On September 6, 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the still unfinished al-Kibar nuclear reactor in northeastern Syria being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy
By Sheldon Kirshner
Israel Today
October 4, 2019
Yaakov Katz’s absorbing book, Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power (St. Martin’s Press), tells the story of this daring mission from the Israeli and U.S. perspective.
“It is a tale of espionage, political courage, military might and psychological warfare on a national scale,” writes Katz, the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. “What happened in 2007 is a playbook for how one country neutralized an existential threat,” he adds.
As we know, it was not the first time Israel had bombed a nuclear reactor in an Arab country. In 1981, Israel struck the Osirak reactor in Iraq in line with a policy known as the Begin Doctrine, a reference to Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister who ordered its destruction on the rationale that Israel cannot allow its enemies to acquire nuclear weapons.
This explains Israel’s current determination to stop Iran, its arch foe, from joining the nuclear club. As Katz puts it, “If Syria was allowed to get away with it, Iran would feel emboldened.”
Bashar al-Assad
It’s debatable why Syria, Israel’s enemy, sought a nuclear reactor in the first place. The consensus seems to be that President Bashar al-Assad wanted to solidify his regime, create a balance of power with Israel and become a leader in the Arab world.
Ibrahim Othman
The Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency, discovered what Syria was up to by secretly hacking the computer of Ibrahim Othman, the director of its Atomic Energy Commission. After downloading his files, Mossad agents installed a Trojan horse, providing Israel with permanent access to his computer. What became clear was that Syria was building a nuclear facility in a valley deep in the desert in the Deir ez-Zor region along the banks of the Euphrates River.
Syria’s nuclear reactor before its destruction by Israel
Having established Syria’s intentions, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent the Mossad’s director, Meir Dagan, to Washington to warn U.S. Defence Secretary Dick Cheney that Israel would not accept a nuclear weapon in the hands of Syria. “The news was earth-shattering,” writes Katz. “Until then, there was no evidence in the U.S. intelligence community to support was Dagan was claiming.”
Meir Dagan
Dagan was a strong advocate of deploying military force to bomb the reactor. Syria, attempting to keep the project a secret, hadn’t even placed a missile battery or an anti-aircraft gun near the reactor.
Shortly after Dagan’s meeting with Cheney, Olmert phoned President George W. Bush and asked him to bomb the site. “For Israel, having America carry out the strike would be a win-win,” says Katz. “The reactor would disappear without Israel’s involvement, meaning that the chance of a large-scale war erupting was limited.”
In Israel’s view, the reactor had to be bombed before it became operational. “No one wanted to be responsible for radioactive material leaking into the Euphrates River and then adversely affecting the lives of generations of Syrians,” Katz quotes a top-ranking Israeli official as saying.
The Bush administration was not of one mind about the feasibility of bombing the reactor. In principle, Bush agreed with Cheney, who argued that an American strike would enhance U.S. credibility in the Middle East at a time when the United States was embroiled in a grinding guerrilla war in neighboring Iraq. If done right, Cheney argued, the use of military force could send a strong signal to Iran, among others. Elliott Abrams, a senior U.S. official, basically agreed with Cheney, but thought that Israel should carry out the strike to restore the deterrence it had lost during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Dick Cheney
Bush wanted to rein in Assad, who supported anti-American rebels in Iraq, but was chary of striking Syria. Bush feared that a U.S. bombing raid would undermine the United States’ relationship with Israel and erode its regional standing.
On July 13, Bush informed Olmert of his decision. “I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it’s a weapons program,” he told Olmert, advising him to take the issue to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Ehud Olmert
Bush’s assessment was endorsed by two U.S. cabinet ministers — Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They feared that Syria would retaliate by attacking American troops in Iraq. They also had doubts about the veracity of Israel’s intelligence.
Responding to Bush, Olmert declared that Israel intended to destroy the Syrian reactor. Bush, in turn, made it clear to select officials that the United States should not interfere with Israel’s raid.
The Israeli strike was carried out by four F-15Is and four F-16Is carrying about 20 tons of bombs. The planes flew toward Syria along its border with Turkey, dipping into Syrian territory on the last leg of the flight. They reached the target, flying extremely low, just after midnight, and the reactor was destroyed beyond repair. Syria fired off some missiles, but they were far off the mark.
Interestingly enough, Israel and Syria had just begun indirect peace talks through Turkish mediation when the Israeli Air Force swooped in on al-Kibar.
Israel did not take credit for the raid, fearing a Syrian military response if Syria lost face. Since the Israeli government had no idea what Syria’s reaction would be, Israel’s Northern Command was placed on high alert in case a war broke out. Syria released an official statement claiming that its air defence systems had chased the Israeli aircraft away. Olmert maintained Israel’s policy of strict silence, as if nothing had happened. Days after the raid, he told reporters he was ready to resume peace talks with Syria.
George W. Bush
As for Bush, he congratulated Olmert on a job well done. According to Katz, the Pentagon and the CIA were pleased as well, resulting in a “newfound appreciation and respect for Israel’s intelligence and military capabilities.” He adds, “Whatever stain the Second Lebanon War had left on Israel’s image, it now seemed to be gone.”
In the wake of Israel’s raid, the Mossad and the CIA established new lines of communication, agreeing to launch a joint mission to assassinate Hezbollah’s chief of operations, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus.
Saturday, October 05, 2019
Friday, October 04, 2019
CODE 3 COP
Running Code 3 is no longer running. It has been replaced by:
Code 3 Cop
http://www.code3cop.com
Trey Rusk, owner of Code 3 Cop, is a 42-year veteran law enforcement officer who rose to the rank of Texas state police lieutenant.
Trey is a staunch defender of cops who are wrongly accused of wrongdoing. He does not defend bad cops!
Congratulations for your new website, Trey.
Code 3 Cop
http://www.code3cop.com
Trey Rusk, owner of Code 3 Cop, is a 42-year veteran law enforcement officer who rose to the rank of Texas state police lieutenant.
Trey is a staunch defender of cops who are wrongly accused of wrongdoing. He does not defend bad cops!
Congratulations for your new website, Trey.
HILLARY’S DAUGHTER IS PROBABLY PREPPING FOR A POLITICAL CAREER OF HER OWN AS A US SENATOR AND EVENTUALLY POTUS
Chelsea Clinton calls Donald Trump 'the greatest scam in American political history' as she doubles down on her indictment of the president during an explosive appearance on The View with mom Hillary
Daily Mail
October 3, 2019
Chelsea Clinton doubled down on her scathing condemnation of Donald Trump on Wednesday during an explosive appearance on The View, in which she blasted the president as being 'the greatest scam in American political history'.
Appearing on the show alongside her mother and former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, Chelsea went on to say that she believed Trump's perceived con-artistry is not just limited to his time in the White House.
'I think his whole life has been a scam,' Chelsea bluntly declared to the panel. 'And I think unfortunately people are suffering every day because his scam has thus far kind of succeeded at the highest level.'
Daily Mail
October 3, 2019
Chelsea Clinton doubled down on her scathing condemnation of Donald Trump on Wednesday during an explosive appearance on The View, in which she blasted the president as being 'the greatest scam in American political history'.
Appearing on the show alongside her mother and former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, Chelsea went on to say that she believed Trump's perceived con-artistry is not just limited to his time in the White House.
'I think his whole life has been a scam,' Chelsea bluntly declared to the panel. 'And I think unfortunately people are suffering every day because his scam has thus far kind of succeeded at the highest level.'
THE ONLY THING GOOD ABOUT THIS CLUSTER FUCK IS THAT NOBODY DIED
by Bob Walsh
This happened in Greenville County, SC relatively recently. On June 13 the S.O. got a panic alarm - medical alarm from a cell phone app and responded one deputy. The deputy showed up, tried the door bell, got no response and started nosing around. Things get "fuzzy" from here.
An adult man in the house apparently did not know his mother-in-law had triggered the alarm. He heard somebody ringing the bell at midnight, then prowling around outside the house. He walked towards the front of his house, pistol in hand. (I would have done the same thing.)
The first report by the deputy was that the man inside jerked the door open while holding a gun. The deputy fired multiple times, hitting him multiple times. Unfortunately once the body cam footage was gone over it turns out the resident in fact never opened the door. The deputy fired thru the door and / or adjacent window. The body cam does NOT show the resident ever pointing the gun in the general direction of the deputy.
The resident, Dick Trench, 62, ended up with four bullet wounds. He (and his attorney) assert the deputy did NOT identify himself until AFTER he opened fire. The video on much of the body cam footage has not yet been supplied. Same with the audio. The department says they do NOT plan to release the raw footage or audio, asserting they have no legal obligation to do so. They have not yet offered an explanation of why the written report differs so significantly from the body cam images.
This happened in Greenville County, SC relatively recently. On June 13 the S.O. got a panic alarm - medical alarm from a cell phone app and responded one deputy. The deputy showed up, tried the door bell, got no response and started nosing around. Things get "fuzzy" from here.
An adult man in the house apparently did not know his mother-in-law had triggered the alarm. He heard somebody ringing the bell at midnight, then prowling around outside the house. He walked towards the front of his house, pistol in hand. (I would have done the same thing.)
The first report by the deputy was that the man inside jerked the door open while holding a gun. The deputy fired multiple times, hitting him multiple times. Unfortunately once the body cam footage was gone over it turns out the resident in fact never opened the door. The deputy fired thru the door and / or adjacent window. The body cam does NOT show the resident ever pointing the gun in the general direction of the deputy.
The resident, Dick Trench, 62, ended up with four bullet wounds. He (and his attorney) assert the deputy did NOT identify himself until AFTER he opened fire. The video on much of the body cam footage has not yet been supplied. Same with the audio. The department says they do NOT plan to release the raw footage or audio, asserting they have no legal obligation to do so. They have not yet offered an explanation of why the written report differs so significantly from the body cam images.
THE PARTY THAT CLAIMS TO ADVOCATE FOR WOMEN FAILS TO FUND TESTING OF RAPE KITTS
Cornyn and advocates blame Democrats for stalling rape kit test funds
By Benjamin Wermund
Houston Chronicle
October 3, 2019
WASHINGTON — Every five years, Debbie Smith watches as Congress comes to the brink of letting the federal program bearing her name expire.
But lawmakers always found a way to pass the Debbie Smith Act, which sends resources to crime laboratories across the country to test rape kits and DNA evidence from other unsolved crimes, in the end.
In an odd way, it helped keep Smith’s faith in government — until now.
Funding for the program expired at the end of September as lawmakers left for a two-week recess without renewing it for the first time in its 15-year history. She and other advocates are blaming Democrats for rolling it into their rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act — a much more complicated bill with a long history of getting caught up in partisan fights.
Smith says the funding is urgently needed. A report from the federal Government Accountability Office earlier this year found that the number of backlogged requests for crime scene DNA analysis at state and local government labs increased by 85 percent — from about 91,000 to about 169,000 — from 2011 through 2017.
“People don’t think Congress works together at all. I would always tell them yes they do,” said Smith, a rape victim who saw DNA evidence in her case go untested for five years, before those tests finally helped police find a suspect.
“But now I’m starting to be as cynical as they are,” she said. “This is the one thing they could always agree on.”
Nobody is doubting the need for the legislation, which authorizes the Department of Justice to send $151 million in grants to state and local law enforcement agencies to complete forensic analyses of crime scenes and untested rape kits. More than 641,000 DNA cases have been processed since it became law.
How the bill should be passed, however, is another matter.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed it as part of the Violence Against Women Act in April. That legislation drew just 33 Republican votes in the House and includes a provision closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by prohibiting those convicted of abusing or stalking a dating partner from owning guns.
The National Rifle Association opposes the Violence Against Women Act, which hasn’t moved in the Republican-controlled Senate.
The Senate, meanwhile, passed a standalone version of the Debbie Smith Act in May. It was as bipartisan as it gets: Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, led a group senators from both parties in pushing the bill, which passed unanimously.
Cornyn, who is in Houston on Thursday to talk to city officials about the importance of the funding, blasted Democrats for failing to act on the Senate bill.
“There was absolutely no problem reauthorizing this critical program in 2008 or 2014 but clearly the times have changed,” Cornyn said in a speech on the Senate floor just days before the funding expired. “And our House Democrat colleagues aren’t above politicizing something as noncontroversial as reducing the rape kit backlog.”
House Democrats argue the Debbie Smith Act fits well with the broader legislation, which is meant to protect women. They say both pieces of legislation are urgently needed.
The Violence Against Women Act, which also expired earlier this month, established the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the Office of Violence Against Women in the Justice Department. It also helps fund shelters and has sent billions in grants to programs aimed at preventing domestic violence, sexual assault and more.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which passed the Violence Against Women Act, said they were put together because “there was a sense of trying to get it all done.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Democrats are so busy trying to dump Trump that they haven’t found the time to fund the testing of those rape kits.
By Benjamin Wermund
Houston Chronicle
October 3, 2019
WASHINGTON — Every five years, Debbie Smith watches as Congress comes to the brink of letting the federal program bearing her name expire.
But lawmakers always found a way to pass the Debbie Smith Act, which sends resources to crime laboratories across the country to test rape kits and DNA evidence from other unsolved crimes, in the end.
In an odd way, it helped keep Smith’s faith in government — until now.
Funding for the program expired at the end of September as lawmakers left for a two-week recess without renewing it for the first time in its 15-year history. She and other advocates are blaming Democrats for rolling it into their rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act — a much more complicated bill with a long history of getting caught up in partisan fights.
Smith says the funding is urgently needed. A report from the federal Government Accountability Office earlier this year found that the number of backlogged requests for crime scene DNA analysis at state and local government labs increased by 85 percent — from about 91,000 to about 169,000 — from 2011 through 2017.
“People don’t think Congress works together at all. I would always tell them yes they do,” said Smith, a rape victim who saw DNA evidence in her case go untested for five years, before those tests finally helped police find a suspect.
“But now I’m starting to be as cynical as they are,” she said. “This is the one thing they could always agree on.”
Nobody is doubting the need for the legislation, which authorizes the Department of Justice to send $151 million in grants to state and local law enforcement agencies to complete forensic analyses of crime scenes and untested rape kits. More than 641,000 DNA cases have been processed since it became law.
How the bill should be passed, however, is another matter.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed it as part of the Violence Against Women Act in April. That legislation drew just 33 Republican votes in the House and includes a provision closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by prohibiting those convicted of abusing or stalking a dating partner from owning guns.
The National Rifle Association opposes the Violence Against Women Act, which hasn’t moved in the Republican-controlled Senate.
The Senate, meanwhile, passed a standalone version of the Debbie Smith Act in May. It was as bipartisan as it gets: Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, led a group senators from both parties in pushing the bill, which passed unanimously.
Cornyn, who is in Houston on Thursday to talk to city officials about the importance of the funding, blasted Democrats for failing to act on the Senate bill.
“There was absolutely no problem reauthorizing this critical program in 2008 or 2014 but clearly the times have changed,” Cornyn said in a speech on the Senate floor just days before the funding expired. “And our House Democrat colleagues aren’t above politicizing something as noncontroversial as reducing the rape kit backlog.”
House Democrats argue the Debbie Smith Act fits well with the broader legislation, which is meant to protect women. They say both pieces of legislation are urgently needed.
The Violence Against Women Act, which also expired earlier this month, established the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the Office of Violence Against Women in the Justice Department. It also helps fund shelters and has sent billions in grants to programs aimed at preventing domestic violence, sexual assault and more.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which passed the Violence Against Women Act, said they were put together because “there was a sense of trying to get it all done.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Democrats are so busy trying to dump Trump that they haven’t found the time to fund the testing of those rape kits.
MURDERER’S ANKLE MONITOR REPOSSESED
Accused killer walks free for 2 weeks after ankle monitor is repossessed due to missed payments
By Brittany Jeffers
Click2Houston
October 3, 2019
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - An accused killer was allowed to walk free for two weeks after his ankle monitoring device was repossessed.
Clint Walker is charged with capital murder and has an extensive criminal background.
According to the Harris County District Attorney's Office, Walker was released on a $100,000 bond in June and was required to wear a GPS monitoring device. When he couldn’t pay the monthly fee to the service provider, Guarding Public Service, the provider removed it Sept. 19 without an order from the court, according to authorities.
Walker was located Wednesday.
“We were very concerned,” said First Assistant to the District Attorney David Mitcham. "It does raise concerns with the District Attorney's Office in terms of whether or not this a widespread problem, and we don’t want any repetition of this.”
Mitcham said District Attorney Kim Ogg sent a letter to Harris County Pretrial Services and the Country Corrections Department citing “serious public safety concerns” and a “troubling loophole” over the incident.
“There is no loophole,” Teresa May, with the Harris County Corrections Department, said.
May said that the blame lies with the vender, Guarding Public Service. She said that the company “committed a serious violation to the memorandum of understanding" by not reporting Walker's failure to pay. Upon learning about the incident, she said that the vendor was terminated immediately.
Guarding Public Service said that the accusation is untrue.
Here's the company's statement:
"That accusation is untrue.
"Guarding Public Safety has never failed to notify the proper authorities when an ankle monitor is removed.
"We send immediate notifications of any violations of the judges order to the pre-trial release department in Harris County, known as HCCSC.
"Immediate notification is sent when a monitor is removed."
Harris County Pretrial Services said Walker was not under the supervision of HCPS. "For clarification, we do not supervise defendants that are released on any form of secured bonds (cash or surety)," the department said.
Hugo Garcia told KPRC 2 that he is outraged that Walker was able to roam free for so long. Walker is accused of killing Garcia's father, 59-year-old Enrique Garcia, in 2016. Enrique Garcia was working as a security guard at a game room in north Harris County when he was shot to death.
"I would like to know why, why he was running the streets unmonitored?" Hugo Garcia said.
Garcia said he doesn’t believe that Walker should have been out on bond in the first place but someone has to answer for this.
"I believe something has to be done immediately," Garcia said.
Walker is due in court Monday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Charged with capital murder and with an extensive criminal background, why in the fuck did DA Kim Ogg’s office let this guy get out of jail?
By Brittany Jeffers
Click2Houston
October 3, 2019
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - An accused killer was allowed to walk free for two weeks after his ankle monitoring device was repossessed.
Clint Walker is charged with capital murder and has an extensive criminal background.
According to the Harris County District Attorney's Office, Walker was released on a $100,000 bond in June and was required to wear a GPS monitoring device. When he couldn’t pay the monthly fee to the service provider, Guarding Public Service, the provider removed it Sept. 19 without an order from the court, according to authorities.
Walker was located Wednesday.
