What a piece of science fiction nonsense! An attorney (i.e. liar) gets together with Sirhan Sirhan and they concoct up a 'Manchurian Candidate' story that he was brainwashed by a girl in a mind control plot to shoot RFK. Then they find some educated idiot at Harvard University that Sirhan cons by pretending to be hypnotized.
And what about the witnesses ‘who talked of seeing such a female running from the hotel shouting, "We shot Kennedy."’ That’s easily explained. During all the turmoil, what they saw was a terrified woman running and screaming, “They shot Kennedy.”
CONVICTED RFK ASSASSIN SAYS GIRL MANIPULATED HIM
By Linda Deutsch, AP Special Correspondent
Houston Chronicle
April 28, 2011
LOS ANGELES — Convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan was manipulated by a seductive girl in a mind control plot to shoot Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his bullets did not kill the presidential candidate, lawyers for Sirhan said in new legal papers.
The documents filed this week in federal court detail extensive interviews with Sirhan during the past three years, some done while he was under hypnosis.
The papers point to a mysterious girl in a polka-dot dress as the controller who led Sirhan to fire a gun in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel. But the documents suggest a second person shot and killed Kennedy while using Sirhan as a diversion.
For the first time, Sirhan said under hypnosis that on a cue from the girl he went into "range mode" believing he was at a firing range and seeing circles with targets in front of his eyes.
"I thought that I was at the range more than I was actually shooting at any person, let alone Bobby Kennedy," Sirhan was quoted as saying during interviews with Daniel Brown, a Harvard University professor and expert in trauma memory and hypnosis. He interviewed Sirhan for 60 hours with and without hypnosis, according to the legal brief.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney, said prosecutors were unaware of the legal filing and could not comment.
The story of the girl has been a lingering theme in accounts of the events just after midnight on June 5, 1968, when Kennedy was gunned down in the hotel pantry after claiming victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
Witnesses talked of seeing such a female running from the hotel shouting, "We shot Kennedy." But she was never identified, and amid the chaos of the scene, descriptions were conflicting.
Dan Moldea, author of the 1995 book, "The Killing Of Robert F. Kennedy," said he interviewed Sirhan then and concluded he was the lone gunman who shot Kennedy.
He acknowledged the account of Sirhan seeing circle targets was new.
"I think Sirhan's new theory about what happened is nonsense," Moldea said. "Sirhan was lying from the outset and he continues to lie, and his attorneys are enabling him to continue that lie."
Through the years, Sirhan has claimed no memory of shooting Kennedy and said in the recent interviews that his presence at the hotel was an accident, not a planned destination.
Under hypnosis, he remembered meeting the girl that night and becoming smitten with her. He said she led him to the pantry.
"I am trying to figure out how to hit on her ... That's all that I can think about," he said in one interview cited in the documents. "I was fascinated with her looks .... She never said much. It was very erotic. I was consumed by her. She was a seductress with an unspoken unavailability."
Brown was hired by Sirhan's lawyer William F. Pepper.
Pepper's associate, attorney Laurie Dusek, attended the interviews. and Brown said in the documents they both took verbatim notes because prison officials would not let them tape record nearly all the sessions.
Sirhan maintained in the hypnotic interviews that the mystery girl touched him or "pinched" him on the shoulder just before he fired then spun him around to see people coming through the pantry door.
"Then I was on the target range ... a flashback to the shooting range ... I didn't know that I had a gun," Sirhan said.
Under what Brown called the condition of hypnotic free recall, he said Sirhan remembered seeing the flash of a second gun at the time of the assassination. Without hypnosis, he said, Sirhan could not remember that shot.
Pepper, a New York lawyer with an international practice, previously tried to prove that James Earl Ray was not the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr.
The lawyer said he is convinced that Sirhan was a victim of a mind control project such as those used by the CIA in the 1960s. He is seeking an evidentiary hearing to exonerate Sirhan in Kennedy's killing.
Dusek said in an interview that Sirhan was hypnotized for perhaps 30 percent of the interviews, most of which had to be done through a glass partition with Brown talking to him on a phone.
Only when Sirhan was moved from the state prison at Corcoran to his current location at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga were they allowed face-to-face visits, she said, and a few of those were recorded.
Other portions of the motion allege suppression of ballistics evidence and the autopsy report, and claim ineffective assistance of counsel. It contends previous lawyers for Sirhan accepted from the start that he was the lone shooter, settled on a defense of diminished capacity and did not seek other avenues of defense.
During the trial, Sirhan tried to confess to killing Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought," but the judge rejected the blurted statement.
A large portion of the new documents seek to prove the bullets that hit Kennedy came from a different direction than the spot where Sirhan was standing. The papers do not name any other possible shooter.
Sirhan was denied parole in March by a panel that said he had not shown sufficient remorse for the killing.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
PALESTINIANS CHOOSE WAR OVER PEACE WITH ISRAEL
Responding to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority's peace deal with Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced, "The PA must choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility for peace with both."
Here is an excerpt from ‘Netanyahu’s Time To Chose,’ a column by Caroline Glick in the April 29 issue of Jewish World Review:
Netanyahu's statement is funny because it is completely absurd. The PA has chosen.
The PA made the choice in 2000 when it rejected Israel's offer of peace and Palestinian statehood and joined forces with Hamas to wage a terror war against Israel.
The PA made the choice in 2005 again when it responded to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza with a tenfold increase in the number of rockets and missiles it fired on Israeli civilian targets in the Negev.
The Palestinians made the choice in 2006, when they elected Hamas to rule over them.
They made the choice in March 2007 when Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal.
The PA made the choice in 2008 when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert's offer of statehood and peace.
The PA made the choice in 2010 when it refused to reinstate peace negotiations with Netanyahu; began peace negotiations with Hamas and escalated its plan to establish an independent state without peace with Israel.
Now the PA has again made the choice by signing the newest peace deal with Hamas.
It is a national tragedy that after more than a decade of the PA choosing war with Israel and peace with Hamas, Israel's leaders are still incapable of accepting reality and walking away [from the peace process]. It is a tragedy that Israel's leader cannot find the courage to say that the peace process is really a deadly serious war process whose end is Israel's destruction, and that Israel is done with playing along.
Here is an excerpt from ‘Netanyahu’s Time To Chose,’ a column by Caroline Glick in the April 29 issue of Jewish World Review:
Netanyahu's statement is funny because it is completely absurd. The PA has chosen.
The PA made the choice in 2000 when it rejected Israel's offer of peace and Palestinian statehood and joined forces with Hamas to wage a terror war against Israel.
The PA made the choice in 2005 again when it responded to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza with a tenfold increase in the number of rockets and missiles it fired on Israeli civilian targets in the Negev.
The Palestinians made the choice in 2006, when they elected Hamas to rule over them.
They made the choice in March 2007 when Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal.
The PA made the choice in 2008 when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert's offer of statehood and peace.
The PA made the choice in 2010 when it refused to reinstate peace negotiations with Netanyahu; began peace negotiations with Hamas and escalated its plan to establish an independent state without peace with Israel.
Now the PA has again made the choice by signing the newest peace deal with Hamas.
It is a national tragedy that after more than a decade of the PA choosing war with Israel and peace with Hamas, Israel's leaders are still incapable of accepting reality and walking away [from the peace process]. It is a tragedy that Israel's leader cannot find the courage to say that the peace process is really a deadly serious war process whose end is Israel's destruction, and that Israel is done with playing along.
NO PLACE FOR A GOVERNOR OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Be careful what you wish for! The Egyptian people overthrew the Mubarak government as the Obama administration wished they would and look at what we are getting.
