We want a president we can loathe all of the time—not support some of the time
By Bret Stephens
The Wall Street Journal
December 21, 2015
Dear fellow conservatives:
Let us now pledge to elect Hillary Clinton as the 45th president of the United States.
Let’s skip the petty dramas of primaries and caucuses, the debate histrionics, the sour spectacle of the convention in Cleveland. Let’s fast-forward past that sinking October feeling when we belatedly realize we’re going to lose—and lose badly.
Let’s move straight to that first Tuesday in November, when we grimly pull the lever for the candidate who has passed all the Conservative Purity Tests (CPTs), meaning we’ve upheld the honor of our politically hopeless cause. Let’s stop pretending we want to be governed by someone we agree with much of the time, when we can have the easy and total satisfaction of a president we can loathe and revile all the time.
Let’s do this because it’s what we want. Maybe secretly, maybe unconsciously, but desperately. We want four—and probably eight—more years of cable-news neuralgia. We want to drive ourselves to work as Mark Levin or Laura Ingraham scratch our ideological itches until they bleed a little. We want the refiner’s fire that is our righteous indignation at a country we claim no longer to recognize—ruled by impostors and overrun by foreigners.
We also want to turn the Republican Party into a gated community. So much nicer that way. If the lesson of Mitt Romney’s predictable loss in 2012 was that it’s bad politics to tell America’s fastest-growing ethnic group that some of their relatives should self-deport, or to castigate 47% of the country as a bunch of moochers—well, so what? Abraham Lincoln once said “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” What. Ever. Now the party of Lincoln has as its front-runner an insult machine whose political business is to tell Mexicans, Muslims, physically impaired journalists, astute Jewish negotiators and others who cross his sullen gaze that he has no use for them or their political correctness.
And while we’re building a wall around our party, let’s also take the opportunity to throw out a few impostors in our midst. Like that hack, George Will. Or John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush and every other Republican In Name Only. Or Marco Rubio, who didn’t chicken out on immigration reform quite as quickly or convincingly as Ted Cruz did. Or the Republican “Establishment” and “elite”—like the editorial board of this newspaper—who want to flood the country with cheap foreign labor so they can enrich their Wall Street pals.
All of them must be humbled, re-educated or thrown out, like old-time cadres with suspected bourgeois tendencies. How else will real Americans get a hearing and find their voice? What’s a lost election cycle or two when the soul of movement conservatism is at stake?
As for what the soul of that movement is supposed to be, we can figure that out later. Donald Trump is a candidate of impulses, not ideas. (If you can hire people to write your books you can also hire them to do your thinking.) This doesn’t seem to have perturbed his supporters in the slightest. Mr. Cruz is happy to be on any side of an issue so long as he can paint himself as a “real Republican”—the implicit goal here being the automatic excommunication of anyone who disagrees with him. Naturally, he’s rising.
What we won’t accept, however, is a standard-bearer whose convictions or personality might conceivably appeal to those wavering voters who usually decide elections in this country. Of all the reasons to dislike Mr. Rubio, surely the greatest is that he’s the only Republican who consistently outpolls Mrs. Clinton in general election matchups.
Didn’t we already mention that our subliminal goal is to lose this election?
Of course we’ll tell ourselves that the polls don’t matter, that a congenital liar like Mrs. Clinton can’t possibly win, that all we have to do is turn out the hidden Republican base that supposedly didn’t show up to the polls for Mitt Romney. We’ll convince ourselves, too, that those voting blocs we’ve spent the past decade alienating—not just Hispanics, or Asian-Americans or gays and lesbians, but also moderates turned off by loudmouth vulgarians, oleaginous debate champs or ostentatiously pious Christians—don’t matter either.
Deep down, though, we know the political math doesn’t add up for us. We just don’t care. Because we’ve turned even the appearance of moderation, or the amenability to compromise, into a four-letter word. Oh, did we mention House Speaker Paul Ryan is another sell-out?
Years ago, the late columnist Michael Kelly wrote of American liberalism that it was “an ideology of self-styled saints, a philosophy of determined perversity. Its animating impulse is to marginalize itself and then enjoy its own company. And to make itself as unattractive to as many people as possible: If it were a person, it would pierce its tongue.”
On current trend, this will soon better describe American conservatism, which is going the way of the Democratic Party circa 1972. So let’s skip the non-suspense of next year’s campaign cycle, gird ourselves for a McGovern-style debacle, and elect Hillary Rodham Clinton now.
Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
JACKPOT-FIXING INVESTIGATION EXPANDS TO MORE STATE LOTTERIES
By Ryan J. Foley and David Pitt
Associated Press
December 18, 2015
DES MOINES, Iowa -- The allegations read like a movie plot: a lottery industry insider installs undetectable software giving him advance knowledge of winning numbers, then enlists accomplices to play those numbers and collect the jackpots. And they secretly enrich themselves for years — until a misstep exposes them.
Eddie Tipton, former security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, has been convicted of fraud for fixing one jackpot in Des Moines, but prosecutors say his high-tech scheme extended far beyond Iowa. He's accused of tampering with lottery drawings in four states over six years, and investigators are expanding their inquiry nationwide.
Investigators have asked states to review jackpots produced by the number-generators Tipton had access to, and whose winning numbers were specifically requested by the ticket buyer. They hope to talk with anyone aware of such payouts being collected by someone other than the person who ends up with the money, said Rob Sand, a state prosecutor in Des Moines who is leading the probe.
The inquiry is sending a chill through state governments that depend on public confidence in contests that generate $20 billion annually in lottery revenue.
"It would be pretty naive to believe they are the only four" jackpots involved, said now-retired Iowa deputy attorney general Thomas H. Miller, who oversaw the investigation for 2 ½ years. "If you find one cockroach, you have to assume there are 100 more you haven't found."
Thirty-seven states and U.S. territories use random-number generators from the Iowa-based association, which administers games and distributes prizes for the lottery consortium. So far, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma have confirmed paying jackpots valued at a total of $8 million allegedly linked to Tipton and associates.
Tipton, 52, was sentenced to 10 years but is free pending appeal after being convicted at trial of trying to claim a $16.5 million jackpot in Iowa. He's also charged with criminal conduct and money laundering involving the other three state lotteries. His brother, Tommy Tipton, and his best friend, Robert Rhodes, are under investigation as possible accomplices.
Rhodes' attorney did not respond to messages. Tommy Tipton, who resigned his elected judicial position in Texas last month, did not return calls. Eddie Tipton's attorney, Dean Stowers, says his client is innocent.
"There's just absolutely no evidence whatsoever that he did anything to alter the proper operations of the computers that were used to pick those numbers, absolutely no evidence. It's just all speculation," Stowers said.
Prosecutors say Tipton installed software known as a root kit that enabled him to manipulate numbers without a trace. What tripped him up, investigators say, was his decision to buy the winning ticket himself at a service station near the headquarters of the association, whose workers are prohibited from trying their luck.
Iowa got suspicious in 2012 after a New York lawyer representing a newly created trust tried to claim the $16.5 million Hot Lotto jackpot on behalf of a Belize-registered corporation, turning in the ticket hours before a one-year deadline. The trust eventually withdrew the claim rather than identify the ticket purchaser.
Investigators initially suspected the buyer was merely trying to hide the winnings from a former spouse or creditor. Still, who would walk away from $16.5 million?
The case took an even more dramatic twist after authorities sought the public's help, releasing surveillance video showing a stocky, hooded man buying the winning ticket and hot dogs at a service station in December 2010. Lottery colleagues were stunned, stepping forward to say the man looked and sounded like Tipton.
Eddie Tipton had worked at the association since 2003, after a career in information technology, including at a Rhodes-owned firm in Houston called Systems Evolution. He was promoted in 2013 to security director, a job that included protecting the integrity of the computer programs that generate winning numbers.
Investigators allege that Tipton passed the winning ticket to Rhodes, a businessman in Sugar Land, Texas, who was his classmate at the University of Houston. Rhodes then passed it to a Canadian offshore banking expert who gave it to the New York lawyer who tried to collect, they said. Rhodes is now fighting extradition to Iowa, where he was charged early this year.
Testifying at Eddie's trial in July, brother Tommy insisted the video shows some other, larger man. Besides, he added: "Eddie's not a hot dog guy."
Colorado authorities are now investigating a $4.5 million jackpot split by three winners in 2005. Authorities say Tommy Tipton, who resigned last month as a justice of the peace in Flatonia, Texas, received $537,000 in a cash payout after giving a friend 10 percent for claiming the prize on his behalf. Colorado lottery officials have not identified the three winners, citing the ongoing investigation.
In Oklahoma, investigators are reviewing a $1.2 million Hot Lotto jackpot claimed by a Texas construction company owner in 2011. Iowa investigators say Eddie Tipton is linked to that drawing but haven't spelled out how.
"This is kind of an eye-opener," said Oklahoma Lottery director Rollo Redburn. "It reaffirms the fact that we've got to be constantly vigilant against people trying to defraud the system."
In October, Iowa authorities alleged that Tipton and Rhodes worked together to claim a prize in Wisconsin as well. The same day, Wisconsin Lottery Director Mike Edmonds asked the state's Department of Justice to investigate the $2 million Megabucks jackpot that Rhodes had a law firm claim on his behalf in 2008. Rhodes sued to have the money go to his limited liability corporation instead of him directly, although he did sign the ticket.
On Friday, Edmonds resigned after 12 years in the job.
Associated Press
December 18, 2015
DES MOINES, Iowa -- The allegations read like a movie plot: a lottery industry insider installs undetectable software giving him advance knowledge of winning numbers, then enlists accomplices to play those numbers and collect the jackpots. And they secretly enrich themselves for years — until a misstep exposes them.
Eddie Tipton, former security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, has been convicted of fraud for fixing one jackpot in Des Moines, but prosecutors say his high-tech scheme extended far beyond Iowa. He's accused of tampering with lottery drawings in four states over six years, and investigators are expanding their inquiry nationwide.
Investigators have asked states to review jackpots produced by the number-generators Tipton had access to, and whose winning numbers were specifically requested by the ticket buyer. They hope to talk with anyone aware of such payouts being collected by someone other than the person who ends up with the money, said Rob Sand, a state prosecutor in Des Moines who is leading the probe.
The inquiry is sending a chill through state governments that depend on public confidence in contests that generate $20 billion annually in lottery revenue.
"It would be pretty naive to believe they are the only four" jackpots involved, said now-retired Iowa deputy attorney general Thomas H. Miller, who oversaw the investigation for 2 ½ years. "If you find one cockroach, you have to assume there are 100 more you haven't found."
Thirty-seven states and U.S. territories use random-number generators from the Iowa-based association, which administers games and distributes prizes for the lottery consortium. So far, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma have confirmed paying jackpots valued at a total of $8 million allegedly linked to Tipton and associates.
Tipton, 52, was sentenced to 10 years but is free pending appeal after being convicted at trial of trying to claim a $16.5 million jackpot in Iowa. He's also charged with criminal conduct and money laundering involving the other three state lotteries. His brother, Tommy Tipton, and his best friend, Robert Rhodes, are under investigation as possible accomplices.
Rhodes' attorney did not respond to messages. Tommy Tipton, who resigned his elected judicial position in Texas last month, did not return calls. Eddie Tipton's attorney, Dean Stowers, says his client is innocent.
"There's just absolutely no evidence whatsoever that he did anything to alter the proper operations of the computers that were used to pick those numbers, absolutely no evidence. It's just all speculation," Stowers said.
Prosecutors say Tipton installed software known as a root kit that enabled him to manipulate numbers without a trace. What tripped him up, investigators say, was his decision to buy the winning ticket himself at a service station near the headquarters of the association, whose workers are prohibited from trying their luck.
Iowa got suspicious in 2012 after a New York lawyer representing a newly created trust tried to claim the $16.5 million Hot Lotto jackpot on behalf of a Belize-registered corporation, turning in the ticket hours before a one-year deadline. The trust eventually withdrew the claim rather than identify the ticket purchaser.
Investigators initially suspected the buyer was merely trying to hide the winnings from a former spouse or creditor. Still, who would walk away from $16.5 million?
The case took an even more dramatic twist after authorities sought the public's help, releasing surveillance video showing a stocky, hooded man buying the winning ticket and hot dogs at a service station in December 2010. Lottery colleagues were stunned, stepping forward to say the man looked and sounded like Tipton.
Eddie Tipton had worked at the association since 2003, after a career in information technology, including at a Rhodes-owned firm in Houston called Systems Evolution. He was promoted in 2013 to security director, a job that included protecting the integrity of the computer programs that generate winning numbers.
Investigators allege that Tipton passed the winning ticket to Rhodes, a businessman in Sugar Land, Texas, who was his classmate at the University of Houston. Rhodes then passed it to a Canadian offshore banking expert who gave it to the New York lawyer who tried to collect, they said. Rhodes is now fighting extradition to Iowa, where he was charged early this year.
Testifying at Eddie's trial in July, brother Tommy insisted the video shows some other, larger man. Besides, he added: "Eddie's not a hot dog guy."
Colorado authorities are now investigating a $4.5 million jackpot split by three winners in 2005. Authorities say Tommy Tipton, who resigned last month as a justice of the peace in Flatonia, Texas, received $537,000 in a cash payout after giving a friend 10 percent for claiming the prize on his behalf. Colorado lottery officials have not identified the three winners, citing the ongoing investigation.
In Oklahoma, investigators are reviewing a $1.2 million Hot Lotto jackpot claimed by a Texas construction company owner in 2011. Iowa investigators say Eddie Tipton is linked to that drawing but haven't spelled out how.
"This is kind of an eye-opener," said Oklahoma Lottery director Rollo Redburn. "It reaffirms the fact that we've got to be constantly vigilant against people trying to defraud the system."
In October, Iowa authorities alleged that Tipton and Rhodes worked together to claim a prize in Wisconsin as well. The same day, Wisconsin Lottery Director Mike Edmonds asked the state's Department of Justice to investigate the $2 million Megabucks jackpot that Rhodes had a law firm claim on his behalf in 2008. Rhodes sued to have the money go to his limited liability corporation instead of him directly, although he did sign the ticket.