“We were very concerned,” said First Assistant to the District Attorney David Mitcham. "It does raise concerns with the District Attorney's Office in terms of whether or not this a widespread problem, and we don’t want any repetition of this.”
Mitcham said District Attorney Kim Ogg sent a letter to Harris County Pretrial Services and the Country Corrections Department citing “serious public safety concerns” and a “troubling loophole” over the incident.
“There is no loophole,” Teresa May, with the Harris County Corrections Department, said.
May said that the blame lies with the vender, Guarding Public Service. She said that the company “committed a serious violation to the memorandum of understanding" by not reporting Walker's failure to pay. Upon learning about the incident, she said that the vendor was terminated immediately.
Guarding Public Service said that the accusation is untrue.
Here's the company's statement:
"That accusation is untrue.
"Guarding Public Safety has never failed to notify the proper authorities when an ankle monitor is removed.
"We send immediate notifications of any violations of the judges order to the pre-trial release department in Harris County, known as HCCSC.
"Immediate notification is sent when a monitor is removed."
Harris County Pretrial Services said Walker was not under the supervision of HCPS. "For clarification, we do not supervise defendants that are released on any form of secured bonds (cash or surety)," the department said.
Hugo Garcia told KPRC 2 that he is outraged that Walker was able to roam free for so long. Walker is accused of killing Garcia's father, 59-year-old Enrique Garcia, in 2016. Enrique Garcia was working as a security guard at a game room in north Harris County when he was shot to death.
"I would like to know why, why he was running the streets unmonitored?" Hugo Garcia said.
Garcia said he doesn’t believe that Walker should have been out on bond in the first place but someone has to answer for this.
"I believe something has to be done immediately," Garcia said.
Walker is due in court Monday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Charged with capital murder and with an extensive criminal background, why in the fuck did DA Kim Ogg’s office let this guy get out of jail?
THE PERPETRATOR SHOULD BE SKINNED ALIVE!
Beagle found skinned alive in horrific case of animal abuse
Tribune Media Wire
October 3, 2019
NEOSHO, Mo. – After a pet dog was found skinned alive in the southwest Missouri city of Neosho last week, local authorities are asking the public for help finding the person responsible.
Neosho police say the female beagle escaped its enclosure while its owners were away and someone mutilated the animal while they were out of town.
Officers responding to calls from residents found the dog still alive with three quarters of its skin removed.
After consulting with a veterinarian, the dog was euthanized to end its suffering, Neosho police said.
After members of the community gathered $3,000 as a reward in the case, the Humane Society of the United States added another $5,000.
“It takes a truly callous person to skin a dog alive and it’s completely heartbreaking to imagine the suffering this dog endured,” said Amanda Good, Missouri state director for the Humane Society of the United States. “We hope that this reward will encourage anyone with information about this terrible crime to come forward, not only to help seek justice for this animal, but also to ensure the safety of the entire community.”
Police are circulating an edited photo of the dog “in hopes someone witnessed the injured dog leaving the the suspect’s location or heard the assault take place.”
Tribune Media Wire
October 3, 2019
NEOSHO, Mo. – After a pet dog was found skinned alive in the southwest Missouri city of Neosho last week, local authorities are asking the public for help finding the person responsible.
Neosho police say the female beagle escaped its enclosure while its owners were away and someone mutilated the animal while they were out of town.
Officers responding to calls from residents found the dog still alive with three quarters of its skin removed.
After consulting with a veterinarian, the dog was euthanized to end its suffering, Neosho police said.
After members of the community gathered $3,000 as a reward in the case, the Humane Society of the United States added another $5,000.
“It takes a truly callous person to skin a dog alive and it’s completely heartbreaking to imagine the suffering this dog endured,” said Amanda Good, Missouri state director for the Humane Society of the United States. “We hope that this reward will encourage anyone with information about this terrible crime to come forward, not only to help seek justice for this animal, but also to ensure the safety of the entire community.”
Police are circulating an edited photo of the dog “in hopes someone witnessed the injured dog leaving the the suspect’s location or heard the assault take place.”
DRAINING THE SWAMP
L.A. Vows To Void 2 Million Court Citations And Warrants. Homeless People Will Benefit Most
LAPPL News Watch
October 3, 2019
In a dramatic move designed to ease the challenges facing the region’s poor and homeless people, Los Angeles officials said Wednesday that they were voiding nearly 2 million minor citations and warrants that had kept people trapped in the court system.
The announcement is designed to fix a system that has led to many people being repeatedly ticketed and arrested for minor infractions, leading to growing fines and warrants. For homeless people, that has created roadblocks to accessing housing and services.
Nationally, big cities have been trying to move away from citations and infractions that according to critics “nickel and dime” those living on the streets into jail cells.
Until now in Los Angeles, eliminating citations had been done on a limited basis. A Los Angeles Times data analysis in 2018 found a vicious cycle of homeless arrests.
Los Angeles has more than a dozen “quality-of-life” laws — restricting sleeping on the sidewalk, living in a car or low-level drug possession, for example — that police usually enforce with a citation.
LAPPL News Watch
October 3, 2019
In a dramatic move designed to ease the challenges facing the region’s poor and homeless people, Los Angeles officials said Wednesday that they were voiding nearly 2 million minor citations and warrants that had kept people trapped in the court system.
The announcement is designed to fix a system that has led to many people being repeatedly ticketed and arrested for minor infractions, leading to growing fines and warrants. For homeless people, that has created roadblocks to accessing housing and services.
Nationally, big cities have been trying to move away from citations and infractions that according to critics “nickel and dime” those living on the streets into jail cells.
Until now in Los Angeles, eliminating citations had been done on a limited basis. A Los Angeles Times data analysis in 2018 found a vicious cycle of homeless arrests.
Los Angeles has more than a dozen “quality-of-life” laws — restricting sleeping on the sidewalk, living in a car or low-level drug possession, for example — that police usually enforce with a citation.
THE NATION’S LEADER COMPLAINS HE IS THE VICTIM OF A WITCH-HUNT ….. NO, NOT TRUMP, BUT ‘CRIME MINISTER’ NETANYAHU
Netanyahu's legal woes: How much trouble is he in?
Israel Hayom
October 2, 2019
Two weeks after fighting and failing to win an election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced trouble on a second front on Wednesday at legal hearings to decide whether he must face trial for corruption.
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has already said he intends to file criminal charges against Netanyahu in high-profile cases that have dominated Israeli headlines for years.
But at a series of pretrial hearings Netanyahu's lawyers are arguing that prosecutors should not press charges in three graft cases.
Israel's longest-serving leader denies any wrongdoing. But he has fought two inconclusive parliamentary elections this year under the shadow of allegations that opponents seized upon, waving "Crime Minister" banners at political rallies.
His chief opponent, former general Benny Gantz, said he would not serve in a cabinet led by a prime minister who faces indictment.
Here is a guide to the criminal cases surrounding Netanyahu.
What are the allegations against Netanyahu?
The attorney general announced in February that he intends to file criminal charges against Netanyahu in investigations listed as cases 4000, 1000 and 2000, pending the outcome of the hearings. Netanyahu could face fraud and breach of trust charges in all three cases, and bribery charges in case 4000.
Netanyahu says he is the victim of a politically orchestrated "witch-hunt" by the media and the left to oust him from office.
Case 4000 alleges that Netanyahu granted regulatory favors to Israel's leading telecommunications company, Bezeq Telecom Israel, in return for positive coverage of him and his wife Sara on a news website controlled by the company's former chairman.
Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu and his wife wrongfully received gifts from Arnon Milchan, a prominent Hollywood producer and an Israeli citizen, and Australian billionaire businessman James Packer, including champagne and cigars.
In Case 2000, Netanyahu is suspected of negotiating a deal with the owner of the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, for better coverage in return for legislation that would slow the growth of its main competitor, Israel Hayom.
What is the purpose of the pretrial hearings?
They grant the prime minister's legal team a chance to argue against the prospective charges and to convince the attorney general to scrap or reduce them. Netanyahu is not expected to attend the hearings, which will be held on four days, ending next Monday.
After hearing the arguments, the attorney general is expected to decide by the end of December whether to indict Netanyahu.
What happens if Netanyahu is charged?
If Netanyahu is indicted it could take many months before his trial begins. He could also seek a plea deal rather than stand trial.
If still serving as prime minister, Netanyahu would be under no strict legal obligation to quit. According to Israeli law, a prime minister must step down if ultimately convicted, but can stay in office throughout legal proceedings, including appeals.
Netanyahu's supporters in parliament have said they would support granting him immunity from prosecution. But it is unclear whether there are enough lawmakers to back such a move.
If convicted in a trial, what does Netanyahu face?
Bribery charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in jail and/or a fine. Fraud and breach of trust carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Champagne and cigars – quick, git a rope!
Israel Hayom
October 2, 2019
Two weeks after fighting and failing to win an election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced trouble on a second front on Wednesday at legal hearings to decide whether he must face trial for corruption.
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has already said he intends to file criminal charges against Netanyahu in high-profile cases that have dominated Israeli headlines for years.
But at a series of pretrial hearings Netanyahu's lawyers are arguing that prosecutors should not press charges in three graft cases.
Israel's longest-serving leader denies any wrongdoing. But he has fought two inconclusive parliamentary elections this year under the shadow of allegations that opponents seized upon, waving "Crime Minister" banners at political rallies.
His chief opponent, former general Benny Gantz, said he would not serve in a cabinet led by a prime minister who faces indictment.
Here is a guide to the criminal cases surrounding Netanyahu.
What are the allegations against Netanyahu?
The attorney general announced in February that he intends to file criminal charges against Netanyahu in investigations listed as cases 4000, 1000 and 2000, pending the outcome of the hearings. Netanyahu could face fraud and breach of trust charges in all three cases, and bribery charges in case 4000.
Netanyahu says he is the victim of a politically orchestrated "witch-hunt" by the media and the left to oust him from office.
Case 4000 alleges that Netanyahu granted regulatory favors to Israel's leading telecommunications company, Bezeq Telecom Israel, in return for positive coverage of him and his wife Sara on a news website controlled by the company's former chairman.
Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu and his wife wrongfully received gifts from Arnon Milchan, a prominent Hollywood producer and an Israeli citizen, and Australian billionaire businessman James Packer, including champagne and cigars.
In Case 2000, Netanyahu is suspected of negotiating a deal with the owner of the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, for better coverage in return for legislation that would slow the growth of its main competitor, Israel Hayom.
What is the purpose of the pretrial hearings?
They grant the prime minister's legal team a chance to argue against the prospective charges and to convince the attorney general to scrap or reduce them. Netanyahu is not expected to attend the hearings, which will be held on four days, ending next Monday.
After hearing the arguments, the attorney general is expected to decide by the end of December whether to indict Netanyahu.
What happens if Netanyahu is charged?
If Netanyahu is indicted it could take many months before his trial begins. He could also seek a plea deal rather than stand trial.
If still serving as prime minister, Netanyahu would be under no strict legal obligation to quit. According to Israeli law, a prime minister must step down if ultimately convicted, but can stay in office throughout legal proceedings, including appeals.
Netanyahu's supporters in parliament have said they would support granting him immunity from prosecution. But it is unclear whether there are enough lawmakers to back such a move.
If convicted in a trial, what does Netanyahu face?
Bribery charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in jail and/or a fine. Fraud and breach of trust carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Champagne and cigars – quick, git a rope!
MORE THAN 200,000 GUNS ANNUALLY REACH THE MEXICAN CARTELS FROM THE US
Where does Mexico really get its guns?
By Hollie McKay
Fox News
October 2, 2019
MEXICO CITY – Tucked inside a narrow wedge of a traditional open-air market is one of Mexico’s most dangerous black market operations. It’s known as the Tepito.
It’s a barrio where even the police mostly remain outside. Inside, it’s under the tightly controlled thumb of the Union de Tepito, otherwise known as the Union Cartel – one of the capital city’s most violent and well-financed criminal players. Cartel “hawks” – often children – are positioned in the entry to report on any unusual visitors inside the tented tunnel. Those inside worship the Mexican folklore legend Jesús Malverde, who steals from the rich to give to the poor. He’s the narco saint, the so-called patron saint of drug traffickers, the perceived “angel of the poor.”
But, from the pirated goods – including sex toys, endangered turtle eggs, counterfeit designer clothes, DVDs and drugs – to other lucrative enterprises including kidnapping and extortion, once trust is gained, one may be lured by a cartel operative into private homes or underground bunkers, which are scattered city-wide, to make a weapons purchase.
The inventory boasts everything from low-caliber weapons, rifles, grenades, grenade launchers and 50-caliber rifles, with prices for basic handguns beginning at just $300 and going as high as $1,500 for an AR-15 and $3,000 for more advanced weapons systems, according to Mexican intelligence officials.
The Union Cartel started around 2010 as a small group dedicated to shielding the community from crime, with locals paying a fee for the added protection. But, over the years it has morphed into a large and violent criminal enterprise. Its main leaders, Roberto “El Betito” Mollado Esparza and David “El Pistache” GarcÃa Ramirez, both were arrested last October but are believed to maintain their top-brass roles from behind bars. Local reports indicated the heavy-handed cartel started proactively recruiting both former and active policemen following the leaders' arrests to defend the illicit sales and oversee extortion missions.
However, many people in Mexico have viewed the lack of gun-control measures in the United States as wreaking havoc on the violence in their country and enabling the illicit activities to rage.
“A lot of the violence in the U.S. is because of the drugs going in from Mexico, and a lot of the violence in Mexico is because of the guns coming from the U.S.,” one high-ranking former Mexican intelligence official told Fox News, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Many of the cartels in Mexico are being paid by counterparts in the U.S. not only with money but with guns.”
Some estimates – including a recent study published in Oxford’s Journal of Economic Geography – have pegged the number of guns crossing the U.S-Mexico border at over 200,000 annually.
The most recent available data compiled by the National Tracing Center for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) indicated that a total of 67,295 firearms recovered in Mexico between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2018, were determined to have been either manufactured in the U.S. or legally imported into the U.S., an average of 11,216 per year.
Moreover, a total of 28,741 recovered weapons – an average of 4,790 annually – were classified as having an “undetermined” source.
Of all the recovered weapons, ATF documented that 51.1 percent were pistols, 13.6 percent were revolvers, 27.4 percent were rifles, 5.4 percent were shotguns and 2.5 percent were a combination of machine guns, destructive devices, derringers, tear-gas launchers, combination guns, flare guns, receivers/frames, silencers or any other “unknown” type.
Nonetheless, some law enforcement experts and analysts have concluded such figures represented only a small amount of the firearms rotating through the cartel-plagued country and argued that many more that Mexican officials have seized were not documented or traced.
And, the ATF itself became a contentious piece of that puzzle between 2009 and 2011 in what became known as “Operation Fast and Furious,” when the ATF’s Phoenix Field Division allowed illegal gun sales in order to track the sellers and purchasers who were believed to be linked to Mexican drug cartels. In 2010, two of the weapons issued in the operation turned up at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Last month, Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard pushed back amid U.S pressure to curb the flood of migrants to the border, asserting that in turn, the U.S needed to “do much more” to stop firearms trafficking into Mexico.
Still, the notion of whether the U.S border wall would benefit Mexico – by helping block the illicit transfer of firearms – has been subject to debate.
Some supporters have said it would help stem the flow. “A wall would help both sides to monitor the people and contraband going back and forth,” said Derek Maltz, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Special Operations Division. “We want to create one option: going through the port of entry to help the limited resources screen the people and vehicle at the border.”
Lee Oughton, the managing partner and chief operating officer of the Mexico City-based Fortress risk-management company, concurred that while a wall would hardly solve the trafficking problem, it would serve as the “first line of defense” for both countries.
Meanwhile, multiple officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the wall would have little impact as many of the arms have been transferred through regular border crossings – via bribes issued to Mexican officials – or smuggled through drug tunnels.
According to Thomas Kilbride, a retired Department of Homeland Security agent and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy adviser, the general assumption has been that the guns got to Mexico from the U.S. predominantly by straw buyers working on behalf of gun-trafficking organizations – meaning the gun was bought illegally by someone on behalf of someone else, or from a private seller without a federal license.
“The parts are vastly hidden in vehicles in many pieces then reassembled in Mexico,” he noted.
Also, they’re routinely disguised inside other items such as goods and electronics.
The common estimation among officials has been that some 90 percent of guns in Mexico stemmed from the U.S., but such a figure would be ripe for dispute.
“I wouldn’t say that the number is that high. I would say that maybe it will be around 50 percent. The known modus operandi of weapons and money, for drugs, does happen as a transaction. But also, knowing some of the weapon systems available here in Mexico,” Oughton said, “it would suggest that they would be illegally manufactured here, and also [found] their way from other parts of Latin America, Eastern Europe... Russia and China. For me, it’s an impossibility and maybe a bit of political wrangling to lay the full blame at the USA’s door for supply and demand on guns.”
Other high-ranking officials also underscored that the majority of guns these days have been flowing not from the United States, but from the south.
“Most cartels buy in bulk, and the weapons are coming from places like Nicaragua and other South American countries. Also Asia and some from the Middle East,” a Tijuana-based police authority who requested anonymity explained. “And, another factor is the CNC machines making uppers in clandestine shops in Mexico.”
According to recent Fortress intelligence assessments, an increase in surveillance on Mexico’s northern border has meant criminal groups have had to open new arms-trafficking routes from Central America to the center of Mexico, especially into Tepito – making it the largest underground weapons distribution center in the country.
Studies have indicated weapons have been moving increasingly from Colombia, Spain, and Pakistan – in addition to the United States – to be resold in the Tepito underground.
Mexico itself has had some of the most stringent gun-control measures in the broader region, which has largely fueled the sentiment in recent years that gun violence was a result of the United States’ Second Amendment and lax gun laws by comparison. Even though the right to bear arms has been protected by the Mexican Constitution, obtaining a weapon would be a difficult grind for the average person. The entire country has just one legal gun store, known as the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales, which is located in Mexico City and operated by the military.
Anything more potent than a .38 caliber gun is prohibited, and customers must endure upwards of a six-month wait in their applications for permits as they undergo background checks. Those purchasing for “personal defense” would be allowed to own just one handgun. People in hunting clubs would be granted leeway to possess additional rifles. In all, fewer than 40 weapons are issued per day on average.
As a deterrent, illegal possession of a firearm, even small amounts of ammunition, could result in lengthy prison sentences.
Still, gun violence has continued to grip the country.
