're monitoring it, and if there's a clear causal connection then we'll look for ways to address it."
Quantifying 'stoned'
Lynn, of Hound Labs, said the next step is to use his device to evaluate how well a person can operate a vehicle on a course at varying THC levels.
He hopes that will lead to a discussion about the need for national marijuana-impairment standards that are more accurate than current tests using blood or oral swabs.
"It's really pretty darn arbitrary," Lynn said of current testing methods.
Robert McGrory, a former California Highway Patrol lieutenant whose son was killed by a driver who tested positive for marijuana use, said the Hound Labs breathalyzer would expose stoned drivers who argue -- either on the road or in court -- that the THC in their blood is days old.
"It will totally eliminate that argument," said McGrory, who has been working with Lynn in developing the breathalyzer. Conversely, he said, "it's going to help us not arrest people that shouldn't be arrested."
Dwight "Spike" Helmick, a former California Highway Patrol commissioner who is working with Hound on the breathalyzer, said cops need to be prepared if increased marijuana availability leads to an uptick in stoned driving.
Helmick said he tries to avoid the debate over legalization, mostly because it's a moot point.
"The reality is, it's coming," he said, "so my concern is the safety of the motoring public."
EDITOR’S NOTE: As most of you know, the legalization of marijuana, both for medical purposes and for recreational use, does not pass the smell test for me!
JUDAISM GOING TO POT WITH KOSHER MEDICAL MARIJUANA
Rabbis of the Orthodox Union are disgracing themselves and Judaism by certifying as kosher a weed which is a medical fraud
The DEA has cited numerous studies that shoe medical marijuana to be a fraud. In a letter to organizations petitioning for a reclassification of marijuana, former DEA head Michele Leonhart declared that marijuana "has a high potential for abuse," "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" and "lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision." The letter and 37 pages of supporting documents were published in the Federal Register.
Here are some recent studies showing why medical pot is not the cure-all its advocates claim:
A study by Dr. Penny Whiting and her team at England’s University of Bristol found that cannabis does not ease pain, nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients, MS muscle contractions, sleep disorders or Tourette’s symptoms.
The American Glaucoma Society has written: "There is no scientific basis for marijuana's use in [glaucoma] treatment," and there is evidence that it could actually do damage.
The American Epilepsy Society says: "Marijuana itself has major shortcomings as an epilepsy treatment ... evidence for efficacy in treating seizures does not meet the necessary standard to recommend it to patients." Worse, researchers state that "marijuana use or withdrawal could potentially trigger seizures in susceptible [epilepsy] patients."
Drs. Deepak Cyril and Mohini Ranganathan of Yale University caution against the rush to legalize medical marijuana and suggest that “perhaps it is time to place the horse back in front of the cart.”
Getting high on pot is the same as getting loaded on Jack Daniels or Jim Beam ’cause when you drink enough whiskey you’re not going to feel any pain.
Now, along come the rabbis of the Orthodox Union to facilitate the smoking of pot by Orthodox Jews when marijuana is not going to cure what ails them. Those rabbis are disgracing themselves and Judaism. What they’re doing ain’t kosher!
KOSHER CANNABIS: NEW YORK MEDICAL POT GROWER SAYS PRODUCTS ARE CERTIFIED BY THE ORTHODOX UNION
Vireo Health of New York said its health’s oils, vaporization cartridges and other marijuana products will all have the Orthodox Union or “OU” symbol on them
By Glenn Blain
New York Daily News
December 30, 2015
ALBANY -- This pot is kosher!
A marijuana grower gearing up for the start of New York’s medical pot program in January announced Wednesday that its products have been certified kosher by the Orthodox Union.
Vireo Health of New York, which was one of five companies chosen by the state to grow and distribute medical pot, said it will be the first “medical cannabis company in the world” to have the “OU” symbol on its oils, vaporization cartridges and other products.
“Being certified kosher by the OU will not only help us serve the dietary needs of the largest Jewish community in the United States, but also combat unfortunate stigmas associated with medical cannabis,” said Vireo CEO Ari Hoffnung.
Vireo operates a growing facility in upstate New York and plans to open a dispensary in Queens sometime in January.
Rabbi Menachem Genack, chief executive officer of OU Kosher, said the organization was pleased to grant its certification to Vireo.
“Judaism prioritizes health and encourages the use of medicine designed to improve one’s health or reduce pain,” Genack said. “Using medical cannabis products recommended by a physician should not be regarded as a chet, a sinful act, but rather as a mitzvah, an imperative, a commandment.”
Gov. Cuomo and lawmakers approved the use of medical marijuana in 2014 but gave the state Health Department 18 months to set up the program in New York.
Under the law, medical marijuana can be used to treat 10 serious illnesses and conditions, including cancer, HIV and AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, epilepsy, some spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis.
The DEA has cited numerous studies that shoe medical marijuana to be a fraud. In a letter to organizations petitioning for a reclassification of marijuana, former DEA head Michele Leonhart declared that marijuana "has a high potential for abuse," "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" and "lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision." The letter and 37 pages of supporting documents were published in the Federal Register.
Here are some recent studies showing why medical pot is not the cure-all its advocates claim:
A study by Dr. Penny Whiting and her team at England’s University of Bristol found that cannabis does not ease pain, nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients, MS muscle contractions, sleep disorders or Tourette’s symptoms.
The American Glaucoma Society has written: "There is no scientific basis for marijuana's use in [glaucoma] treatment," and there is evidence that it could actually do damage.