On Friday, Edmonds resigned after 12 years in the job.
ISRAEL KILLS ARCH-TERRORIST RELEASED IN PRISONER SWAP
Israel Today
December 20, 2015
Israeli and Arab media on Sunday confirmed that an Israeli air strike near Damascus on Saturday night had killed blood-soaked Lebanese arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar, whom Israel released in 2008 as part of a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah.
Israel reportedly tried to target Kuntar earlier this year, but failed to eliminate him.
Kuntar has been atop Israel’s most wanted list since his release.
Kuntar was captured and jailed by Israel in 1979 after he led a terrorist infiltration team from Lebanon to the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya, where he killed a police officer before dragging Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter, Einat, down to the beach and brutally executing them.
Smadar Haran successfully hid from Kuntar and his death squad in their home, but accidentally smothered their other child, two-year-old daughter Yael, in an effort to silence her cries.
His inclusion in the 2008 prisoner swap sparked fierce protest, and the hero’s welcome Kuntar received upon returning to Lebanon only fueled Israeli anger. At the time, then-President Shimon Peres said Kuntar would neither be forgiven nor forgotten, and an unnamed defense official promised that justice would ultimately be served against the unrepentant terrorist.
Smadar Haran told Israeli media that government officials phoned her at 4 AM Sunday morning to let her know that “historic justice” had finally been served to the man who destroyed her family.
The strike was praised by Israeli government and military officials, though none would confirm Israel’s involvement. Kuntar’s elimination was also hailed by Syrian rebel forces, who directly thanked Israel.
“Thank you Israel,” wrote Syrian opposition figure Omar Alzoubi-Daraa on Twitter. “Terrorist Samir Kuntar and Other terrorist Huzbollah leaders have been killed by Israeli raids. What a beautiful job”.
Hezbollah, for which Kuntar worked the past several years, mourned his death and glorified him as a “martyr.”
One interesting aspect of the strike against Kuntar is that Hezbollah is allied with the Syrian regime which is allied with Russia. Due to the heavy Russian military presence in Syria, Israel must coordinate any air strikes with Moscow, meaning the Russians had to have green-lighted Kuntar’s elimination, despite his belonging to an allied force.
December 20, 2015
Israeli and Arab media on Sunday confirmed that an Israeli air strike near Damascus on Saturday night had killed blood-soaked Lebanese arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar, whom Israel released in 2008 as part of a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah.
Israel reportedly tried to target Kuntar earlier this year, but failed to eliminate him.
Kuntar has been atop Israel’s most wanted list since his release.
Kuntar was captured and jailed by Israel in 1979 after he led a terrorist infiltration team from Lebanon to the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya, where he killed a police officer before dragging Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter, Einat, down to the beach and brutally executing them.
Smadar Haran successfully hid from Kuntar and his death squad in their home, but accidentally smothered their other child, two-year-old daughter Yael, in an effort to silence her cries.
His inclusion in the 2008 prisoner swap sparked fierce protest, and the hero’s welcome Kuntar received upon returning to Lebanon only fueled Israeli anger. At the time, then-President Shimon Peres said Kuntar would neither be forgiven nor forgotten, and an unnamed defense official promised that justice would ultimately be served against the unrepentant terrorist.
Smadar Haran told Israeli media that government officials phoned her at 4 AM Sunday morning to let her know that “historic justice” had finally been served to the man who destroyed her family.
The strike was praised by Israeli government and military officials, though none would confirm Israel’s involvement. Kuntar’s elimination was also hailed by Syrian rebel forces, who directly thanked Israel.
“Thank you Israel,” wrote Syrian opposition figure Omar Alzoubi-Daraa on Twitter. “Terrorist Samir Kuntar and Other terrorist Huzbollah leaders have been killed by Israeli raids. What a beautiful job”.
Hezbollah, for which Kuntar worked the past several years, mourned his death and glorified him as a “martyr.”
One interesting aspect of the strike against Kuntar is that Hezbollah is allied with the Syrian regime which is allied with Russia. Due to the heavy Russian military presence in Syria, Israel must coordinate any air strikes with Moscow, meaning the Russians had to have green-lighted Kuntar’s elimination, despite his belonging to an allied force.
15 JIHADI GROUPS WITH 65,000 MILITANTS ARE READY TO REPLACE ISIS IF THEY ARE DEFEATED AND SHARE THEIR AIM TO CREATE AN ISLAMIC STATE AND DESTROY THE WEST
Coalition strikes on ISIS are a 'strategic failure' if they don't address the other 15 Jihadi groups with 65,000 fighters in Syria
By Isabel Hunter
Daily Mail
December 20, 2015
A total of 15 jihadi groups are waiting in the wings to replace ISIS in Syria a think tank backed by former prime minister Tony Blair will report tomorrow.
The jihadi groups have a total of 65,000 fighters in Syria that are poised to fill the vacuum should ISIS be defeated, according to The Sunday Times.
In the report, which has been seen by MailOnline, the author's find that some of the groups have designs on attacking the west, with the number one group named as Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.
It warns that British and coalition attacks on ISIS could be a 'strategic failure' if it overlooks other groups operating in the country and that sixty per cent of rebel groups are 'Islamist Extremists'.
Jabhat al Nusra already controls a significant amount of territory in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib and imposed strict Islamic law having fought local rebel groups as well as forces loyal to President Assad.
The groups listed are all salafis, a strictly conservative branch of Islam and according to the report, are driven by 'Salafi-jihadism'.
'The current focus on the military defeat of ISIS does not consider the other groups in Syria [and around the world] with exactly the same global ideology and ambitions.
'Our study of 48 rebel factions in Syria revealed that 33 per cent - nearly 100,000 fighters - follow the same ideology as ISIS. If you also take into account Islamist groups (those who want a state governed by Islamic law), this figure jumps to 60 per cent.'
Ed Husain, director of strategy at the CRG told The Sunday Times that ISIS ideology has 'no border or barrier' and has already demonstrated that it can inspire its followers to 'kill just as easily in Paris as it can in Raqqa.'
'We must wake up to the fact that this is global, Unless we uproot the ideology from spreading, we will find ourselves dealing with the same problem over and over again,' he said.
The report also warns against coalition attempts to distinguish between moderate rebels and 'unacceptable extremists', because of the overlap of groups on the ground.
Given the fluid and changing nature of frontlines in Syria, groups often share resources and work together to fight Assad forces, which include Hezbollah fighters.
Jabhat al-Nusra's leader Abu Muhammad Golani denied any intention to attack the west in an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year, however the group's spokesman Abu Firas al-Suri said the group's goals are not limited to Syria.
Jaish al-Islam, the group identified as having the most fighters at 17,000, characterises itself as being Islamist Nationalists and are solely focused on fighting the regime. The vast majority of their fighters are Syrian, and not foreign jihadis.
The report also lists Ahrar al-Sham, a salafi group strongest in northern Syria which has ideology similar to ISIS.
By Isabel Hunter
Daily Mail
December 20, 2015
A total of 15 jihadi groups are waiting in the wings to replace ISIS in Syria a think tank backed by former prime minister Tony Blair will report tomorrow.
The jihadi groups have a total of 65,000 fighters in Syria that are poised to fill the vacuum should ISIS be defeated, according to The Sunday Times.
In the report, which has been seen by MailOnline, the author's find that some of the groups have designs on attacking the west, with the number one group named as Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.
It warns that British and coalition attacks on ISIS could be a 'strategic failure' if it overlooks other groups operating in the country and that sixty per cent of rebel groups are 'Islamist Extremists'.
Jabhat al Nusra already controls a significant amount of territory in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib and imposed strict Islamic law having fought local rebel groups as well as forces loyal to President Assad.
The groups listed are all salafis, a strictly conservative branch of Islam and according to the report, are driven by 'Salafi-jihadism'.
'The current focus on the military defeat of ISIS does not consider the other groups in Syria [and around the world] with exactly the same global ideology and ambitions.
'Our study of 48 rebel factions in Syria revealed that 33 per cent - nearly 100,000 fighters - follow the same ideology as ISIS. If you also take into account Islamist groups (those who want a state governed by Islamic law), this figure jumps to 60 per cent.'
Ed Husain, director of strategy at the CRG told The Sunday Times that ISIS ideology has 'no border or barrier' and has already demonstrated that it can inspire its followers to 'kill just as easily in Paris as it can in Raqqa.'
'We must wake up to the fact that this is global, Unless we uproot the ideology from spreading, we will find ourselves dealing with the same problem over and over again,' he said.
The report also warns against coalition attempts to distinguish between moderate rebels and 'unacceptable extremists', because of the overlap of groups on the ground.
Given the fluid and changing nature of frontlines in Syria, groups often share resources and work together to fight Assad forces, which include Hezbollah fighters.
Jabhat al-Nusra's leader Abu Muhammad Golani denied any intention to attack the west in an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year, however the group's spokesman Abu Firas al-Suri said the group's goals are not limited to Syria.
Jaish al-Islam, the group identified as having the most fighters at 17,000, characterises itself as being Islamist Nationalists and are solely focused on fighting the regime. The vast majority of their fighters are Syrian, and not foreign jihadis.
The report also lists Ahrar al-Sham, a salafi group strongest in northern Syria which has ideology similar to ISIS.
Monday, December 21, 2015
HOW CAN YOU TRAIN THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND OF A POLICE OFFICER?
Experts claim much racial profiling results from a subconscious bias held by cops against minorities
Over a three year period, the Los Angeles Police Department investigated 1,356 bias complaints against its officers. The result: Not one of them was found to be valid. Cops 1,356 – Citizens 0.
I cannot possibly imagine how none of the 1,356 complaints were sustained and neither can Matt Johnson, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, LAPD's civilian oversight board.
Johnson told the Los Angeles Times, “I don't think anybody believes that there are actually no incidents of biased policing. Anti-bias training is critical because a lot of this stuff is happening in our subconscious, and we need to be talking about it and dealing with it."
Anti-bias training is well and good, but how can you train the subconscious mind of a police officer.
In an address to the Congressional Black Caucus, President Obama said that "Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement — guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness..”
Obama must have been talking about tactics such as stop-and-frisk. While that particular tactic has reduced the number of black-on-black shootings, it has also caused some collateral damage by inconveniencing and offending some law-abiding black citizens that were stopped and frisked. Then there is the politically incorrect racial profiling cops do when they pull over someone, black or white, who looks out of place in a particular location. It’s a good, longtime police practice, but it carries with it the same collateral damage that stop-and-frisk does.
And Bob Walsh previously said: “If I were to see a young white man walking down the street on one side and a young black man walking down the street on the other side, and you were to ask me which one is more likely to be an ex-con, my answer would be the black man. Blacks represent about 12% of California’s population, but about 30% of the prison population. The ability to do math does not make me a racist.”
Does that mean Bob Walsh has a subconscious bias against minorities? Or me? Or all those L.A. cops?
Over a three year period, the Los Angeles Police Department investigated 1,356 bias complaints against its officers. The result: Not one of them was found to be valid. Cops 1,356 – Citizens 0.
I cannot possibly imagine how none of the 1,356 complaints were sustained and neither can Matt Johnson, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, LAPD's civilian oversight board.
Johnson told the Los Angeles Times, “I don't think anybody believes that there are actually no incidents of biased policing. Anti-bias training is critical because a lot of this stuff is happening in our subconscious, and we need to be talking about it and dealing with it."
Anti-bias training is well and good, but how can you train the subconscious mind of a police officer.
In an address to the Congressional Black Caucus, President Obama said that "Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement — guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness..”
Obama must have been talking about tactics such as stop-and-frisk. While that particular tactic has reduced the number of black-on-black shootings, it has also caused some collateral damage by inconveniencing and offending some law-abiding black citizens that were stopped and frisked. Then there is the politically incorrect racial profiling cops do when they pull over someone, black or white, who looks out of place in a particular location. It’s a good, longtime police practice, but it carries with it the same collateral damage that stop-and-frisk does.
And Bob Walsh previously said: “If I were to see a young white man walking down the street on one side and a young black man walking down the street on the other side, and you were to ask me which one is more likely to be an ex-con, my answer would be the black man. Blacks represent about 12% of California’s population, but about 30% of the prison population. The ability to do math does not make me a racist.”
Does that mean Bob Walsh has a subconscious bias against minorities? Or me? Or all those L.A. cops?
WHO IS YOUR BABY’S FATHER?
In the 'Father's Details' section of the child support application form, the following responses were what some Detroit women wrote:
1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, Makeeshia was fathered by Maclearndon McKinley I am unsure as to the identity of the father of Marlinda, but I believe that she was conceived on the same night.
2. I am unsure, as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.
3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 East Grand Boulevard where I had sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you please send me his phone number? Thanks.
4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he's had it replaced.
5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was ejaculate and that he is the Saver risen again.
6. I cannot tell you the name of Alleshia's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.
7. I do not know who the father of my child was as they all look the same to me.
8. Tyrone Hairston is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you axe him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time... well, I don't have clue..
9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World. Maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom.
10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I had stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 8956 Miller Ave, mine might have remained unfertilized.
11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all, like when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.
1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, Makeeshia was fathered by Maclearndon McKinley I am unsure as to the identity of the father of Marlinda, but I believe that she was conceived on the same night.
2. I am unsure, as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.
3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 East Grand Boulevard where I had sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you please send me his phone number? Thanks.
4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he's had it replaced.
5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was ejaculate and that he is the Saver risen again.
6. I cannot tell you the name of Alleshia's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.
7. I do not know who the father of my child was as they all look the same to me.
8. Tyrone Hairston is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you axe him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time... well, I don't have clue..
9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World. Maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom.
10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I had stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 8956 Miller Ave, mine might have remained unfertilized.
11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all, like when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.
HILLARY FLAT OUT LIED DURING THE DEBATE
The presumptive heir to the Obama presidency said ISIS was showing videos of Trump insulting Islam when no such videos exist
Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has told a bunch of lies. She was at it again during Saturday's Democratic debate.