For some critics, it’s an explicit example of tight gun-control policies failing their citizens as homicide rates rose – up 3.3 percent in the first eight months of 2019 compared to 2018 – while law-abiding citizens have been left to recoil in the face of illegal gun owners. Over 33,000 people were murdered in Mexico last year alone.
“Mexico is a horrifying example of what can happen to a people who are disarmed and left helpless to be preyed upon by armed criminals,” added Frank Miniter, the editor in chief of the NRA’s magazine America’s 1st Freedom. “Some Mexican citizens have tried, desperately and as a last resort, to band together with whatever weapons they can gather to protect themselves.”
By Hollie McKay
Fox News
October 2, 2019
MEXICO CITY – Tucked inside a narrow wedge of a traditional open-air market is one of Mexico’s most dangerous black market operations. It’s known as the Tepito.
It’s a barrio where even the police mostly remain outside. Inside, it’s under the tightly controlled thumb of the Union de Tepito, otherwise known as the Union Cartel – one of the capital city’s most violent and well-financed criminal players. Cartel “hawks” – often children – are positioned in the entry to report on any unusual visitors inside the tented tunnel. Those inside worship the Mexican folklore legend Jesús Malverde, who steals from the rich to give to the poor. He’s the narco saint, the so-called patron saint of drug traffickers, the perceived “angel of the poor.”
But, from the pirated goods – including sex toys, endangered turtle eggs, counterfeit designer clothes, DVDs and drugs – to other lucrative enterprises including kidnapping and extortion, once trust is gained, one may be lured by a cartel operative into private homes or underground bunkers, which are scattered city-wide, to make a weapons purchase.
The inventory boasts everything from low-caliber weapons, rifles, grenades, grenade launchers and 50-caliber rifles, with prices for basic handguns beginning at just $300 and going as high as $1,500 for an AR-15 and $3,000 for more advanced weapons systems, according to Mexican intelligence officials.
The Union Cartel started around 2010 as a small group dedicated to shielding the community from crime, with locals paying a fee for the added protection. But, over the years it has morphed into a large and violent criminal enterprise. Its main leaders, Roberto “El Betito” Mollado Esparza and David “El Pistache” GarcÃa Ramirez, both were arrested last October but are believed to maintain their top-brass roles from behind bars. Local reports indicated the heavy-handed cartel started proactively recruiting both former and active policemen following the leaders' arrests to defend the illicit sales and oversee extortion missions.
However, many people in Mexico have viewed the lack of gun-control measures in the United States as wreaking havoc on the violence in their country and enabling the illicit activities to rage.
“A lot of the violence in the U.S. is because of the drugs going in from Mexico, and a lot of the violence in Mexico is because of the guns coming from the U.S.,” one high-ranking former Mexican intelligence official told Fox News, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Many of the cartels in Mexico are being paid by counterparts in the U.S. not only with money but with guns.”
Some estimates – including a recent study published in Oxford’s Journal of Economic Geography – have pegged the number of guns crossing the U.S-Mexico border at over 200,000 annually.
The most recent available data compiled by the National Tracing Center for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) indicated that a total of 67,295 firearms recovered in Mexico between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2018, were determined to have been either manufactured in the U.S. or legally imported into the U.S., an average of 11,216 per year.
Moreover, a total of 28,741 recovered weapons – an average of 4,790 annually – were classified as having an “undetermined” source.
Of all the recovered weapons, ATF documented that 51.1 percent were pistols, 13.6 percent were revolvers, 27.4 percent were rifles, 5.4 percent were shotguns and 2.5 percent were a combination of machine guns, destructive devices, derringers, tear-gas launchers, combination guns, flare guns, receivers/frames, silencers or any other “unknown” type.
Nonetheless, some law enforcement experts and analysts have concluded such figures represented only a small amount of the firearms rotating through the cartel-plagued country and argued that many more that Mexican officials have seized were not documented or traced.
And, the ATF itself became a contentious piece of that puzzle between 2009 and 2011 in what became known as “Operation Fast and Furious,” when the ATF’s Phoenix Field Division allowed illegal gun sales in order to track the sellers and purchasers who were believed to be linked to Mexican drug cartels. In 2010, two of the weapons issued in the operation turned up at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Last month, Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard pushed back amid U.S pressure to curb the flood of migrants to the border, asserting that in turn, the U.S needed to “do much more” to stop firearms trafficking into Mexico.
Still, the notion of whether the U.S border wall would benefit Mexico – by helping block the illicit transfer of firearms – has been subject to debate.
Some supporters have said it would help stem the flow. “A wall would help both sides to monitor the people and contraband going back and forth,” said Derek Maltz, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Special Operations Division. “We want to create one option: going through the port of entry to help the limited resources screen the people and vehicle at the border.”
Lee Oughton, the managing partner and chief operating officer of the Mexico City-based Fortress risk-management company, concurred that while a wall would hardly solve the trafficking problem, it would serve as the “first line of defense” for both countries.
Meanwhile, multiple officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the wall would have little impact as many of the arms have been transferred through regular border crossings – via bribes issued to Mexican officials – or smuggled through drug tunnels.
According to Thomas Kilbride, a retired Department of Homeland Security agent and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy adviser, the general assumption has been that the guns got to Mexico from the U.S. predominantly by straw buyers working on behalf of gun-trafficking organizations – meaning the gun was bought illegally by someone on behalf of someone else, or from a private seller without a federal license.
“The parts are vastly hidden in vehicles in many pieces then reassembled in Mexico,” he noted.
Also, they’re routinely disguised inside other items such as goods and electronics.
The common estimation among officials has been that some 90 percent of guns in Mexico stemmed from the U.S., but such a figure would be ripe for dispute.
“I wouldn’t say that the number is that high. I would say that maybe it will be around 50 percent. The known modus operandi of weapons and money, for drugs, does happen as a transaction. But also, knowing some of the weapon systems available here in Mexico,” Oughton said, “it would suggest that they would be illegally manufactured here, and also [found] their way from other parts of Latin America, Eastern Europe... Russia and China. For me, it’s an impossibility and maybe a bit of political wrangling to lay the full blame at the USA’s door for supply and demand on guns.”
Other high-ranking officials also underscored that the majority of guns these days have been flowing not from the United States, but from the south.
“Most cartels buy in bulk, and the weapons are coming from places like Nicaragua and other South American countries. Also Asia and some from the Middle East,” a Tijuana-based police authority who requested anonymity explained. “And, another factor is the CNC machines making uppers in clandestine shops in Mexico.”
According to recent Fortress intelligence assessments, an increase in surveillance on Mexico’s northern border has meant criminal groups have had to open new arms-trafficking routes from Central America to the center of Mexico, especially into Tepito – making it the largest underground weapons distribution center in the country.
Studies have indicated weapons have been moving increasingly from Colombia, Spain, and Pakistan – in addition to the United States – to be resold in the Tepito underground.
Mexico itself has had some of the most stringent gun-control measures in the broader region, which has largely fueled the sentiment in recent years that gun violence was a result of the United States’ Second Amendment and lax gun laws by comparison. Even though the right to bear arms has been protected by the Mexican Constitution, obtaining a weapon would be a difficult grind for the average person. The entire country has just one legal gun store, known as the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales, which is located in Mexico City and operated by the military.
Anything more potent than a .38 caliber gun is prohibited, and customers must endure upwards of a six-month wait in their applications for permits as they undergo background checks. Those purchasing for “personal defense” would be allowed to own just one handgun. People in hunting clubs would be granted leeway to possess additional rifles. In all, fewer than 40 weapons are issued per day on average.
As a deterrent, illegal possession of a firearm, even small amounts of ammunition, could result in lengthy prison sentences.
Still, gun violence has continued to grip the country.
For some critics, it’s an explicit example of tight gun-control policies failing their citizens as homicide rates rose – up 3.3 percent in the first eight months of 2019 compared to 2018 – while law-abiding citizens have been left to recoil in the face of illegal gun owners. Over 33,000 people were murdered in Mexico last year alone.
“Mexico is a horrifying example of what can happen to a people who are disarmed and left helpless to be preyed upon by armed criminals,” added Frank Miniter, the editor in chief of the NRA’s magazine America’s 1st Freedom. “Some Mexican citizens have tried, desperately and as a last resort, to band together with whatever weapons they can gather to protect themselves.”
Thursday, October 03, 2019
IF TRUE, TRUMP IS CRAZIER THAN CRAZY BERNIE
Trump asked about building alligator-filled border moat and shooting migrants in the legs
by Zachary Halaschak
Washington Examiner
October 1, 2019
President Trump discussed filling a border trench with alligators or snakes during private border security discussions.
During the height of border tensions within the White House in March, Trump privately floated a number of extreme ideas to defend against migrants. Those ideas included a water-filled trench stocked with either alligators or snakes and an electric wall with the ability to pierce human flesh, according the New York Times.
After the president suggested shooting migrants who threw rocks, staff informed him that it was illegal, and he backed off of the idea before wondering in a later meeting about shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down, which staff informed him was also illegal.
When Trump floated the ideas in March came at a time in which Trump also ordered advisers to shut down the whole 2,000 mile border by noon on the day following the meeting. Staff feared that doing so would strand tourists in Mexico and would lead to an economic meltdown. Trump backed off the idea after a week of meetings but began firing aides that had gone against him.
“The president was frustrated and I think he took that moment to hit the reset button,” said Thomas Homan, Trump’s former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “The president wanted it to be fixed quickly.”
One meeting that was supposed to be 30 minutes ended two hours later with staff attempting to appease him.
“You are making me look like an idiot!” Trump shouted to those in the room. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”
In the following weeks, there was a shakeup within the Department of Homeland Security that included the departure of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I do not believe Trump proposed those measures because even though he’s done some dumb things, I don’t think he’s that crazy.
But if this is true and Trump fails to get convicted in the Senate, we’ve got some choice next year – either vote for a crazy Republican or a crazy Democrat.
It’s no longer God Bless America, it’s God Save America!
by Zachary Halaschak
Washington Examiner
October 1, 2019
President Trump discussed filling a border trench with alligators or snakes during private border security discussions.
During the height of border tensions within the White House in March, Trump privately floated a number of extreme ideas to defend against migrants. Those ideas included a water-filled trench stocked with either alligators or snakes and an electric wall with the ability to pierce human flesh, according the New York Times.
After the president suggested shooting migrants who threw rocks, staff informed him that it was illegal, and he backed off of the idea before wondering in a later meeting about shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down, which staff informed him was also illegal.
When Trump floated the ideas in March came at a time in which Trump also ordered advisers to shut down the whole 2,000 mile border by noon on the day following the meeting. Staff feared that doing so would strand tourists in Mexico and would lead to an economic meltdown. Trump backed off the idea after a week of meetings but began firing aides that had gone against him.
“The president was frustrated and I think he took that moment to hit the reset button,” said Thomas Homan, Trump’s former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “The president wanted it to be fixed quickly.”
One meeting that was supposed to be 30 minutes ended two hours later with staff attempting to appease him.
“You are making me look like an idiot!” Trump shouted to those in the room. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”
In the following weeks, there was a shakeup within the Department of Homeland Security that included the departure of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I do not believe Trump proposed those measures because even though he’s done some dumb things, I don’t think he’s that crazy.
But if this is true and Trump fails to get convicted in the Senate, we’ve got some choice next year – either vote for a crazy Republican or a crazy Democrat.
It’s no longer God Bless America, it’s God Save America!
GUYGER SENTENCED
by Bob Walsh
Former Dallas police Sergeant Amber Guyger was sentenced to ten years in prison in the death of her neighbor in what has been called a wrong apartment shooting. She will be eligible for parole in five years. The news reports I have seen indicate that the sentence was determined by the jury and not the judge. If so, Texas law is atypical. As are many things in Texas.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Atypical?! Are you insulting the Lone Star State? Quick, git a rope!
Former Dallas police Sergeant Amber Guyger was sentenced to ten years in prison in the death of her neighbor in what has been called a wrong apartment shooting. She will be eligible for parole in five years. The news reports I have seen indicate that the sentence was determined by the jury and not the judge. If so, Texas law is atypical. As are many things in Texas.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Atypical?! Are you insulting the Lone Star State? Quick, git a rope!
THERE IS NO VOTER FRAUD. THERE ISN'T. REALLY. NO NO NO!
by Bob Walsh
Three specific Republican voters have filed suit against the formerly great state of California in federal court asserting that California's voter registration practices are laughably inadequate to ensure that voter fraud does not occur.
The suit states that Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State, is doing precisely zero to protect the integrity of the voter rolls. Specifically mentioned in the lawsuit is the allegation that Padilla makes no attempt whatsoever to ensure that voters are in fact citizens.
At least six people who were ineligible to vote registered in 2018 and some of them indeed voted. California Motor Voter program gives voter registration cards to EVERYBODY who gets a drivers license. Illegal aliens are given driver's licenses in California.
Three specific Republican voters have filed suit against the formerly great state of California in federal court asserting that California's voter registration practices are laughably inadequate to ensure that voter fraud does not occur.
The suit states that Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State, is doing precisely zero to protect the integrity of the voter rolls. Specifically mentioned in the lawsuit is the allegation that Padilla makes no attempt whatsoever to ensure that voters are in fact citizens.
At least six people who were ineligible to vote registered in 2018 and some of them indeed voted. California Motor Voter program gives voter registration cards to EVERYBODY who gets a drivers license. Illegal aliens are given driver's licenses in California.
LEGALISTIC 12-WAY CIRCLE JERK
by Bob Walsh
About two years ago there was an absolutely vicious, nasty kidnap and gang rape of a UOP student here in Stockton. The suspects were apprehended after an extensive investigation and found guilty. They were just sentenced.
Deonte DeShaun Turner, 24, was sentenced to 172 years to life plus 24 years.
Dayvonte Otis Brown, 23, was sentenced to 107 years to life plus five years.
Gilbert Paul Rizo, 23, was sentenced to 132 years to life plus ten years.
However, because all of these vicious sociopaths were under 25 when they committed their crimes they will automatically be eligible for parole consideration after serving 25 years no matter what the length of their sentence is.
Lets hear it for the formerly great state of California, where nobody is ever truly responsible for anything they do.
About two years ago there was an absolutely vicious, nasty kidnap and gang rape of a UOP student here in Stockton. The suspects were apprehended after an extensive investigation and found guilty. They were just sentenced.
Deonte DeShaun Turner, 24, was sentenced to 172 years to life plus 24 years.
Dayvonte Otis Brown, 23, was sentenced to 107 years to life plus five years.
Gilbert Paul Rizo, 23, was sentenced to 132 years to life plus ten years.
However, because all of these vicious sociopaths were under 25 when they committed their crimes they will automatically be eligible for parole consideration after serving 25 years no matter what the length of their sentence is.
Lets hear it for the formerly great state of California, where nobody is ever truly responsible for anything they do.
BERNIE SANDERS IS PROBABLY TOAST NOW
by Bob Walsh
Yesterday Bernie underwent emergency heart surgery to implant a couple of stents into a largely blocked coronary artery. He is cancelling scheduled campaign appearances. This incident, combined with his age, will IMHO kick Bernie out of the race and give an immense boost to Pocahontas Warren, who has been competing for the same slice of the voter pie as has Bernie for quite some time.
I hate to say it but it is starting to look like Warren has a serious chance at the Democrat-Socialist party nomination. Maybe that is a good thing as I honestly believe that this country is not ready to elect an in-your-face Socialist but if the unrelenting media and congressional campaign against Trump keeps pounding along the country could be in trouble.
Yesterday Bernie underwent emergency heart surgery to implant a couple of stents into a largely blocked coronary artery. He is cancelling scheduled campaign appearances. This incident, combined with his age, will IMHO kick Bernie out of the race and give an immense boost to Pocahontas Warren, who has been competing for the same slice of the voter pie as has Bernie for quite some time.
I hate to say it but it is starting to look like Warren has a serious chance at the Democrat-Socialist party nomination. Maybe that is a good thing as I honestly believe that this country is not ready to elect an in-your-face Socialist but if the unrelenting media and congressional campaign against Trump keeps pounding along the country could be in trouble.
REALLY UNLUCKY OR STUCK ON STUPID ?
by Bob Walsh
Kyler Bourgeous likes nature. Some months ago he was hanging out in the Antelope Island area of Utah watching the beasties when he was attacked and gored by a bison. Rare, but it does happen.
Anyway, some months later, after he had recovered, he decided to go back with a young woman on a date to show her the bison. The date ended up with the young woman, Kayleigh Davis, being airlifted to a hosptial after being attacked and gored by a bison.
They both swear blind that on neither occasion did they do anything to deliberately aggravate the critters and in fact made serious attempts to stay out of their way.
There is, generally speaking, an average of one or two bison attacks in this country per year.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Bison's are very tempermental beasts with a bad disposition. You do not have to do anything to piss them off!
Kyler Bourgeous likes nature. Some months ago he was hanging out in the Antelope Island area of Utah watching the beasties when he was attacked and gored by a bison. Rare, but it does happen.
Anyway, some months later, after he had recovered, he decided to go back with a young woman on a date to show her the bison. The date ended up with the young woman, Kayleigh Davis, being airlifted to a hosptial after being attacked and gored by a bison.
They both swear blind that on neither occasion did they do anything to deliberately aggravate the critters and in fact made serious attempts to stay out of their way.
There is, generally speaking, an average of one or two bison attacks in this country per year.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Bison's are very tempermental beasts with a bad disposition. You do not have to do anything to piss them off!
BIDEN’S ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN ALMOST AS BAD AS THE ONE PROPOSED BY LUNATIC BETO O’ROURKE
“It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited,” a campaign statement said.
What would the plan do?
Biden’s plan is multifaceted. One major component Biden wants to explore is the connection between domestic violence and guns. He would launch a task force to study the connection between mass shootings, violence against women, extremism and online harassment. The task force would include federal agencies, state leaders, police, activists and technology experts. Biden’s campaign also pushed for the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which expired last year.
Biden also wants to invest heavily in urban intervention programs to combat daily gun violence. The programs would target 40 cities with high homicide rates. The proposal includes connecting trauma victims and those at risk of engaging in gun violence with necessary social and economic resources. Within his first 100 days in office, Biden would direct his Cabinet to review federal programs that deal with trauma and invest in ensuring that care is well informed, including establishing a network of trauma-care centers.
On the legislative side, Biden wants to ban the sale and manufacture of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Assault weapons that are already owned by the public would be regulated under the National Firearms Act, similar to regulations for machine guns and silencers. He also wants to launch a federal buyback program for those who opt not to register their weapons with the National Firearms Act. Online sales of guns would be banned.