The American Epilepsy Society says: "Marijuana itself has major shortcomings as an epilepsy treatment ... evidence for efficacy in treating seizures does not meet the necessary standard to recommend it to patients." Worse, researchers state that "marijuana use or withdrawal could potentially trigger seizures in susceptible [epilepsy] patients."
Drs. Deepak Cyril and Mohini Ranganathan of Yale University caution against the rush to legalize medical marijuana and suggest that “perhaps it is time to place the horse back in front of the cart.”
Getting high on pot is the same as getting loaded on Jack Daniels or Jim Beam ’cause when you drink enough whiskey you’re not going to feel any pain.
Now, along come the rabbis of the Orthodox Union to facilitate the smoking of pot by Orthodox Jews when marijuana is not going to cure what ails them. Those rabbis are disgracing themselves and Judaism. What they’re doing ain’t kosher!
KOSHER CANNABIS: NEW YORK MEDICAL POT GROWER SAYS PRODUCTS ARE CERTIFIED BY THE ORTHODOX UNION
Vireo Health of New York said its health’s oils, vaporization cartridges and other marijuana products will all have the Orthodox Union or “OU” symbol on them
By Glenn Blain
New York Daily News
December 30, 2015
ALBANY -- This pot is kosher!
A marijuana grower gearing up for the start of New York’s medical pot program in January announced Wednesday that its products have been certified kosher by the Orthodox Union.
Vireo Health of New York, which was one of five companies chosen by the state to grow and distribute medical pot, said it will be the first “medical cannabis company in the world” to have the “OU” symbol on its oils, vaporization cartridges and other products.
“Being certified kosher by the OU will not only help us serve the dietary needs of the largest Jewish community in the United States, but also combat unfortunate stigmas associated with medical cannabis,” said Vireo CEO Ari Hoffnung.
Vireo operates a growing facility in upstate New York and plans to open a dispensary in Queens sometime in January.
Rabbi Menachem Genack, chief executive officer of OU Kosher, said the organization was pleased to grant its certification to Vireo.
“Judaism prioritizes health and encourages the use of medicine designed to improve one’s health or reduce pain,” Genack said. “Using medical cannabis products recommended by a physician should not be regarded as a chet, a sinful act, but rather as a mitzvah, an imperative, a commandment.”
Gov. Cuomo and lawmakers approved the use of medical marijuana in 2014 but gave the state Health Department 18 months to set up the program in New York.
Under the law, medical marijuana can be used to treat 10 serious illnesses and conditions, including cancer, HIV and AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, epilepsy, some spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis.
HOW RUBIO HELPED HIS EX-CON BROTHER-IN-LAW ACQUIRE A REAL ESTATE LICENSE
In 1989 Orlando Cicilia, Marco Rubio’s big-time cocaine dealing brother-in-law, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for distributing $15 million worth of cocaine
By Scott Higham and Manuel Roig-Franzia
The Washington Post
December 30, 2015
When Marco Rubio was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, he used his official position to urge state regulators to grant a real estate license to his brother-in-law, a convicted cocaine trafficker who had been released from prison 20 months earlier, according to records obtained by The Washington Post.
In July 2002, Rubio sent a letter on his official statehouse stationery to the Florida Division of Real Estate, recommending Orlando Cicilia “for licensure without reservation.” The letter, obtained by The Washington Post under the Florida Public Records Act, offers a glimpse of Rubio using his growing political power to assist his troubled brother-in-law and provides new insight into how the young lawmaker intertwined his personal and political lives.
Rubio did not disclose in the letter that Cicilia was married to his sister, Barbara, or that the former cocaine dealer was living at the time in the same West Miami home as Rubio’s parents. He wrote that he had known Cicilia “for over 25 years,” without elaborating.
Rubio has avoided discussing Cicilia’s case in detail and has declined to answer questions about his relationship with his brother-in-law. Earlier this month, prior to The Post publishing an article about Cicilia’s case, Rubio declined to answer a written question about whether he had helped win the approval of his brother-in-law’s real estate license.
Rubio also declined to say whether he or his family received financial assistance from Cicilia, who was convicted in a high-profile 1989 trial of distributing $15 million worth of cocaine. The federal government seized Cicilia’s home; the money has never been found.
Cicilia, 58, could not be reached for comment. He still lives in the same home as Rubio’s mother and has appeared at campaign events for his brother-in-law. Rubio-affiliated PACs and campaigns, including his ongoing presidential operation, have paid Cicilia’s two sons more than $130,000 in the past decade.
“Orlando made some very big mistakes almost 30 years ago, served his time, and has paid his debt to society,” Rubio’s presidential campaign adviser, Todd Harris, said in an email. “Today he is a private citizen, husband and father, simply trying to make a living. It is appalling and shameful that The Washington Post continues to drag him into the spotlight.
“Marco has recommended scores of Floridians for various professional positions and after Orlando paid his debt to society, Marco was happy to recommend him as well. He believed Orlando should be judged on his own merits and felt it would be highly inappropriate, and could be perceived as exerting undue pressure, if his letter stated that Orlando was a relative.”
Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group in Washington, said Rubio’s role concerned her.
“Someone who serves their time should be a productive member of society, and it’s important for families to help each other, but it’s wrong to use your public office for personal or private gain,” Brian said.
By not disclosing his relationship, Rubio withheld a key piece of information from the real estate board, Brian added. “The general rule of thumb I apply to conflicts of interest is, if you can’t eliminate them, you need to manage them by disclosing the conflict,” she said. “I’m uncomfortable that he didn’t acknowledge the conflict.”