WHOSE REVOLUTION IS IT ANYWAY?
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
politicalmavens.com
April 29, 2011
The “freedom revolution” in Egypt has taken yet another ominous turn as “tens of thousands of Egyptians led by hard-line Islamists escalated their protests Friday over the appointment of a Coptic Christian governor in southern Egypt,” Association Press reported.
This, the report says, “deepens the mistrust between religious communities during the bumpy aftermath of Egypt’s revolution.”
This is disappointing but no surprise.
I suspected from the start that all the optimism the West has been expressing over the upheaval in the Middle East was premature at best and misguided at worst. I doubted then and still do that democracy and Islam can coexist in harmony. There is little historical basis for optimism.
Especially aggravating, is that while the world is busy repeating “Zionism is racism” as some sort of twisted mantra, and the United Nations continues finding ways of condemning Israel for crimes against humanity in its efforts to defend itself, the Islamists are in fact violently doing away with anything not Muslim in the Arab world with nearly total impunity.
“More than a week of protests seeking to unseat the governor of Qena province are testing the ability of Egypt’s transitional military rulers and the interim government to handle an Islamic movement capable of rallying large numbers behind its hard-line agenda without jeopardizing the future of a democratic Egypt,” A.P. reports. That’s PC media-speak for “the Islamo-Fascists – read Iran – are already making their position clear.”
A case in point, the newly appointed Christian governor of this particular province was the subject of what’s described and the largest demonstration “so far,” demanding he be replaced by a Muslim governor. This was timed to coincide with Good Friday in a country with some 10 million Christians.
At least for now.
We would be well to remember that some 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt in 1948 and only a 100 remain today.
“The bulk of the protesters were driven by a sectarian cause, believing it is not proper for a Christian to govern Muslims, who make up the majority of the population,” the story says.
Are these the same Muslims rallying the world against Israel, where people of all faiths live, worship and serve in government, by calling it a racist, apartheid state?
Gosh, I think it is.
Can you say, “blatant hypocrisy?”
Coptic Christians make up some 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million population “and complain of discrimination,” the story says. A grievance with some merit, considering the fact that a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Coptic church in Alexandria on Jan. 1, killing 21 people and injuring 100 others. There also have been protests against the Orthodox Christian church and deadly clashes between Christians and Muslims last month, following the burning of a Christian church, according to reports.
All this managed to transpire without inspiring worldwide condemnation and the demand for the destruction of the Egyptian or Islamist entity.
Interesting, but, evidently not enough to get the United States or any other Western nation involved.
Egyptians being killed by their own government is different from Libyans being killed by their own government.
I guess.
And so, obviously, are the hundreds being killed in Syria by their own government.
A.P. reported that at least 49 people, including a child, were killed Friday in an uprising against “President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime.”
The regular Friday protests, “have become weekly bloodbaths as security forces try to crush the demonstrations,” the story says, but despite the situation on the ground sounding remarkably similar to what was coming out of Libya before the world rushed in to help the “rebels,” no one is making similar noises here.
I wonder why.
More than 250 people have reportedly been killed over five weeks in Syria, A.P. reports, without so much as a “Let’s Roll!” from the West.
There are similar deaths mounting in Yemen, which are also going deplored but unanswered by the West.
Yemeni authorities are now arresting defecting soldiers and military officers as “a brutal crackdown on more than two months of protests – including deadly sniper attacks – triggered a wave of key figures to abandon President Ali Abdullah Saleh,” A.P. reported.
Two people were killed in new protests Friday, including a 15-year-old who was struck in the eye by a bullet and bled to death, according to the report. Yemen’s government crackdown has killed nearly 130 protesters, according to Yemeni rights groups.
Where are the U.N. calls for a war crimes investigation? Why hasn’t the West rushed to the rescue?
And even in Pakistan, our good friend and ally, they are burying the latest person murdered for being Christian and for that alone.
But Zionism, not Islamism, is racist.
Right.
On Friday, A.P. reported “the body of Pakistan’s most recent Christian martyr is buried in its graveyard,” murdered recently by “Islamist militants,” otherwise known, in the pre-PC universe, as terrorists.
“You live with fear,” said one Christian math teacher. “You can’t express yourself."
WHOSE REVOLUTION IS IT ANYWAY?
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
politicalmavens.com
April 29, 2011
The “freedom revolution” in Egypt has taken yet another ominous turn as “tens of thousands of Egyptians led by hard-line Islamists escalated their protests Friday over the appointment of a Coptic Christian governor in southern Egypt,” Association Press reported.
This, the report says, “deepens the mistrust between religious communities during the bumpy aftermath of Egypt’s revolution.”
This is disappointing but no surprise.
I suspected from the start that all the optimism the West has been expressing over the upheaval in the Middle East was premature at best and misguided at worst. I doubted then and still do that democracy and Islam can coexist in harmony. There is little historical basis for optimism.
Especially aggravating, is that while the world is busy repeating “Zionism is racism” as some sort of twisted mantra, and the United Nations continues finding ways of condemning Israel for crimes against humanity in its efforts to defend itself, the Islamists are in fact violently doing away with anything not Muslim in the Arab world with nearly total impunity.
“More than a week of protests seeking to unseat the governor of Qena province are testing the ability of Egypt’s transitional military rulers and the interim government to handle an Islamic movement capable of rallying large numbers behind its hard-line agenda without jeopardizing the future of a democratic Egypt,” A.P. reports. That’s PC media-speak for “the Islamo-Fascists – read Iran – are already making their position clear.”
A case in point, the newly appointed Christian governor of this particular province was the subject of what’s described and the largest demonstration “so far,” demanding he be replaced by a Muslim governor. This was timed to coincide with Good Friday in a country with some 10 million Christians.
At least for now.
We would be well to remember that some 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt in 1948 and only a 100 remain today.
“The bulk of the protesters were driven by a sectarian cause, believing it is not proper for a Christian to govern Muslims, who make up the majority of the population,” the story says.
Are these the same Muslims rallying the world against Israel, where people of all faiths live, worship and serve in government, by calling it a racist, apartheid state?
Gosh, I think it is.
Can you say, “blatant hypocrisy?”
Coptic Christians make up some 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million population “and complain of discrimination,” the story says. A grievance with some merit, considering the fact that a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Coptic church in Alexandria on Jan. 1, killing 21 people and injuring 100 others. There also have been protests against the Orthodox Christian church and deadly clashes between Christians and Muslims last month, following the burning of a Christian church, according to reports.
All this managed to transpire without inspiring worldwide condemnation and the demand for the destruction of the Egyptian or Islamist entity.
Interesting, but, evidently not enough to get the United States or any other Western nation involved.
Egyptians being killed by their own government is different from Libyans being killed by their own government.
I guess.
And so, obviously, are the hundreds being killed in Syria by their own government.
A.P. reported that at least 49 people, including a child, were killed Friday in an uprising against “President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime.”
The regular Friday protests, “have become weekly bloodbaths as security forces try to crush the demonstrations,” the story says, but despite the situation on the ground sounding remarkably similar to what was coming out of Libya before the world rushed in to help the “rebels,” no one is making similar noises here.
I wonder why.
More than 250 people have reportedly been killed over five weeks in Syria, A.P. reports, without so much as a “Let’s Roll!” from the West.
There are similar deaths mounting in Yemen, which are also going deplored but unanswered by the West.