Background checks would also be required for all gun purchases, though some rare exceptions could be made for gifts between close family members. The plan also lists several loopholes around background checks that Biden would tackle as president.
Gun licenses would be handled by state and local governments, but Biden would incentivize states through funds to adopt licensing policies as well as “red flag” laws to prevent high-risk individuals from owning firearms.
How much will it cost?
The initiative to combat urban violence will involve $900 million invested over eight years. The campaign predicts the program will save more than 12,000 lives during the time period. He also plans to call on Congress to appropriate $50 million for research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to study gun violence as a public health epidemic. Biden’s campaign did not provide cost estimates for other parts of his proposal.
How would he pay for it?
Biden’s campaign was less clear on how he would pay for the ambitious programs, but a senior campaign official said funding would come from making sure the “super wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.” The policy rollout on Wednesday did not include a specific plan to fund the measure.
What have other Democrats proposed?
Several candidates have made gun violence a key part of their campaigns. All candidates support universal background checks and assault weapons bans. Tom Steyer also proposed a federal-level task force to address gun violence in the form of a “special Office on Gun Violence Prevention.” Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke called for a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons, and both Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren advocated a federal-level gun licensing program.
Who opposes it?
The NRA and congressional Republicans will probably muster serious pushback against the plan, but Biden’s campaign doesn’t think that will be too big of an issue. A senior Biden campaign official touted the candidate’s past successes taking on the powerful gun lobby, including with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established federal background checks in 1993. The campaign also cited a 1994 bill that Biden worked to secure with Sen. Dianne Feinstein to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines for 10 years.
Regarding Congressional Republicans, the campaign official said: “We’re going to win back the Senate.”
What would the plan do?
Biden’s plan is multifaceted. One major component Biden wants to explore is the connection between domestic violence and guns. He would launch a task force to study the connection between mass shootings, violence against women, extremism and online harassment. The task force would include federal agencies, state leaders, police, activists and technology experts. Biden’s campaign also pushed for the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which expired last year.
Biden also wants to invest heavily in urban intervention programs to combat daily gun violence. The programs would target 40 cities with high homicide rates. The proposal includes connecting trauma victims and those at risk of engaging in gun violence with necessary social and economic resources. Within his first 100 days in office, Biden would direct his Cabinet to review federal programs that deal with trauma and invest in ensuring that care is well informed, including establishing a network of trauma-care centers.
On the legislative side, Biden wants to ban the sale and manufacture of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Assault weapons that are already owned by the public would be regulated under the National Firearms Act, similar to regulations for machine guns and silencers. He also wants to launch a federal buyback program for those who opt not to register their weapons with the National Firearms Act. Online sales of guns would be banned.
Background checks would also be required for all gun purchases, though some rare exceptions could be made for gifts between close family members. The plan also lists several loopholes around background checks that Biden would tackle as president.
Gun licenses would be handled by state and local governments, but Biden would incentivize states through funds to adopt licensing policies as well as “red flag” laws to prevent high-risk individuals from owning firearms.
How much will it cost?
The initiative to combat urban violence will involve $900 million invested over eight years. The campaign predicts the program will save more than 12,000 lives during the time period. He also plans to call on Congress to appropriate $50 million for research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to study gun violence as a public health epidemic. Biden’s campaign did not provide cost estimates for other parts of his proposal.
How would he pay for it?
Biden’s campaign was less clear on how he would pay for the ambitious programs, but a senior campaign official said funding would come from making sure the “super wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.” The policy rollout on Wednesday did not include a specific plan to fund the measure.
What have other Democrats proposed?
Several candidates have made gun violence a key part of their campaigns. All candidates support universal background checks and assault weapons bans. Tom Steyer also proposed a federal-level task force to address gun violence in the form of a “special Office on Gun Violence Prevention.” Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke called for a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons, and both Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren advocated a federal-level gun licensing program.
Who opposes it?
The NRA and congressional Republicans will probably muster serious pushback against the plan, but Biden’s campaign doesn’t think that will be too big of an issue. A senior Biden campaign official touted the candidate’s past successes taking on the powerful gun lobby, including with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established federal background checks in 1993. The campaign also cited a 1994 bill that Biden worked to secure with Sen. Dianne Feinstein to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines for 10 years.
Regarding Congressional Republicans, the campaign official said: “We’re going to win back the Senate.”
SCOTT HENSON’S TAKE ON THE AMBUSH SLAYING OF HARRIS COUNTY DEPUTY SANDEEP DHALIWAL
Death of trailblazing deputy raises difficult, familiar questions
By Scott Henson
Grits for Breakfast
October 1, 2019
The tragic shooting death of a Harris County Sheriff's deputy - a trail blazing figure who was the first Sikh to work in Harris County law enforcement - raises familiar questions with no satisfying answers.
The alleged killer is a severely schizophrenic parolee who had gone off his meds and heard voices telling him to kill people.
Is the criminal-justice system the best way to deal with people whose offenses are rooted in severe mental illness? How did this convicted felon and parolee get a firearm? He already was the subject of a warrant for violating his parole, should more resources be allocated to search for high-risk parole violators?
His family had told officials he was dangerous and off his meds: Are there "red flag" laws that could have allowed them to act sooner?
The circumstances surrounding this awful episode will provide fodder for these and many other debates in coming years. The public dialogue would have been easier, in a sense, if this had turned out to be a hate crime.
The issues surrounding mental illness and the politics of gun proliferation are much more complex and difficult to deal with.
EDITOR’S NOTE Mental illness and the politics of gun proliferation my ass! That worthless piece of shit Robert Solis needs to be dispatched to hell in the Huntsville death chamber … and the sooner, the better!
Since he frequently posts anti-police rants and won’ refute outrageous comments like “I've seen countless outright murders by them on people who hadn't even committed a crime but they took offense to. They have become a murderous lot,” I’m surprised Henson did not blame Deputy Dhaliwal for causing his own death by interfering with the driving of a poor mentally ill Robert Solis.
And if uber-liberal DA Kim Ogg doesn't seek the death penalty, the cops should run her out of town!
By Scott Henson
Grits for Breakfast
October 1, 2019
The tragic shooting death of a Harris County Sheriff's deputy - a trail blazing figure who was the first Sikh to work in Harris County law enforcement - raises familiar questions with no satisfying answers.
The alleged killer is a severely schizophrenic parolee who had gone off his meds and heard voices telling him to kill people.
Is the criminal-justice system the best way to deal with people whose offenses are rooted in severe mental illness? How did this convicted felon and parolee get a firearm? He already was the subject of a warrant for violating his parole, should more resources be allocated to search for high-risk parole violators?
His family had told officials he was dangerous and off his meds: Are there "red flag" laws that could have allowed them to act sooner?
The circumstances surrounding this awful episode will provide fodder for these and many other debates in coming years. The public dialogue would have been easier, in a sense, if this had turned out to be a hate crime.
The issues surrounding mental illness and the politics of gun proliferation are much more complex and difficult to deal with.
EDITOR’S NOTE Mental illness and the politics of gun proliferation my ass! That worthless piece of shit Robert Solis needs to be dispatched to hell in the Huntsville death chamber … and the sooner, the better!
Since he frequently posts anti-police rants and won’ refute outrageous comments like “I've seen countless outright murders by them on people who hadn't even committed a crime but they took offense to. They have become a murderous lot,” I’m surprised Henson did not blame Deputy Dhaliwal for causing his own death by interfering with the driving of a poor mentally ill Robert Solis.
And if uber-liberal DA Kim Ogg doesn't seek the death penalty, the cops should run her out of town!
TOO BAD HE DID NOT SUFFER THE PAINFUL DEATH HIS LAWYERS PREDICTED
Missouri executes ‘sociopath’ Russell Bucklew despite concern about painful death
Associated Press
October 1, 2019
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for killing a man in 1996 in a string of violence that included several other crimes, despite concerns that the prisoner’s rare medical condition would cause a gruesome lethal injection.
Russell Bucklew was put to death at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was Missouri’s first execution since January 2017.
Bucklew had twice previously been within hours of execution, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court grant last-minute reprieves over concerns that he might suffer during the execution process. He had a condition called cavernous hemangioma and had blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat. He breathed with help from a tracheostomy tube.
Bucklew’s attorneys said in a clemency request to Gov. Mike Parson that a throat tumor could burst, causing Bucklew to choke and die painfully and in violation of the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.
Bucklew looked around and twitched his feet beneath the sheet as he lay on the gurney just before the lethal injection. He suddenly took a deep breath and all movement stopped. There were no outward signs of distress.
Cheryl Pilate, one of Bucklew’s attorney’s, said several steps were taken to try to ensure that he didn’t suffer, including sedating him prior to the execution and elevating the gurney to help prevent him from choking.
“We believe the significant efforts that went into making this a less horrible process were beneficial,” Pilate said.
Adding to the concern was Missouri’s secretive execution drug. The state uses a single dose of pentobarbital but refuses to say where it gets it. The source is believed to be a compound pharmacy since large pharmaceutical companies prohibit the use of their drugs in executions.
The Supreme Court stepped in to halt Bucklew’s execution in 2014 and again in 2018. But in April, the high court gave the go-ahead for Bucklew to be executed.
Human rights groups and death penalty opponents, including all four Roman Catholic bishops in Missouri and the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Parson to grant clemency and remand Bucklew to life in prison without parole. The ACLU and Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty presented the governor’s office on Thursday with petitions that they said included more than 57,000 signatures.
But Parson, a Republican who worked in law enforcement for more than 20 years and a staunch death penalty supporter, decided early Tuesday that the execution could proceed.
Inmates’ medical conditions have affected other recent execution attempts.
In 2017, the execution of twice-convicted killer Alva Campbell, who suffered from smoking-related breathing problems, had to be halted in Ohio when a usable vein couldn’t be found to administer execution drugs. He died in 2018 at age 69.
In 2018, Alabama halted the lethal injection of Doyle Lee Hamm when the execution team had trouble getting the intravenous line connected. Hamm had damaged veins because of lymphoma, hepatitis and drug use. A doctor hired by Hamm’s lawyers wrote in a report that Hamm had at least 11 puncture sites and bled heavily from his groin during the attempts to connect the line.
Bucklew’s girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, left him on Valentine’s Day 1996. Over the next few weeks, according to court records, he harassed her, cut her with a knife and punched her in the face.
Ray feared for her life and the lives of her children, so she moved into the Cape Girardeau County mobile home that her new boyfriend, Michael Sanders, shared with his children.
On March 21, after stealing his nephew’s car and taking two pistols, handcuffs and duct tape from his brother, Bucklew followed Ray to Sanders’ home. Sanders confronted Bucklew with a shotgun inside the home. Bucklew fired two shots, one piercing Sanders’ lung. He bled to death.
Bucklew then shot at Sanders’ 6-year-old son and missed. Court records say he struck Ray in the face with the pistol, handcuffed her and dragged her to his car. He later raped Ray before heading north on Interstate 55.
A trooper spotted Bucklew’s car and eventually became engaged in a gunfight near St. Louis. Both men were wounded. Bucklew later escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail. He attacked Ray’s mother and her boyfriend with a hammer before being recaptured.
Pilate and another attorney for Bucklew, Jeremy Weis, said in a statement that Bucklew was remorseful for his crimes.
Morley Swingle, who was Cape Girardeau County prosecutor when the crimes occurred, said they were among the most heinous of his career.
“He is probably the most pure sociopath I ever prosecuted,” Swingle said of Bucklew. “He was relentless in the way he came after his victims.”
Associated Press
October 1, 2019
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for killing a man in 1996 in a string of violence that included several other crimes, despite concerns that the prisoner’s rare medical condition would cause a gruesome lethal injection.
Russell Bucklew was put to death at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was Missouri’s first execution since January 2017.
Bucklew had twice previously been within hours of execution, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court grant last-minute reprieves over concerns that he might suffer during the execution process. He had a condition called cavernous hemangioma and had blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat. He breathed with help from a tracheostomy tube.
Bucklew’s attorneys said in a clemency request to Gov. Mike Parson that a throat tumor could burst, causing Bucklew to choke and die painfully and in violation of the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.
Bucklew looked around and twitched his feet beneath the sheet as he lay on the gurney just before the lethal injection. He suddenly took a deep breath and all movement stopped. There were no outward signs of distress.
Cheryl Pilate, one of Bucklew’s attorney’s, said several steps were taken to try to ensure that he didn’t suffer, including sedating him prior to the execution and elevating the gurney to help prevent him from choking.
“We believe the significant efforts that went into making this a less horrible process were beneficial,” Pilate said.
Adding to the concern was Missouri’s secretive execution drug. The state uses a single dose of pentobarbital but refuses to say where it gets it. The source is believed to be a compound pharmacy since large pharmaceutical companies prohibit the use of their drugs in executions.
The Supreme Court stepped in to halt Bucklew’s execution in 2014 and again in 2018. But in April, the high court gave the go-ahead for Bucklew to be executed.
Human rights groups and death penalty opponents, including all four Roman Catholic bishops in Missouri and the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Parson to grant clemency and remand Bucklew to life in prison without parole. The ACLU and Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty presented the governor’s office on Thursday with petitions that they said included more than 57,000 signatures.
But Parson, a Republican who worked in law enforcement for more than 20 years and a staunch death penalty supporter, decided early Tuesday that the execution could proceed.
Inmates’ medical conditions have affected other recent execution attempts.
In 2017, the execution of twice-convicted killer Alva Campbell, who suffered from smoking-related breathing problems, had to be halted in Ohio when a usable vein couldn’t be found to administer execution drugs. He died in 2018 at age 69.
In 2018, Alabama halted the lethal injection of Doyle Lee Hamm when the execution team had trouble getting the intravenous line connected. Hamm had damaged veins because of lymphoma, hepatitis and drug use. A doctor hired by Hamm’s lawyers wrote in a report that Hamm had at least 11 puncture sites and bled heavily from his groin during the attempts to connect the line.
Bucklew’s girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, left him on Valentine’s Day 1996. Over the next few weeks, according to court records, he harassed her, cut her with a knife and punched her in the face.
Ray feared for her life and the lives of her children, so she moved into the Cape Girardeau County mobile home that her new boyfriend, Michael Sanders, shared with his children.
On March 21, after stealing his nephew’s car and taking two pistols, handcuffs and duct tape from his brother, Bucklew followed Ray to Sanders’ home. Sanders confronted Bucklew with a shotgun inside the home. Bucklew fired two shots, one piercing Sanders’ lung. He bled to death.
Bucklew then shot at Sanders’ 6-year-old son and missed. Court records say he struck Ray in the face with the pistol, handcuffed her and dragged her to his car. He later raped Ray before heading north on Interstate 55.
A trooper spotted Bucklew’s car and eventually became engaged in a gunfight near St. Louis. Both men were wounded. Bucklew later escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail. He attacked Ray’s mother and her boyfriend with a hammer before being recaptured.
Pilate and another attorney for Bucklew, Jeremy Weis, said in a statement that Bucklew was remorseful for his crimes.
Morley Swingle, who was Cape Girardeau County prosecutor when the crimes occurred, said they were among the most heinous of his career.
“He is probably the most pure sociopath I ever prosecuted,” Swingle said of Bucklew. “He was relentless in the way he came after his victims.”
WHO POISONED THE WATER?
Hezbollah, Iranian forces suffer from mysterious poisoning in Damascus
by Neta Bar
Israel Hayom
October 2, 2019
A large number of Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps troops were hospitalized due to food poisoning this week, Syrian state media reported Wednesday.
According to the reports, the poisoning can be traced to water in one of Damascus's southern suburbs, although it was unclear why it had been contaminated and whether this was intentional.
According to various reports in the foreign media, the Revolutionary Guards have recently been working on setting up a command center just south of the Syrian capital, to Russia's chagrin.
One report claimed that Russia, which apparently views this as a blatant effort on the part of Iran to establish a high-profile and permanent presence in Syria, has tried to sabotage those plans.
It remains to be seen whether this latest incident was a result of foul play.
by Neta Bar
Israel Hayom
October 2, 2019
A large number of Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps troops were hospitalized due to food poisoning this week, Syrian state media reported Wednesday.
According to the reports, the poisoning can be traced to water in one of Damascus's southern suburbs, although it was unclear why it had been contaminated and whether this was intentional.
According to various reports in the foreign media, the Revolutionary Guards have recently been working on setting up a command center just south of the Syrian capital, to Russia's chagrin.
One report claimed that Russia, which apparently views this as a blatant effort on the part of Iran to establish a high-profile and permanent presence in Syria, has tried to sabotage those plans.
It remains to be seen whether this latest incident was a result of foul play.
Wednesday, October 02, 2019
NOISE
by Bob Walsh
It seems that the major car manufacturers have gotten together and decided that it is necessary for them to have their cars make some sort of noise to announce their presence. They are working on something that will do the job without being unduly offensive. I have the following suggestions to offer.
Fan belt squeal.
Recording of somebody from Brooklyn yelling "Out of the way asshole."
Live cat being thrown into a wood chipper.
Hillary Clinton screeching "NO NO NO" on election night 2016.
It seems that the major car manufacturers have gotten together and decided that it is necessary for them to have their cars make some sort of noise to announce their presence. They are working on something that will do the job without being unduly offensive. I have the following suggestions to offer.
Fan belt squeal.
Recording of somebody from Brooklyn yelling "Out of the way asshole."
Live cat being thrown into a wood chipper.
Hillary Clinton screeching "NO NO NO" on election night 2016.
AMBER GUYGER FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER
by Bob Walsh
Former Dallas P D Sergeant Amber Guyger was found guilty of murder in the death of her neighbor last year. The jury rejected a possible manslaughter verdict. She could get up to 99 years in the slammer.
I admit I have trouble with this one. Manslaughter, no problem. There is zero reason to believe she had any ill will towards her neighbor or that the shooting was anything other than what it appeared to be, a colossal fuck-up. I think the Black-White thing overpowered the issue (my opinion, for what that may be worth to you).
EDITOR'S NOTE: I think you're right about the Black-White thing. Manslaughter seems more applicable than murder. But here is what one police-hating anonymous asshole said about us on Scott Henson's Grits for Breakfast:
"I'm sure Bark and his less than intelligent buddy Bob are crying in their beers over the Amber Guyger verdict. Like I said in a previous post..the times are changing and the crooked cop era is coming to an end."
Former Dallas P D Sergeant Amber Guyger was found guilty of murder in the death of her neighbor last year. The jury rejected a possible manslaughter verdict. She could get up to 99 years in the slammer.