Rubio, a Republican who represents Florida in the U.S. Senate, was a 16-year-old high school junior in 1987 when Cicilia was arrested in one of the largest drug cases in Florida history. There has never been any evidence that Rubio or his family knew that Cicilia was dealing cocaine, although Drug Enforcement Administration surveillance records show Cicilia stored cocaine from the drug ring at his home, a few miles away from where Rubio and his parents lived.
By 2002 — when Cicilia applied for his real estate license — Rubio was accumulating significant power in Tallahassee. He had been tapped as majority whip, and he added to his growing portfolio when he was named chairman of the prominent Task Force on Florida’s Tax Structure. Later that year, he was selected as House majority leader, a position that put him on the fast track to become speaker of the House.
While Rubio was making his mark in Florida politics, Cicilia was reintegrating into the Rubio family and acclimating to life as a free man after 11 1/2 years in federal prison. Cicilia lived with his wife and Rubio’s parents in the future GOP candidate’s childhood home, according to Cicilia’s real-estate-license application. Shortly after his release, Cicilia took a job on the sales staff of a Miami food company and worked his way up to be head of the sales team, according to his application.
Cicilia’s cocaine conviction presented a complication for his application. Unlike some states, Florida does not prohibit felons from holding real estate licenses. Their applications are considered on a “case-by-case basis” by seven members of the Florida Real Estate Commission, who are appointed by the governor. The governor, at that time, was Rubio’s political mentor, Jeb Bush — who is now running against the Florida senator for the Republican presidential nomination. The budget of the agency is controlled by the Florida legislature, where Rubio wielded considerable influence.
Cicilia had one technical issue in his favor. In general, the board frowns upon applicants who have been convicted of fraud and related charges — he had been convicted in a drug trafficking case. Regardless of the charge, felons can plead their cases before the board members and can ask character witnesses to submit letters or testify on their behalf.
“If someone has been found guilty of fraud, that’s going to go against them,” said Chelsea Eagle, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which oversees licensing in the state. “It all depends on the circumstances of the case.”
Cicilia applied for his license in February 2002, and he answered “yes” to a question about whether he had been convicted of a crime. State regulators wanted to know more. Cicilia responded on June 5, outlining his cocaine conviction and sentencing, and saying he had an “impeccable record” during his time in prison.
At the suggestion of an official in the Florida Division of Real Estate, Cicilia asked for his application to be considered at a hearing of the Real Estate Commission in July 2002. Along with his request, he sent three recommendation letters. One was from a real estate executive who said he had known him for 30 years; another was from his boss at the food sales company, who described him as “efficient, punctual, meticulous in his work and in every way a model employee.” The third was from the majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives — his brother-in-law.
“I have known Mr. Cicilia for over 25 years,” Rubio wrote in a July 1, 2002, letter to an official in the Real Estate Division of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. “I recommend him for licensure without reservation. If I can be of further assistance on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.”
Cicilia got his hearing. A letter from the Real Estate Division let him know that his application was placed on the agenda for the Real Estate Commission’s July 17, 2002, meeting.
The next day, he was approved. He was officially a real estate agent.
Three years later, when Rubio was looking for a new home, he turned to the real estate agent in the family to help him arrange the purchase: Orlando Cicilia.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The fact that Rubio helped his brother-in-law acquire a real estate license is no big deal. But the fact that Orlando Cicilia was a big-time cocaine dealer does raise a red flag with me. How much, if any, of the millions Cicilia made, was given to help out a then young Marco and his wife?
By Scott Higham and Manuel Roig-Franzia
The Washington Post
December 30, 2015
When Marco Rubio was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, he used his official position to urge state regulators to grant a real estate license to his brother-in-law, a convicted cocaine trafficker who had been released from prison 20 months earlier, according to records obtained by The Washington Post.
In July 2002, Rubio sent a letter on his official statehouse stationery to the Florida Division of Real Estate, recommending Orlando Cicilia “for licensure without reservation.” The letter, obtained by The Washington Post under the Florida Public Records Act, offers a glimpse of Rubio using his growing political power to assist his troubled brother-in-law and provides new insight into how the young lawmaker intertwined his personal and political lives.
Rubio did not disclose in the letter that Cicilia was married to his sister, Barbara, or that the former cocaine dealer was living at the time in the same West Miami home as Rubio’s parents. He wrote that he had known Cicilia “for over 25 years,” without elaborating.
Rubio has avoided discussing Cicilia’s case in detail and has declined to answer questions about his relationship with his brother-in-law. Earlier this month, prior to The Post publishing an article about Cicilia’s case, Rubio declined to answer a written question about whether he had helped win the approval of his brother-in-law’s real estate license.
Rubio also declined to say whether he or his family received financial assistance from Cicilia, who was convicted in a high-profile 1989 trial of distributing $15 million worth of cocaine. The federal government seized Cicilia’s home; the money has never been found.
Cicilia, 58, could not be reached for comment. He still lives in the same home as Rubio’s mother and has appeared at campaign events for his brother-in-law. Rubio-affiliated PACs and campaigns, including his ongoing presidential operation, have paid Cicilia’s two sons more than $130,000 in the past decade.
“Orlando made some very big mistakes almost 30 years ago, served his time, and has paid his debt to society,” Rubio’s presidential campaign adviser, Todd Harris, said in an email. “Today he is a private citizen, husband and father, simply trying to make a living. It is appalling and shameful that The Washington Post continues to drag him into the spotlight.
“Marco has recommended scores of Floridians for various professional positions and after Orlando paid his debt to society, Marco was happy to recommend him as well. He believed Orlando should be judged on his own merits and felt it would be highly inappropriate, and could be perceived as exerting undue pressure, if his letter stated that Orlando was a relative.”
Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group in Washington, said Rubio’s role concerned her.