Donald Trumps name came up a number of times as he was excoriated for his remarks about Mexican illegal immigrants and banning Muslims from entering the U.S.
At one point in the debate, Hillary was trying to show that Trump's ban on Muslims was helping ISIS to recruit new followers. Clinton said:
"He [Trump] is becoming ISIS's best recruiter. They [ISIS] are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists."
There is just one tiny little problem with her statement. No such videos exist.
So it is clear that Hillary flat out lied.
Clinton also lied about gun violence during the November 14 Democratic debate.
There is a good chance that Obama, the Liar in Chief, will be succeeded by Hillary, the Liar in Chief.
Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has told a bunch of lies. She was at it again during Saturday's Democratic debate.
Donald Trumps name came up a number of times as he was excoriated for his remarks about Mexican illegal immigrants and banning Muslims from entering the U.S.
At one point in the debate, Hillary was trying to show that Trump's ban on Muslims was helping ISIS to recruit new followers. Clinton said:
"He [Trump] is becoming ISIS's best recruiter. They [ISIS] are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists."
There is just one tiny little problem with her statement. No such videos exist.
So it is clear that Hillary flat out lied.
Clinton also lied about gun violence during the November 14 Democratic debate.
There is a good chance that Obama, the Liar in Chief, will be succeeded by Hillary, the Liar in Chief.
SARTORETTE ELEMENTARY PARENTS STAGE WALKOUT IN PROTEST OF CANCELED SANTA FIELD TRIP
The Jewish woman who objected to the Santa field trip is accused of "waging a war on Christmas."
By Lisa Fernandez and Bob Redell
NBC Bay Area
December 18, 2015
About two dozen parents in San Jose pulled their kindergarteners out of school Friday and walked them to a local coffee shop to see Santa after officials canceled an annual field trip to deliver letters to St. Nick.
The parents yanked 20 to 30 children out of Sartorette Elementary School, furious the principal had nixed a decade-old tradition: leaving school to sip hot chocolate and sit on Santa’s lap.
It comes after a Jewish mother, who asked to be identified only as Talia, raised concerns about what she called "best practices," arguing that public school should respect and focus on all religions during the holiday season.
Parent Vanessa Howe defended the field trip and led the "walkout" to Big E Cafe. How argued that parents who don't want their children to see Santa should keep them at home until after the field trip is over.
"(They) should just not go for that one hour," Howe argued.
She also asked rhetorically if it would be appropriate for her child to make a fuss on the day students learned about Hanukkah in class.
But Talia saw it differently. She said learning about another person's religion is one thing, but having a child sit on Santa's lap, when it is not her custom, is another. Talia said she would never dream of having a non-Jewish child say the blessings over a menorah, which she equated to participating in Christmas activities.
"They need to redesign the curriculum so that children don't have to opt out," she explained.
In November, Talia began telling the school she didn’t want her daughter to spend two days writing letters to Santa, dressing up as a reindeer and capping the week with a trip sit on St. Nick’s lap.
Christmas brings up painful memories for Talia, whose grandparents were beaten in Poland because of their religious beliefs. In addition, Talia, a certified teacher, said public schools that teach about one religion should teach about all religions in order to be inclusive.
Talia compromised with the superintendent, agreeing that the field trip to the cafe would still happen but without Santa there. Cafe owner Ernesto May, however, said in an interview this week he couldn't disinvite Santa because the event was open to the community. Last year, 160 children showed up.
The principal canceled the event altogether. Cambrian School District Supt. Carrie Andrews acknowledged there was a breakdown in communication and vowed to work with parents to find a better solution for next year.
Talia has now been the target of verbal attacks by a group of parents, one of whom accused her of "waging a war on Christmas," she recalled.
And while some parents were livid, others had a change of heart about the tradition after seeing a different point of view.
Elizabeth Snowden, who is Christian, said she never realized the Santa tradition might cause people of other faiths to feel left out. Snowden said she actually felt jealous of the multicultural party held Thursday in Talia's daughter's class — after Talia suggested a more inclusive holiday party for the kids — where parents of eight cultures described their customs.
And Bao Nguyen, who also celebrates Christmas, said Talia was "brave to stand up" for what she felt was right.
"I’m not mad about the field trip being canceled because there was a very good intent behind this," she said. "Just because we’ve doing this for 10 years, doesn’t make it right."
EDITOR’S NOTE: I remember how uncomfortable I always felt throughout my public schooling in Ardmore, Oklahoma and Marshall, Texas whenever I was subjected to Christian classroom or school auditorium activities. I would probably have been excused had I asked, but I did not want to single myself out from my classmates.
While I can identify with Talia’s objection to the Santa letter writing and to the field trip, I think it would have been better had she just kept her child home that day, instead of fueling anti-Semitism by her protest.
By Lisa Fernandez and Bob Redell
NBC Bay Area
December 18, 2015
About two dozen parents in San Jose pulled their kindergarteners out of school Friday and walked them to a local coffee shop to see Santa after officials canceled an annual field trip to deliver letters to St. Nick.
The parents yanked 20 to 30 children out of Sartorette Elementary School, furious the principal had nixed a decade-old tradition: leaving school to sip hot chocolate and sit on Santa’s lap.
It comes after a Jewish mother, who asked to be identified only as Talia, raised concerns about what she called "best practices," arguing that public school should respect and focus on all religions during the holiday season.
Parent Vanessa Howe defended the field trip and led the "walkout" to Big E Cafe. How argued that parents who don't want their children to see Santa should keep them at home until after the field trip is over.
"(They) should just not go for that one hour," Howe argued.
She also asked rhetorically if it would be appropriate for her child to make a fuss on the day students learned about Hanukkah in class.
But Talia saw it differently. She said learning about another person's religion is one thing, but having a child sit on Santa's lap, when it is not her custom, is another. Talia said she would never dream of having a non-Jewish child say the blessings over a menorah, which she equated to participating in Christmas activities.
"They need to redesign the curriculum so that children don't have to opt out," she explained.
In November, Talia began telling the school she didn’t want her daughter to spend two days writing letters to Santa, dressing up as a reindeer and capping the week with a trip sit on St. Nick’s lap.
Christmas brings up painful memories for Talia, whose grandparents were beaten in Poland because of their religious beliefs. In addition, Talia, a certified teacher, said public schools that teach about one religion should teach about all religions in order to be inclusive.
Talia compromised with the superintendent, agreeing that the field trip to the cafe would still happen but without Santa there. Cafe owner Ernesto May, however, said in an interview this week he couldn't disinvite Santa because the event was open to the community. Last year, 160 children showed up.
The principal canceled the event altogether. Cambrian School District Supt. Carrie Andrews acknowledged there was a breakdown in communication and vowed to work with parents to find a better solution for next year.
Talia has now been the target of verbal attacks by a group of parents, one of whom accused her of "waging a war on Christmas," she recalled.
And while some parents were livid, others had a change of heart about the tradition after seeing a different point of view.
Elizabeth Snowden, who is Christian, said she never realized the Santa tradition might cause people of other faiths to feel left out. Snowden said she actually felt jealous of the multicultural party held Thursday in Talia's daughter's class — after Talia suggested a more inclusive holiday party for the kids — where parents of eight cultures described their customs.
And Bao Nguyen, who also celebrates Christmas, said Talia was "brave to stand up" for what she felt was right.
"I’m not mad about the field trip being canceled because there was a very good intent behind this," she said. "Just because we’ve doing this for 10 years, doesn’t make it right."
EDITOR’S NOTE: I remember how uncomfortable I always felt throughout my public schooling in Ardmore, Oklahoma and Marshall, Texas whenever I was subjected to Christian classroom or school auditorium activities. I would probably have been excused had I asked, but I did not want to single myself out from my classmates.
While I can identify with Talia’s objection to the Santa letter writing and to the field trip, I think it would have been better had she just kept her child home that day, instead of fueling anti-Semitism by her protest.
BITTEN IN THE ASS BY PUBLIC STUPIDITY
By Bob Walsh
Regular readers will remember that I wrote a few days ago [YOUR GOD IS SATAN BY GOD! | 12-11-15] about Denise Slader, an employee of the California Dept. of Corrections (and rehabilitation). She went off on a couple of Muslim men praying in a public park in Castro Valley. She was stupid enough to be recorded by one of her victims and also observed by a park ranger while she threw coffee on one of the men and struck that man with her umbrella.
Ms. Slader has been charged by the Alameda County D. A. with a hate crime. She has been suspended (ATO, with pay) by the department pending further investigation.
Her name was originally reported as Sanders, not Slader. That error was made by the newspaper article I used for my source and was picked up by me. Sorry about that.
The original incident happened on December 6. She is scheduled for arraignment on January 7.
Regular readers will remember that I wrote a few days ago [YOUR GOD IS SATAN BY GOD! | 12-11-15] about Denise Slader, an employee of the California Dept. of Corrections (and rehabilitation). She went off on a couple of Muslim men praying in a public park in Castro Valley. She was stupid enough to be recorded by one of her victims and also observed by a park ranger while she threw coffee on one of the men and struck that man with her umbrella.
Ms. Slader has been charged by the Alameda County D. A. with a hate crime. She has been suspended (ATO, with pay) by the department pending further investigation.
Her name was originally reported as Sanders, not Slader. That error was made by the newspaper article I used for my source and was picked up by me. Sorry about that.
The original incident happened on December 6. She is scheduled for arraignment on January 7.
HAGEL: THE WHITE HOUSE TRIED TO 'DESTROY' ME
Foreign Policy Magazine
December 18, 2015
Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him.
It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad that his regime would face consequences if it crossed a “red line” by employing chemical weapons against its own people. Assad did it anyway, and Hagel had spent the day approving final plans for a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missile strikes against Damascus. U.S. naval destroyers were in the Mediterranean, awaiting orders to fire.
Instead, Obama told a stunned Hagel to stand down. Assad’s Aug. 21 chemical attack in a Damascus suburb had killed hundreds of civilians, but the president said the United States wasn’t going to take any military action against the Syrian government. The president had decided to ignore his own red line — a decision, Hagel believes, that dealt a severe blow to the credibility of both Obama and the United States.
“Whether it was the right decision or not, history will determine that,” Hagel told Foreign Policy in a two-hour interview, his first extensive public comments since he was forced out of his position in February. “There’s no question in my mind that it hurt the credibility of the president’s word when this occurred.”
In the days and months afterward, Hagel’s counterparts around the world told him their confidence in Washington had been shaken over Obama’s sudden about-face. And the former defense secretary said he still hears complaints to this day from foreign leaders.
“A president’s word is a big thing, and when the president says things, that’s a big deal,” he said.
Hagel, now that time has passed and he’s willing to discuss his tenure in office, cited the episode as an example of a White House that has struggled to formulate a coherent policy on Syria, holding interminable meetings that would often end without a decision, even as conditions on the ground worsened and the death toll grew steadily higher.
The 69-year-old former Nebraska senator and Vietnam War veteran, speaking for the first time about his treatment by the Obama administration, said the Pentagon was subject to debilitating meddling and micromanagement by the White House — echoing criticism made by his predecessors, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta.
Looking back on his tenure, Hagel said in the Dec. 10 interview that he remains puzzled as to why some administration officials sought to “destroy” him personally in his final days in office, castigating him in anonymous comments to newspapers even after he had handed in his resignation.
Although he does not identify her by name, Hagel’s criticisms are clearly aimed at Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice, and some of her staff. Hagel’s former aides, and former White House officials, say the defense secretary frequently butted heads with Rice over Syria policy and the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo.
The former Pentagon chief offers a view from inside an administration that was caught flat-footed by the multi-sided conflict in Syria and by the subsequent onslaught of the Islamic State. His account describes an administration that lacked a clear strategy on Syria during his time in office and suggests that it may not have one anytime soon — despite the mounting carnage and waves of refugees.
The White House declined to comment for this story after being told about Hagel’s comments regarding the fallout from Obama calling off strikes against Damascus, the absence of a clear policy on Syria, and his treatment by the administration.
But a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the president was not ready to go forward with the military operation in 2013 without consulting Congress first and it endorsing his decision. And the final outcome of Obama’s decision opened the way for a diplomatic deal brokered by Russia that saw the Assad regime hand over its declared chemical weapons stockpiles. “The end result of all this is a Syria that’s free of its chemical weapons program,” the official told FP.
The senior official also insisted the president has a clear strategy to defeat the Islamic State, relying on U.S.-led air power and the training of local forces while pushing for a diplomatic bid to end the civil war in Syria and negotiate Assad’s exit.
Appointed to shift the Pentagon to a peacetime footing and oversee tough budget cuts, Hagel ended up having to contend with Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and a new war in the Middle East after he entered office in February 2013.
And inside the Defense Department, he faced a series of crises: automatic budget cuts and a government shutdown that threw the Pentagon’s budget into chaos; a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard facility that left 12 people dead; a spate of sexual assault cases in the military; and a cheating scandal by nuclear missile crews.
As defense secretary, Hagel carried out the administration’s policies dutifully without missteps. But his meandering public comments seemed to strike the wrong note at a moment of upheaval. And if Hagel had no major mistakes, he also had no major accomplishments; during the height of then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hagel’s aides boasted about the dozens of times the U.S. defense chief was speaking to his Egyptian counterpart and touted Hagel as the administration’s main conduit to Cairo. Left unsaid was that Sisi ignored Hagel’s entreaties and continued his brutal campaign to repress the group.
Hagel’s biggest hurdle, though, was that he was never fully embraced by Obama’s tight inner circle.
Even before he started the job, Hagel had been crippled by a bruising and unusually partisan Senate confirmation hearing in which many of his former Republican colleagues denounced him as unfit for office, painting him as hostile to Israel and weak on Iran.
A few Republicans had warned him in advance that they would have to “rough him up” at the hearing because of their dissatisfaction with the president, Hagel said. And conservative websites had painted him as “anti-Semitic” before the hearing began.
But the level of vitriol at the hearing — from lawmakers whom he had long worked with and even raised money for — came as a shock to Hagel.