I admit I have trouble with this one. Manslaughter, no problem. There is zero reason to believe she had any ill will towards her neighbor or that the shooting was anything other than what it appeared to be, a colossal fuck-up. I think the Black-White thing overpowered the issue (my opinion, for what that may be worth to you).
EDITOR'S NOTE: I think you're right about the Black-White thing. Manslaughter seems more applicable than murder. But here is what one police-hating anonymous asshole said about us on Scott Henson's Grits for Breakfast:
"I'm sure Bark and his less than intelligent buddy Bob are crying in their beers over the Amber Guyger verdict. Like I said in a previous post..the times are changing and the crooked cop era is coming to an end."
THE LOUDMOUTHED BITCH SHOULD BE LOCKED UP IN AN ASYLUM FOR THE MRNTALLY DERANGED
Maxine Waters Calls For Trump To Be ‘Placed In Solitary Confinement’
By Amanda Prestigiacomo
Daily Wire
October 1, 2019
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) went off the rails on Tuesday in calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment for the umpteenth time. Topping her previous comments, Rep. Waters claimed that Trump should be thrown in jail and “placed in solitary confinement.”
In a series of tweets, the seasoned Democrat threw a number of allegations at Trump, which included the president apparently “implying” whistleblowers should be “killed.” While impeachment must suffice for now, she argued, Trump deserves imprisonment and solitary confinement.
“I’m calling on the GOP to stop Trump’s filthy talk of whistleblowers being spies & using mob language implying they should be killed,” she accused. “Impeachment is not good enough for Trump. He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement. But for now, impeachment is the imperative.”
The 81-year-old also scolded Trump for allegedly implying “civil war” will break out if he’s impeached; Waters said this was a dogwhistle “to his white supremacists” to cultivate fear.
“Trump is so irresponsible & so hungry for power & control, he would dare imply that a civil war will ensue if he’s impeached. He is dog whistling to his white supremacists to create fear & intimidation b/c he knows he is going to be impeached. He knows he deserves impeachment,” she tweeted.
As noted by The Daily Wire on Monday, the president quoted a Fox News guest, Pastor Robert Jeffries, warning of a “Civil War-like fracture” if Trump is to be removed from office.
“If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,” Pastor Jeffries said, according to Trump.
Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, concluded her anti-Trump rant warning that impeachment is “on the way.”
“Trump has corrupted so many members of his admin,” the California representative said. “The lies, coverups, shaking down foreign countries & undermining our democracy will be recorded as one of the worst periods in the history of our country, all led by a dishonorable con man. Follow the facts, impeachment on the way.”
Im March, Rep. Waters similarly said in a tweet that “impeachment is the only answer” for Trump.
“Obstruction of justice reality show: Firing [former FBI Director James] Comey, sending coded messages to [former Trump campaign chairman Paul] Manafort & others that he has the power to pardon; lying abt Trump Tower meeting; threatening [of former attorney Michael] Cohen’s in-laws; attempting to destroy [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller,” she claimed. “What more do we need to know? Impeachment is the only answer.”
Last summer, Waters, who ironically just accused Trump of deepening the partisan divide, encouraged Americans to harass members of the president’s cabinet if seen out in public.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up and if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she said.
By Amanda Prestigiacomo
Daily Wire
October 1, 2019
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) went off the rails on Tuesday in calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment for the umpteenth time. Topping her previous comments, Rep. Waters claimed that Trump should be thrown in jail and “placed in solitary confinement.”
In a series of tweets, the seasoned Democrat threw a number of allegations at Trump, which included the president apparently “implying” whistleblowers should be “killed.” While impeachment must suffice for now, she argued, Trump deserves imprisonment and solitary confinement.
“I’m calling on the GOP to stop Trump’s filthy talk of whistleblowers being spies & using mob language implying they should be killed,” she accused. “Impeachment is not good enough for Trump. He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement. But for now, impeachment is the imperative.”
The 81-year-old also scolded Trump for allegedly implying “civil war” will break out if he’s impeached; Waters said this was a dogwhistle “to his white supremacists” to cultivate fear.
“Trump is so irresponsible & so hungry for power & control, he would dare imply that a civil war will ensue if he’s impeached. He is dog whistling to his white supremacists to create fear & intimidation b/c he knows he is going to be impeached. He knows he deserves impeachment,” she tweeted.
As noted by The Daily Wire on Monday, the president quoted a Fox News guest, Pastor Robert Jeffries, warning of a “Civil War-like fracture” if Trump is to be removed from office.
“If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,” Pastor Jeffries said, according to Trump.
Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, concluded her anti-Trump rant warning that impeachment is “on the way.”
“Trump has corrupted so many members of his admin,” the California representative said. “The lies, coverups, shaking down foreign countries & undermining our democracy will be recorded as one of the worst periods in the history of our country, all led by a dishonorable con man. Follow the facts, impeachment on the way.”
Im March, Rep. Waters similarly said in a tweet that “impeachment is the only answer” for Trump.
“Obstruction of justice reality show: Firing [former FBI Director James] Comey, sending coded messages to [former Trump campaign chairman Paul] Manafort & others that he has the power to pardon; lying abt Trump Tower meeting; threatening [of former attorney Michael] Cohen’s in-laws; attempting to destroy [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller,” she claimed. “What more do we need to know? Impeachment is the only answer.”
Last summer, Waters, who ironically just accused Trump of deepening the partisan divide, encouraged Americans to harass members of the president’s cabinet if seen out in public.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up and if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she said.
FOXX WILL COME OUT OF INVESTIGATION SMELLING LIKE A ROSE, WHEN IN FACT SHE SMELLS LIKE SHIT
Smollett case special prosecutor donated $1,000 to Kim Foxx’s campaign, co-hosted fundraiser
Fox News
October 1, 2019
The special prosecutor appointed to look into why the state’s attorney’s office in Chicago abruptly dropped the case against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett allegedly staging an attack on himself acknowledged Monday that he donated to the top prosecutor’s campaign and that his law firm co-hosted a 2016 fundraiser for her.
In a document filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Dan K. Webb says he doesn’t recall writing a $1,000 check to State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s campaign. The Chicago Tribune reports he also says he doesn’t remember attending the fundraiser thrown by his high-powered firm, Winston & Strawn.
Included with Webb’s filing was a copy of the flyer touting the fundraiser. The invitation notes lawyers in the firm including Webb, a Republican, supported Foxx, a Democrat, in her campaign for state’s attorney.
“I should point out that it is common for Winston partners to host fundraisers for political candidates at our firm,” Webb wrote to Judge Michael Toomin, who appointed the former U.S. attorney as special prosecutor in August. “It is also common that my Winston partners request that I contribute to these fundraisers.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Webb was one of three attorneys listed as a "host" of the fundraiser.
Webb said the matter was brought to his attention last week by Michael Bromwich, an attorney for Foxx. He said Bromwhich “made it clear” Foxx won’t claim any conflict of interest or make “any other objection related to this contribution.”
A hearing is scheduled for Friday, during which Webb is expected to discuss the political donation with Toomin.
The Chicago Police Department maintains that there is overwhelming evidence Smollett staged the attack and paid his two “attackers” to carry it out.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office charged Smollett in February with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly orchestrating the incident. However, it dropped all of the charges a month later with little explanation, angering city officials and the police.
Then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his city's police force after the announcement and denounced prosecutors for dropping charges and slammed the episode as a "whitewash of justice."
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Emanuel said they were not only furious with the outcome of Tuesday's surprise hearing but also blindsided by the decision itself, with the officials only learning Smollett wouldn't face charges for allegedly faking a hate crime at the same time the public found out.
Smollett's attorneys say their client continues to vehemently deny making any false statements in the case and said he remains the victim of a crime.
Fox News
October 1, 2019
The special prosecutor appointed to look into why the state’s attorney’s office in Chicago abruptly dropped the case against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett allegedly staging an attack on himself acknowledged Monday that he donated to the top prosecutor’s campaign and that his law firm co-hosted a 2016 fundraiser for her.
In a document filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Dan K. Webb says he doesn’t recall writing a $1,000 check to State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s campaign. The Chicago Tribune reports he also says he doesn’t remember attending the fundraiser thrown by his high-powered firm, Winston & Strawn.
Included with Webb’s filing was a copy of the flyer touting the fundraiser. The invitation notes lawyers in the firm including Webb, a Republican, supported Foxx, a Democrat, in her campaign for state’s attorney.
“I should point out that it is common for Winston partners to host fundraisers for political candidates at our firm,” Webb wrote to Judge Michael Toomin, who appointed the former U.S. attorney as special prosecutor in August. “It is also common that my Winston partners request that I contribute to these fundraisers.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Webb was one of three attorneys listed as a "host" of the fundraiser.
Webb said the matter was brought to his attention last week by Michael Bromwich, an attorney for Foxx. He said Bromwhich “made it clear” Foxx won’t claim any conflict of interest or make “any other objection related to this contribution.”
A hearing is scheduled for Friday, during which Webb is expected to discuss the political donation with Toomin.
The Chicago Police Department maintains that there is overwhelming evidence Smollett staged the attack and paid his two “attackers” to carry it out.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office charged Smollett in February with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly orchestrating the incident. However, it dropped all of the charges a month later with little explanation, angering city officials and the police.
Then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his city's police force after the announcement and denounced prosecutors for dropping charges and slammed the episode as a "whitewash of justice."
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Emanuel said they were not only furious with the outcome of Tuesday's surprise hearing but also blindsided by the decision itself, with the officials only learning Smollett wouldn't face charges for allegedly faking a hate crime at the same time the public found out.
Smollett's attorneys say their client continues to vehemently deny making any false statements in the case and said he remains the victim of a crime.
BUT CAN GRETA WALK ON WATER?
Church Of Sweden Announced Greta Thunberg ‘Successor’ Of Jesus
By Amanda Prestigiacomo
Daily Wire
September 30, 2019
The Church of Sweden, which has routinely promoted teen climate change alarmist Greta Thunberg, announced the young girl a “successor” to Jesus Christ last December.
“Announcement! Jesus of Nazareth has now appointed one of his successors, Greta Thunberg”, the Church of Limhamn tweeted on December 1, 2018.
The announcement resurfaced online on Monday, likely due to the church’s most recent support of Thunberg’s activism.
Last week, for example, The Church of Sweden Malmö announced that they would ring their church bells in conjunction with the Global Climate Strike, of which Thunberg is the face.
“In conjunction with the Global Climate Strike, church bells ring and we gather for prayer for the future of the earth,” the church announced. “We pray that we believe that man is responsible for nurturing and managing Creation so that children are given the opportunity for a future. We pray that we know that climate change affects the most vulnerable — poor, children and women. We pray that we believe in man’s ability to change and change.”
“When the Amazon burns, we gather to fight for Mother Earth together,” the site reads, adding, “WELCOME!”
The church account retweeted folks supporting and praising their “humorous” tweet about Thunberg being a successor to Jesus Christ while also defending the tweet by posting a link to the “nuances” of the word “success” soon following the post.
“Here you can read more about the word ‘success’ and its different meanings / nuances,” the Church of Limhamn posted.
The account was abandoned just days later, signing off with both a defense of the message and an apology for any hurt they’ve caused.
“Dear twitter, If we have hurt someone we apologize,” the post, which was published on December 6, 2018, starts.
“Our sense has been to talk about Jesus Christ in our own way,” it continues. “Now we leave the arena. Thank you for your commitment, joy and debate. God bless you! Jonas Persson, ward pastor.”
Thunberg gave a radical speech at the United Nations, last week.
“My message is that we’ll be watching you,” the teenager warned. “This is all wrong, I shouldn’t be up here, I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope, how dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I’m one of the lucky ones.”
“People are suffering, people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing,” Thunberg claimed. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you.”
Today, the Church of Sweden, or Svenska kyrkan, is a national Evangelical Lutheran church. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, the church stopped being supported by the state in January 2000. Lutheranism stopped being Sweden’s official religion at that time as well.
“The country is divided into 13 dioceses, each headed by a bishop. The archbishop of Uppsala is bishop in his diocese and presiding bishop of the Church of Sweden,” the encyclopedia explains. “Bishops are elected by priests of the diocese and by lay delegates. The Church Assembly is the decision-making body. It has 251 elected members and meets two times a year.”
By Amanda Prestigiacomo
Daily Wire
September 30, 2019
The Church of Sweden, which has routinely promoted teen climate change alarmist Greta Thunberg, announced the young girl a “successor” to Jesus Christ last December.
“Announcement! Jesus of Nazareth has now appointed one of his successors, Greta Thunberg”, the Church of Limhamn tweeted on December 1, 2018.
The announcement resurfaced online on Monday, likely due to the church’s most recent support of Thunberg’s activism.
Last week, for example, The Church of Sweden Malmö announced that they would ring their church bells in conjunction with the Global Climate Strike, of which Thunberg is the face.
“In conjunction with the Global Climate Strike, church bells ring and we gather for prayer for the future of the earth,” the church announced. “We pray that we believe that man is responsible for nurturing and managing Creation so that children are given the opportunity for a future. We pray that we know that climate change affects the most vulnerable — poor, children and women. We pray that we believe in man’s ability to change and change.”
“When the Amazon burns, we gather to fight for Mother Earth together,” the site reads, adding, “WELCOME!”
The church account retweeted folks supporting and praising their “humorous” tweet about Thunberg being a successor to Jesus Christ while also defending the tweet by posting a link to the “nuances” of the word “success” soon following the post.
“Here you can read more about the word ‘success’ and its different meanings / nuances,” the Church of Limhamn posted.
The account was abandoned just days later, signing off with both a defense of the message and an apology for any hurt they’ve caused.
“Dear twitter, If we have hurt someone we apologize,” the post, which was published on December 6, 2018, starts.
“Our sense has been to talk about Jesus Christ in our own way,” it continues. “Now we leave the arena. Thank you for your commitment, joy and debate. God bless you! Jonas Persson, ward pastor.”
Thunberg gave a radical speech at the United Nations, last week.
“My message is that we’ll be watching you,” the teenager warned. “This is all wrong, I shouldn’t be up here, I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope, how dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I’m one of the lucky ones.”
“People are suffering, people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing,” Thunberg claimed. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you.”
Today, the Church of Sweden, or Svenska kyrkan, is a national Evangelical Lutheran church. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, the church stopped being supported by the state in January 2000. Lutheranism stopped being Sweden’s official religion at that time as well.
“The country is divided into 13 dioceses, each headed by a bishop. The archbishop of Uppsala is bishop in his diocese and presiding bishop of the Church of Sweden,” the encyclopedia explains. “Bishops are elected by priests of the diocese and by lay delegates. The Church Assembly is the decision-making body. It has 251 elected members and meets two times a year.”
JUST ANOTHER DAY IN H-TOWN
Naked man escapes from kidnappers' trunk in north Houston
By Jessica Willey
KTRK
October 1, 2019
HOUSTON, Texas -- A Houston-area contractor, who was ambushed, tied up and thrown into a trunk naked, managed to escape almost-certain death, deputies say.
"I think, had he not gotten free, we'd be working a homicide case. I really believe that," said Lt. Jeff Stauber.
The man's ordeal started Sunday afternoon. Stauber says the victim is a contractor who was lured with the promise of a job to repair a flood-damaged home on Gault near Greens Bayou.
One man got him to the house where two others wearing masks were hiding in a closet. Deputies say they hit him in the face and then stripped him naked and tied his hands and legs.
According to authorities, the kidnappers tried to extort thousands of dollars from the victim's family, and when it did not work, they put him in the trunk of their car and drove to the Greenspoint area.
Investigators say the man managed to escape by pulling the release latch. He jumped out of the trunk on Rushcreek near Ella and ran to the closest house for help.
"He said, 'Help me. Call 911 and that was all,'" said the resident who did not want to be identified. "I didn't know he was naked until they came and got him out of the back yard. I am glad he got away."
As first responders were arriving at her home, the car the victim was in was on fire down the street. There was no trace of the kidnappers. They got away in the victim's vehicle, which still has not been found.
The man was with his kidnappers for as long as eight hours. Deputies believe they have probably done something similar before.
By Jessica Willey
KTRK
October 1, 2019
HOUSTON, Texas -- A Houston-area contractor, who was ambushed, tied up and thrown into a trunk naked, managed to escape almost-certain death, deputies say.
"I think, had he not gotten free, we'd be working a homicide case. I really believe that," said Lt. Jeff Stauber.
The man's ordeal started Sunday afternoon. Stauber says the victim is a contractor who was lured with the promise of a job to repair a flood-damaged home on Gault near Greens Bayou.
One man got him to the house where two others wearing masks were hiding in a closet. Deputies say they hit him in the face and then stripped him naked and tied his hands and legs.
According to authorities, the kidnappers tried to extort thousands of dollars from the victim's family, and when it did not work, they put him in the trunk of their car and drove to the Greenspoint area.
Investigators say the man managed to escape by pulling the release latch. He jumped out of the trunk on Rushcreek near Ella and ran to the closest house for help.
"He said, 'Help me. Call 911 and that was all,'" said the resident who did not want to be identified. "I didn't know he was naked until they came and got him out of the back yard. I am glad he got away."
As first responders were arriving at her home, the car the victim was in was on fire down the street. There was no trace of the kidnappers. They got away in the victim's vehicle, which still has not been found.
The man was with his kidnappers for as long as eight hours. Deputies believe they have probably done something similar before.
AN ATTACK ON THE POLICE BY A DEFENSE ATTORNEY
How Mandatory Minimums Enable Police Misconduct
By Scott Hechinger
The New York Times
September 25, 2019
Last year, Jacob, a young man I represented, made an exceedingly rare choice. He rejected a favorable plea offer because he wanted to hold the police accountable in a hearing to challenge his illegal stop, search and arrest.
To those who do not work in criminal court, Jacob’s decision may not seem particularly momentous. Yet everyday across the country, police officers willfully violate people’s rights, in large part because of their certainty of never having to take the stand to answer for their actions.
Police departments rightfully get blamed for the crisis in violent and corrupt policing. The recent firing of Daniel Pantaleo, the New York Police Department officer who strangled Eric Garner to death, lied about it, kept his job for five years and got terminated only after international pressure and the recommendation of a Police Department judge, underscores why.
But the near impossibility of getting fired is only part of the crisis of impunity. An overlooked but significant culprit is mandatory minimum sentencing.
In criminal courts throughout this country, victims of police abuse — illegal stops and frisks, car stops and searches, home raids, manufactured charges and excessive force — routinely forgo their constitutional right to challenge police abuse in a pretrial hearing in exchange for plea deals. They do so because the alternative is to risk the steep mandatory minimum sentence they would face if they went to trial and lost. Prosecutors use the fear of these mandatory minimums to their advantage by offering comparatively less harsh plea deals before pretrial hearings and trials begin.