“Someone who serves their time should be a productive member of society, and it’s important for families to help each other, but it’s wrong to use your public office for personal or private gain,” Brian said.
By not disclosing his relationship, Rubio withheld a key piece of information from the real estate board, Brian added. “The general rule of thumb I apply to conflicts of interest is, if you can’t eliminate them, you need to manage them by disclosing the conflict,” she said. “I’m uncomfortable that he didn’t acknowledge the conflict.”
Rubio, a Republican who represents Florida in the U.S. Senate, was a 16-year-old high school junior in 1987 when Cicilia was arrested in one of the largest drug cases in Florida history. There has never been any evidence that Rubio or his family knew that Cicilia was dealing cocaine, although Drug Enforcement Administration surveillance records show Cicilia stored cocaine from the drug ring at his home, a few miles away from where Rubio and his parents lived.
By 2002 — when Cicilia applied for his real estate license — Rubio was accumulating significant power in Tallahassee. He had been tapped as majority whip, and he added to his growing portfolio when he was named chairman of the prominent Task Force on Florida’s Tax Structure. Later that year, he was selected as House majority leader, a position that put him on the fast track to become speaker of the House.
While Rubio was making his mark in Florida politics, Cicilia was reintegrating into the Rubio family and acclimating to life as a free man after 11 1/2 years in federal prison. Cicilia lived with his wife and Rubio’s parents in the future GOP candidate’s childhood home, according to Cicilia’s real-estate-license application. Shortly after his release, Cicilia took a job on the sales staff of a Miami food company and worked his way up to be head of the sales team, according to his application.
Cicilia’s cocaine conviction presented a complication for his application. Unlike some states, Florida does not prohibit felons from holding real estate licenses. Their applications are considered on a “case-by-case basis” by seven members of the Florida Real Estate Commission, who are appointed by the governor. The governor, at that time, was Rubio’s political mentor, Jeb Bush — who is now running against the Florida senator for the Republican presidential nomination. The budget of the agency is controlled by the Florida legislature, where Rubio wielded considerable influence.
Cicilia had one technical issue in his favor. In general, the board frowns upon applicants who have been convicted of fraud and related charges — he had been convicted in a drug trafficking case. Regardless of the charge, felons can plead their cases before the board members and can ask character witnesses to submit letters or testify on their behalf.
“If someone has been found guilty of fraud, that’s going to go against them,” said Chelsea Eagle, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which oversees licensing in the state. “It all depends on the circumstances of the case.”
Cicilia applied for his license in February 2002, and he answered “yes” to a question about whether he had been convicted of a crime. State regulators wanted to know more. Cicilia responded on June 5, outlining his cocaine conviction and sentencing, and saying he had an “impeccable record” during his time in prison.
At the suggestion of an official in the Florida Division of Real Estate, Cicilia asked for his application to be considered at a hearing of the Real Estate Commission in July 2002. Along with his request, he sent three recommendation letters. One was from a real estate executive who said he had known him for 30 years; another was from his boss at the food sales company, who described him as “efficient, punctual, meticulous in his work and in every way a model employee.” The third was from the majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives — his brother-in-law.
“I have known Mr. Cicilia for over 25 years,” Rubio wrote in a July 1, 2002, letter to an official in the Real Estate Division of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. “I recommend him for licensure without reservation. If I can be of further assistance on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.”
Cicilia got his hearing. A letter from the Real Estate Division let him know that his application was placed on the agenda for the Real Estate Commission’s July 17, 2002, meeting.
The next day, he was approved. He was officially a real estate agent.
Three years later, when Rubio was looking for a new home, he turned to the real estate agent in the family to help him arrange the purchase: Orlando Cicilia.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The fact that Rubio helped his brother-in-law acquire a real estate license is no big deal. But the fact that Orlando Cicilia was a big-time cocaine dealer does raise a red flag with me. How much, if any, of the millions Cicilia made, was given to help out a then young Marco and his wife?
Friday, January 01, 2016
THE UNTUCHABLE IS FINALLY BUSTED FOR RAPE
Bill Cosby is arrested in Pennsylvania and released on $1 million bail just days before the statute of limitations on rape would have gone into effect
Oh my God, how could they? America’s father figure has been busted on a rape charge. A nasty district attorney in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County has had the audacity to charge 78-year-old Bill Cosby with aggravated indecent assault in the first degree for the 2004 rape of Andrea Constand, the former director of operations for the Temple University's women's basketball team.
Constand reported the rape to the police, but a nicer DA - and being the nice guy he was - refused to file any charges against Cliff Huxtable, err I mean Bill Cosby.
In 2005, Constand filed a civil lawsuit against Cosby that was settled out of court. During a deposition for that suit, Cosby admitted giving Quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.
The nasty new DA did the dastardly deed of filing a criminal charge against America’s father figure just days before Pennsylvania's 12-year statute of limitation on rape would have gone into effect.
More than four dozen women have come forward publically to say that Cosby drugged and raped them. Up to now, it appeared that the statute of limitations made Cosby untouchable. Constand said that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in January 2004 at his home in Cheltenham Township, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Cosby was busted Wednesday. A preliminary hearing was set for January 14. He was released after posting 10 percent in cash of a $1 million bond. He faces up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted on the aggravated indecent assault charge.
What in the fuck is this country coming to when they can do this to America’s father figure, especially since he has repeatedly insisted that all those women accusers are a pack of liars seeking publicity and his money.
Shit, Constand is an admitted lesbian. Now tell me, why in the world would Cliff Huxtable – dammit, there I go again – Bill Cosby even consider ever fucking a lesbian? The man is obviously innocent!