More than one senator took Hagel’s comments out of context or simply misquoted him. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hagel had called for an end to the “sickening slaughter” carried out by both sides, but Republican lawmakers wrongly accused him of singling out Israel.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), now a leading Republican contender for the White House, accused Hagel of possibly receiving speaking fees from “extreme or radical groups” but offered up no evidence.
“It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea,” said Cruz, in a performance that some commentators compared to a Joe McCarthy-style smear.
Hagel looked taken aback but chose not to push back against the barrage.
“I was stunned at the whole thing,” Hagel told FP.
At one point Hagel misstated the president’s policy on Iran, saying the aim was to “contain” Tehran.
In the face of stiff opposition from Republicans, the former senator told the White House he was ready to withdraw as the nominee, “because I said don’t want to take the president nor the country through this.”
Obama, Vice President Joe Biden — an old friend from his time in the Senate — and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough all called and encouraged him to hold steady. But some officials did not rally to his side.
“I know not everyone in the White House was that supportive,” he said, without elaborating.
After a filibuster from fellow Republicans, an unprecedented move for a defense secretary’s nomination, Hagel was confirmed in a narrow 58-to-41 vote that was mostly along party lines. Only four Republicans voted in favor. Afterward, Hagel said, some Republican senators privately apologized to him for their attacks.
For Hagel, the bitter confirmation fight illustrated the new hyperpartisan, take-no-prisoners brand of politics that had taken over Washington. And it served as yet another reminder that the moderate wing of the Republican Party he represented had virtually vanished. Hagel sees himself as a Republican in the tradition of former President George H.W. Bush and ex-National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, sober-minded pragmatists favoring a foreign policy driven by national interests and realpolitik. But that stream has “gotten thinner and thinner,” Hagel said.
“I’m not sure if you asked people, ‘What is the Republican Party?’ they could give you an answer,” Hagel said.
When Hagel was offered the job of defense secretary after Obama’s re-election in 2012, a position that he said he never asked or lobbied for, his only request was that he be given access to the president.
Once he was in office, Hagel’s request was generally granted. But he sometimes found that access to the president did not necessarily mean a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office.
“There were times that I had called over and asked to have a private meeting with the president, and when I showed up, there were others in the room,” he said.
Deferring decisions
While Hagel preferred smaller meetings and one-on-one phone calls, the White House often summoned him to large Situation Room sessions with last-minute agendas sent out overnight or on the morning of the meeting.
The White House’s policy deliberations on Syria and other issues run by Rice and her deputies seemed to lead nowhere, according to Hagel.
“For one thing, there were way too many meetings. The meetings were not productive,” Hagel said. “I don’t think many times we ever actually got to where we needed to be. We kept kind of deferring the tough decisions. And there were always too many people in the room.”
At larger White House meetings, with some staffers in the room he did not even know, Hagel was reluctant to speak at length, fearing his stance would find its way into media reports. “The more people you have in a room, the more possibilities there are for self-serving leaks to shape and influence decisions in the press,” he said.
Instead, Hagel preferred to convey his views in weekly meetings he and then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey had with the president or in phone calls and meetings with Rice, Biden, or Secretary of State John Kerry.
In contrast, national security meetings led by the president were efficient and focused, with no time wasted on tangents, he said.
“We’d get in and get out,” Hagel said. “I eventually got to the point where I told Susan Rice that I wasn’t going to spend more than two hours in these meetings. Some of them would go four hours.”
But the same senior administration official defended the long National Security Council meetings, saying their length was only natural given the complexity of the security challenges facing the country: “It speaks to the rigorous policy process that we run.”
Hagel, however, said there was too much time spent on “nit-picky, small things in the weeds,” while larger questions were ignored. “We seemed to veer away from the big issues. What was our political strategy on Syria?”
While Hagel agreed with Obama’s reluctance to deploy a large ground force to Syria or Iraq, he wanted the administration to hammer out a plan for a diplomatic settlement in Syria and to clarify whether Assad needed to go and under what circumstances, he said.
While the White House sought to stay out of the conflict in Syria, the Islamic State’s lightning advance into northern Iraq in June 2014 — with Baghdad’s army collapsing in retreat — came as a “jolt” to the administration, Hagel said.
Asked at a press conference in August of that year about the nature of the threat posed by the Islamic State, Hagel told reporters that “this is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” He cited the group’s military skill, financial resources, and adept online propaganda as an unprecedented danger that surpassed previous terrorist organizations.
Some administration officials were not happy with Hagel’s description, and “I got some criticism from the White House,” he said.
But events have vindicated his remarks, he said.
“Then I got accused of trying to hype something, overstate something, and make something more than it was,” Hagel said. “I didn’t know all of it, but I knew we were up against something here that we had never seen before. And in many ways, we were not prepared for it.”
For Hagel, the administration’s indecision over how to address the conflict in Syria was driven home in a congressional hearing in September 2014, when he was grilled by senators about the administration’s plans to build a force of rebel fighters to take on the Islamic State.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of the White House’s anti-Islamic State strategy, asked Hagel if the administration would come to the aid of U.S.-backed rebels if they were attacked by the Assad regime. The administration had debated that pivotal question for weeks but had not made a decision, and Hagel was forced to improvise.
“We had never come down on an answer or a conclusion in the White House,” Hagel told FP. “I said what I felt what I had to say. I couldn’t say, ‘No.’ Christ, every ally would have walked away from us in the Middle East.”
McCain pressed him, and Hagel told the lawmakers: “Any attack on those that we have trained who are supporting us, we will help them.”
But the question remained a “glaring” omission in the administration’s policy that he raised in meetings afterward. “Are we going to support our guys or not support our guys?” Hagel told FP. “It’s a damn crucial question.”
Asked for comment this week, the senior administration official rejected Hagel’s portrayal as misleading and said the Defense Department had a leading role in setting up the training program and could have addressed any shortcomings that arose.
A month later, with his concerns mounting about the absence of an overarching policy on Syria and the fight against the Islamic State, Hagel wrote a two-page memo to Rice and Kerry — and copied the president — saying the administration needed to decide on its approach to the conflict in Syria and its stance toward the Assad regime. The memo argued that “we don’t have a policy,” Hagel told FP.
“I was saying, ‘We’re not getting to where we need to be,‘” he said, “because I’m getting this from all of my colleagues around the world. All of my counterparts are coming up to me at NATO meetings and everywhere, saying, ‘What are you doing? Where is this going?’”
But Hagel said the memo — which was not well-received by the White House — was meant only as an appeal to come up with a coherent way forward and did not attempt to dictate policy.
“In the memo, I wasn’t blaming anybody. Hell, I was part of the National Security Council,” Hagel said.
Since leaving office last February, Hagel said he has not seen a full strategy on Syria materialize.
“The administration is still struggling with a political strategy, but Secretary Kerry is making some progress toward the right strategy,” Hagel said, citing recent talks with Russia, Iran, and several Arab governments.
Although Hagel opposes a major escalation of the military campaign against the Islamic State, his criticisms of the administration will almost certainly feed a Republican critique, led by McCain, that the Obama administration has been weak and indecisive on the Syrian conflict.
That outcome is an ironic twist for Hagel, whose fierce criticism of President George W. Bush’s administration over the Iraq War — and opposition to the 2007 troop surge — generated lasting resentment among his fellow Republicans, including McCain.
Micromanaging the Pentagon
The White House’s penchant for meddling was a frequent problem, Hagel said. Dempsey complained that White House staffers were calling generals “and asking fifth-level questions that the White House should not be involved in,” he said.
Hagel’s predecessors, Gates and Panetta, as well as Michèle Flournoy, the former No. 3 official at the Pentagon, have all criticized the White House’s centralized decision-making and interference with the workings of the Defense Department.
Hagel said the politically motivated micromanagement, combined with a mushrooming bureaucracy at the National Security Council, raises a real risk for the executive branch — potentially undercutting the proper functioning of the Pentagon and other cabinet offices.
“There is a danger in all of this,” he said. “This is about governance; this isn’t about political optics. It’s about making the country run and function, and trying to stay ahead of the dangers and the threats you see coming.”
Responding to Russia
Russia’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and its support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine blindsided Washington, and it produced another rift between Hagel and White House officials.
In National Security Council meetings, Hagel said he stressed the importance of avoiding a direct confrontation with Moscow and keeping communication channels open with the Russian military. But he urged the administration to send a clear signal to Moscow — and U.S. allies in Europe — by expediting communications and other gear to the Ukrainian government as it fought against pro-Russian separatists.
“I also made the point that the U.S. should be giving more non-lethal equipment to the Ukrainians than we were, at a much faster pace,” Hagel said. “We had to keep in mind that there was a global leadership optic here. The world, including our NATO partners, was watching to see how we would respond.”
The administration moved too slowly to help Kiev, Hagel said, though he does not believe Washington should have given weapons to the Ukrainians.
“I think we should have done more, could have done more,” he said.
Guantánamo wars
Apart from his impatience with the administration’s drift over Syria, Hagel said some of his biggest clashes with the White House came over the controversial detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Under a law adopted by Congress, Hagel, as defense secretary, had the ultimate responsibility for approving the transfer of inmates to other countries. And it meant he would bear the blame if a released detainee later took up arms against the United States.
The White House, trying to fulfill Obama’s promise to close the facility that has been condemned by human rights groups as a legal black hole, pressed Hagel to approve transferring inmates to other countries.
But Hagel often refused or delayed signing off on dozens of transfers when he judged the security risk too high, often based on advice inside the Defense Department.
The White House grew deeply frustrated with Hagel over the delays.
“It got pretty bad, pretty brutal,” Hagel said. “I’d get the hell beat out of me all the time on this at the White House. “
Although he had long supported shutting the detention center, Hagel insisted that he would not be rushed into approving transfers. The White House kept pushing, arguing that security concerns had to be weighed against the damage done to America’s image abroad as long as Guantánamo remained open and the ammunition it provided for extremist propaganda.
The arguments over Guantánamo detainees were cited by White House officials as the last straw that led to Hagel having to step down. But during his two years in office, Hagel approved 44 detainee transfers. His successor, Ash Carter, has given the green light to only 15 transfers, according to the Pentagon, citing numbers from Dec. 15. At the current pace, Carter will fall short of the number Hagel approved by the time Obama’s second term ends.
After clashing repeatedly with the White House, Hagel said it was probably inevitable that he would have to step down as Pentagon chief, given the friction that had developed. But he was not prepared for the humiliating way in which he was let go, “with certain people just really vilifying me in a gutless, off-the-record kind of way.”
The White House asked Hagel if he would stay on until a successor was found, and he accepted. But even after he agreed to leave, Hagel said, some White House officials trashed him in anonymous comments to newspapers, claiming he rarely spoke at Situation Room meetings and deferred to Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“They already had my resignation, so what was the point of just continuing to try to destroy me?” he said.
It was a painful end to a career in which Hagel had gone from success to success. After his 1968 combat tour in Vietnam, where he was decorated with two Purple Hearts, he had served as a Capitol Hill staffer, worked as the deputy administrator for the Veterans Administration under President Ronald Reagan, made his fortune in the early years of the cellphone industry, handily won two terms as a senator for Nebraska, and was at one point considered a potential contender for the White House.
Despite how his Pentagon stint ended, Hagel said he still holds Obama “in high regard.”
“I’ve always had a very good, positive relationship with the president,” he said.
Hagel — who shares with Obama a skepticism about resorting to military force — gives the president high marks for not over-reacting to terrorist threats, for pursuing a strategic “rebalance” toward the Asia-Pacific, and for clinching a landmark agreement with Iran to curtail its nuclear program.
But Hagel remains pained at how his term as Pentagon chief was tarnished by what he views as backstabbing by some in the White House.
“I don’t know what the purpose was. To this day, I’m still mystified by that. But I move forward. I’m proud of my service,” he said.
Still, he added: “I would have preferred that my days as defense secretary not end that way.”
December 18, 2015
Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him.
It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad that his regime would face consequences if it crossed a “red line” by employing chemical weapons against its own people. Assad did it anyway, and Hagel had spent the day approving final plans for a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missile strikes against Damascus. U.S. naval destroyers were in the Mediterranean, awaiting orders to fire.
Instead, Obama told a stunned Hagel to stand down. Assad’s Aug. 21 chemical attack in a Damascus suburb had killed hundreds of civilians, but the president said the United States wasn’t going to take any military action against the Syrian government. The president had decided to ignore his own red line — a decision, Hagel believes, that dealt a severe blow to the credibility of both Obama and the United States.
“Whether it was the right decision or not, history will determine that,” Hagel told Foreign Policy in a two-hour interview, his first extensive public comments since he was forced out of his position in February. “There’s no question in my mind that it hurt the credibility of the president’s word when this occurred.”
In the days and months afterward, Hagel’s counterparts around the world told him their confidence in Washington had been shaken over Obama’s sudden about-face. And the former defense secretary said he still hears complaints to this day from foreign leaders.
“A president’s word is a big thing, and when the president says things, that’s a big deal,” he said.
Hagel, now that time has passed and he’s willing to discuss his tenure in office, cited the episode as an example of a White House that has struggled to formulate a coherent policy on Syria, holding interminable meetings that would often end without a decision, even as conditions on the ground worsened and the death toll grew steadily higher.
The 69-year-old former Nebraska senator and Vietnam War veteran, speaking for the first time about his treatment by the Obama administration, said the Pentagon was subject to debilitating meddling and micromanagement by the White House — echoing criticism made by his predecessors, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta.
Looking back on his tenure, Hagel said in the Dec. 10 interview that he remains puzzled as to why some administration officials sought to “destroy” him personally in his final days in office, castigating him in anonymous comments to newspapers even after he had handed in his resignation.
Although he does not identify her by name, Hagel’s criticisms are clearly aimed at Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice, and some of her staff. Hagel’s former aides, and former White House officials, say the defense secretary frequently butted heads with Rice over Syria policy and the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo.
The former Pentagon chief offers a view from inside an administration that was caught flat-footed by the multi-sided conflict in Syria and by the subsequent onslaught of the Islamic State. His account describes an administration that lacked a clear strategy on Syria during his time in office and suggests that it may not have one anytime soon — despite the mounting carnage and waves of refugees.