The result is not only the virtual loss of the jury trial — today, 95 percent of convictions come from guilty pleas instead of jury verdicts — but also the loss of the only opportunity to confront police misconduct in criminal proceedings. In New York City, for example, less than 5 percent of all felony arrests that are prosecuted have hearings to contest police misconduct. For misdemeanor arrests that are prosecuted — a third of which are initiated by the police — less than .5 percent of cases go to a hearing. A guilty plea also has the effect of insulating police from any civil rights lawsuit asserting false arrest because a plea of guilty serves as an admission that the officers’ arrest was justified.
A year before his court appearance, Jacob was heading home when undercover detectives stopped a car he had borrowed. They ordered him and his three friends out of the car, handcuffed them and searched the car without justification. The officers later claimed that he failed to signal and that they smelled a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle when they approached, both common police lies used as pretexts to stop and search predominately black and Latinx people.
During the search, the officers recovered a handgun from inside the spare tire compartment in the trunk. Jacob adamantly denied knowledge of the gun — it was not his car, other people used the vehicle, and there were multiple passengers — but he was charged with possession of a loaded firearm, a “violent felony” under New York law.
The stakes were significant for this 21-year-old with no criminal record. At a pretrial hearing, where the legitimacy of the stop and search of the vehicle would be examined and a judge would determine whether to suppress (preclude the prosecutor from using any evidence relating to the firearm at trial), it would be his word against the officers’. And if he lost and went to trial, he would face the mandatory minimum of three and a half years in prison.
On the day of the hearing, the prosecutor in Jacob’s case offered a last-minute plea deal: a nonviolent felony with a sentence of probation. But if he turned it down that day, the deal would forever be off the table. Prosecutors call this a “one-time offer,” a routine pressure tactic that undermines a meaningful opportunity to make a truly voluntary decision. Most people take the deal.
The framers of the Constitution envisioned a far different system. They knew well from British rule that the government’s power to stop, search, detain, accuse, judge and punish people suspected of committing crimes presented unique risks for abuse. While they did not envision plea bargaining or the kind of policing we have today, three of 10 amendments in our Bill of Rights — the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth — when read together, collectively describe the view that government power should be vigorously challenged, without fear of reprisal or punishment, at every turn when it threatens the liberty of individuals. This original intent becomes meaningless if defendants cannot seek and receive judicial protection. As the United States Supreme Court warned nearly 60 years ago in the landmark Mapp v. Ohio: “Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.”
Jacob got his public hearing. Two of the officers involved in his stop, search and arrest were compelled to testify. I cross-examined them over three days. They were visibly uncomfortable, even upset at times. It was clear that they never expected to testify. The judge found the officers’ testimony “implausible,” holding that the search violated Jacob’s constitutional rights, and granted Jacob’s motion to suppress the firearm. Soon after, the prosecution dismissed all charges.
A month later, however, I learned that the same prosecutor was relying on the same team of officers to prosecute another man. He, too, was charged with possession of a gun found under similar circumstances. A week after that, I passed by the officer whose testimony under oath the judge had rejected as “implausible.” He was sitting in court, waiting for another judge to sign off on a search warrant — to enter and search someone’s home — sworn out by him.
The message that the system sent to this officer and continues to send to others is clear: You can do anything and the system will not hold you accountable. In fact, the system will protect you.
We must abolish mandatory minimum sentences. Aside from denying individualized justice and driving mass punishment, they usurp the role of the jury, coerce guilty pleas and, yes, insulate police misconduct. But as Jacob’s case underscored, even in the rare cases where officers are forced to testify and a judge finds them unbelievable, there is no mechanism to ensure that they are halted from being able to contribute to future prosecutions.
Fortunately, there is a growing national conversation among forward-thinking district attorneys and prosecutors to take police accountability more seriously. District attorneys like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Kim Gardner in St. Louis have developed “do not call” lists of officers whom they refuse to rely upon based on previous findings of incredibility or misconduct. If more prosecutors start rejecting arrests from bad officers, a strong message can be sent and their ability to continue hurting people can be stymied.
Prosecutors must also end the practice of the “hearing penalty,” where a plea offer made is forever lost once the hearing starts. A plea offer, once made, should not depend on a person’s having the audacity to exercise their constitutional rights.
A system that provides no disincentive for misbehavior and no accountability for those with the greatest responsibility and the power to take away a person’s liberty is profoundly dangerous.
Jacob’s demand for accountability for the officers who illegally stopped and searched his car, despite the risks, despite the institutional pressures not to, should serve as a model for lawmakers, prosecutors and anyone else who claims to care about justice and the epidemic of police abuse and violence.
Mr. Hechinger is a senior staff attorney and the director of policy at Brooklyn Defender Services, a public defense law firm representing 30,000 people arrested in Brooklyn each year.
By Scott Hechinger
The New York Times
September 25, 2019
Last year, Jacob, a young man I represented, made an exceedingly rare choice. He rejected a favorable plea offer because he wanted to hold the police accountable in a hearing to challenge his illegal stop, search and arrest.
To those who do not work in criminal court, Jacob’s decision may not seem particularly momentous. Yet everyday across the country, police officers willfully violate people’s rights, in large part because of their certainty of never having to take the stand to answer for their actions.
Police departments rightfully get blamed for the crisis in violent and corrupt policing. The recent firing of Daniel Pantaleo, the New York Police Department officer who strangled Eric Garner to death, lied about it, kept his job for five years and got terminated only after international pressure and the recommendation of a Police Department judge, underscores why.
But the near impossibility of getting fired is only part of the crisis of impunity. An overlooked but significant culprit is mandatory minimum sentencing.
In criminal courts throughout this country, victims of police abuse — illegal stops and frisks, car stops and searches, home raids, manufactured charges and excessive force — routinely forgo their constitutional right to challenge police abuse in a pretrial hearing in exchange for plea deals. They do so because the alternative is to risk the steep mandatory minimum sentence they would face if they went to trial and lost. Prosecutors use the fear of these mandatory minimums to their advantage by offering comparatively less harsh plea deals before pretrial hearings and trials begin.
The result is not only the virtual loss of the jury trial — today, 95 percent of convictions come from guilty pleas instead of jury verdicts — but also the loss of the only opportunity to confront police misconduct in criminal proceedings. In New York City, for example, less than 5 percent of all felony arrests that are prosecuted have hearings to contest police misconduct. For misdemeanor arrests that are prosecuted — a third of which are initiated by the police — less than .5 percent of cases go to a hearing. A guilty plea also has the effect of insulating police from any civil rights lawsuit asserting false arrest because a plea of guilty serves as an admission that the officers’ arrest was justified.
A year before his court appearance, Jacob was heading home when undercover detectives stopped a car he had borrowed. They ordered him and his three friends out of the car, handcuffed them and searched the car without justification. The officers later claimed that he failed to signal and that they smelled a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle when they approached, both common police lies used as pretexts to stop and search predominately black and Latinx people.
During the search, the officers recovered a handgun from inside the spare tire compartment in the trunk. Jacob adamantly denied knowledge of the gun — it was not his car, other people used the vehicle, and there were multiple passengers — but he was charged with possession of a loaded firearm, a “violent felony” under New York law.
The stakes were significant for this 21-year-old with no criminal record. At a pretrial hearing, where the legitimacy of the stop and search of the vehicle would be examined and a judge would determine whether to suppress (preclude the prosecutor from using any evidence relating to the firearm at trial), it would be his word against the officers’. And if he lost and went to trial, he would face the mandatory minimum of three and a half years in prison.
On the day of the hearing, the prosecutor in Jacob’s case offered a last-minute plea deal: a nonviolent felony with a sentence of probation. But if he turned it down that day, the deal would forever be off the table. Prosecutors call this a “one-time offer,” a routine pressure tactic that undermines a meaningful opportunity to make a truly voluntary decision. Most people take the deal.
The framers of the Constitution envisioned a far different system. They knew well from British rule that the government’s power to stop, search, detain, accuse, judge and punish people suspected of committing crimes presented unique risks for abuse. While they did not envision plea bargaining or the kind of policing we have today, three of 10 amendments in our Bill of Rights — the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth — when read together, collectively describe the view that government power should be vigorously challenged, without fear of reprisal or punishment, at every turn when it threatens the liberty of individuals. This original intent becomes meaningless if defendants cannot seek and receive judicial protection. As the United States Supreme Court warned nearly 60 years ago in the landmark Mapp v. Ohio: “Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.”
Jacob got his public hearing. Two of the officers involved in his stop, search and arrest were compelled to testify. I cross-examined them over three days. They were visibly uncomfortable, even upset at times. It was clear that they never expected to testify. The judge found the officers’ testimony “implausible,” holding that the search violated Jacob’s constitutional rights, and granted Jacob’s motion to suppress the firearm. Soon after, the prosecution dismissed all charges.
A month later, however, I learned that the same prosecutor was relying on the same team of officers to prosecute another man. He, too, was charged with possession of a gun found under similar circumstances. A week after that, I passed by the officer whose testimony under oath the judge had rejected as “implausible.” He was sitting in court, waiting for another judge to sign off on a search warrant — to enter and search someone’s home — sworn out by him.
The message that the system sent to this officer and continues to send to others is clear: You can do anything and the system will not hold you accountable. In fact, the system will protect you.
We must abolish mandatory minimum sentences. Aside from denying individualized justice and driving mass punishment, they usurp the role of the jury, coerce guilty pleas and, yes, insulate police misconduct. But as Jacob’s case underscored, even in the rare cases where officers are forced to testify and a judge finds them unbelievable, there is no mechanism to ensure that they are halted from being able to contribute to future prosecutions.
Fortunately, there is a growing national conversation among forward-thinking district attorneys and prosecutors to take police accountability more seriously. District attorneys like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Kim Gardner in St. Louis have developed “do not call” lists of officers whom they refuse to rely upon based on previous findings of incredibility or misconduct. If more prosecutors start rejecting arrests from bad officers, a strong message can be sent and their ability to continue hurting people can be stymied.
Prosecutors must also end the practice of the “hearing penalty,” where a plea offer made is forever lost once the hearing starts. A plea offer, once made, should not depend on a person’s having the audacity to exercise their constitutional rights.
A system that provides no disincentive for misbehavior and no accountability for those with the greatest responsibility and the power to take away a person’s liberty is profoundly dangerous.
Jacob’s demand for accountability for the officers who illegally stopped and searched his car, despite the risks, despite the institutional pressures not to, should serve as a model for lawmakers, prosecutors and anyone else who claims to care about justice and the epidemic of police abuse and violence.
Mr. Hechinger is a senior staff attorney and the director of policy at Brooklyn Defender Services, a public defense law firm representing 30,000 people arrested in Brooklyn each year.
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
TEXAS PAROLE DIVISION MUST SHARE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE AMBUSH SLAYING OF HARRIS COUNTY DEOUTY SANDEEP DHALIWAL
Robert Solis, who has been charged with capital murder in the shooting death of Deputy Dhaliwal, was a wanted parole violator since January 2017
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
September 30, 2019
On September 27, Harris County Deputy Sheriff Sandeep Dhaliwal made a routine traffic stop of a driver for running a stop sign. After a brief and uneventful conversation with the driver, Dhaliwal started to walk back to his patrol car. Robert Solis, the driver, then exited the car and dashed after the deputy, ambushing him with a shot to the back of the head. Dhaliwal, 42, died in the hospital while Solis was captured at an ice cream parlor within hours of the shooting.
The heroic deputy was described by Sheriff Ed Gonzalez as a “trailblazer” who “represented his community with integrity, respect and pride, and was respected by all.” Dhaliwal was the first observant Sikh to become a sheriff's deputy in Harris County. The 10-year veteran of the sheriff department is survived by his wife and three children.
Solis, 47, has a long criminal record that dates back 25 years. In 2002, Solis was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. He was paroled in 2014. In 2016, Solis was arrested for drunk driving, but the parole board failed to revoke his parole.
In January 2017, his girlfriend at the time accused Solis of assaulting her with a deadly weapon. She forwarded an affidavit to that effect to his parole officer and a blue warrant was issued for his arrest. However, Solis managed to elude the authorities until he was stopped by Deputy Dhaliwal.
Yes, Robert Solis ambushed and killed Deputy Dhaliwal, but the Texas Parole Division must share responsibility for his death.
Let’s start out with the 2016 drunk driving arrest. I suspect his parole officer recommended he be retained on parole, but whether he did or not, the parole board did not revoke his parole.
Now there is nothing wrong with not revoking the parole of a parolee after he has been arrested for DUI if he has had a good record while on parole and provided that he is a non-violent offender. But Solis was a violent offender on parole for aggravated kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. His parole should have been revoked forthwith. Drinking and violence go hand in hand, and that made Solis a danger to society.
Then again, how would his parole officer know that Solis was a sterling parolee? Probably, his only contact with Solis was during the worthless monthly office visit. And if Solis was wearing an ankle monitor, that would only tell the parole officer of his whereabouts, not what he may have been up too.
The primary responsibility of a parole system is protection of the public. TDC should have a shotgun and AR-15 toting fugitive unit to go after parole violators serving time for a crime of violence that are on the loose, like Solis. TDC has a toothless Warrants Division that does not try to apprehend fugitive parole violators, but only assists the police when they want to arrest a parolee for a new offense.
So, no one, not the police nor the parole division bothered to look for Solis after that blue warrant was issued in January 2017. You can’t blame the police because his girlfriend apparently did not file a criminal complaint which would have led to his arrest.
But you can blame the parole division. Had Solis been revoked after his DUI arrest, Deputy Dhaliwal might still be enjoying time with his wife and three kids. If the parole division had a fugitive unit that would go after parole violators on the loose, Deputy Dhaliwa might still be serving as a law enforcement officer and, as Sheriff Gonzalez said, “representing his community with integrity, respect and pride.”
The blood of Harris County Sheriff Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal is not only on the hands of Robert Solis, but also on the hands of a detrimental Texas parole system.
UPDATE
Channel 2 interviewed Melissa Purtee, the former common-law wife of Solis, and his son, Robert Purtee.
Melissa said: “I tried to tell everyone he was dangerous. I started calling his parole officer, HPD, Crime Stoppers and the Ft. Bend County Sheriff's Office. I was trying to hand this guy to them on a silver platter. I said where he was at. He had guns and drugs, and one of my sons. But it was the parole officer's fault.”
Robert said: “It was the complete incompetence of the parole officer. These people are supposed to be supervising these violent criminals' reintegration into society. They're not.”
Both Melissa and Robert claim they called Solis' parole officer 10 times, asking for a spot check. But the parole officer never showed up.
TDC responded to Channel 2’s inquiry: “TCDJ is not a law enforcement organization. When an arrest warrant is issued, we depend on local law enforcement. Parole officers don't have arrest powers.” Jeremy Desel, TDCJ director of communications, said Monday that tips to parole officers are, as standard practice, forwarded to law enforcement for follow-up since TDCJ has no police powers.
There are two problems with TDC’s pile of horseshit. To begin with, it is questionable whether or not a parole officer has the power to arrest a parolee. But he certainly has the power, and the duty, to personally investigate any complaints against one of his parolees and to turn a written report of that investigation over to the police if he found any criminal wrongdoing. The cops are too busy to go after a parolee just because his parole officer reported that he has been misbehaving.
The other problem can be solved by changing the law to make parole officers peace officers. Until that happens, the public will not be protected against criminals by the Texas parole system. And in the meantime, there is nothing to prevent the parole division from having an armed fugitive unit to go after parolees on the loose like Solis.
Besides all that, a parole officer does not need to be a peace officer to take a parole violator into custody because the parolee remains in the custody of TDC until he finishes serving his sentence. The parolee is merely serving the remainder of his sentence outside of a prison. If the parole officer busts one of his parolees, with or without the help of the police, he takes him to the nearest jail facility where he will remain until the parole board decides whether to keep him on parole or to have him returned to prison.
And Robert Purtee made the most noteworthy point when he said the parole officers “are supposed to be supervising these violent criminals' reintegration into society. They're not.”
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
September 30, 2019
On September 27, Harris County Deputy Sheriff Sandeep Dhaliwal made a routine traffic stop of a driver for running a stop sign. After a brief and uneventful conversation with the driver, Dhaliwal started to walk back to his patrol car. Robert Solis, the driver, then exited the car and dashed after the deputy, ambushing him with a shot to the back of the head. Dhaliwal, 42, died in the hospital while Solis was captured at an ice cream parlor within hours of the shooting.
The heroic deputy was described by Sheriff Ed Gonzalez as a “trailblazer” who “represented his community with integrity, respect and pride, and was respected by all.” Dhaliwal was the first observant Sikh to become a sheriff's deputy in Harris County. The 10-year veteran of the sheriff department is survived by his wife and three children.
Solis, 47, has a long criminal record that dates back 25 years. In 2002, Solis was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. He was paroled in 2014. In 2016, Solis was arrested for drunk driving, but the parole board failed to revoke his parole.
In January 2017, his girlfriend at the time accused Solis of assaulting her with a deadly weapon. She forwarded an affidavit to that effect to his parole officer and a blue warrant was issued for his arrest. However, Solis managed to elude the authorities until he was stopped by Deputy Dhaliwal.
Yes, Robert Solis ambushed and killed Deputy Dhaliwal, but the Texas Parole Division must share responsibility for his death.
Let’s start out with the 2016 drunk driving arrest. I suspect his parole officer recommended he be retained on parole, but whether he did or not, the parole board did not revoke his parole.
Now there is nothing wrong with not revoking the parole of a parolee after he has been arrested for DUI if he has had a good record while on parole and provided that he is a non-violent offender. But Solis was a violent offender on parole for aggravated kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. His parole should have been revoked forthwith. Drinking and violence go hand in hand, and that made Solis a danger to society.
Then again, how would his parole officer know that Solis was a sterling parolee? Probably, his only contact with Solis was during the worthless monthly office visit. And if Solis was wearing an ankle monitor, that would only tell the parole officer of his whereabouts, not what he may have been up too.
The primary responsibility of a parole system is protection of the public. TDC should have a shotgun and AR-15 toting fugitive unit to go after parole violators serving time for a crime of violence that are on the loose, like Solis. TDC has a toothless Warrants Division that does not try to apprehend fugitive parole violators, but only assists the police when they want to arrest a parolee for a new offense.