Oh my God, how could they? America’s father figure has been busted on a rape charge. A nasty district attorney in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County has had the audacity to charge 78-year-old Bill Cosby with aggravated indecent assault in the first degree for the 2004 rape of Andrea Constand, the former director of operations for the Temple University's women's basketball team.
Constand reported the rape to the police, but a nicer DA - and being the nice guy he was - refused to file any charges against Cliff Huxtable, err I mean Bill Cosby.
In 2005, Constand filed a civil lawsuit against Cosby that was settled out of court. During a deposition for that suit, Cosby admitted giving Quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.
The nasty new DA did the dastardly deed of filing a criminal charge against America’s father figure just days before Pennsylvania's 12-year statute of limitation on rape would have gone into effect.
More than four dozen women have come forward publically to say that Cosby drugged and raped them. Up to now, it appeared that the statute of limitations made Cosby untouchable. Constand said that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in January 2004 at his home in Cheltenham Township, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Cosby was busted Wednesday. A preliminary hearing was set for January 14. He was released after posting 10 percent in cash of a $1 million bond. He faces up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted on the aggravated indecent assault charge.
What in the fuck is this country coming to when they can do this to America’s father figure, especially since he has repeatedly insisted that all those women accusers are a pack of liars seeking publicity and his money.
Shit, Constand is an admitted lesbian. Now tell me, why in the world would Cliff Huxtable – dammit, there I go again – Bill Cosby even consider ever fucking a lesbian? The man is obviously innocent!
FEDERAL APPEALS COURT WILL HEAR LAWSUIT IN BOTCHED DEA STING
By Leif Reigstad
Houston Press
December 31, 2015
There are still a lot of loose ends four years after DEA informant Lawrence Chapa was shot and killed in his truck in Northwest Houston during a sting operation gone wrong (we wrote about the case in detail this past October). Was anyone at the DEA ever held accountable? Who organized a group of amateur robbers to attempt to steal the drugs in Chapa's 18-wheeler? And who fired the fatal shots that turned everyone's plans upside down, and left Chapa riddled with bullets in the back of the truck's cabin?
It seems the only party involved in the incident who is actively seeking answers is Craig Patty, the truck owner left out of the loop as the DEA used his vehicle in the sting. Patty sued for damages after the federal agency refused to pick up the tab for leaving his 18-wheeler crashed into a fence alongside the road, pockmarked by bullet holes and stained with Chapa's blood. The case was dismissed by a federal court judge in March, but Patty appealed, and now a federal appeals court has agreed to hear oral arguments in the case this February, as the Houston Chronicle first reported earlier this week.
Following the shooting, Patty sought compensation from the DEA for wrecking his truck but the government denied his request. In court documents, Patty claims his insurer also refused to cover the cost of the damage because it occurred during "unauthorized" or "illegal" activity. Patty said he had to take money out of his retirement fund to repair the truck, which was out of service for about 100 days. In July 2012, Patty filed a claim seeking $1,483,532 in damages. Only about $133,000 of that sum accounted for the truck's maintenance; the rest, Patty said, was reimbursement for his "pain, suffering and humiliation." Patty sought an additional $5,000,000 in punitive damages from the feds.
The original lawsuit was dismissed after a lower court judge ruled that the DEA had not acted negligently and did not have to tell Patty that his truck was being used in a dangerous operation. Fernando Villasana, an HPD officer assigned to a DEA task force and the organizer of the sting, said in a deposition that undercover operations are "necessarily discretionary," meaning the federal agency has some leeway to override the constitutional rights of civilians if it serves to further a covert mission.
“The government just absolutely totally violated Craig Patty’s constitutional rights,” Patty’s attorney Andy Vickery told the Chron. “If this case is affirmed, if the court’s puts its imprimatur on this case, then all of us as citizens are subject to having our vehicles used at any time without our knowledge or approval by police who say ‘heck, let’s just use this car.'”
It's been a long struggle for Patty and his attorneys to pry information about the sting operation from the DEA, and much of that information has been kept from public view. In 2014, former Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Houston bureau Javier Pena was deposed along with Villasana, but the judge sealed both depositions after the federal government argued that the agents were concerned for their safety, citing “risks [of] recriminations from dangerous criminals." (Contrary to what the Chron continues to report, however, there is no evidence that Chapa was shot by "cartel attackers" from Los Zetas — according to our interviews with attorneys and the thousands of pages of court documents we were able to review, the "attackers" appear to have been nothing more than local petty crooks who were in over their heads.)
Meanwhile, Villasana hardly keeps his identity secret, as he has an online LinkedIn profile and has publicly testified in previous criminal trials about his role as an undercover agent. And since Pena recently retired from the DEA he has become quite the social butterfly, squawking to the Chron in July to promote "Narcos," a Netflix series starring a character based on himself. Pena told the Chron that the show's producers paid him to be a consultant for the series, which is a docudrama about the DEA tracking infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1980's.
"They hired me about a year ago, me and my partner," Pena told the Chron. "We just told them what it was like, our participation and the chronology of how it happened."
We called Pena that summer, hoping he would be just as forthcoming about the 2011 botched sting as he was about chasing down Escobar, but he declined comment. Even if Pena will readily talk to TV producers who are making a flattering show about his successes as a DEA agent, when it comes to discussing a major screw-up on his watch he is silent.
It seems the DEA is quietly hoping this thing just goes away. No agents involved in the sting would talk to us for the story we wrote in October, including Villasana, who did not even respond to requests for comment. A month ago, the DEA rejected a Freedom of Information Act request we sent seeking more information about Chapa's role with the DEA, operational plans for the sting, and whether any agents involved in the incident were disciplined.