The White House declined to comment for this story after being told about Hagel’s comments regarding the fallout from Obama calling off strikes against Damascus, the absence of a clear policy on Syria, and his treatment by the administration.
But a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the president was not ready to go forward with the military operation in 2013 without consulting Congress first and it endorsing his decision. And the final outcome of Obama’s decision opened the way for a diplomatic deal brokered by Russia that saw the Assad regime hand over its declared chemical weapons stockpiles. “The end result of all this is a Syria that’s free of its chemical weapons program,” the official told FP.
The senior official also insisted the president has a clear strategy to defeat the Islamic State, relying on U.S.-led air power and the training of local forces while pushing for a diplomatic bid to end the civil war in Syria and negotiate Assad’s exit.
Appointed to shift the Pentagon to a peacetime footing and oversee tough budget cuts, Hagel ended up having to contend with Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and a new war in the Middle East after he entered office in February 2013.
And inside the Defense Department, he faced a series of crises: automatic budget cuts and a government shutdown that threw the Pentagon’s budget into chaos; a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard facility that left 12 people dead; a spate of sexual assault cases in the military; and a cheating scandal by nuclear missile crews.
As defense secretary, Hagel carried out the administration’s policies dutifully without missteps. But his meandering public comments seemed to strike the wrong note at a moment of upheaval. And if Hagel had no major mistakes, he also had no major accomplishments; during the height of then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hagel’s aides boasted about the dozens of times the U.S. defense chief was speaking to his Egyptian counterpart and touted Hagel as the administration’s main conduit to Cairo. Left unsaid was that Sisi ignored Hagel’s entreaties and continued his brutal campaign to repress the group.
Hagel’s biggest hurdle, though, was that he was never fully embraced by Obama’s tight inner circle.
Even before he started the job, Hagel had been crippled by a bruising and unusually partisan Senate confirmation hearing in which many of his former Republican colleagues denounced him as unfit for office, painting him as hostile to Israel and weak on Iran.
A few Republicans had warned him in advance that they would have to “rough him up” at the hearing because of their dissatisfaction with the president, Hagel said. And conservative websites had painted him as “anti-Semitic” before the hearing began.
But the level of vitriol at the hearing — from lawmakers whom he had long worked with and even raised money for — came as a shock to Hagel.
More than one senator took Hagel’s comments out of context or simply misquoted him. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hagel had called for an end to the “sickening slaughter” carried out by both sides, but Republican lawmakers wrongly accused him of singling out Israel.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), now a leading Republican contender for the White House, accused Hagel of possibly receiving speaking fees from “extreme or radical groups” but offered up no evidence.
“It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea,” said Cruz, in a performance that some commentators compared to a Joe McCarthy-style smear.
Hagel looked taken aback but chose not to push back against the barrage.
“I was stunned at the whole thing,” Hagel told FP.
At one point Hagel misstated the president’s policy on Iran, saying the aim was to “contain” Tehran.
In the face of stiff opposition from Republicans, the former senator told the White House he was ready to withdraw as the nominee, “because I said don’t want to take the president nor the country through this.”
Obama, Vice President Joe Biden — an old friend from his time in the Senate — and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough all called and encouraged him to hold steady. But some officials did not rally to his side.
“I know not everyone in the White House was that supportive,” he said, without elaborating.
After a filibuster from fellow Republicans, an unprecedented move for a defense secretary’s nomination, Hagel was confirmed in a narrow 58-to-41 vote that was mostly along party lines. Only four Republicans voted in favor. Afterward, Hagel said, some Republican senators privately apologized to him for their attacks.
For Hagel, the bitter confirmation fight illustrated the new hyperpartisan, take-no-prisoners brand of politics that had taken over Washington. And it served as yet another reminder that the moderate wing of the Republican Party he represented had virtually vanished. Hagel sees himself as a Republican in the tradition of former President George H.W. Bush and ex-National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, sober-minded pragmatists favoring a foreign policy driven by national interests and realpolitik. But that stream has “gotten thinner and thinner,” Hagel said.
“I’m not sure if you asked people, ‘What is the Republican Party?’ they could give you an answer,” Hagel said.
When Hagel was offered the job of defense secretary after Obama’s re-election in 2012, a position that he said he never asked or lobbied for, his only request was that he be given access to the president.
Once he was in office, Hagel’s request was generally granted. But he sometimes found that access to the president did not necessarily mean a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office.
“There were times that I had called over and asked to have a private meeting with the president, and when I showed up, there were others in the room,” he said.
Deferring decisions
While Hagel preferred smaller meetings and one-on-one phone calls, the White House often summoned him to large Situation Room sessions with last-minute agendas sent out overnight or on the morning of the meeting.
The White House’s policy deliberations on Syria and other issues run by Rice and her deputies seemed to lead nowhere, according to Hagel.
“For one thing, there were way too many meetings. The meetings were not productive,” Hagel said. “I don’t think many times we ever actually got to where we needed to be. We kept kind of deferring the tough decisions. And there were always too many people in the room.”
At larger White House meetings, with some staffers in the room he did not even know, Hagel was reluctant to speak at length, fearing his stance would find its way into media reports. “The more people you have in a room, the more possibilities there are for self-serving leaks to shape and influence decisions in the press,” he said.
Instead, Hagel preferred to convey his views in weekly meetings he and then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey had with the president or in phone calls and meetings with Rice, Biden, or Secretary of State John Kerry.
In contrast, national security meetings led by the president were efficient and focused, with no time wasted on tangents, he said.
“We’d get in and get out,” Hagel said. “I eventually got to the point where I told Susan Rice that I wasn’t going to spend more than two hours in these meetings. Some of them would go four hours.”
But the same senior administration official defended the long National Security Council meetings, saying their length was only natural given the complexity of the security challenges facing the country: “It speaks to the rigorous policy process that we run.”
Hagel, however, said there was too much time spent on “nit-picky, small things in the weeds,” while larger questions were ignored. “We seemed to veer away from the big issues. What was our political strategy on Syria?”
While Hagel agreed with Obama’s reluctance to deploy a large ground force to Syria or Iraq, he wanted the administration to hammer out a plan for a diplomatic settlement in Syria and to clarify whether Assad needed to go and under what circumstances, he said.
While the White House sought to stay out of the conflict in Syria, the Islamic State’s lightning advance into northern Iraq in June 2014 — with Baghdad’s army collapsing in retreat — came as a “jolt” to the administration, Hagel said.
Asked at a press conference in August of that year about the nature of the threat posed by the Islamic State, Hagel told reporters that “this is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” He cited the group’s military skill, financial resources, and adept online propaganda as an unprecedented danger that surpassed previous terrorist organizations.
Some administration officials were not happy with Hagel’s description, and “I got some criticism from the White House,” he said.
But events have vindicated his remarks, he said.
“Then I got accused of trying to hype something, overstate something, and make something more than it was,” Hagel said. “I didn’t know all of it, but I knew we were up against something here that we had never seen before. And in many ways, we were not prepared for it.”
For Hagel, the administration’s indecision over how to address the conflict in Syria was driven home in a congressional hearing in September 2014, when he was grilled by senators about the administration’s plans to build a force of rebel fighters to take on the Islamic State.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of the White House’s anti-Islamic State strategy, asked Hagel if the administration would come to the aid of U.S.-backed rebels if they were attacked by the Assad regime. The administration had debated that pivotal question for weeks but had not made a decision, and Hagel was forced to improvise.
“We had never come down on an answer or a conclusion in the White House,” Hagel told FP. “I said what I felt what I had to say. I couldn’t say, ‘No.’ Christ, every ally would have walked away from us in the Middle East.”
McCain pressed him, and Hagel told the lawmakers: “Any attack on those that we have trained who are supporting us, we will help them.”
But the question remained a “glaring” omission in the administration’s policy that he raised in meetings afterward. “Are we going to support our guys or not support our guys?” Hagel told FP. “It’s a damn crucial question.”
Asked for comment this week, the senior administration official rejected Hagel’s portrayal as misleading and said the Defense Department had a leading role in setting up the training program and could have addressed any shortcomings that arose.
A month later, with his concerns mounting about the absence of an overarching policy on Syria and the fight against the Islamic State, Hagel wrote a two-page memo to Rice and Kerry — and copied the president — saying the administration needed to decide on its approach to the conflict in Syria and its stance toward the Assad regime. The memo argued that “we don’t have a policy,” Hagel told FP.
“I was saying, ‘We’re not getting to where we need to be,‘” he said, “because I’m getting this from all of my colleagues around the world. All of my counterparts are coming up to me at NATO meetings and everywhere, saying, ‘What are you doing? Where is this going?’”
But Hagel said the memo — which was not well-received by the White House — was meant only as an appeal to come up with a coherent way forward and did not attempt to dictate policy.
“In the memo, I wasn’t blaming anybody. Hell, I was part of the National Security Council,” Hagel said.
Since leaving office last February, Hagel said he has not seen a full strategy on Syria materialize.
“The administration is still struggling with a political strategy, but Secretary Kerry is making some progress toward the right strategy,” Hagel said, citing recent talks with Russia, Iran, and several Arab governments.
Although Hagel opposes a major escalation of the military campaign against the Islamic State, his criticisms of the administration will almost certainly feed a Republican critique, led by McCain, that the Obama administration has been weak and indecisive on the Syrian conflict.
That outcome is an ironic twist for Hagel, whose fierce criticism of President George W. Bush’s administration over the Iraq War — and opposition to the 2007 troop surge — generated lasting resentment among his fellow Republicans, including McCain.
Micromanaging the Pentagon
The White House’s penchant for meddling was a frequent problem, Hagel said. Dempsey complained that White House staffers were calling generals “and asking fifth-level questions that the White House should not be involved in,” he said.
Hagel’s predecessors, Gates and Panetta, as well as Michèle Flournoy, the former No. 3 official at the Pentagon, have all criticized the White House’s centralized decision-making and interference with the workings of the Defense Department.
Hagel said the politically motivated micromanagement, combined with a mushrooming bureaucracy at the National Security Council, raises a real risk for the executive branch — potentially undercutting the proper functioning of the Pentagon and other cabinet offices.
“There is a danger in all of this,” he said. “This is about governance; this isn’t about political optics. It’s about making the country run and function, and trying to stay ahead of the dangers and the threats you see coming.”
Responding to Russia
Russia’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and its support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine blindsided Washington, and it produced another rift between Hagel and White House officials.
In National Security Council meetings, Hagel said he stressed the importance of avoiding a direct confrontation with Moscow and keeping communication channels open with the Russian military. But he urged the administration to send a clear signal to Moscow — and U.S. allies in Europe — by expediting communications and other gear to the Ukrainian government as it fought against pro-Russian separatists.
“I also made the point that the U.S. should be giving more non-lethal equipment to the Ukrainians than we were, at a much faster pace,” Hagel said. “We had to keep in mind that there was a global leadership optic here. The world, including our NATO partners, was watching to see how we would respond.”
The administration moved too slowly to help Kiev, Hagel said, though he does not believe Washington should have given weapons to the Ukrainians.
“I think we should have done more, could have done more,” he said.
Guantánamo wars
Apart from his impatience with the administration’s drift over Syria, Hagel said some of his biggest clashes with the White House came over the controversial detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Under a law adopted by Congress, Hagel, as defense secretary, had the ultimate responsibility for approving the transfer of inmates to other countries. And it meant he would bear the blame if a released detainee later took up arms against the United States.
The White House, trying to fulfill Obama’s promise to close the facility that has been condemned by human rights groups as a legal black hole, pressed Hagel to approve transferring inmates to other countries.
But Hagel often refused or delayed signing off on dozens of transfers when he judged the security risk too high, often based on advice inside the Defense Department.
The White House grew deeply frustrated with Hagel over the delays.
“It got pretty bad, pretty brutal,” Hagel said. “I’d get the hell beat out of me all the time on this at the White House. “
Although he had long supported shutting the detention center, Hagel insisted that he would not be rushed into approving transfers. The White House kept pushing, arguing that security concerns had to be weighed against the damage done to America’s image abroad as long as Guantánamo remained open and the ammunition it provided for extremist propaganda.
The arguments over Guantánamo detainees were cited by White House officials as the last straw that led to Hagel having to step down. But during his two years in office, Hagel approved 44 detainee transfers. His successor, Ash Carter, has given the green light to only 15 transfers, according to the Pentagon, citing numbers from Dec. 15. At the current pace, Carter will fall short of the number Hagel approved by the time Obama’s second term ends.
After clashing repeatedly with the White House, Hagel said it was probably inevitable that he would have to step down as Pentagon chief, given the friction that had developed. But he was not prepared for the humiliating way in which he was let go, “with certain people just really vilifying me in a gutless, off-the-record kind of way.”
The White House asked Hagel if he would stay on until a successor was found, and he accepted. But even after he agreed to leave, Hagel said, some White House officials trashed him in anonymous comments to newspapers, claiming he rarely spoke at Situation Room meetings and deferred to Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“They already had my resignation, so what was the point of just continuing to try to destroy me?” he said.
It was a painful end to a career in which Hagel had gone from success to success. After his 1968 combat tour in Vietnam, where he was decorated with two Purple Hearts, he had served as a Capitol Hill staffer, worked as the deputy administrator for the Veterans Administration under President Ronald Reagan, made his fortune in the early years of the cellphone industry, handily won two terms as a senator for Nebraska, and was at one point considered a potential contender for the White House.
Despite how his Pentagon stint ended, Hagel said he still holds Obama “in high regard.”
“I’ve always had a very good, positive relationship with the president,” he said.
Hagel — who shares with Obama a skepticism about resorting to military force — gives the president high marks for not over-reacting to terrorist threats, for pursuing a strategic “rebalance” toward the Asia-Pacific, and for clinching a landmark agreement with Iran to curtail its nuclear program.
But Hagel remains pained at how his term as Pentagon chief was tarnished by what he views as backstabbing by some in the White House.
“I don’t know what the purpose was. To this day, I’m still mystified by that. But I move forward. I’m proud of my service,” he said.
Still, he added: “I would have preferred that my days as defense secretary not end that way.”