So, no one, not the police nor the parole division bothered to look for Solis after that blue warrant was issued in January 2017. You can’t blame the police because his girlfriend apparently did not file a criminal complaint which would have led to his arrest.
But you can blame the parole division. Had Solis been revoked after his DUI arrest, Deputy Dhaliwal might still be enjoying time with his wife and three kids. If the parole division had a fugitive unit that would go after parole violators on the loose, Deputy Dhaliwa might still be serving as a law enforcement officer and, as Sheriff Gonzalez said, “representing his community with integrity, respect and pride.”
The blood of Harris County Sheriff Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal is not only on the hands of Robert Solis, but also on the hands of a detrimental Texas parole system.
UPDATE
Channel 2 interviewed Melissa Purtee, the former common-law wife of Solis, and his son, Robert Purtee.
Melissa said: “I tried to tell everyone he was dangerous. I started calling his parole officer, HPD, Crime Stoppers and the Ft. Bend County Sheriff's Office. I was trying to hand this guy to them on a silver platter. I said where he was at. He had guns and drugs, and one of my sons. But it was the parole officer's fault.”
Robert said: “It was the complete incompetence of the parole officer. These people are supposed to be supervising these violent criminals' reintegration into society. They're not.”
Both Melissa and Robert claim they called Solis' parole officer 10 times, asking for a spot check. But the parole officer never showed up.
TDC responded to Channel 2’s inquiry: “TCDJ is not a law enforcement organization. When an arrest warrant is issued, we depend on local law enforcement. Parole officers don't have arrest powers.” Jeremy Desel, TDCJ director of communications, said Monday that tips to parole officers are, as standard practice, forwarded to law enforcement for follow-up since TDCJ has no police powers.
There are two problems with TDC’s pile of horseshit. To begin with, it is questionable whether or not a parole officer has the power to arrest a parolee. But he certainly has the power, and the duty, to personally investigate any complaints against one of his parolees and to turn a written report of that investigation over to the police if he found any criminal wrongdoing. The cops are too busy to go after a parolee just because his parole officer reported that he has been misbehaving.
The other problem can be solved by changing the law to make parole officers peace officers. Until that happens, the public will not be protected against criminals by the Texas parole system. And in the meantime, there is nothing to prevent the parole division from having an armed fugitive unit to go after parolees on the loose like Solis.
Besides all that, a parole officer does not need to be a peace officer to take a parole violator into custody because the parolee remains in the custody of TDC until he finishes serving his sentence. The parolee is merely serving the remainder of his sentence outside of a prison. If the parole officer busts one of his parolees, with or without the help of the police, he takes him to the nearest jail facility where he will remain until the parole board decides whether to keep him on parole or to have him returned to prison.
And Robert Purtee made the most noteworthy point when he said the parole officers “are supposed to be supervising these violent criminals' reintegration into society. They're not.”
A VIEW TO DIE FOR
by Bob Walsh
The Skywalk over the Grand Canyon is, I understand, truly spectacular. It is essentially a glass sidewalk that actually goes out over the canyon. A couple of days ago some dingdong climbed over the safety barrier and did a swan dive to the canyon floor below, no doubt pissing off the clean-up crew and the poor bastard who had to write the report.
The Skywalk over the Grand Canyon is, I understand, truly spectacular. It is essentially a glass sidewalk that actually goes out over the canyon. A couple of days ago some dingdong climbed over the safety barrier and did a swan dive to the canyon floor below, no doubt pissing off the clean-up crew and the poor bastard who had to write the report.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
by Bob Walsh
In 1890 Yosemite National Park was established by act of congress.
In 1918 an Arab army led by T. E. Lawrence captured Damascus.
In 1946 12 Nazi leaders were sentenced to death for war crimes at Nuremberg.
In 1890 Yosemite National Park was established by act of congress.
In 1918 an Arab army led by T. E. Lawrence captured Damascus.
In 1946 12 Nazi leaders were sentenced to death for war crimes at Nuremberg.
DID CALIFORNIA JUST KILL OFF THEIR COLLEGE ATHLETICS PROGRAM?
by Bob Walsh
Starting in 2023 it will be legal for college athletes to be paid for endorsements and for use of their likeness in merchandising. It will NOT be legal to actually pay them for sports participation, but you must admit the dividing line is very, very thin.
The NCAA was, and is, very much opposed to this practice as they see it as the beginning of the slippery slope.
I admit to mixed feelings. Colleges make a buttload of money off of college athletics. However, if we want to continue to sort-of pretend this is a bunch of college students participating in it for the sport I see an issue with it. Fortunately, I do not have a dog in the fight so my interest is purely academic.
Starting in 2023 it will be legal for college athletes to be paid for endorsements and for use of their likeness in merchandising. It will NOT be legal to actually pay them for sports participation, but you must admit the dividing line is very, very thin.
The NCAA was, and is, very much opposed to this practice as they see it as the beginning of the slippery slope.
I admit to mixed feelings. Colleges make a buttload of money off of college athletics. However, if we want to continue to sort-of pretend this is a bunch of college students participating in it for the sport I see an issue with it. Fortunately, I do not have a dog in the fight so my interest is purely academic.
PIERS BASHES JOE BIDEN
If we swapped the name Hunter Biden for Donald Trump Jr, the Democrats and media would be going absolutely nuts - so it's time to start asking Joe Biden the key Ukraine questions he doesn't want to answer
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
September 30, 2019
I have a question about this Ukraine scandal.
It’s a simple question, but I think a relevant and important one given the current explosive cacophony of Impeachment noise erupting all around Washington.
And it’s a question that I know will provoke an instant new onslaught of hysteria from all sides.
Some will furiously accuse me of playing ‘whataboutery’ to try to distract attention from what they see as the real story.
Others will furiously applaud me for highlighting what THEY see as the real story.
The rest who read it will either be so furious they can’t express themselves at all due to all the foam spewing from their mouths - a common malady in these shrieking social media times – or they don’t care.
But one thing’s for certain, it’s a question that needs asking.
It’s not a question about President Trump’s conduct during that now infamous July phone call with Ukranian President Zelensky.
My view of that, as I wrote last week, is it was a very dumb call to make and Trump is now getting all the savage blowback he deserves for being so reckless.
I don’t know what the hell he was thinking directly asking a foreign leader to dig up dirt on his main rival for the 2020 election, but it was utter madness on his part to do it so soon after the Mueller report cleared him of colluding with Russians to fix the 2016 election.
Whether it was criminal or impeachable madness remains to be seen, though most impartial observers – yes, there are still a few left of this dying breed – appear to think it wasn’t unless future investigations prove Trump executed a ‘quid-pro-quo’ threat by withholding military aid for Ukraine unless Zelensky agreed to the dirt-digging.
At the moment, that remains speculation not fact.
Nor does my question relate to the increasingly bonkers behavior of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
I’ve known Giuliani for a decade, interviewed him many times, and have always had huge respect for him as a smart, considered man who when the going got really tough after 9/11, showed the world what true leadership really is.
But in recent months, Giuliani has morphed from America’s Mayor into America’s Madman, running around the cable news airwaves ranting and raving like a lunatic.
And when he’s not running around the airwaves, he’s been secretly running around the world playing the role of Trump’s Dirt-Digger-In-Chief.
None of this has helped the President.
In fact, it’s hurt him.
It’s not a good look to have your personal lawyer behaving like he’s lost his marbles, and it’s a frankly terrible look to have such a man then conducting highly controversial clandestine business on your behalf while you sit in the White House.
But no, my question’s not about Rudy Giuliani either.
Nor is it about Trump’s outrageous warnings, via a presidential retweet of a Texas megachurch pastor, that any attempt to impeach him would lead to a new civil war in America.
As Republican congressman Rep. Adam Kinzinger said, this was ‘beyond repugnant’.
No, my question relates to the issue of Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s $50,000-a-month employment with a Ukraine gas company while his father was Vice-President, and despite him having almost zero qualifications for the job.
And in particular, whether Biden Snr intervened to stop an investigation into corruption that might have caused problems for his son.
‘There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,’ Trump said on that Zelensky call, ‘that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.’
It’s true - there IS a lot of talk about it.
Yet the Bidens, and the Democrats, are adamant there’s nothing to see here.
Indeed, they express bafflement and rage that anyone would even seek to raise an eyebrow about it.
Yet I definitely have a few concerns that should be commanding a lot more attention from the mainstream media:
1) What exactly did Joe Biden Do in the Ukraine? President Obama made him his point man there after the overthrow of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in the 2014 revolution. Biden visited Ukraine at least a dozen times over the next two years, ostensibly to help new pro-Western president Petro Poroshenko root out corruption. But what was Biden really doing? We should be told.
2) How and why did Hunter Biden come to land such a lucrative job in the spring of 2014 with Burisma, the largest private gas company in Ukraine? He doesn’t appear to have any real credentials for it other than being the US Vice-President’s son. We should be told.
3) What did Hunter Biden do for Burisma? Who did he meet, what deals did he fix, what influence did he wield and how? How did he earn his $50,000 a month? We should be told.
4) Why, as DailyMail.com reveals today, did Hunter’s investment firm partner Chris Heinz – former Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson – split from him when he joined Burisma because he was reportedly worried about Biden’s poor judgement and how it would look? And did Heinz share those concerns with Joe Biden?
5) What conversations did Biden Snr have with his son about Burisma? He says none, but Hunter previously said they had at least one. Neither answer seems credible given how close they were and what they were doing at the time in Ukraine. ‘Ask the right questions’ snapped Biden Snr when a reporter tried to push him on this last week. This is a perfectly right question to ask. We should be told.
6) Did, crucially, Biden Snr interfere with any investigations into Burisma that were conducted because the owner Mykola Zlochevsky was close to ousted Yanukovych? We know Biden Snr boasted of successfully demanding to have Ukraine’s top prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired if the government wanted $1 billion in U.S. aid. But was another reason that he wanted to protect Hunter from being dragged into any Burisma probe? If that were true then Biden would surely be guilty of exactly the same kind of thing Trump’s been accused of? Biden vehemently denies it, and no hard evidence has yet emerged to prove otherwise. But this is the key charge being leveled by a Trump campaign that ironically calls Biden ‘Quid Pro Joe’. Again, we should be told.
‘Biden doesn’t have to answer for nothing,’ said James Carville, the Democratic strategist and longtime adviser to the Clintons. ‘There’s one story here. The president of the United States tried to sic a foreign government on a political opponent.’
Hmmm.
The last part of that statement is demonstrably true, because Trump’s admitted it - though unless it is proven he deliberately withheld aid until Ukraine did any Biden dirt-digging, I don’t see any impeachment being successful in the Republican-majority Senate.
But there’s definitely more than one story here.
And if Joe Biden wants to be President then he’s going to have to stop pretending there isn’t, stop barking ‘ask the right questions!’ at reporters to deter them from doing their jobs, and start answering some difficult questions.
And this all leads me to the question I really want to ask, and it’s this: what would the same Democrats who say there’s nothing to see here be saying if we swap Hunter Biden’s name for Donald Trump Jr?
We all know the answer.
They’d be screaming blue murder about nepotism, conflict, corruption and collusion.
That’s why it’s time the media stepped up their investigations into the Bidens and Ukraine and put the same heat into those that they’re currently, perfectly correctly, putting into Trump’s phone call.
Because if they do, and they uncover something so dodgy it justifies what Trump said on that phone call or at least provides some mitigation, then it could well decide the next election.
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
September 30, 2019
I have a question about this Ukraine scandal.
It’s a simple question, but I think a relevant and important one given the current explosive cacophony of Impeachment noise erupting all around Washington.
And it’s a question that I know will provoke an instant new onslaught of hysteria from all sides.
Some will furiously accuse me of playing ‘whataboutery’ to try to distract attention from what they see as the real story.
Others will furiously applaud me for highlighting what THEY see as the real story.
The rest who read it will either be so furious they can’t express themselves at all due to all the foam spewing from their mouths - a common malady in these shrieking social media times – or they don’t care.
But one thing’s for certain, it’s a question that needs asking.
It’s not a question about President Trump’s conduct during that now infamous July phone call with Ukranian President Zelensky.
My view of that, as I wrote last week, is it was a very dumb call to make and Trump is now getting all the savage blowback he deserves for being so reckless.
I don’t know what the hell he was thinking directly asking a foreign leader to dig up dirt on his main rival for the 2020 election, but it was utter madness on his part to do it so soon after the Mueller report cleared him of colluding with Russians to fix the 2016 election.
Whether it was criminal or impeachable madness remains to be seen, though most impartial observers – yes, there are still a few left of this dying breed – appear to think it wasn’t unless future investigations prove Trump executed a ‘quid-pro-quo’ threat by withholding military aid for Ukraine unless Zelensky agreed to the dirt-digging.
At the moment, that remains speculation not fact.
Nor does my question relate to the increasingly bonkers behavior of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
I’ve known Giuliani for a decade, interviewed him many times, and have always had huge respect for him as a smart, considered man who when the going got really tough after 9/11, showed the world what true leadership really is.
But in recent months, Giuliani has morphed from America’s Mayor into America’s Madman, running around the cable news airwaves ranting and raving like a lunatic.
And when he’s not running around the airwaves, he’s been secretly running around the world playing the role of Trump’s Dirt-Digger-In-Chief.
None of this has helped the President.
In fact, it’s hurt him.
It’s not a good look to have your personal lawyer behaving like he’s lost his marbles, and it’s a frankly terrible look to have such a man then conducting highly controversial clandestine business on your behalf while you sit in the White House.
But no, my question’s not about Rudy Giuliani either.
Nor is it about Trump’s outrageous warnings, via a presidential retweet of a Texas megachurch pastor, that any attempt to impeach him would lead to a new civil war in America.
As Republican congressman Rep. Adam Kinzinger said, this was ‘beyond repugnant’.
No, my question relates to the issue of Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s $50,000-a-month employment with a Ukraine gas company while his father was Vice-President, and despite him having almost zero qualifications for the job.
And in particular, whether Biden Snr intervened to stop an investigation into corruption that might have caused problems for his son.
‘There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,’ Trump said on that Zelensky call, ‘that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.’
It’s true - there IS a lot of talk about it.
Yet the Bidens, and the Democrats, are adamant there’s nothing to see here.
Indeed, they express bafflement and rage that anyone would even seek to raise an eyebrow about it.
Yet I definitely have a few concerns that should be commanding a lot more attention from the mainstream media:
1) What exactly did Joe Biden Do in the Ukraine? President Obama made him his point man there after the overthrow of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in the 2014 revolution. Biden visited Ukraine at least a dozen times over the next two years, ostensibly to help new pro-Western president Petro Poroshenko root out corruption. But what was Biden really doing? We should be told.
2) How and why did Hunter Biden come to land such a lucrative job in the spring of 2014 with Burisma, the largest private gas company in Ukraine? He doesn’t appear to have any real credentials for it other than being the US Vice-President’s son. We should be told.
3) What did Hunter Biden do for Burisma? Who did he meet, what deals did he fix, what influence did he wield and how? How did he earn his $50,000 a month? We should be told.
4) Why, as DailyMail.com reveals today, did Hunter’s investment firm partner Chris Heinz – former Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson – split from him when he joined Burisma because he was reportedly worried about Biden’s poor judgement and how it would look? And did Heinz share those concerns with Joe Biden?
5) What conversations did Biden Snr have with his son about Burisma? He says none, but Hunter previously said they had at least one. Neither answer seems credible given how close they were and what they were doing at the time in Ukraine. ‘Ask the right questions’ snapped Biden Snr when a reporter tried to push him on this last week. This is a perfectly right question to ask. We should be told.
6) Did, crucially, Biden Snr interfere with any investigations into Burisma that were conducted because the owner Mykola Zlochevsky was close to ousted Yanukovych? We know Biden Snr boasted of successfully demanding to have Ukraine’s top prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired if the government wanted $1 billion in U.S. aid. But was another reason that he wanted to protect Hunter from being dragged into any Burisma probe? If that were true then Biden would surely be guilty of exactly the same kind of thing Trump’s been accused of? Biden vehemently denies it, and no hard evidence has yet emerged to prove otherwise. But this is the key charge being leveled by a Trump campaign that ironically calls Biden ‘Quid Pro Joe’. Again, we should be told.
‘Biden doesn’t have to answer for nothing,’ said James Carville, the Democratic strategist and longtime adviser to the Clintons. ‘There’s one story here. The president of the United States tried to sic a foreign government on a political opponent.’
Hmmm.
The last part of that statement is demonstrably true, because Trump’s admitted it - though unless it is proven he deliberately withheld aid until Ukraine did any Biden dirt-digging, I don’t see any impeachment being successful in the Republican-majority Senate.
But there’s definitely more than one story here.
And if Joe Biden wants to be President then he’s going to have to stop pretending there isn’t, stop barking ‘ask the right questions!’ at reporters to deter them from doing their jobs, and start answering some difficult questions.
And this all leads me to the question I really want to ask, and it’s this: what would the same Democrats who say there’s nothing to see here be saying if we swap Hunter Biden’s name for Donald Trump Jr?
We all know the answer.
They’d be screaming blue murder about nepotism, conflict, corruption and collusion.
That’s why it’s time the media stepped up their investigations into the Bidens and Ukraine and put the same heat into those that they’re currently, perfectly correctly, putting into Trump’s phone call.
Because if they do, and they uncover something so dodgy it justifies what Trump said on that phone call or at least provides some mitigation, then it could well decide the next election.
THE AMBUSH SLAYER OF DEPUTY SANDEEP DHALIWAL WAS WANTED AS A PAROLE VIOLATOR SINCE JANUARY 2017
Robert Solis, alleged killer of Harris County Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, has lengthy criminal history
By Deborah Wrigley
KTRK
September 29, 2019
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Robert Solis has a criminal history that dates back 25 years. Among the earliest entries are arrests for assault with bodily injury, robbery with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon.
Those charges were dismissed, according to court documents. In 2002, charges for aggravated kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon also came. Solis was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released on parole in 2014.
Two years later, still on parole, Solis was arrested for a DUI. The parole board was informed but did not revoke his parole and return him to prison.
Two years ago, his then-girlfriend filed an affidavit, accusing him of assaulting her. The affidavit was forwarded to his parole officer, and according to a TDCJ spokesperson, a blue warrant was issued for Solis.
"That's when he flew the coop," said Crimestoppers victim's advocate Andy Kahan. "He's been a fugitive from justice for almost three years and nobody knew it."
Kahan pointed to murders by other violent offenders who were paroled, only to escalate. He pointed to the murder of a Bellaire Pizza clerk three years ago.
He said there are thousands of blue warrants out for parole violators.