Now, however, Patty's case has finally reached a pubic hearing that could shed some light on what happened when Lawrence Chapa was shot to death. It only took four years.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually Leif Reigstad must not be familiar with judicial procedures. Unlike a trial court in which all the circumstances of a case will be brought out, appellate courts merely hear points of law, in this case whether the trial judge was right or wrong in dismissing the lawsuit against the DEA. If the appellate court rules the judge was wrong, the case will be remanded back to the original court for trial.
Houston Press
December 31, 2015
There are still a lot of loose ends four years after DEA informant Lawrence Chapa was shot and killed in his truck in Northwest Houston during a sting operation gone wrong (we wrote about the case in detail this past October). Was anyone at the DEA ever held accountable? Who organized a group of amateur robbers to attempt to steal the drugs in Chapa's 18-wheeler? And who fired the fatal shots that turned everyone's plans upside down, and left Chapa riddled with bullets in the back of the truck's cabin?
It seems the only party involved in the incident who is actively seeking answers is Craig Patty, the truck owner left out of the loop as the DEA used his vehicle in the sting. Patty sued for damages after the federal agency refused to pick up the tab for leaving his 18-wheeler crashed into a fence alongside the road, pockmarked by bullet holes and stained with Chapa's blood. The case was dismissed by a federal court judge in March, but Patty appealed, and now a federal appeals court has agreed to hear oral arguments in the case this February, as the Houston Chronicle first reported earlier this week.
Following the shooting, Patty sought compensation from the DEA for wrecking his truck but the government denied his request. In court documents, Patty claims his insurer also refused to cover the cost of the damage because it occurred during "unauthorized" or "illegal" activity. Patty said he had to take money out of his retirement fund to repair the truck, which was out of service for about 100 days. In July 2012, Patty filed a claim seeking $1,483,532 in damages. Only about $133,000 of that sum accounted for the truck's maintenance; the rest, Patty said, was reimbursement for his "pain, suffering and humiliation." Patty sought an additional $5,000,000 in punitive damages from the feds.
The original lawsuit was dismissed after a lower court judge ruled that the DEA had not acted negligently and did not have to tell Patty that his truck was being used in a dangerous operation. Fernando Villasana, an HPD officer assigned to a DEA task force and the organizer of the sting, said in a deposition that undercover operations are "necessarily discretionary," meaning the federal agency has some leeway to override the constitutional rights of civilians if it serves to further a covert mission.
“The government just absolutely totally violated Craig Patty’s constitutional rights,” Patty’s attorney Andy Vickery told the Chron. “If this case is affirmed, if the court’s puts its imprimatur on this case, then all of us as citizens are subject to having our vehicles used at any time without our knowledge or approval by police who say ‘heck, let’s just use this car.'”
It's been a long struggle for Patty and his attorneys to pry information about the sting operation from the DEA, and much of that information has been kept from public view. In 2014, former Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Houston bureau Javier Pena was deposed along with Villasana, but the judge sealed both depositions after the federal government argued that the agents were concerned for their safety, citing “risks [of] recriminations from dangerous criminals." (Contrary to what the Chron continues to report, however, there is no evidence that Chapa was shot by "cartel attackers" from Los Zetas — according to our interviews with attorneys and the thousands of pages of court documents we were able to review, the "attackers" appear to have been nothing more than local petty crooks who were in over their heads.)
Meanwhile, Villasana hardly keeps his identity secret, as he has an online LinkedIn profile and has publicly testified in previous criminal trials about his role as an undercover agent. And since Pena recently retired from the DEA he has become quite the social butterfly, squawking to the Chron in July to promote "Narcos," a Netflix series starring a character based on himself. Pena told the Chron that the show's producers paid him to be a consultant for the series, which is a docudrama about the DEA tracking infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1980's.
"They hired me about a year ago, me and my partner," Pena told the Chron. "We just told them what it was like, our participation and the chronology of how it happened."
We called Pena that summer, hoping he would be just as forthcoming about the 2011 botched sting as he was about chasing down Escobar, but he declined comment. Even if Pena will readily talk to TV producers who are making a flattering show about his successes as a DEA agent, when it comes to discussing a major screw-up on his watch he is silent.
It seems the DEA is quietly hoping this thing just goes away. No agents involved in the sting would talk to us for the story we wrote in October, including Villasana, who did not even respond to requests for comment. A month ago, the DEA rejected a Freedom of Information Act request we sent seeking more information about Chapa's role with the DEA, operational plans for the sting, and whether any agents involved in the incident were disciplined.
Now, however, Patty's case has finally reached a pubic hearing that could shed some light on what happened when Lawrence Chapa was shot to death. It only took four years.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually Leif Reigstad must not be familiar with judicial procedures. Unlike a trial court in which all the circumstances of a case will be brought out, appellate courts merely hear points of law, in this case whether the trial judge was right or wrong in dismissing the lawsuit against the DEA. If the appellate court rules the judge was wrong, the case will be remanded back to the original court for trial.
IN L.A., RENEWED FOCUS ON TRAINING POLICE WHEN TO SHOOT, AND WHEN NOT TO
They’re training officers to take cover and create distance, when they can, to give them more time to better assess what's going on
by Frank Stoltze
KQED News
December 30, 2015
Across the country, activists are demanding that police stop shooting unarmed people — particularly young black men.
In Los Angeles County, an investigation by NPR member station KPCC in Pasadena found that one-quarter of the more than 375 people shot by police over a five-year period were unarmed. Black people were fatally shot at three times their proportion of the population.