Sunday, December 20, 2015
CHICAGO OFFICER INDICTED IN FATAL SHOOTING
Jason Van Dyke has been formally indicted on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct for fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald
By Steve Schmadeke
Chicago Tribune
December 17, 2015
Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke has been formally indicted on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct for fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, the Tribune has learned
The case has created a firestorm after the release last month of a dash-cam video showed Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times within seconds of stepping out of his police car as the black teen moved away from the white officer.
Hours before city officials made the video public Nov. 24 on orders of a Cook County judge, prosecutors charged Van Dyke with a single count of first-degree murder. State's Attorney Anita Alvarez acknowledged that she made the announcement earlier than planned out of concern for "public safety."
Court records show that Alvarez's office obtained the seven-count indictment from a grand jury Tuesday. An FBI agent testified before the grand jury, according to the records.
Van Dyke, who was freed on $1.5 million bail Nov. 30 after spending six nights in Cook County Jail, is scheduled to return Friday to the Leighton Criminal Court Building. The presiding judge will later randomly assign a judge to preside over the high-profile case. Van Dyke is expected to plead not guilty then before that judge.
His lawyer could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening, but he has previously said Van Dyke feared for his life when he shot McDonald on a Southwest Side street in October 2014.
The indictment against Van Dyke, 37, marked the first time a Chicago police officer has been charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality in nearly 35 years.
In charging the officer with six counts of first-degree murder, the indictment alleged that Van Dyke acted "without lawful justification" in shooting McDonald.
It is common for prosecutors to charge multiple counts for a single killing under different legal theories. In this case, Van Dyke was indicted on charges he intentionally shot and killed McDonald knowing that his acts "created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm."
Van Dyke was also indicted on an official misconduct charge alleging he committed a murder while acting in his official capacity as a Chicago police officer.
The fallout over the disturbing video of the shooting -- and that it took 13 months for its release and the officer to be charged -- has galvanized Chicago and created the most severe crisis for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in his time in office. Weeks of protests have followed, with demands that Emanuel and Alvarez, in the midst of a tough re-election fight, step down. The mayor forced out police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and the head of the police oversight agency, and the U.S. Justice Department opened a wide-ranging investigation of Police Department practices
At bond court last month, prosecutors said Van Dyke opened fire six seconds after exiting his squad car as McDonald was holding a knife with a 3-inch blade and walking in the middle of 41st Street and Pulaski Road shortly before 10 p.m. Oct. 20, 2014.
As McDonald walked away from him, Van Dyke took at least one step forward and fired 16 rounds at McDonald in about 14 seconds and was reloading when another officer told him to hold his fire, prosecutors said.
At the time of the shooting, a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing rank-and-file officers, said McDonald had lunged at Van Dyke.
Hundreds of pages of Chicago police reports released earlier this month by the city showed that Van Dyke and at least five other officers claimed that the McDonald moved or turned threateningly toward officers, even though video of the shooting showed McDonald walking away.
Authorities said McDonald had PCP in his system at the time of his death.
The Police Department suspended Van Dyke without pay after he was charged last month. Van Dyke had been placed on paid desk duty after the shooting last year.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wow! They really socked it to Van Dyke. I still don’t get how he can be charged with six counts of first-degree murder when he killed only one person.
By Steve Schmadeke
Chicago Tribune
December 17, 2015
Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke has been formally indicted on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct for fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, the Tribune has learned
The case has created a firestorm after the release last month of a dash-cam video showed Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times within seconds of stepping out of his police car as the black teen moved away from the white officer.
Hours before city officials made the video public Nov. 24 on orders of a Cook County judge, prosecutors charged Van Dyke with a single count of first-degree murder. State's Attorney Anita Alvarez acknowledged that she made the announcement earlier than planned out of concern for "public safety."
Court records show that Alvarez's office obtained the seven-count indictment from a grand jury Tuesday. An FBI agent testified before the grand jury, according to the records.
Van Dyke, who was freed on $1.5 million bail Nov. 30 after spending six nights in Cook County Jail, is scheduled to return Friday to the Leighton Criminal Court Building. The presiding judge will later randomly assign a judge to preside over the high-profile case. Van Dyke is expected to plead not guilty then before that judge.
His lawyer could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening, but he has previously said Van Dyke feared for his life when he shot McDonald on a Southwest Side street in October 2014.
The indictment against Van Dyke, 37, marked the first time a Chicago police officer has been charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality in nearly 35 years.
In charging the officer with six counts of first-degree murder, the indictment alleged that Van Dyke acted "without lawful justification" in shooting McDonald.
It is common for prosecutors to charge multiple counts for a single killing under different legal theories. In this case, Van Dyke was indicted on charges he intentionally shot and killed McDonald knowing that his acts "created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm."
Van Dyke was also indicted on an official misconduct charge alleging he committed a murder while acting in his official capacity as a Chicago police officer.
The fallout over the disturbing video of the shooting -- and that it took 13 months for its release and the officer to be charged -- has galvanized Chicago and created the most severe crisis for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in his time in office. Weeks of protests have followed, with demands that Emanuel and Alvarez, in the midst of a tough re-election fight, step down. The mayor forced out police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and the head of the police oversight agency, and the U.S. Justice Department opened a wide-ranging investigation of Police Department practices
At bond court last month, prosecutors said Van Dyke opened fire six seconds after exiting his squad car as McDonald was holding a knife with a 3-inch blade and walking in the middle of 41st Street and Pulaski Road shortly before 10 p.m. Oct. 20, 2014.
As McDonald walked away from him, Van Dyke took at least one step forward and fired 16 rounds at McDonald in about 14 seconds and was reloading when another officer told him to hold his fire, prosecutors said.
At the time of the shooting, a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing rank-and-file officers, said McDonald had lunged at Van Dyke.
Hundreds of pages of Chicago police reports released earlier this month by the city showed that Van Dyke and at least five other officers claimed that the McDonald moved or turned threateningly toward officers, even though video of the shooting showed McDonald walking away.
Authorities said McDonald had PCP in his system at the time of his death.
The Police Department suspended Van Dyke without pay after he was charged last month. Van Dyke had been placed on paid desk duty after the shooting last year.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wow! They really socked it to Van Dyke. I still don’t get how he can be charged with six counts of first-degree murder when he killed only one person.
DEA CONFIRMS THAT ‘ADORABLE DRUG KINGPIN’ GIRL’S FATHER IS DEA SPECIAL AGENT
Many believe that Sarah Furay smiled for her mug shot because she knew that as a white woman she would not be punished nearly as harshly as a black male drug dealer
By Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
December 4, 2015
The grinning mugshot of the drug-dealing 19-year-old girl—who had just been caught with 31.5 grams of cocaine, 126 grams of high-grade weed, 29 Ecstacy tablets, some methamphetamines and 60 tabs of acid—went viral within days.
“Texas cops arrest adorable drug kingpin,” read one November 10 headline from Death and Taxes.
“Happiest mugshot in America belongs to this 19-year-old female, alleged drug kingpin,” read another in the Houston Chronicle.
The woman, Sarah Furay, spent one day in the Brazos County jail before posting the $39,000 bond.
Less than a month later, she’s back in the headlines—now with the news that her father, Bill Furay, is actually a supervisory special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, first reported by Death and Taxes last week. He's based in Panama City, Panama right now, but formerly cuffed dozens of big-time drug dealers in the Houston area before transferring out of the country. All too familiar with the fates of these big-timers, the special agent told the Pearland Journal after busting a couple caught in a large-scale narcotics operation in 2010, “You don’t see too many drug traffickers retire. Either they end up in prison, or they end up dead.”
The Internet, however, is not convinced that his smiling daughter will be held to the same consequences.
Sarah Furay was arrested and booked in the Brazos County Jail on November 6—charged with drug possession and manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance—after College Station Police entered her home with a search warrant and discovered all five types of drugs, packaging material, two digital scales and a handwritten drug price list in her bedroom, KCEN reported.
When Death And Taxes first referred to her as the “adorable kingpin,” people erupted on social media with criticism of the outlet’s lighthearted, flippant approach to covering the happy young white girl walking free on massive drug charges, while people of color face years in prison for far smaller offenses. In an apology letter, the editor wrote: “The very reason we were attracted to writing this post — Furay’s smile — is the very thing that is upsetting. Furay is smiling, I feel safe to presume, because the criminal justice system works to her favor. Even perhaps unconsciously she knows it. Black males are sentenced inordinate amounts of time in prison for drugs never even found on their person; meanwhile, Furay’s grin almost deliberately relates her knowledge that her consequences won’t meet the same extreme.” The Daily Beast also published an essay on Tuesday titled "When White Girls Deal Drugs, They Walk."
If convicted of the three felony charges against her, she faces up to 215 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. Dad has remained silent on his feelings about that—a spokeswoman with the DEA told KAGS HD News that “the Furay family are dealing with this private matter as best they can.” International coverage aside, that is.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I think that Sarah smiled for her mug shot is because as a dipshit college student she thought her arrest was just a big joke. If not that, then maybe she was thinking that Daddy would get her off.
By Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
December 4, 2015
The grinning mugshot of the drug-dealing 19-year-old girl—who had just been caught with 31.5 grams of cocaine, 126 grams of high-grade weed, 29 Ecstacy tablets, some methamphetamines and 60 tabs of acid—went viral within days.
“Texas cops arrest adorable drug kingpin,” read one November 10 headline from Death and Taxes.
“Happiest mugshot in America belongs to this 19-year-old female, alleged drug kingpin,” read another in the Houston Chronicle.
The woman, Sarah Furay, spent one day in the Brazos County jail before posting the $39,000 bond.
Less than a month later, she’s back in the headlines—now with the news that her father, Bill Furay, is actually a supervisory special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, first reported by Death and Taxes last week. He's based in Panama City, Panama right now, but formerly cuffed dozens of big-time drug dealers in the Houston area before transferring out of the country. All too familiar with the fates of these big-timers, the special agent told the Pearland Journal after busting a couple caught in a large-scale narcotics operation in 2010, “You don’t see too many drug traffickers retire. Either they end up in prison, or they end up dead.”
The Internet, however, is not convinced that his smiling daughter will be held to the same consequences.
Sarah Furay was arrested and booked in the Brazos County Jail on November 6—charged with drug possession and manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance—after College Station Police entered her home with a search warrant and discovered all five types of drugs, packaging material, two digital scales and a handwritten drug price list in her bedroom, KCEN reported.
When Death And Taxes first referred to her as the “adorable kingpin,” people erupted on social media with criticism of the outlet’s lighthearted, flippant approach to covering the happy young white girl walking free on massive drug charges, while people of color face years in prison for far smaller offenses. In an apology letter, the editor wrote: “The very reason we were attracted to writing this post — Furay’s smile — is the very thing that is upsetting. Furay is smiling, I feel safe to presume, because the criminal justice system works to her favor. Even perhaps unconsciously she knows it. Black males are sentenced inordinate amounts of time in prison for drugs never even found on their person; meanwhile, Furay’s grin almost deliberately relates her knowledge that her consequences won’t meet the same extreme.” The Daily Beast also published an essay on Tuesday titled "When White Girls Deal Drugs, They Walk."
If convicted of the three felony charges against her, she faces up to 215 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. Dad has remained silent on his feelings about that—a spokeswoman with the DEA told KAGS HD News that “the Furay family are dealing with this private matter as best they can.” International coverage aside, that is.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I think that Sarah smiled for her mug shot is because as a dipshit college student she thought her arrest was just a big joke. If not that, then maybe she was thinking that Daddy would get her off.
MANY VIRGINS IN PARADISE
A Shiite suicide bomber blew himself up at a school, killing 53 Sunni boys. He went to Paradise, as foretold. When he arrived there he said to Allah that he was ready to claim his 72 virgins, as promised. Out of curiosity he asked Allah why there were so many virgins in Paradise.
Allah regarded him for a moment, then replied, "Actually, the virgins are here in paradise because fools like you killed them before they could experience the pleasure of sex. So you're here to service them. Since they're virgins, they're quite sexually ravenous and, frankly, you'll be on constant, exhausting duty. I shall banish you from Paradise should you fail!"
The bomber responded, "Well, I guess I can live with that. How hard can it be to keep 72 women satisfied for all eternity?"
Allah replied, "Who told you they were women?”
Allah regarded him for a moment, then replied, "Actually, the virgins are here in paradise because fools like you killed them before they could experience the pleasure of sex. So you're here to service them. Since they're virgins, they're quite sexually ravenous and, frankly, you'll be on constant, exhausting duty. I shall banish you from Paradise should you fail!"
The bomber responded, "Well, I guess I can live with that. How hard can it be to keep 72 women satisfied for all eternity?"
Allah replied, "Who told you they were women?”
Saturday, December 19, 2015
FOSTER BROOKS AS THE BRAIN SURGEON
I'm sure you will agree that this is probably the funniest of Dean Martin's skits.
NEW ORLEANS UNWRITES HISTORY
The Crescent City unwrites history by removing Confederate monuments
By a vote of 6-1, the New Orleans city council voted Thursday to remove four Confederate monuments, including statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and local hero Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.
Thus the city council voted to unwrite history and break any ties the Crescent city ever had to the Confederacy. They caved into the demands of a small rabble of black activists and far-left whites.
I’ll venture to say that most of the blacks in New Orleans don’t have the foggiest notion of who Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard were. To them the statue of Lee is just some guy on a horse that the pigeons shit on.
I seriously doubt that the average African-American is reminded of slavery or offended at the sight of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
Those who unwrite or rewrite our shameful history have no shame!
By a vote of 6-1, the New Orleans city council voted Thursday to remove four Confederate monuments, including statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and local hero Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.
Thus the city council voted to unwrite history and break any ties the Crescent city ever had to the Confederacy. They caved into the demands of a small rabble of black activists and far-left whites.
I’ll venture to say that most of the blacks in New Orleans don’t have the foggiest notion of who Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard were. To them the statue of Lee is just some guy on a horse that the pigeons shit on.
I seriously doubt that the average African-American is reminded of slavery or offended at the sight of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
Those who unwrite or rewrite our shameful history have no shame!