Yemeni authorities are now arresting defecting soldiers and military officers as “a brutal crackdown on more than two months of protests – including deadly sniper attacks – triggered a wave of key figures to abandon President Ali Abdullah Saleh,” A.P. reported.
Two people were killed in new protests Friday, including a 15-year-old who was struck in the eye by a bullet and bled to death, according to the report. Yemen’s government crackdown has killed nearly 130 protesters, according to Yemeni rights groups.
Where are the U.N. calls for a war crimes investigation? Why hasn’t the West rushed to the rescue?
And even in Pakistan, our good friend and ally, they are burying the latest person murdered for being Christian and for that alone.
But Zionism, not Islamism, is racist.
Right.
On Friday, A.P. reported “the body of Pakistan’s most recent Christian martyr is buried in its graveyard,” murdered recently by “Islamist militants,” otherwise known, in the pre-PC universe, as terrorists.
“You live with fear,” said one Christian math teacher. “You can’t express yourself."
HELPED POUND THE LAST NAIL INTO HIS COFFIN
An attorney would have told him to keep his mouth shut!
RAY JAMES SAMUEL: INDICTED AFTER TELLING TV REPORTER YEAH, I KILLED MY GIRLFRIEND
By Craig Malisow
Houston Press Hair Balls
April 29, 2011
It's a staple of any TV show or movie involving a high-profile murder case; hell, it's a Law & Order staple: millions of reporters flocking to a perp-walk, shoving microphones in the suspect's face and asking the obligatory "Did you kill your wife/mistress/boss/third-cousin-once-removed?" to which the suspect is supposed to reply with the obligatory "No!"
But accused murderer Roy James Samuel flipped the script when, earlier this month, he felt the perp-walk scenario called for more candor -- and now he's been indicted. When Samuel surrendered himself at the Jefferson County Jail on a charge of killing his ex-girlfriend, KFDM reporter Ron Reynolds shouted out the routine "Did you kill your ex-girlfriend?"
We're guessing he was just waiting for the routine "No!" so he could file his story and go grab a brew, but Samuel instead offered a "Yes." As KFDM reports, Reynolds followed up, natch, with "Why did you do it?"
"Jealous," Samuel said.
"Why were you jealous?"
"Because she left with another man last night after I asked her not to."
We're guessing Samuel would have been indicted anyway -- according to the KFDM story, his dying ex managed to utter her killer's initials before losing consciousness -- but he certainly didn't need to help pound the last nail into his coffin.
We're just looking forward to whatever upcoming L&O franchise is going to rip this one from the headlines and have some middling guest star confessing to a gruesome hatcheting to a reporter (who will be described as a "vulture" by at least one character) while some no-good defense lawyer in a fancy suit moves to exclude the confession from the record.
RAY JAMES SAMUEL: INDICTED AFTER TELLING TV REPORTER YEAH, I KILLED MY GIRLFRIEND
By Craig Malisow
Houston Press Hair Balls
April 29, 2011
It's a staple of any TV show or movie involving a high-profile murder case; hell, it's a Law & Order staple: millions of reporters flocking to a perp-walk, shoving microphones in the suspect's face and asking the obligatory "Did you kill your wife/mistress/boss/third-cousin-once-removed?" to which the suspect is supposed to reply with the obligatory "No!"
But accused murderer Roy James Samuel flipped the script when, earlier this month, he felt the perp-walk scenario called for more candor -- and now he's been indicted. When Samuel surrendered himself at the Jefferson County Jail on a charge of killing his ex-girlfriend, KFDM reporter Ron Reynolds shouted out the routine "Did you kill your ex-girlfriend?"
We're guessing he was just waiting for the routine "No!" so he could file his story and go grab a brew, but Samuel instead offered a "Yes." As KFDM reports, Reynolds followed up, natch, with "Why did you do it?"
"Jealous," Samuel said.
"Why were you jealous?"
"Because she left with another man last night after I asked her not to."
We're guessing Samuel would have been indicted anyway -- according to the KFDM story, his dying ex managed to utter her killer's initials before losing consciousness -- but he certainly didn't need to help pound the last nail into his coffin.
We're just looking forward to whatever upcoming L&O franchise is going to rip this one from the headlines and have some middling guest star confessing to a gruesome hatcheting to a reporter (who will be described as a "vulture" by at least one character) while some no-good defense lawyer in a fancy suit moves to exclude the confession from the record.
Q AND A FOR SENIORS
Q: Where can men over the age of 60 find younger, sexy women who are interested in them?
A: Try a bookstore, under fiction..
Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement. When you're done you'll have a place to live peacefully.
Q: Someone has told me that menopause is mentioned in the bible. Is that true? Where can it be found?
A: Yes. Matthew 14:92: "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way to Egypt .”
Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60-plus year old husband?
A: Tell him you're pregnant.
Q: How can you avoid that terrible curse of the elderly wrinkles?
A: Take off your glasses.
Q: Seriously! What can I do for these Crow's feet and all those wrinkles on my face?
A: Go braless. It will usually pull them out.
Q: Why should 60-plus year old people use valet parking?
A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.
Q: Is it common for 60-plus year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem; Retrieving it is the problem.
Q: As people age, do they sleep More soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.
Q: Where should 60-plus year olds look for eye glasses?
A: On their foreheads.
Q: What is the most common remark made by 60-plus year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: "Gosh, I remember these!"
A: Try a bookstore, under fiction..
Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement. When you're done you'll have a place to live peacefully.
Q: Someone has told me that menopause is mentioned in the bible. Is that true? Where can it be found?
A: Yes. Matthew 14:92: "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way to Egypt .”
Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60-plus year old husband?
A: Tell him you're pregnant.
Q: How can you avoid that terrible curse of the elderly wrinkles?
A: Take off your glasses.
Q: Seriously! What can I do for these Crow's feet and all those wrinkles on my face?
A: Go braless. It will usually pull them out.
Q: Why should 60-plus year old people use valet parking?
A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.
Q: Is it common for 60-plus year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem; Retrieving it is the problem.
Q: As people age, do they sleep More soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.
Q: Where should 60-plus year olds look for eye glasses?
A: On their foreheads.
Q: What is the most common remark made by 60-plus year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: "Gosh, I remember these!"
Friday, April 29, 2011
PAROLEE SHOULD HAVE SPRAYED A GALLON OF FEBREZE
And he should have mopped up the apartment with ‘That's the power of Pine Sol baby’ too.
POLICE: DECOMPOSING BODY IN APT HAD TRAUMA
Associated Press
April 28, 2011
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – A 30-year-old woman whose boyfriend had been living for days with her badly decomposed remains had died of significant physical trauma, authorities said Thursday.
An autopsy showed Heather Stearns suffered multiple injuries, "and many of them had the potential to be life-threatening," said Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark. He declined to elaborate, citing the investigation.
Police have classified her death as a homicide.
Authorities said she likely died more than a week before her corpse was found Tuesday in John Clauer's apartment in Santa Cruz. Police were led to the home after neighbors complained about an unusual odor.
Clark said Stearns and Clauer had a romantic relationship. Neighbors told police they often heard Clauer and Stearns arguing, and that the two were often drunk.
Clark said neighbors indicated the two fought around the first week of April, and Stearns "hadn't been seen since that."
Clauer has not been charged in Stearns' death. He was being held on a no-bail parole hold based on a prior drug conviction, and it was not known if Clauer had retained an attorney.
Officers found the body Tuesday evening after neighbors complained of an unusual smell.
Clauer and Steanrs both had significant history with Santa Cruz police, Clark said. He was arrested previously on drug and alcohol related offenses, though it wasn't clear how much time Clauer had served behind bars.