Using deadly force is the toughest decision a cop will make. And as angry protests have swelled over police shootings, some departments like Los Angeles' are providing new de-escalation training. They're encouraging officers to take cover and create distance, when they can, to give them more time to better assess what's going on.
At the Los Angeles Police Department's training academy, fresh-faced recruits step in front of a giant TV screen. It's a force option simulator, a sort of video game that presents them with scenarios where they have to decide what to do.
In one scenario, an officer stops a vehicle that has no license plate and approaches from the right side. A woman in the driver's seat greets the officer.
It seems like a pretty standard car stop. The friendly woman smiles broadly as she leans over to look for her car registration inside the glove compartment.
"It's in here somewhere," she says — before pulling out a gun and firing.
Over and over, recruits are presented with armed suspects. It gets their adrenaline flowing.
Training Sgt. Bobbie Riggs teaches recruits to control their fear, and pull the trigger when necessary.
"We don't want our officers to get shot at first," Riggs says. "You don't have to wait to get shot at before you can use deadly force, because we would have a lot of dead officers."
In fact, under the law, police officers don't need to wait to see a gun before they shoot someone. They need reasonable belief someone is armed and about to attack.
At the academy, recruits are told to look for clues of a weapon. It starts with the call – did someone report gunfire? Then, are there bulges in the suspect's pockets? Do they keep touching part of their clothing, as if to check on something concealed?
A failure to follow commands, hidden hands and a furtive movement mean it may be time to use deadly force.
But KPCC's analysis found those clues don't always add up to a weapon. Between 2010 and 2014, police officers in LA County shot at least 54 people they thought were armed — but turned out not to be.
One recruit is told he waited too long to shoot a man who grabbed a gun the police officer didn't notice sitting on a nearby bench.
"This is like a tie," says trainer Anthony Jackson. "He gets a shot at you. You get a shot at him. Maybe you both get hit. We can't have ties. You have to protect yourself."
But Jackson also says the shooting could have been avoided entirely, if the recruit had grabbed the suspect earlier — before he got to the gun.
"You have to recognize what's going on, and react a little faster, OK?" Jackson tells the recruit.
Shooting someone is a very personal decision, says former officer Gil Contreras.
Back in the 1980s, Contreras was on patrol in the Watts neighborhood when he came face to face with a man with a bat who was threatening to kill him.
Contreras loaded a round into his 12-gauge shotgun. His mind raced with thoughts.
"One of them was,'Geez, this is my guy, this is the guy that I kill in the line of duty. This is him, standing right in front of me, right here, right now,' " he recalls. "And I wasn't afraid."
Contreras prepared to fire, when something surprising happened.
"His face went soft, he dropped the bat and he just looked confused to me," the former police officer says.
Cops will tell you they actually don't pull the trigger on a lot of people they could legally shoot. In Los Angeles, they are reinforcing de-escalation training.
At one recent LAPD class, beat cops watch body cam video of a murder suspect charging at an officer in Ohio.
"Get your hands up. Get your hands up right now. Stop, stop right there," the policeman shouts.
The officer, a 27-year-old Iraq War veteran, continues to back up as the suspect rushes him, begging the cop to shoot him.
"I don't want to shoot you, man. I don't want to shoot you," the policeman shouts.
At the last minute, the suspect stops.
It's extraordinary restraint that won the officer praise from the public.
But it's a hard sell among cops, says LAPD Capt. John Tippett.
"I'm not sure I would have shown the same restraint," he says. "It was pretty obvious that the guy intended on harming the officer and even if he didn't have a gun, he was probably going to try to get the officer's gun away from him."
Even knowing the man surrendered, Tippett and many other police say the risk was just too great.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Those ‘shoot, don’t’ shoot’ police training videos have been around since the late 1960s. After getting shot several times, the trainees will have been scared to the extent that when on the streets as cops, they are likely to be trigger happy, rather than showing restraint.
by Frank Stoltze
KQED News
December 30, 2015
Across the country, activists are demanding that police stop shooting unarmed people — particularly young black men.
In Los Angeles County, an investigation by NPR member station KPCC in Pasadena found that one-quarter of the more than 375 people shot by police over a five-year period were unarmed. Black people were fatally shot at three times their proportion of the population.
Using deadly force is the toughest decision a cop will make. And as angry protests have swelled over police shootings, some departments like Los Angeles' are providing new de-escalation training. They're encouraging officers to take cover and create distance, when they can, to give them more time to better assess what's going on.
At the Los Angeles Police Department's training academy, fresh-faced recruits step in front of a giant TV screen. It's a force option simulator, a sort of video game that presents them with scenarios where they have to decide what to do.
In one scenario, an officer stops a vehicle that has no license plate and approaches from the right side. A woman in the driver's seat greets the officer.
It seems like a pretty standard car stop. The friendly woman smiles broadly as she leans over to look for her car registration inside the glove compartment.
"It's in here somewhere," she says — before pulling out a gun and firing.
Over and over, recruits are presented with armed suspects. It gets their adrenaline flowing.
Training Sgt. Bobbie Riggs teaches recruits to control their fear, and pull the trigger when necessary.
"We don't want our officers to get shot at first," Riggs says. "You don't have to wait to get shot at before you can use deadly force, because we would have a lot of dead officers."
In fact, under the law, police officers don't need to wait to see a gun before they shoot someone. They need reasonable belief someone is armed and about to attack.
At the academy, recruits are told to look for clues of a weapon. It starts with the call – did someone report gunfire? Then, are there bulges in the suspect's pockets? Do they keep touching part of their clothing, as if to check on something concealed?