SHERIFF TO MISSING ‘AFFLUENZA’ TEEN ETHAN COUCH: ‘WE’RE GOING TO FIND YOU’
By Ashley Fantz, Ben Brumfield and Catherine E. Shoichet
CNN
December 18, 2015
A Texas sheriff says he has a message for a teenager who's now missing two years after getting probation for a drunken driving crash that killed four people, and for the mother who may be with him.
"You can run, but you're always going to be looking over your shoulder," Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said Thursday. "We're not going to give up. We're going to come after you. We're going to find you, wherever you are."
The FBI and U.S. marshals have now joined local authorities searching for Ethan Couch, Anderson said.
Couch made national news two years ago when he was sentenced to probation after his lawyers coined an infamous defense strategy, arguing that the teen was a victim of "affluenza" and describing him as a rich kid who was less culpable because his parents didn't set limits for him.
A warrant has been issued for the teen to be taken into custody after his probation officer couldn't reach him this week. His apparent disappearance came after a video allegedly showed him at a party where alcohol was being consumed, authorities said.
Word of the search for Couch has reignited controversy over the case.
In a statement, Mothers Against Drunk Driving expressed "outrage and disbelief" that the teen has not paid for his crime and called for everyone to be on the lookout as police try to track down Couch.
"Four people were hit and killed, and no one was held responsible," Colleen Sheehey-Church, MADD's national president, said in the statement.
"This is egregious. 'Affluenza' aside, Ethan Couch appears to show blatant disregard for the law, and he must be held accountable. The families impacted will never have their loved ones back; Ethan Couch must have consequences for his actions."
Lawyers: Mother is also missing
Couch's probation officer couldn't reach him this week, his lawyers told CNN. Couch's mother, with whom the 18-year-old had been living, is also missing, said attorneys Scott Brown and William Reagan.
Under the terms of his probation, Couch isn't supposed to lose contact with his probation officer, his lawyers said.
Their apparent disappearance comes shortly after the video of Couch at a party turned up on social media, CNN affiliate KTVT reported.
When asked to confirm Couch's attendance at the event, his attorneys told CNN's sister network HLN they "are aware that the probation authorities and/or the District Attorney's office are conducting an investigation to determine if Ethan has violated any of the terms and conditions of his probation. It would not be prudent for us to make any further statement on Ethan's behalf until the investigations are concluded and it is determined what, if any, action will be taken against him."
Anderson told CNN's "AC360" he's worried Couch and his mother could have fled the United States.
"They have the money. They have the ability to disappear, and I'm fearing that they have gone a long way and may even be out of the country," he said.
Jail time possible if probation terms violated
Couch's attorneys argued in 2013 that his parents, because they spoiled him, were partly to blame for the crash on a road in Burleson, south of Fort Worth.
Lawyer blasts media for 'affluenza' focus
Prosecutors had asked for 20 years behind bars, but a Tarrant County juvenile court judge sentenced Couch to a decade of probation. Couch was ordered into long-term mental health treatment, away from his parents' influence.
After his recent disappearance, a court ordered Couch detained, according to his lawyers. At the time of his conviction, prosecutors said Couch could face up to 10 years of incarceration if he violated the terms of his probation.
A psychologist testified in court that Couch, who was 16 at the time, suffered from "affluenza."
The approach was met with widespread outrage and disdain, and the term "affluenza" was widely mocked.
Drunken crash
On the night of June 15, 2013, Couch and some friends stole beer from a Walmart.
That same evening Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby left their home to help Breanna Mitchell, whose SUV had broken down by the side of a road. Brian Jennings, a youth pastor, was driving past and also stopped to help.
Couch plowed into them, killing them all. The crash threw two passengers out of the bed of Couch's truck, injuring both severely.
The parents of one of the injured teens, who suffered debilitating brain injuries, sued Couch's family for $2 million.
Three hours after the crash, tests showed that Couch had a blood-alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit. Couch's vehicle also struck a parked car, which then slid into another vehicle headed in the opposite direction.
Eric Boyles, Hollie's husband and Shelby's father, felt the judge had been far too easy on Couch and angrily spoke out against how Couch was treated. The message the judge sent is all wrong, he said.
"The primary message has to absolutely be that money and privilege can't buy justice in this country," he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Money and privilege can't buy justice in this country.” Utter horseshit! Couch killed four people and injured nine others in a drunken driving crash. His attorneys argued that because of his affluent upbringing, Couch was unaware of the consequences of his behavior. The rich brat should have received a long term in prison, but because of his family’s wealth, he was sentenced only to probation, thereby proving that justice is for sale.
As for the Affluenza defense, I think Dan White's far-fetched Twinkie defense for the 1978 murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone was a lot more plausible.
CNN
December 18, 2015
A Texas sheriff says he has a message for a teenager who's now missing two years after getting probation for a drunken driving crash that killed four people, and for the mother who may be with him.
"You can run, but you're always going to be looking over your shoulder," Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said Thursday. "We're not going to give up. We're going to come after you. We're going to find you, wherever you are."
The FBI and U.S. marshals have now joined local authorities searching for Ethan Couch, Anderson said.
Couch made national news two years ago when he was sentenced to probation after his lawyers coined an infamous defense strategy, arguing that the teen was a victim of "affluenza" and describing him as a rich kid who was less culpable because his parents didn't set limits for him.
A warrant has been issued for the teen to be taken into custody after his probation officer couldn't reach him this week. His apparent disappearance came after a video allegedly showed him at a party where alcohol was being consumed, authorities said.
Word of the search for Couch has reignited controversy over the case.
In a statement, Mothers Against Drunk Driving expressed "outrage and disbelief" that the teen has not paid for his crime and called for everyone to be on the lookout as police try to track down Couch.
"Four people were hit and killed, and no one was held responsible," Colleen Sheehey-Church, MADD's national president, said in the statement.
"This is egregious. 'Affluenza' aside, Ethan Couch appears to show blatant disregard for the law, and he must be held accountable. The families impacted will never have their loved ones back; Ethan Couch must have consequences for his actions."
Lawyers: Mother is also missing
Couch's probation officer couldn't reach him this week, his lawyers told CNN. Couch's mother, with whom the 18-year-old had been living, is also missing, said attorneys Scott Brown and William Reagan.
Under the terms of his probation, Couch isn't supposed to lose contact with his probation officer, his lawyers said.
Their apparent disappearance comes shortly after the video of Couch at a party turned up on social media, CNN affiliate KTVT reported.
When asked to confirm Couch's attendance at the event, his attorneys told CNN's sister network HLN they "are aware that the probation authorities and/or the District Attorney's office are conducting an investigation to determine if Ethan has violated any of the terms and conditions of his probation. It would not be prudent for us to make any further statement on Ethan's behalf until the investigations are concluded and it is determined what, if any, action will be taken against him."
Anderson told CNN's "AC360" he's worried Couch and his mother could have fled the United States.
"They have the money. They have the ability to disappear, and I'm fearing that they have gone a long way and may even be out of the country," he said.
Jail time possible if probation terms violated
Couch's attorneys argued in 2013 that his parents, because they spoiled him, were partly to blame for the crash on a road in Burleson, south of Fort Worth.
Lawyer blasts media for 'affluenza' focus
Prosecutors had asked for 20 years behind bars, but a Tarrant County juvenile court judge sentenced Couch to a decade of probation. Couch was ordered into long-term mental health treatment, away from his parents' influence.
After his recent disappearance, a court ordered Couch detained, according to his lawyers. At the time of his conviction, prosecutors said Couch could face up to 10 years of incarceration if he violated the terms of his probation.
A psychologist testified in court that Couch, who was 16 at the time, suffered from "affluenza."
The approach was met with widespread outrage and disdain, and the term "affluenza" was widely mocked.
Drunken crash
On the night of June 15, 2013, Couch and some friends stole beer from a Walmart.
That same evening Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby left their home to help Breanna Mitchell, whose SUV had broken down by the side of a road. Brian Jennings, a youth pastor, was driving past and also stopped to help.
Couch plowed into them, killing them all. The crash threw two passengers out of the bed of Couch's truck, injuring both severely.
The parents of one of the injured teens, who suffered debilitating brain injuries, sued Couch's family for $2 million.
Three hours after the crash, tests showed that Couch had a blood-alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit. Couch's vehicle also struck a parked car, which then slid into another vehicle headed in the opposite direction.
Eric Boyles, Hollie's husband and Shelby's father, felt the judge had been far too easy on Couch and angrily spoke out against how Couch was treated. The message the judge sent is all wrong, he said.
"The primary message has to absolutely be that money and privilege can't buy justice in this country," he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Money and privilege can't buy justice in this country.” Utter horseshit! Couch killed four people and injured nine others in a drunken driving crash. His attorneys argued that because of his affluent upbringing, Couch was unaware of the consequences of his behavior. The rich brat should have received a long term in prison, but because of his family’s wealth, he was sentenced only to probation, thereby proving that justice is for sale.
As for the Affluenza defense, I think Dan White's far-fetched Twinkie defense for the 1978 murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone was a lot more plausible.
BACKLASH OVER LESSON ABOUT ISLAM LEADS TO VIRGINIA SCHOOL CLOSINGS
"There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah" infuriated Christian parents in the Augusta County School District
AP/CBS
December 17, 2015
GREENVILLE, Va. -- Extra-curricular activities have been cancelled tonight and schools will be closed Friday in a western Virginia school district after the district received "voluminous phone calls and electronic mail" over a high school teacher's use of an Arabic statement in a geography lesson.
According to Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher, news of Riverheads High School teacher Cheryl LaPorte's lesson on Friday, Dec. 11, brought a deluge of "profane" and "hateful" messages from around the country.
Those messages, he said, led to the decision to lock down Riverheads High School Wednesday and Thursday -- meaning "all doors were locked and monitored" once students had entered the buildings. Security was also increased at other county schools, Fisher said.
The volume of those unwanted communications continued to increase, according to the Augusta Public Schools website, which said that "based on the recommendations of law enforcement and the Augusta County School Board" and out of "an abundance of caution," the county's schools and offices would be closed on Friday.
Some parents were upset after learning that Riverheads High School teacher Cheryl LaPorte had students in her class complete an assignment that involved practicing calligraphy and writing a statement in Arabic.
The statement translated to: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah."
During a forum Tuesday night at the Good News Ministries church in Greenville, parents discussed the lesson and some expressed outrage over what they called indoctrination.
Kimberly Herndon, an Augusta County parent who organized the event, said she didn't want a false doctrine spoken in schools.
"She gave up the Lord's time," Herndon said of LaPorte. "She gave it up and gave it to Mohammed."
Other parents at the forum called for LaPorte's termination. In response, Augusta County Superintendent Eric Bond said in a news release that when students learn about a geographic region, they also study its religion and language.
"The students were presented with the statement to demonstrate the complex artistry of the written language used in the Middle East, and were asked to attempt to copy it in order to give the students an idea of the artistic complexity of the calligraphy," Bond said.
He added the lessons were not an attempt at indoctrination. Bond did not answer questions about whether LaPorte was disciplined. School officials have not indicated any changes they plan to make with the curriculum.
The Augusta Public Schools website said "there has been no specific threat of harm to students, schools and school offices" and that "no lesson was designed to promote a religious viewpoint or change any student's religious belief."
"Although students will continue to learn about world religions as required by the state Board of Education and the Commonwealth's Standards of Learning, a different, non-religious sample of Arabic calligraphy will be used in the future," it said.
AP/CBS
December 17, 2015
GREENVILLE, Va. -- Extra-curricular activities have been cancelled tonight and schools will be closed Friday in a western Virginia school district after the district received "voluminous phone calls and electronic mail" over a high school teacher's use of an Arabic statement in a geography lesson.
According to Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher, news of Riverheads High School teacher Cheryl LaPorte's lesson on Friday, Dec. 11, brought a deluge of "profane" and "hateful" messages from around the country.
Those messages, he said, led to the decision to lock down Riverheads High School Wednesday and Thursday -- meaning "all doors were locked and monitored" once students had entered the buildings. Security was also increased at other county schools, Fisher said.
The volume of those unwanted communications continued to increase, according to the Augusta Public Schools website, which said that "based on the recommendations of law enforcement and the Augusta County School Board" and out of "an abundance of caution," the county's schools and offices would be closed on Friday.
Some parents were upset after learning that Riverheads High School teacher Cheryl LaPorte had students in her class complete an assignment that involved practicing calligraphy and writing a statement in Arabic.
The statement translated to: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah."
During a forum Tuesday night at the Good News Ministries church in Greenville, parents discussed the lesson and some expressed outrage over what they called indoctrination.
Kimberly Herndon, an Augusta County parent who organized the event, said she didn't want a false doctrine spoken in schools.
"She gave up the Lord's time," Herndon said of LaPorte. "She gave it up and gave it to Mohammed."
Other parents at the forum called for LaPorte's termination. In response, Augusta County Superintendent Eric Bond said in a news release that when students learn about a geographic region, they also study its religion and language.
"The students were presented with the statement to demonstrate the complex artistry of the written language used in the Middle East, and were asked to attempt to copy it in order to give the students an idea of the artistic complexity of the calligraphy," Bond said.
He added the lessons were not an attempt at indoctrination. Bond did not answer questions about whether LaPorte was disciplined. School officials have not indicated any changes they plan to make with the curriculum.
The Augusta Public Schools website said "there has been no specific threat of harm to students, schools and school offices" and that "no lesson was designed to promote a religious viewpoint or change any student's religious belief."
"Although students will continue to learn about world religions as required by the state Board of Education and the Commonwealth's Standards of Learning, a different, non-religious sample of Arabic calligraphy will be used in the future," it said.
Friday, December 18, 2015
LASO BLAMED FOR RISE IN ACCIDENTAL GUNSHOTS BY DEPUTIES
Unintentional discharges of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department's service weapon have gone up since the agency switched from the Beretta 92F to the Smith & Wesson M&P
By Matt Hamilton
Los Angeles Times
December 16, 2015
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department failed to properly train deputies before equipping them with a new type of handgun, contributing to a dramatic rise in accidental shootings that continues to put officers and the public at risk, the agency's watchdog said Wednesday.