Stearns had alcohol-and-drug-related offenses dating back to 2002, Clark said.
POLICE: DECOMPOSING BODY IN APT HAD TRAUMA
Associated Press
April 28, 2011
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – A 30-year-old woman whose boyfriend had been living for days with her badly decomposed remains had died of significant physical trauma, authorities said Thursday.
An autopsy showed Heather Stearns suffered multiple injuries, "and many of them had the potential to be life-threatening," said Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark. He declined to elaborate, citing the investigation.
Police have classified her death as a homicide.
Authorities said she likely died more than a week before her corpse was found Tuesday in John Clauer's apartment in Santa Cruz. Police were led to the home after neighbors complained about an unusual odor.
Clark said Stearns and Clauer had a romantic relationship. Neighbors told police they often heard Clauer and Stearns arguing, and that the two were often drunk.
Clark said neighbors indicated the two fought around the first week of April, and Stearns "hadn't been seen since that."
Clauer has not been charged in Stearns' death. He was being held on a no-bail parole hold based on a prior drug conviction, and it was not known if Clauer had retained an attorney.
Officers found the body Tuesday evening after neighbors complained of an unusual smell.
Clauer and Steanrs both had significant history with Santa Cruz police, Clark said. He was arrested previously on drug and alcohol related offenses, though it wasn't clear how much time Clauer had served behind bars.
Stearns had alcohol-and-drug-related offenses dating back to 2002, Clark said.
DONALD THE CARNIVAL BARKER
"I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue. Today I'm very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that no one else has been able to accomplish. Now we have to look at it, we have to see, is it real."
So spoke Donald Trump on Wednesday when he took credit for the White House release of Obama’s birth certificate. Now that’s some chutzpah!
Trump expressed the hope that by the release of the certificate we would be ‘getting rid of this issue.’ Yet he wants proof that the birth certificate is real.
Addressing the birther issue during Wednesday’s White House press conference, President Obama referred to The Donald as a ‘carnival barker.’ I rarely agree with anything Obama says, but the president sure pegged Trump right.
Trump would fit right in barking for the sideshow of a travelling carnival: “Alright folks step right up and see the bearded lady. See the Siamese triplets. Come in and look at the four-headed snake. Watch Gordo, the amazing fire eater and sword swallower. Hey fellows, here we have five beautiful Turkish belly dancers. Come and see all the amazing attractions we have for you.”
In fact, Trump is a self-promoting snake oil salesman. He no longer controls most of the properties that bear his name. His casinos in Atlantic City went bankrupt and he’s no longer associated with them. His well-publicized business successes occurred years ago and, after a series of failures, his most notable success of late has been his reality TV show.
As for the Obama hating birthers, are they going to put this issue to rest now that Obama has released his birth certificate? Of course not. Donald the Carnival Barker and his fellow birthers are going to keep on questioning the authenticity of the certificate. And now they are demanding that Obama release his college records because they hope to show he really wasn’t all that smart in school.
Here is what Trump had to say about that: “I heard he was a terrible student. Terrible. He went to Occidental. I heard he was a terrible student. Not like, okay. I heard he was a bad student. How does a bad student then go to Columbia and then to Harvard? How does this happen? I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records! … I don’t know why he doesn’t release his records.”
No matter where the president was born or whether he is a dumb-ass, get over it you idiots! Obama is our president whether you like it or not, and he’s very likely to be reelected for a second term. Oh, and if you idiots want a clown for president, then Trump is your man.
The Donald sounded pretty good explaining what he would do differently from Obama when he announced he was considering a run for the presidency – that is until he became America’s most prominent birther. What’s truly amazing is that a sizable number of Americans actually believe Trump would make a good president. Ignorance is bliss! Or, as P. T. Barnum put it: There’s a sucker born every minute!
So spoke Donald Trump on Wednesday when he took credit for the White House release of Obama’s birth certificate. Now that’s some chutzpah!
Trump expressed the hope that by the release of the certificate we would be ‘getting rid of this issue.’ Yet he wants proof that the birth certificate is real.
Addressing the birther issue during Wednesday’s White House press conference, President Obama referred to The Donald as a ‘carnival barker.’ I rarely agree with anything Obama says, but the president sure pegged Trump right.
Trump would fit right in barking for the sideshow of a travelling carnival: “Alright folks step right up and see the bearded lady. See the Siamese triplets. Come in and look at the four-headed snake. Watch Gordo, the amazing fire eater and sword swallower. Hey fellows, here we have five beautiful Turkish belly dancers. Come and see all the amazing attractions we have for you.”
In fact, Trump is a self-promoting snake oil salesman. He no longer controls most of the properties that bear his name. His casinos in Atlantic City went bankrupt and he’s no longer associated with them. His well-publicized business successes occurred years ago and, after a series of failures, his most notable success of late has been his reality TV show.
As for the Obama hating birthers, are they going to put this issue to rest now that Obama has released his birth certificate? Of course not. Donald the Carnival Barker and his fellow birthers are going to keep on questioning the authenticity of the certificate. And now they are demanding that Obama release his college records because they hope to show he really wasn’t all that smart in school.
Here is what Trump had to say about that: “I heard he was a terrible student. Terrible. He went to Occidental. I heard he was a terrible student. Not like, okay. I heard he was a bad student. How does a bad student then go to Columbia and then to Harvard? How does this happen? I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records! … I don’t know why he doesn’t release his records.”
No matter where the president was born or whether he is a dumb-ass, get over it you idiots! Obama is our president whether you like it or not, and he’s very likely to be reelected for a second term. Oh, and if you idiots want a clown for president, then Trump is your man.
The Donald sounded pretty good explaining what he would do differently from Obama when he announced he was considering a run for the presidency – that is until he became America’s most prominent birther. What’s truly amazing is that a sizable number of Americans actually believe Trump would make a good president. Ignorance is bliss! Or, as P. T. Barnum put it: There’s a sucker born every minute!
FEEL GOOD POLICING
Surprise, surprise! The byline of the April 25 Houston Chronicle reads: A study finds ‘hot spot’ policing has had no effect on violent crime.
For the uninitiated, hot spot policing is the deployment of extra cops to neighborhoods that are experiencing unusually high crime rates, most often burglaries.
The Chronicle reported that “In four different deployments, the [Houston Police Department’s] Crime Reduction Unit teams did not reduce violent crime but did tamp down property crime, according to the study by the Police Research Center at Sam Houston State University. “
No surprise here. This kind of policing has been around for years and years, always with a minimum of success. It is least likely to reduce violent crimes because many of them happen behind close doors. And gang bangers are smart enough to know when the extra cops are nearby or not.
From time to time, my agency deployed extra officers into neighborhoods experiencing a lot of burglaries. It did reduce the number of burglaries, BUT THAT WAS ONLY BECAUSE THE CROOKS WERE SMART ENOUGH TO MOVE THEIR BREAK-INS TO OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS. And then, when we deployed into those neighborhoods, the burglars simply returned to the neighborhood we no longer patrolled with extra officers.
Unlike established hot spot units like those used by HPD, our detectives reported for an extra shift each night wearing police uniforms and driving around the targeted neighborhoods in marked patrol cars. We looked somewhat comical in our uniforms, as most of us had outgrown them by putting on a few pounds of extra fat.
What these hot spot programs really are is FEEL GOOD policing. People see more cops and feel more secure. Crime rates may be affected for a brief time. Then the city and the police agency will brag about crime reduction and get a lot of 'atta boys,' that is until the crime rate goes back to normal - the city and PDs don't publicize that though.