A failure to follow commands, hidden hands and a furtive movement mean it may be time to use deadly force.
But KPCC's analysis found those clues don't always add up to a weapon. Between 2010 and 2014, police officers in LA County shot at least 54 people they thought were armed — but turned out not to be.
One recruit is told he waited too long to shoot a man who grabbed a gun the police officer didn't notice sitting on a nearby bench.
"This is like a tie," says trainer Anthony Jackson. "He gets a shot at you. You get a shot at him. Maybe you both get hit. We can't have ties. You have to protect yourself."
But Jackson also says the shooting could have been avoided entirely, if the recruit had grabbed the suspect earlier — before he got to the gun.
"You have to recognize what's going on, and react a little faster, OK?" Jackson tells the recruit.
Shooting someone is a very personal decision, says former officer Gil Contreras.
Back in the 1980s, Contreras was on patrol in the Watts neighborhood when he came face to face with a man with a bat who was threatening to kill him.
Contreras loaded a round into his 12-gauge shotgun. His mind raced with thoughts.
"One of them was,'Geez, this is my guy, this is the guy that I kill in the line of duty. This is him, standing right in front of me, right here, right now,' " he recalls. "And I wasn't afraid."
Contreras prepared to fire, when something surprising happened.
"His face went soft, he dropped the bat and he just looked confused to me," the former police officer says.
Cops will tell you they actually don't pull the trigger on a lot of people they could legally shoot. In Los Angeles, they are reinforcing de-escalation training.
At one recent LAPD class, beat cops watch body cam video of a murder suspect charging at an officer in Ohio.
"Get your hands up. Get your hands up right now. Stop, stop right there," the policeman shouts.
The officer, a 27-year-old Iraq War veteran, continues to back up as the suspect rushes him, begging the cop to shoot him.
"I don't want to shoot you, man. I don't want to shoot you," the policeman shouts.
At the last minute, the suspect stops.
It's extraordinary restraint that won the officer praise from the public.
But it's a hard sell among cops, says LAPD Capt. John Tippett.
"I'm not sure I would have shown the same restraint," he says. "It was pretty obvious that the guy intended on harming the officer and even if he didn't have a gun, he was probably going to try to get the officer's gun away from him."
Even knowing the man surrendered, Tippett and many other police say the risk was just too great.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Those ‘shoot, don’t’ shoot’ police training videos have been around since the late 1960s. After getting shot several times, the trainees will have been scared to the extent that when on the streets as cops, they are likely to be trigger happy, rather than showing restraint.
CHICAGO POLICE UNDERGO CHANGES IN TRAINING, GET TASERS
There will be 'a major overhaul' of the policy regarding how officers respond to incidents and the use of force
Associated Press
December 30, 2015
CHICAGO -- Chicago officials are expected to announce changes in police training, including a requirement that every officer responding to service calls be equipped with a Taser.
A statement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office late Tuesday night said Emanuel and Interim Police Superintendent John Escalante would announce Wednesday "a major overhaul" of the policy regarding how officers respond to incidents and the use of force.
The statement said the police department will also begin to require every officer who "responds to calls for service" to be equipped with a Taser and trained to use it by June 1, 2016.
The mayor's office had already said some changes in training would be forthcoming in the wake of the release of dashcam video last month showing white officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014. Van Dyke, who is charged with murder, pleaded not guilty Tuesday.
The release of the video set off protests, forced the resignation of the city's police chief and has led to an ongoing wide-ranging civil rights investigation of the entire Chicago Police Department by the U.S. Department of Justice. Community activists have also called for Emanuel's resignation.
The statement does not specifically mention the McDonald shooting but says, "The policy changes center around de-escalation tactics to reduce the intensity of a conflict or a potentially violent situation at the earliest possible moment, emphasizing that the foremost goal is to protect the safety of all involved."
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi didn't immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking further details about the plan.
Another police shooting over the weekend has sparked further criticism of the department. Chicago police killed two people, a 55-year-old woman who was shot accidentally and a 19-year-old man police described as "combative" before he was shot. Both were black. Police have not released the race of the officer or officers involved and will not say how many officers fired their weapons or what the man and woman were doing before they were shot.
Associated Press
December 30, 2015
CHICAGO -- Chicago officials are expected to announce changes in police training, including a requirement that every officer responding to service calls be equipped with a Taser.
A statement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office late Tuesday night said Emanuel and Interim Police Superintendent John Escalante would announce Wednesday "a major overhaul" of the policy regarding how officers respond to incidents and the use of force.
The statement said the police department will also begin to require every officer who "responds to calls for service" to be equipped with a Taser and trained to use it by June 1, 2016.
The mayor's office had already said some changes in training would be forthcoming in the wake of the release of dashcam video last month showing white officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014. Van Dyke, who is charged with murder, pleaded not guilty Tuesday.
The release of the video set off protests, forced the resignation of the city's police chief and has led to an ongoing wide-ranging civil rights investigation of the entire Chicago Police Department by the U.S. Department of Justice. Community activists have also called for Emanuel's resignation.
The statement does not specifically mention the McDonald shooting but says, "The policy changes center around de-escalation tactics to reduce the intensity of a conflict or a potentially violent situation at the earliest possible moment, emphasizing that the foremost goal is to protect the safety of all involved."
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi didn't immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking further details about the plan.
Another police shooting over the weekend has sparked further criticism of the department. Chicago police killed two people, a 55-year-old woman who was shot accidentally and a 19-year-old man police described as "combative" before he was shot. Both were black. Police have not released the race of the officer or officers involved and will not say how many officers fired their weapons or what the man and woman were doing before they were shot.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)