"We just don't know how many of those are violent offenders," Kahan said.
Solis would qualify as one. He was pulled over on a traffic stop Friday by Harris County Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, who would have seen an active warrant attached to Solis when he pulled it up in his computer.
A few minutes later, he allegedly fatally shot Dhaliwal and was arrested walking out of a Marble Slab Creamery.
Kahan believes if the warrant had been acted on before that fatal traffic stop, a family wouldn't have been shattered by loss, and law enforcement wouldn't be mourning the death of one of their own.
"We can't change what happened, but when violent offenders go missing on parole, letting everyone know they're missing, and we can get them picked up as opposed to years later, after they allegedly murder a deputy," Kahan said.
By Deborah Wrigley
KTRK
September 29, 2019
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Robert Solis has a criminal history that dates back 25 years. Among the earliest entries are arrests for assault with bodily injury, robbery with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon.
Those charges were dismissed, according to court documents. In 2002, charges for aggravated kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon also came. Solis was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released on parole in 2014.
Two years later, still on parole, Solis was arrested for a DUI. The parole board was informed but did not revoke his parole and return him to prison.
Two years ago, his then-girlfriend filed an affidavit, accusing him of assaulting her. The affidavit was forwarded to his parole officer, and according to a TDCJ spokesperson, a blue warrant was issued for Solis.
"That's when he flew the coop," said Crimestoppers victim's advocate Andy Kahan. "He's been a fugitive from justice for almost three years and nobody knew it."
Kahan pointed to murders by other violent offenders who were paroled, only to escalate. He pointed to the murder of a Bellaire Pizza clerk three years ago.
He said there are thousands of blue warrants out for parole violators.
"We just don't know how many of those are violent offenders," Kahan said.
Solis would qualify as one. He was pulled over on a traffic stop Friday by Harris County Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, who would have seen an active warrant attached to Solis when he pulled it up in his computer.
A few minutes later, he allegedly fatally shot Dhaliwal and was arrested walking out of a Marble Slab Creamery.
Kahan believes if the warrant had been acted on before that fatal traffic stop, a family wouldn't have been shattered by loss, and law enforcement wouldn't be mourning the death of one of their own.
"We can't change what happened, but when violent offenders go missing on parole, letting everyone know they're missing, and we can get them picked up as opposed to years later, after they allegedly murder a deputy," Kahan said.
UPDATE ON KILLING OF NYPD COP
Tragic Bronx cop Brian Mulkeen killed by friendly fire: NYPD
By Tina Moore, Craig McCarthy and Aaron Feis
New York Post
September 30, 2019
Heroic Bronx police officer Brian Mulkeen was killed by friendly fire from his fellow cops — but maintained grasp on his service weapon to the bitter end of his struggle with an ex-con, the NYPD announced Monday.
“This is a tragic case of friendly fire,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said during an afternoon press briefing. “But make no mistake we lost the life of a courageous public servant solely due to a violent criminal who put the lives of the police and all the people we serve in jeopardy.”
Mulkeen, 33, was shot twice amid his life-or-death struggle with reputed gangbanger Antonio Lavance Williams early Sunday in the borough’s Edenwald Houses, but it was initially unclear whether he was shot with his own service Glock, struck by rounds from other officers or both.
Now, investigators have concluded that he was only ever struck by friendly fire as he became the second cop shot dead in the line of duty this year — and the second by errant NYPD bullets.
Mulkeen and two fellow plainclothes anti-crime cops tamping down recent area gang tensions tried to chat up Williams around 12:30 a.m. Sunday, but he took off running behind a development building, loaded .32-caliber revolver in hand, police said.
Mulkeen, a former college track-and-field star, ran down, tackled and disarmed Williams — who made a desperate attempt to snatch Mulkeen’s Glock from his holster, according to cops.
As the pair battled for control of the gun, Mulkeen never lost his handle on it, squeezing off five rounds at Williams, officials said Monday.
“Mulkeen retained his firearm during the entire violent struggle he had with this suspect,” said O’Neill. “He fired five rounds at the suspect.”
It remains unclear whether any of those rounds struck Williams — but it’s now known none of them struck Mulkeen.
The shots from the Glock prompted five fellow cops on the perimeter to open fire into the fray, according to NYPD officials.
By Monday, the NYPD determined that Mulkeen’s partners fired off 10 shots — two of which struck their brother in blue in the head and torso — even though Mulkeen was wearing a bulletproof vest. The torso shot exited his body through his thigh, leading officials to first say Mulkeen had been shot three times.
When the guns fell silent, Williams, 27, was dead and Mulkeen lay dying.
The 15 shots rang out over only 10 chaotic seconds, according to O’Neill.
“It was a violent struggle and from start to finish, from first round to last round, was 10 seconds,” the commissioner said. “Just think about that. Think about how quick that is.”
Mulkeen was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.
“We lost another great NYPD police officer,” O’Neill said. “Brian Mulkeen truly had such a long and productive career ahead of him.”
O’Neill said the NYPD was working with the district attorney’s office to release footage of the incident from the five body-worn cameras.
Mulkeen’s camera was not among those recording, as he never had a chance to turn his on.
Queens cop Brian Simonsen, the other NYPD hero fatally shot in the line of duty this year, was also killed by friendly fire.
By Tina Moore, Craig McCarthy and Aaron Feis
New York Post
September 30, 2019
Heroic Bronx police officer Brian Mulkeen was killed by friendly fire from his fellow cops — but maintained grasp on his service weapon to the bitter end of his struggle with an ex-con, the NYPD announced Monday.
“This is a tragic case of friendly fire,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said during an afternoon press briefing. “But make no mistake we lost the life of a courageous public servant solely due to a violent criminal who put the lives of the police and all the people we serve in jeopardy.”
Mulkeen, 33, was shot twice amid his life-or-death struggle with reputed gangbanger Antonio Lavance Williams early Sunday in the borough’s Edenwald Houses, but it was initially unclear whether he was shot with his own service Glock, struck by rounds from other officers or both.
Now, investigators have concluded that he was only ever struck by friendly fire as he became the second cop shot dead in the line of duty this year — and the second by errant NYPD bullets.
Mulkeen and two fellow plainclothes anti-crime cops tamping down recent area gang tensions tried to chat up Williams around 12:30 a.m. Sunday, but he took off running behind a development building, loaded .32-caliber revolver in hand, police said.
Mulkeen, a former college track-and-field star, ran down, tackled and disarmed Williams — who made a desperate attempt to snatch Mulkeen’s Glock from his holster, according to cops.
As the pair battled for control of the gun, Mulkeen never lost his handle on it, squeezing off five rounds at Williams, officials said Monday.
“Mulkeen retained his firearm during the entire violent struggle he had with this suspect,” said O’Neill. “He fired five rounds at the suspect.”
It remains unclear whether any of those rounds struck Williams — but it’s now known none of them struck Mulkeen.
The shots from the Glock prompted five fellow cops on the perimeter to open fire into the fray, according to NYPD officials.
By Monday, the NYPD determined that Mulkeen’s partners fired off 10 shots — two of which struck their brother in blue in the head and torso — even though Mulkeen was wearing a bulletproof vest. The torso shot exited his body through his thigh, leading officials to first say Mulkeen had been shot three times.
When the guns fell silent, Williams, 27, was dead and Mulkeen lay dying.
The 15 shots rang out over only 10 chaotic seconds, according to O’Neill.
“It was a violent struggle and from start to finish, from first round to last round, was 10 seconds,” the commissioner said. “Just think about that. Think about how quick that is.”
Mulkeen was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.
“We lost another great NYPD police officer,” O’Neill said. “Brian Mulkeen truly had such a long and productive career ahead of him.”
O’Neill said the NYPD was working with the district attorney’s office to release footage of the incident from the five body-worn cameras.
Mulkeen’s camera was not among those recording, as he never had a chance to turn his on.
Queens cop Brian Simonsen, the other NYPD hero fatally shot in the line of duty this year, was also killed by friendly fire.
BUT DID THE HILDEBEAST ACTUALLY BREAK THE LAW?
State Department ramps up investigation into email records of former Clinton aides
by Carlin Becker and Daniel Chaitin
Washington Examiner
September 28, 2019
The Trump administration's State Department is intensifying its investigation into the email records of dozens of former department officials and aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
As many as 130 officials have been recently contacted by investigators from the State Department, current and former officials told the Washington Post. According to the outlet, those targeted were contacted by the department about emails they sent years ago that have been retroactively classified and could now count as possible security violations. Investigators began communicating with former officials around 18 months ago, but they appeared to suspend the effort before ramping it back up in August.
Although some who are under scrutiny view the recent activity as the Trump administration's decision to wield power against political adversaries, senior State Department officials said they are simply following standard protocol in an investigation that initially started during the Obama administration.
“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” one official said. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3 and a half years.”
“The process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of political bias,” another official added.
Former Obama administration officials, however, told the Post that the investigation is an "aggressive crackdown" by an administration that has had its own problems with handling classified information.
The list of State Department officials being questioned includes assistant secretaries of state responsible for U.S. policy in the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia, as well as several ambassadors. It also includes many current and former bureaucrats who passed along important messages to Clinton from outside officials. Many of those targeted have been found "not culpable," while some were sent follow-up letters saying that investigators “determined that the [security] incident is valid” but that they did not “bear any individual culpability."
The State Department review began after the FBI investigated Clinton's use of an unauthorized server, hosted in the basement of her home in Chappaqua, New York, during her time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Former FBI Director James Comey publicly recommended in 2016 that no charges be brought against Clinton or anyone else involved with her private email network, but he admonished Clinton and her team for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.
This was during the 2016 election when Clinton was the Democratic presidential nominee, and she has often cited the FBI's handling of the emails investigation as one of the reasons why she believes she lost the contest to President Trump.
One of the main controversies stemming from Clinton's emails was how Paul Combetta, the tech aide who administered the server, deleted 33,000 emails despite a congressional order to preserve them. The FBI says it was only able to recover about 5,000 of the emails scrubbed by Combetta, and they were released in tranches up until earlier this year as part of a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch. Clinton has said she "never received nor sent any material that was marked classified," but the FBI found 110 emails did contain classified information.
As recently as last week, Trump called the deletion of the emails "one of the great crimes committed" by Clinton. Also last week, the Democratic-led House initiated a formal impeachment inquiry, spurred by an intelligence community whistleblower complaint that raised concerns about a possible effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, who is running for president in 2020, and an alleged effort to conceal details of Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and communications with other leaders.
Earlier this summer, the State Department informed Congress that its review of the mishandling of classified information found 23 "violations" and seven "infractions" by 15 individuals. A "broad range" of disciplinary or administrative actions that could be taken include "counseling, reprimand, suspension, and/or separation," according to a letter in June from Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs.
The individuals were not identified, nor was it revealed if they were still employed at the State Department, per agency policy, and Taylor said the number of people found culpable could increase.
Taylor sent a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, who is leading the congressional oversight of the security review. Grassley has repeatedly asked for updates on the State Department's review since 2017. In her letter, Taylor acknowledged that the large number of emails under scrutiny required "a significant dedication of time and resources." Taylor said the agency was "making every effort to complete its review and adjudication" by Sept. 1, 2019.
Later in June, Republicans called on the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee to hold a hearing focusing on the State Department's review, but so far have been ignored.
Clinton's security clearance was withdrawn in the fall of 2018 at her request, along with those belonging to Clinton's former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and others.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If what the Hildebeast did was only punishable by internal department discipline, then other than being embarrassed. she is free and clear. Clinton may have violated the law if she endangered the national security, which Trump is now accused of, or by having 33,000 emails destroyed. But when this investigation is over and done with, odds are that the Hildebeast will escape unscathed.
by Carlin Becker and Daniel Chaitin
Washington Examiner
September 28, 2019
The Trump administration's State Department is intensifying its investigation into the email records of dozens of former department officials and aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
As many as 130 officials have been recently contacted by investigators from the State Department, current and former officials told the Washington Post. According to the outlet, those targeted were contacted by the department about emails they sent years ago that have been retroactively classified and could now count as possible security violations. Investigators began communicating with former officials around 18 months ago, but they appeared to suspend the effort before ramping it back up in August.
Although some who are under scrutiny view the recent activity as the Trump administration's decision to wield power against political adversaries, senior State Department officials said they are simply following standard protocol in an investigation that initially started during the Obama administration.
“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” one official said. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3 and a half years.”
“The process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of political bias,” another official added.
Former Obama administration officials, however, told the Post that the investigation is an "aggressive crackdown" by an administration that has had its own problems with handling classified information.
The list of State Department officials being questioned includes assistant secretaries of state responsible for U.S. policy in the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia, as well as several ambassadors. It also includes many current and former bureaucrats who passed along important messages to Clinton from outside officials. Many of those targeted have been found "not culpable," while some were sent follow-up letters saying that investigators “determined that the [security] incident is valid” but that they did not “bear any individual culpability."
The State Department review began after the FBI investigated Clinton's use of an unauthorized server, hosted in the basement of her home in Chappaqua, New York, during her time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Former FBI Director James Comey publicly recommended in 2016 that no charges be brought against Clinton or anyone else involved with her private email network, but he admonished Clinton and her team for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.
This was during the 2016 election when Clinton was the Democratic presidential nominee, and she has often cited the FBI's handling of the emails investigation as one of the reasons why she believes she lost the contest to President Trump.
One of the main controversies stemming from Clinton's emails was how Paul Combetta, the tech aide who administered the server, deleted 33,000 emails despite a congressional order to preserve them. The FBI says it was only able to recover about 5,000 of the emails scrubbed by Combetta, and they were released in tranches up until earlier this year as part of a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch. Clinton has said she "never received nor sent any material that was marked classified," but the FBI found 110 emails did contain classified information.
As recently as last week, Trump called the deletion of the emails "one of the great crimes committed" by Clinton. Also last week, the Democratic-led House initiated a formal impeachment inquiry, spurred by an intelligence community whistleblower complaint that raised concerns about a possible effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, who is running for president in 2020, and an alleged effort to conceal details of Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and communications with other leaders.
Earlier this summer, the State Department informed Congress that its review of the mishandling of classified information found 23 "violations" and seven "infractions" by 15 individuals. A "broad range" of disciplinary or administrative actions that could be taken include "counseling, reprimand, suspension, and/or separation," according to a letter in June from Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs.
The individuals were not identified, nor was it revealed if they were still employed at the State Department, per agency policy, and Taylor said the number of people found culpable could increase.
Taylor sent a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, who is leading the congressional oversight of the security review. Grassley has repeatedly asked for updates on the State Department's review since 2017. In her letter, Taylor acknowledged that the large number of emails under scrutiny required "a significant dedication of time and resources." Taylor said the agency was "making every effort to complete its review and adjudication" by Sept. 1, 2019.
Later in June, Republicans called on the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee to hold a hearing focusing on the State Department's review, but so far have been ignored.
Clinton's security clearance was withdrawn in the fall of 2018 at her request, along with those belonging to Clinton's former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and others.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If what the Hildebeast did was only punishable by internal department discipline, then other than being embarrassed. she is free and clear. Clinton may have violated the law if she endangered the national security, which Trump is now accused of, or by having 33,000 emails destroyed. But when this investigation is over and done with, odds are that the Hildebeast will escape unscathed.
HISPANIC CROOKS SCAMMED ELDERLY HISPANIC WOMEN
3 suspects arrested in 'Latin Lotto' scam targeting several cities in L.A. area
By Oscar Flores
Fox 11 Los Angeles
September 28, 2019
LOS ANGELES - Three suspects in a "Latin Lotto" scam are behind bars facing Grand Theft charges as they left a trail of victims in several cities including Pacoima, North Hollywood, San Fernando, El Monte, Ontario, Pico Rivera, and Long Beach, police said.
Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department's Commercial Crimes Division, Major Theft Task Force arrested Tito Lozada, Luisa Camargo, and Mercedes Montanez on Sept. 26.
LAPD says the suspects had just completed a scam on a 65-year-old victim in the city of Long Beach.
"The suspects traveled through neighborhoods in the city of Long Beach looking for elderly female Hispanics walking alone. Once a potential victim was spotted, a female suspect would walk up and engage the victim in conversation. The suspect asks for help cashing a winning lottery ticket," said a news release from the Los Angeles Police Department. "A second suspect then walks up from the other direction and joins in the scam. The male suspect usually remained out of sight of the victim and would act as the 'lottery commissioner' on the phone who would 'validate' the winning lottery ticket."
LAPD continued, "The suspects would convince the victim to retrieve money and jewelry from her house or bank as 'good faith' money needed to cash the winning ticket. After leaving the bank, the suspects would then find a ruse to get the victim out of their vehicle and drive away with her money."
Authorities say the scam targeted older Hispanic women and is designed to keep the victim confused until the suspects can convince the victim into retrieving money or jewelry to get the "big winnings," from which the victim is promised a large sum of money.
Police suspect Lozada is also involved in another lotto scam in the city of San Diego where the victim was held against her will for a period of time in the suspect car before being freed.
By Oscar Flores
Fox 11 Los Angeles
September 28, 2019
LOS ANGELES - Three suspects in a "Latin Lotto" scam are behind bars facing Grand Theft charges as they left a trail of victims in several cities including Pacoima, North Hollywood, San Fernando, El Monte, Ontario, Pico Rivera, and Long Beach, police said.
Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department's Commercial Crimes Division, Major Theft Task Force arrested Tito Lozada, Luisa Camargo, and Mercedes Montanez on Sept. 26.
LAPD says the suspects had just completed a scam on a 65-year-old victim in the city of Long Beach.
"The suspects traveled through neighborhoods in the city of Long Beach looking for elderly female Hispanics walking alone. Once a potential victim was spotted, a female suspect would walk up and engage the victim in conversation. The suspect asks for help cashing a winning lottery ticket," said a news release from the Los Angeles Police Department. "A second suspect then walks up from the other direction and joins in the scam. The male suspect usually remained out of sight of the victim and would act as the 'lottery commissioner' on the phone who would 'validate' the winning lottery ticket."
LAPD continued, "The suspects would convince the victim to retrieve money and jewelry from her house or bank as 'good faith' money needed to cash the winning ticket. After leaving the bank, the suspects would then find a ruse to get the victim out of their vehicle and drive away with her money."
Authorities say the scam targeted older Hispanic women and is designed to keep the victim confused until the suspects can convince the victim into retrieving money or jewelry to get the "big winnings," from which the victim is promised a large sum of money.
Police suspect Lozada is also involved in another lotto scam in the city of San Diego where the victim was held against her will for a period of time in the suspect car before being freed.
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