For the uninitiated, hot spot policing is the deployment of extra cops to neighborhoods that are experiencing unusually high crime rates, most often burglaries.
The Chronicle reported that “In four different deployments, the [Houston Police Department’s] Crime Reduction Unit teams did not reduce violent crime but did tamp down property crime, according to the study by the Police Research Center at Sam Houston State University. “
No surprise here. This kind of policing has been around for years and years, always with a minimum of success. It is least likely to reduce violent crimes because many of them happen behind close doors. And gang bangers are smart enough to know when the extra cops are nearby or not.
From time to time, my agency deployed extra officers into neighborhoods experiencing a lot of burglaries. It did reduce the number of burglaries, BUT THAT WAS ONLY BECAUSE THE CROOKS WERE SMART ENOUGH TO MOVE THEIR BREAK-INS TO OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS. And then, when we deployed into those neighborhoods, the burglars simply returned to the neighborhood we no longer patrolled with extra officers.
Unlike established hot spot units like those used by HPD, our detectives reported for an extra shift each night wearing police uniforms and driving around the targeted neighborhoods in marked patrol cars. We looked somewhat comical in our uniforms, as most of us had outgrown them by putting on a few pounds of extra fat.
What these hot spot programs really are is FEEL GOOD policing. People see more cops and feel more secure. Crime rates may be affected for a brief time. Then the city and the police agency will brag about crime reduction and get a lot of 'atta boys,' that is until the crime rate goes back to normal - the city and PDs don't publicize that though.
COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE AND OFFENSIVE
What the hell has happened to our society when pukes market trash like this and people want to buy it?
SICKENING “DOG WARS” GAME MUZZLED
By LAPPL Board of Directors
Los Angeles Police Protective League
April 28, 2011
When the media started calling on Tuesday for the League’s comment on a new Android video game app, we took one look at the content and decided to take the gloves off. The game in question was the sickening “Dog Wars,” which lets players raise and train their virtual dogs to fight. “Raise your dog to beat the best,” read the app’s tag line, while the website offering it as a free download invited visitors to “Feed, water, train and FIGHT your virtual dog against other players.”
League President Paul Weber fielded media calls throughout the day, branding the game as “sickening” and calling for its immediate removal from the website and the Android Market. “It’s absolutely the wrong message to send our children,” Weber told the Los Angeles Times, “because it encourages cruelty to dogs and could serve as a virtual training ground for people to try dog fighting in real life.”
Particularly galling to us was the note on the game’s website touting player options including a "gun for police raids” and the ability to “inject the dog with steroids." At a time marked by rising violence against police officers nationwide, this was completely irresponsible and offensive.
Shortly after the League’s widely covered news conference on Tuesday afternoon, the game was removed from the Android Market. We don’t know whether Kage Games, the developer, decided to take it down or whether Google removed it as a terms-of-service violation, but in a letter to Google CEO Larry Page, Weber asked that the game’s removal be made permanent. It’s the right thing to do.
SICKENING “DOG WARS” GAME MUZZLED
By LAPPL Board of Directors
Los Angeles Police Protective League
April 28, 2011
When the media started calling on Tuesday for the League’s comment on a new Android video game app, we took one look at the content and decided to take the gloves off. The game in question was the sickening “Dog Wars,” which lets players raise and train their virtual dogs to fight. “Raise your dog to beat the best,” read the app’s tag line, while the website offering it as a free download invited visitors to “Feed, water, train and FIGHT your virtual dog against other players.”
League President Paul Weber fielded media calls throughout the day, branding the game as “sickening” and calling for its immediate removal from the website and the Android Market. “It’s absolutely the wrong message to send our children,” Weber told the Los Angeles Times, “because it encourages cruelty to dogs and could serve as a virtual training ground for people to try dog fighting in real life.”
Particularly galling to us was the note on the game’s website touting player options including a "gun for police raids” and the ability to “inject the dog with steroids." At a time marked by rising violence against police officers nationwide, this was completely irresponsible and offensive.
Shortly after the League’s widely covered news conference on Tuesday afternoon, the game was removed from the Android Market. We don’t know whether Kage Games, the developer, decided to take it down or whether Google removed it as a terms-of-service violation, but in a letter to Google CEO Larry Page, Weber asked that the game’s removal be made permanent. It’s the right thing to do.
VERY GOOD QUESTION
An Arab's young son asks his father, "What is that weird hat you are wearing?"
The father said, "Why, it's a 'chechia' because in the desert it protects our heads from the sun."
"And what is this type of clothing that you are wearing?" asked the young boy.
"It's a 'djbellah' because in the desert it is very hot and it protects the body." said the father.
The son asked, "And what about those ugly shoes on your feet?
His father replied, "These are 'babouches", which keep us from burning our feet in the desert sands."
"Tell me," added the boy.
"Yes, my son?"
"Since we're living in Dearborn, Michigan, why are you still wearing all that shit?"
The father said, "Why, it's a 'chechia' because in the desert it protects our heads from the sun."
"And what is this type of clothing that you are wearing?" asked the young boy.
"It's a 'djbellah' because in the desert it is very hot and it protects the body." said the father.
The son asked, "And what about those ugly shoes on your feet?
His father replied, "These are 'babouches", which keep us from burning our feet in the desert sands."
"Tell me," added the boy.
"Yes, my son?"
"Since we're living in Dearborn, Michigan, why are you still wearing all that shit?"
Thursday, April 28, 2011
LEGISLATION THAT MAKES GOOD SENSE
I am an ardent pro-gunner, but I have to strongly disagree with those shortsighted ‘right to bear arms’ advocates and the gun dealers who are opposed to this bill.
BB-GUN BILL ADVANCES IN REACTION TO LAPD SHOOTING
Los Angeles Times
April 26, 2011
In response to the police shooting of a Los Angeles teenager, state lawmakers on Tuesday backed a requirement that BB and pellet guns be made entirely with bright colors so that officers do not mistake them for deadly firearms.
The Senate Public Safety Committee approved the legislation sought by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in response to the December police shooting of a 13-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun in Glassell Park.
The boy was left paralyzed in the shooting, which LAPD officials said occurred when an officer felt threatened because he was unable, in the dark, to distinguish that the weapon involved was a replica of a Beretta handgun.
"We have seen significant tragedies across the U.S., especially in Los Angeles,’’ LAPD Deputy Chief David Doan told senators during a hearing on the measure at the Capitol.
Currently, toy guns must be brightly colored to distinguish them from being mistaken for real firearms.
Gun-owner rights activists and firearms sellers oppose the new measure, which next goes to the full Senate. Some critics said it was an overreaction, while others warned it could give police officers a false sense of security when dealing with BB guns that can cause injury.
"To color a BB gun or a pellet gun as if it was a toy would put officers in more danger,’’ said Gerald Upholt, a lobbyist for the California Assn. of Firearm Retailers.
The pellet gun involved in the Glassell Park shooting had an orange tip, but officers said did they not see the tip. SB 798, authored by Sen. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles), would require the entire pellet gun to be painted in bright colors, and would extend the use of such colors for the first time to include BB guns.
BB-GUN BILL ADVANCES IN REACTION TO LAPD SHOOTING
Los Angeles Times
April 26, 2011
In response to the police shooting of a Los Angeles teenager, state lawmakers on Tuesday backed a requirement that BB and pellet guns be made entirely with bright colors so that officers do not mistake them for deadly firearms.
The Senate Public Safety Committee approved the legislation sought by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in response to the December police shooting of a 13-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun in Glassell Park.