In addition to singling out inadequate training, a report issued by the department's inspector general faulted deputies for violating basic firearm safety rules and making mistakes when using a new light attached to the gun, the Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm.
The weapon lacks a safety lever and requires less pressure to pull the trigger than the previous department-issued handgun, the Beretta 92F.
In 2014, the second year after the new handgun began replacing the Berettas among sworn deputies, the department saw 19 accidental gunshots in the field, a 500% increase compared with 2012, the report said.
A Times story published in June highlighted the increase in accidental gunshots by deputies since the adoption of the new handgun.
The inspector general found that the department's eight-hour training course for deputies issued the Smith & Wesson firearm was “insufficient to overcome old habits” learned from using the Beretta.
The report said sheriff's officials should consider at least doubling the hours of training and conducting internal affairs investigations into each accidental discharge.
“There is a continued risk that either [sheriff's] employees or civilians may be seriously wounded or killed by an unintended discharge,” the 59-page report concluded.
A few deputies have been wounded in accidental shootings since the new firearm was introduced. No bystanders or suspects have been injured.
So far in 2015, there have been seven accidental gunshots by deputies working in the field, compared with nine in 2013. The department saw only three accidental discharges in 2012, the report said.
The report said the Sheriff’s Department lacked clear policies for evaluating and testing equipment. The Smith & Wesson M&P was purchased without a competitive bid, the inspector general said.
The report also questioned the selection of a light that is mounted on the firearm. Sheriff's officials, the report said, have recommended that deputies use a switch on the gun's handle to activate the light, but some deputies have mistakenly pulled the trigger when they intended to turn the light on.
The Sheriff’s Department began training new recruits with the Smith & Wesson firearm in 2011 and allowed sworn deputies to choose whether to swap their existing handgun for the M&P. Those who chose the new weapon had to go through the department's training program.
The Smith & Wesson handgun was chosen because it has an adjustable grip and needs the same level of pressure for successive gunshots -- a feature that sheriff's officials decided would improve shooting accuracy among recruits, especially women, the report said.
The heavier Beretta has a larger grip, requires about 12 pounds of pressure on the trigger for the first shot and four pounds of pressure for every shot thereafter.
The inspector general credited the Sheriff’s Department for trying to solve the problem by requiring deputies to pass additional marksmanship tests.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Additional marksmanship tests are not going to solve the problem of accidental discharges. The officers need an extensive familiarization course for the S&W pistol and intensive training in how to avoid unintentional discharges.
Why the switch to S&W instead of Glock? The S&W rep must have given more goodies to the LASO decision makers than the competing Glock rep.
By Matt Hamilton
Los Angeles Times
December 16, 2015
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department failed to properly train deputies before equipping them with a new type of handgun, contributing to a dramatic rise in accidental shootings that continues to put officers and the public at risk, the agency's watchdog said Wednesday.
In addition to singling out inadequate training, a report issued by the department's inspector general faulted deputies for violating basic firearm safety rules and making mistakes when using a new light attached to the gun, the Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm.
The weapon lacks a safety lever and requires less pressure to pull the trigger than the previous department-issued handgun, the Beretta 92F.
In 2014, the second year after the new handgun began replacing the Berettas among sworn deputies, the department saw 19 accidental gunshots in the field, a 500% increase compared with 2012, the report said.
A Times story published in June highlighted the increase in accidental gunshots by deputies since the adoption of the new handgun.
The inspector general found that the department's eight-hour training course for deputies issued the Smith & Wesson firearm was “insufficient to overcome old habits” learned from using the Beretta.
The report said sheriff's officials should consider at least doubling the hours of training and conducting internal affairs investigations into each accidental discharge.
“There is a continued risk that either [sheriff's] employees or civilians may be seriously wounded or killed by an unintended discharge,” the 59-page report concluded.
A few deputies have been wounded in accidental shootings since the new firearm was introduced. No bystanders or suspects have been injured.
So far in 2015, there have been seven accidental gunshots by deputies working in the field, compared with nine in 2013. The department saw only three accidental discharges in 2012, the report said.
The report said the Sheriff’s Department lacked clear policies for evaluating and testing equipment. The Smith & Wesson M&P was purchased without a competitive bid, the inspector general said.
The report also questioned the selection of a light that is mounted on the firearm. Sheriff's officials, the report said, have recommended that deputies use a switch on the gun's handle to activate the light, but some deputies have mistakenly pulled the trigger when they intended to turn the light on.
The Sheriff’s Department began training new recruits with the Smith & Wesson firearm in 2011 and allowed sworn deputies to choose whether to swap their existing handgun for the M&P. Those who chose the new weapon had to go through the department's training program.
The Smith & Wesson handgun was chosen because it has an adjustable grip and needs the same level of pressure for successive gunshots -- a feature that sheriff's officials decided would improve shooting accuracy among recruits, especially women, the report said.
The heavier Beretta has a larger grip, requires about 12 pounds of pressure on the trigger for the first shot and four pounds of pressure for every shot thereafter.
The inspector general credited the Sheriff’s Department for trying to solve the problem by requiring deputies to pass additional marksmanship tests.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Additional marksmanship tests are not going to solve the problem of accidental discharges. The officers need an extensive familiarization course for the S&W pistol and intensive training in how to avoid unintentional discharges.
Why the switch to S&W instead of Glock? The S&W rep must have given more goodies to the LASO decision makers than the competing Glock rep.
SUPPORTERS OF FORMER UNDERSHERIFF PAUL TANAKA AWARDED $800,000 FOR ALLEGED RETALIATION
Ranking officers who backed Tanala’s bid to run for sheriff were punished with ‘freeway therapy’ transfers
By Cindy Chang
Los Angeles Times
December 16, 2015
Shortly after going on a fishing trip with then-Undersheriff Paul Tanaka in June 2013, Capt. Chuck Antuna was transferred to a job that increased his daily commute by hundreds of miles.
In the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, such a transfer is commonly known as “freeway therapy.”
Antuna sued the county and then-Sheriff Lee Baca, alleging that Baca transferred him because of his support for Tanaka, who planned to run for sheriff against Baca.
On Tuesday, Antuna was among eight sheriff’s officials awarded a total of $800,000 by a federal jury that agreed they were targeted with retaliation for supporting Tanaka.
Some of that money -- $45,000 per plaintiff – will come out of Baca’s own pocket as punitive damages, according to Brad Gage, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The rest of the judgment consisted of emotional distress awards to each plaintiff. No economic damages were awarded.
“This is a case about power – about a man who wanted to keep his power as sheriff of Los Angeles County,” Gage said in closing arguments. “Absolute power can corrupt.”
Reached by phone after the verdict, Baca said he did not retaliate against the plaintiffs and that there were other reasons for the transfers.
“That’s the professional way to do things,” he said. “All the professional standards of the department were met.”
The trial provided a look back at the Baca-Tanaka era, where loyalty was prized and Tanaka bonded with his inner circle by smoking cigars on a private patio. Current and former top officials, including Baca, Tanaka and Interim Sheriff John Scott, testified in court or in recorded statements.
One plaintiff, Capt. Robert Tubbs, was allegedly the target of an internal investigation for smoking a cigar on duty.
Such an investigation would be “a little childish,” Baca said in videotaped testimony.
Among the plaintiffs were three former Aero Bureau officials who were transferred after a controversy involving spare helicopter parts obtained from the federal government.
After the new sheriff, Jim McDonnell, took office, Antuna was transferred back downtown and now works at Men’s Central Jail. Another plaintiff, Kevin Hebert, was recently promoted from captain to commander.
Tanaka was forced into early retirement by Baca, who himself stepped down abruptly in January 2014. Tanaka then ran against McDonnell for sheriff, losing by a wide margin.
In May, Tanaka was hit with criminal charges in a case that has resulted in convictions of eight sheriff’s officials for allegedly obstructing a federal investigation into allegations of abuse and corruption by deputies in the county jails. He is scheduled to stand trial in March.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This reminds me of a NYPD retaliation years ago … but one that failed in its objective.
A New York cop walked a beat which included city hall. He made sure he ticketed all the cars that were parked in the no-parking spots. Most of the illegally parked cars belonged to high ranking city officials or to some of the city’s bigwigs. He was ordered to stop ticketing the cars. However, he continued on his merry way ticketing all the illegally parked cars. Then the top brass lowered the boom.
The cop was assigned to a beat in a borough furthest from his home. And to add insult to injury, his beat was a garbage dump. Honest to God, they assigned him to foot-patrol a garbage dump. Undaunted by his obvious punishment, the cop returned to city hall on his days off and continued ticketing all the illegally parked cars.
By Cindy Chang
Los Angeles Times
December 16, 2015
Shortly after going on a fishing trip with then-Undersheriff Paul Tanaka in June 2013, Capt. Chuck Antuna was transferred to a job that increased his daily commute by hundreds of miles.
In the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, such a transfer is commonly known as “freeway therapy.”
Antuna sued the county and then-Sheriff Lee Baca, alleging that Baca transferred him because of his support for Tanaka, who planned to run for sheriff against Baca.
On Tuesday, Antuna was among eight sheriff’s officials awarded a total of $800,000 by a federal jury that agreed they were targeted with retaliation for supporting Tanaka.
Some of that money -- $45,000 per plaintiff – will come out of Baca’s own pocket as punitive damages, according to Brad Gage, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The rest of the judgment consisted of emotional distress awards to each plaintiff. No economic damages were awarded.
“This is a case about power – about a man who wanted to keep his power as sheriff of Los Angeles County,” Gage said in closing arguments. “Absolute power can corrupt.”
Reached by phone after the verdict, Baca said he did not retaliate against the plaintiffs and that there were other reasons for the transfers.
“That’s the professional way to do things,” he said. “All the professional standards of the department were met.”
The trial provided a look back at the Baca-Tanaka era, where loyalty was prized and Tanaka bonded with his inner circle by smoking cigars on a private patio. Current and former top officials, including Baca, Tanaka and Interim Sheriff John Scott, testified in court or in recorded statements.
One plaintiff, Capt. Robert Tubbs, was allegedly the target of an internal investigation for smoking a cigar on duty.
Such an investigation would be “a little childish,” Baca said in videotaped testimony.
Among the plaintiffs were three former Aero Bureau officials who were transferred after a controversy involving spare helicopter parts obtained from the federal government.
After the new sheriff, Jim McDonnell, took office, Antuna was transferred back downtown and now works at Men’s Central Jail. Another plaintiff, Kevin Hebert, was recently promoted from captain to commander.
Tanaka was forced into early retirement by Baca, who himself stepped down abruptly in January 2014. Tanaka then ran against McDonnell for sheriff, losing by a wide margin.
In May, Tanaka was hit with criminal charges in a case that has resulted in convictions of eight sheriff’s officials for allegedly obstructing a federal investigation into allegations of abuse and corruption by deputies in the county jails. He is scheduled to stand trial in March.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This reminds me of a NYPD retaliation years ago … but one that failed in its objective.
A New York cop walked a beat which included city hall. He made sure he ticketed all the cars that were parked in the no-parking spots. Most of the illegally parked cars belonged to high ranking city officials or to some of the city’s bigwigs. He was ordered to stop ticketing the cars. However, he continued on his merry way ticketing all the illegally parked cars. Then the top brass lowered the boom.
The cop was assigned to a beat in a borough furthest from his home. And to add insult to injury, his beat was a garbage dump. Honest to God, they assigned him to foot-patrol a garbage dump. Undaunted by his obvious punishment, the cop returned to city hall on his days off and continued ticketing all the illegally parked cars.
ALARMING ABUSE AS OPPOSED TO MUNDANE ABUSE
By Bob Walsh
Assuming the Associated Press got it right (a sometimes unwarranted assumption) there is a “culture of racism” and a “code of silence” about it at the “isolated” prison known as High Deseret State Prison (which is right next to the somewhat older prison, the California Conservation Center, so maybe it isn’t so isolated after all) just outside of Susanville. The article quotes a report from the Inspector General’s Office. (Wasn’t there a pretty good Danny Kaye movie by that name about a million years ago?)
The California Correctional Peace Officer’s Association (CCPOA), the union that represents rank-and-file peace officers within the system, has said they believe that the IG is operating a “burn a cop a week” program of heavy-handed intimidation. The Prison Law Office (PLO) thinks the IG is doing absolutely wonderful work. Senator Loni Hancock, a psychopathic liberal idiot from Berkeley, says the prison culture is in desperate need of reform.
The IG wants to make it harder for “guards” to access the public data base that identifies sex offenders so that they can’t pick on them. Gee, I don’t see any trouble with that.
Dr. Jeffrey Beard (and you had better remember to call him Doctor when you speak to him), who is on his way out the door [as head of the state corrections system], spouted the usual empty-suit staff-weenie mantra which nobody takes seriously.
Clicking the link below will take you to the story mentioned.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/article50083940.html
Assuming the Associated Press got it right (a sometimes unwarranted assumption) there is a “culture of racism” and a “code of silence” about it at the “isolated” prison known as High Deseret State Prison (which is right next to the somewhat older prison, the California Conservation Center, so maybe it isn’t so isolated after all) just outside of Susanville. The article quotes a report from the Inspector General’s Office. (Wasn’t there a pretty good Danny Kaye movie by that name about a million years ago?)
The California Correctional Peace Officer’s Association (CCPOA), the union that represents rank-and-file peace officers within the system, has said they believe that the IG is operating a “burn a cop a week” program of heavy-handed intimidation. The Prison Law Office (PLO) thinks the IG is doing absolutely wonderful work. Senator Loni Hancock, a psychopathic liberal idiot from Berkeley, says the prison culture is in desperate need of reform.
The IG wants to make it harder for “guards” to access the public data base that identifies sex offenders so that they can’t pick on them. Gee, I don’t see any trouble with that.
Dr. Jeffrey Beard (and you had better remember to call him Doctor when you speak to him), who is on his way out the door [as head of the state corrections system], spouted the usual empty-suit staff-weenie mantra which nobody takes seriously.
Clicking the link below will take you to the story mentioned.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/article50083940.html
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