The boy was left paralyzed in the shooting, which LAPD officials said occurred when an officer felt threatened because he was unable, in the dark, to distinguish that the weapon involved was a replica of a Beretta handgun.
"We have seen significant tragedies across the U.S., especially in Los Angeles,’’ LAPD Deputy Chief David Doan told senators during a hearing on the measure at the Capitol.
Currently, toy guns must be brightly colored to distinguish them from being mistaken for real firearms.
Gun-owner rights activists and firearms sellers oppose the new measure, which next goes to the full Senate. Some critics said it was an overreaction, while others warned it could give police officers a false sense of security when dealing with BB guns that can cause injury.
"To color a BB gun or a pellet gun as if it was a toy would put officers in more danger,’’ said Gerald Upholt, a lobbyist for the California Assn. of Firearm Retailers.
The pellet gun involved in the Glassell Park shooting had an orange tip, but officers said did they not see the tip. SB 798, authored by Sen. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles), would require the entire pellet gun to be painted in bright colors, and would extend the use of such colors for the first time to include BB guns.
SHOULD HAVE CUFFED HIM TO A HEAVIER PIECE OF FURNITURE
Reminds me of a case in which a fellow officer caught a burglar climbing down from a church attic in the Palm Springs area. He cuffed the crook to one of the church pews and climbed up into the attic to look for a possible crime partner. Finding no one up there, he returned to the sanctuary only to discover both crook and pew gone. He caught the escapee a block away as he was dragging the pew down the street. The few bystanders that had observed the pew thief dragging his ‘loot’ did nothing but watch in bemusement.
Could it be that in this case a number of persons, even possibly some cops, also stood by and did nothing but watch in bemusement? You can’t just simply walk out of a police station with a chair that you’re cuffed to and not be seen.
SUSPECT CUFFED TO CHAIR ESCAPES FROM POLICE
58-year-old John Caesar is still on the loose
Associated Press
April 27, 2011
BUFFALO, New York — Authorities are looking for a robbery suspect who escaped from a Buffalo police station by slipping out a back door while handcuffed to a chair.
Police tell Buffalo media outlets that 58-year-old John Caesar was taken into custody Tuesday for questioning in connection with the theft of money from the Anchor Bar, the restaurant known for inventing the city's famous chicken wings.
Officials say Caesar was handcuffed to a chair in a police station when he escaped around 4 p.m. Police say the chair is missing and Caesar may still be handcuffed to it.
Could it be that in this case a number of persons, even possibly some cops, also stood by and did nothing but watch in bemusement? You can’t just simply walk out of a police station with a chair that you’re cuffed to and not be seen.
SUSPECT CUFFED TO CHAIR ESCAPES FROM POLICE
58-year-old John Caesar is still on the loose
Associated Press
April 27, 2011
BUFFALO, New York — Authorities are looking for a robbery suspect who escaped from a Buffalo police station by slipping out a back door while handcuffed to a chair.
Police tell Buffalo media outlets that 58-year-old John Caesar was taken into custody Tuesday for questioning in connection with the theft of money from the Anchor Bar, the restaurant known for inventing the city's famous chicken wings.
Officials say Caesar was handcuffed to a chair in a police station when he escaped around 4 p.m. Police say the chair is missing and Caesar may still be handcuffed to it.
A FAIRY TALE?
Thanks to former student and long-time friend Cindy Hall for forwarding this fairy tale. Or could it be that this isn’t a fairy tale after all?
‘THE ONE’
And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America , having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One."
He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you." My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. I shall save you with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the
land that he who proceeded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed. And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised hat it was good; and they believed. And "The One" said " We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!" and the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!" Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth." And the people said, "Show us the money!" And the he said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody.."
And Joe the plumber asked, " Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized. One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the Kingdom's press corps "
Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?" And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"
Then "The One" said "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!" And the people said, "Hallelujah! Show us the money!"
Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. And He said. "I shall mandate employer-funded health care for every worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!" Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas." And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"
Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with the ACORN and you troubles are over!"
Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..." And the people said, "Hallelujah!" and they made him king!
And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.
Then "The One" said, "I am the "the Chosen One"- The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him. "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more... And "The One" said, "Wait a minute. That is not fair!!"
And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"
And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.
And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, "give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.
‘THE ONE’
And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America , having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One."
He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you." My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. I shall save you with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the
land that he who proceeded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed. And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised hat it was good; and they believed. And "The One" said " We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!" and the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!" Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth." And the people said, "Show us the money!" And the he said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody.."
And Joe the plumber asked, " Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized. One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the Kingdom's press corps "
Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?" And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"
Then "The One" said "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!" And the people said, "Hallelujah! Show us the money!"
Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. And He said. "I shall mandate employer-funded health care for every worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!" Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas." And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"
Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with the ACORN and you troubles are over!"
Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..." And the people said, "Hallelujah!" and they made him king!
And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.
Then "The One" said, "I am the "the Chosen One"- The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him. "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more... And "The One" said, "Wait a minute. That is not fair!!"
And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"
And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.
And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, "give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
PORN, COURTESY OF THE TAXPAYERS
Somebody’s got a warped interpretation of what freedom of speech means. Just as a library has the right to chose what books not to stock, it should also have the right to chose what internet web sites not to show. Library patrons wishing to view pornography can go elsewhere to do so. I happen to enjoy watching porn once in a while but I should not be allowed to do so at the expense of taxpayers.
YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY: FOR READING, LEARNING AND … WATCHING PORN (AT LEAST IF YOU LIVE IN NEW YORK)
By Rachel Quigley
Mail Online
April 26, 2011
Traditionally stuffy places full of dust, books and old ladies telling you to be quiet, libraries are about to get a whole lot more interesting.
For as well as enjoying texts by Chaucer and Shakespeare or having some study time, you can now go to your library to watch porn - at least if you live in New York.
New Yorkers at the city's 200 plus libraries can now watch internet porn at their leisure thanks to a policy of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Brooklyn public library spokeswoman Malika Granville told the New York Post: 'Customers can watch whatever they want on the computer. It's protected by the First Amendment.'
Though many porn lovers are embracing the move with open arms, many library patrons and religious leaders have not been quite so welcoming.
Catholic league President Bill Donohue said: 'What they're doing is publicly funding an appetite for the most debased fare available. It's not like a Playboy centrefold any more - it's far worse.'
The New York Post spoke to library patron Daisy Nazario, 60, who said she was disgusted to see an elderly man watching porn at the Brooklyn Central Library where there were children present.
Though the library provides extensions on the sides of computers to block the full view of the screen - which she said was featuring a threesome at the time - she said she could 'still hear voices'.
She said: 'It is very disrespectful to the children.'
The move has raised concerns over the presence of young people in the library who may be subjected to pornography and the ramifications of this.
A library spokesman told NBC: 'We comply with CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) and our policy forbids users to access materials that are legally defined as obscene, as child pornography, or, in the case of persons under 17, as harmful to minors.
'The library is committed to creating a positive experience for everyone, and we expect those who use the library to do so with respect to our policies and to others.'
Public libraries that receive federal funds are required to filter illegal obscenity and child pornography on Internet-connected computers, but nothing more.
If the porn in question is legal--meaning in essence 'by consenting adults, for consenting adults' - it's free speech, protected by First Amendment rights.
If localities want to further restrict viewing, they must specifically enact a policy.
But even with the filters, anyone 17 years old or older can turn them off and search for any form of sexual content.
The policy further says: 'The library cannot and does not guarantee that the filtering software will block all obscenity, child pornography or materials that are harmful to minors.'
Ray Floyd, who is a frequent visitor to the New York Public Library, said: 'I've seen some people surfing adult stuff. I'm kind of embarrassed for them, I mean why would you do it there?'
YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY: FOR READING, LEARNING AND … WATCHING PORN (AT LEAST IF YOU LIVE IN NEW YORK)
By Rachel Quigley
Mail Online
April 26, 2011
Traditionally stuffy places full of dust, books and old ladies telling you to be quiet, libraries are about to get a whole lot more interesting.
For as well as enjoying texts by Chaucer and Shakespeare or having some study time, you can now go to your library to watch porn - at least if you live in New York.
New Yorkers at the city's 200 plus libraries can now watch internet porn at their leisure thanks to a policy of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Brooklyn public library spokeswoman Malika Granville told the New York Post: 'Customers can watch whatever they want on the computer. It's protected by the First Amendment.'
Though many porn lovers are embracing the move with open arms, many library patrons and religious leaders have not been quite so welcoming.
Catholic league President Bill Donohue said: 'What they're doing is publicly funding an appetite for the most debased fare available. It's not like a Playboy centrefold any more - it's far worse.'
The New York Post spoke to library patron Daisy Nazario, 60, who said she was disgusted to see an elderly man watching porn at the Brooklyn Central Library where there were children present.
Though the library provides extensions on the sides of computers to block the full view of the screen - which she said was featuring a threesome at the time - she said she could 'still hear voices'.
She said: 'It is very disrespectful to the children.'
The move has raised concerns over the presence of young people in the library who may be subjected to pornography and the ramifications of this.
A library spokesman told NBC: 'We comply with CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) and our policy forbids users to access materials that are legally defined as obscene, as child pornography, or, in the case of persons under 17, as harmful to minors.
'The library is committed to creating a positive experience for everyone, and we expect those who use the library to do so with respect to our policies and to others.'
Public libraries that receive federal funds are required to filter illegal obscenity and child pornography on Internet-connected computers, but nothing more.
If the porn in question is legal--meaning in essence 'by consenting adults, for consenting adults' - it's free speech, protected by First Amendment rights.
If localities want to further restrict viewing, they must specifically enact a policy.
But even with the filters, anyone 17 years old or older can turn them off and search for any form of sexual content.
The policy further says: 'The library cannot and does not guarantee that the filtering software will block all obscenity, child pornography or materials that are harmful to minors.'
Ray Floyd, who is a frequent visitor to the New York Public Library, said: 'I've seen some people surfing adult stuff. I'm kind of embarrassed for them, I mean why would you do it there?'
WHY GADDAFI AND NOT ASSAD?
The west goes after Libya’s Gaddafi for trying to put down a rebellion but Assad is left free to turn his army against Syrian protesters. Assad is every bit as evil as Gaddafi! The day after STRATFOR released this report, Assad turned his tanks and troops against the mostly unarmed protesters.
RAW INTELLIGENCE REPORT: A VIEW FROM SYRIA
STRATFOR Global Intelligence
April 25, 2011
Editor’s Note: What follows is raw insight from a STRATFOR source in Syria. The following does not reflect STRATFOR’s view, but provides a perspective on the situation in Syria.
People are scared. An understatement, no doubt, but my friends — both foreign and Syrian — are worried about the developments. Almost all of my foreign friends are leaving and many have moved departing flights up in light of the recent events. Most Syrians don’t have this option and are weighing their options should sustained protests move to inner Damascus. Everyone is thinking along their sect even if they aren’t open about it. Much of the violence is attributed by Syrians to these mysterious “armed gangs.” Many are still placing hope in “Habibna” (literally “Our Love,” a nickname for the president) to bring about enough reforms to placate the demonstrators. A point that I was forced to make over and over is that a lot of the people protesting are doing so because someone they knew was killed and not because they were anti-government, although they are now. Privately, my Syrian friends admitted that Bashar [al Assad, the Syrian president] needs to make some major, major concessions quickly or risk continued protests and bloodshed of which would be attributed to him and not merely “the regime.”
By now we are all familiar with the cycle of protests reaching their high point on Fridays, after prayers. This Friday, however, was different for Syrians. Having seen the infamous emergency law lifted, albeit with serious caveats, Syrians were hoping for a relaxing of the security responses to the demonstrations. What they got was half as many demonstrators killed in one day as in all the days of demonstrations preceding it combined. It was almost as if things had been safer when the emergency law had been in effect. (On a side note, my friend guessed that maybe two out of every 100 Syrians could actually tell you what the emergency law was.) What was most striking about the demonstrations was that there were two in Damascus itself (Midan on Friday, April 22, and Berze on Saturday, April 23). While not in the city center these are by no means the far suburbs and countryside of Daraa or Douma. There were also protests in Muadamiyeh, which is right outside town next to the main bus station. I’ve heard that tanks along this road were seen April 24 pointing their guns not in the direction of the road but toward the city. The regime and everyone is terrified about protests in the city itself.
You could see the depression in the air on Saturday. Everyone knew that those killed from the day before would be having large funerals today and that those gatherings would likely be attacked as well. My Christian friends were especially worried due to rumors that churches were going to be bombed on Easter. As my friend put it, “I know they’re just rumors but I’m afraid they [the security apparatus] might actually do it.”
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that Bashar is not the reformer he claimed to be. His words are not being met by real, concrete action. Even though he might have wanted to reform and may have been hampered by others in the regime (cousin Rami Makhlouf, brother Maher), these efforts are steadily losing traction. The regime seems to be playing by “Hama rules” in its response to the demonstrations and it’s unlikely that this is happening without Bashar’s full consent at this point. The most positive assessment of him I heard was that he still wanted true reforms (although nothing game-changing) but that he was growing impatient with the demonstrators. One person conjectured that Bashar’s mistake was promising reforms when he first came to power. “If he hadn’t promised ‘reforms’ and not delivered on them people wouldn’t be so mad. He shouldn’t have said anything and given everyone false hope or actually followed through on them.”
Support for the protests is mixed. Many of those out in the streets are there because someone close to them was killed. Think tribal mentality: I wasn’t mad at you before but you killed my cousin/brother/friend and now I am mad. People are gathering to defend their honor. There is almost no organization inside Syria among the protesters. I asked several people and they agreed that the Muslim Brotherhood was almost non-present in the country. All that is coordinated is information being leaked out about the responses by the security forces against the protesters. As I told my friend, the problem is that unlike in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, all the demonstrators are dispersed across the country and do not have enough time to talk to each other to decide what they wanted. There is also a fairly widely held belief that much of the killings are taking place as a result of these armed gangs firing on security forces and innocents being caught in the crossfire. Some are quick to blame “foreign conspirators” although several of my friends admitted that whatever meddling by Abdul Halim Khaddam (the former Syrian vice president) and Rifaat al Assad (the president’s uncle living in exile in the United Kingdom) was minimal. Both of these guys have very, very little support on the ground and while the Muslim Brotherhood might have some latent support among Sunnis, they would not be welcome by any of the minorities in Syria.
At this point the regime is going to have to go Hama-style if it wants to completely shut down the protests, otherwise it will have to make some major concessions like multiparty elections and presidential term limits, which the regime won’t accept. From what I’ve heard is going on today it looks like the regime is opting to play it Hama-style.
RAW INTELLIGENCE REPORT: A VIEW FROM SYRIA
STRATFOR Global Intelligence
April 25, 2011
Editor’s Note: What follows is raw insight from a STRATFOR source in Syria. The following does not reflect STRATFOR’s view, but provides a perspective on the situation in Syria.
People are scared. An understatement, no doubt, but my friends — both foreign and Syrian — are worried about the developments. Almost all of my foreign friends are leaving and many have moved departing flights up in light of the recent events. Most Syrians don’t have this option and are weighing their options should sustained protests move to inner Damascus. Everyone is thinking along their sect even if they aren’t open about it. Much of the violence is attributed by Syrians to these mysterious “armed gangs.” Many are still placing hope in “Habibna” (literally “Our Love,” a nickname for the president) to bring about enough reforms to placate the demonstrators. A point that I was forced to make over and over is that a lot of the people protesting are doing so because someone they knew was killed and not because they were anti-government, although they are now. Privately, my Syrian friends admitted that Bashar [al Assad, the Syrian president] needs to make some major, major concessions quickly or risk continued protests and bloodshed of which would be attributed to him and not merely “the regime.”
By now we are all familiar with the cycle of protests reaching their high point on Fridays, after prayers. This Friday, however, was different for Syrians. Having seen the infamous emergency law lifted, albeit with serious caveats, Syrians were hoping for a relaxing of the security responses to the demonstrations. What they got was half as many demonstrators killed in one day as in all the days of demonstrations preceding it combined. It was almost as if things had been safer when the emergency law had been in effect. (On a side note, my friend guessed that maybe two out of every 100 Syrians could actually tell you what the emergency law was.) What was most striking about the demonstrations was that there were two in Damascus itself (Midan on Friday, April 22, and Berze on Saturday, April 23). While not in the city center these are by no means the far suburbs and countryside of Daraa or Douma. There were also protests in Muadamiyeh, which is right outside town next to the main bus station. I’ve heard that tanks along this road were seen April 24 pointing their guns not in the direction of the road but toward the city. The regime and everyone is terrified about protests in the city itself.
You could see the depression in the air on Saturday. Everyone knew that those killed from the day before would be having large funerals today and that those gatherings would likely be attacked as well. My Christian friends were especially worried due to rumors that churches were going to be bombed on Easter. As my friend put it, “I know they’re just rumors but I’m afraid they [the security apparatus] might actually do it.”
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that Bashar is not the reformer he claimed to be. His words are not being met by real, concrete action. Even though he might have wanted to reform and may have been hampered by others in the regime (cousin Rami Makhlouf, brother Maher), these efforts are steadily losing traction. The regime seems to be playing by “Hama rules” in its response to the demonstrations and it’s unlikely that this is happening without Bashar’s full consent at this point. The most positive assessment of him I heard was that he still wanted true reforms (although nothing game-changing) but that he was growing impatient with the demonstrators. One person conjectured that Bashar’s mistake was promising reforms when he first came to power. “If he hadn’t promised ‘reforms’ and not delivered on them people wouldn’t be so mad. He shouldn’t have said anything and given everyone false hope or actually followed through on them.”
Support for the protests is mixed. Many of those out in the streets are there because someone close to them was killed. Think tribal mentality: I wasn’t mad at you before but you killed my cousin/brother/friend and now I am mad. People are gathering to defend their honor. There is almost no organization inside Syria among the protesters. I asked several people and they agreed that the Muslim Brotherhood was almost non-present in the country. All that is coordinated is information being leaked out about the responses by the security forces against the protesters. As I told my friend, the problem is that unlike in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, all the demonstrators are dispersed across the country and do not have enough time to talk to each other to decide what they wanted. There is also a fairly widely held belief that much of the killings are taking place as a result of these armed gangs firing on security forces and innocents being caught in the crossfire. Some are quick to blame “foreign conspirators” although several of my friends admitted that whatever meddling by Abdul Halim Khaddam (the former Syrian vice president) and Rifaat al Assad (the president’s uncle living in exile in the United Kingdom) was minimal. Both of these guys have very, very little support on the ground and while the Muslim Brotherhood might have some latent support among Sunnis, they would not be welcome by any of the minorities in Syria.
At this point the regime is going to have to go Hama-style if it wants to completely shut down the protests, otherwise it will have to make some major concessions like multiparty elections and presidential term limits, which the regime won’t accept. From what I’ve heard is going on today it looks like the regime is opting to play it Hama-style.
HEART WRENCHING AT FIRST LOOK, BUT .....
..... then the past is revealed and that puts a different light on the story.
THAT POOR WOMAN! OH, WAIT A MINUTE
By Jack Dunphy
Pajamas Media
April 25, 2011
Stories like this have become almost a trademark at the Los Angeles Times. In Monday’s edition, they report on the travails endured by Norma, who asked that the Times not reveal her last name “because she fears that speaking out may jeopardize her case.” (That fear apparently does not extend to the publication of her photograph, which prominently accompanies the story.)
Norma, the Times mournfully informs us, is facing deportation after being arrested in San Francisco for domestic violence. She was not charged in the case, but she was nonetheless referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Says the Times:
__More than once, Norma recalls, she yearned to dial 911 when her partner hit her. But the undocumented mother of a U.S.-born toddler was too fearful of police and too broken of spirit to do so.
__In October, she finally worked up the courage to call police — and paid a steep price.
__Officers who responded found her sobbing, with a swollen lower lip. But a red mark on her alleged abuser’s cheek prompted police to book them both into the San Francisco County Jail while investigators sorted out the details.
__With that, Norma was swept into the wide net of Secure Communities, a federal program launched in 2008 with the stated goal of identifying and deporting more illegal immigrants “convicted of serious crimes.”
__But Norma was never convicted of a crime. She was not charged in the abuse case, though the jail honored a request to turn her over to immigration authorities for possible deportation.
How awful, the reader is all but commanded to say. The poor dear!
But wait. One must read through more than half of the 1,500-word story before coming across this little tidbit, which some might consider relevant: “Norma . . . had left the country voluntarily after an immigration arrest in 2002 but returned the same year, ICE officials said.”
With this story and so many others like it, we are being asked to endorse the proposition that illegal immigrants should be unburdened by the fear of deportation unless they are convicted of a serious crime. I’m not unsympathetic to Norma, but we are either a nation of laws or we are not. She should have remained in her native country in 2002, and she should be sent back there today.
THAT POOR WOMAN! OH, WAIT A MINUTE
By Jack Dunphy
Pajamas Media
April 25, 2011
Stories like this have become almost a trademark at the Los Angeles Times. In Monday’s edition, they report on the travails endured by Norma, who asked that the Times not reveal her last name “because she fears that speaking out may jeopardize her case.” (That fear apparently does not extend to the publication of her photograph, which prominently accompanies the story.)
Norma, the Times mournfully informs us, is facing deportation after being arrested in San Francisco for domestic violence. She was not charged in the case, but she was nonetheless referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Says the Times:
__More than once, Norma recalls, she yearned to dial 911 when her partner hit her. But the undocumented mother of a U.S.-born toddler was too fearful of police and too broken of spirit to do so.
__In October, she finally worked up the courage to call police — and paid a steep price.
__Officers who responded found her sobbing, with a swollen lower lip. But a red mark on her alleged abuser’s cheek prompted police to book them both into the San Francisco County Jail while investigators sorted out the details.
__With that, Norma was swept into the wide net of Secure Communities, a federal program launched in 2008 with the stated goal of identifying and deporting more illegal immigrants “convicted of serious crimes.”
__But Norma was never convicted of a crime. She was not charged in the abuse case, though the jail honored a request to turn her over to immigration authorities for possible deportation.
How awful, the reader is all but commanded to say. The poor dear!
But wait. One must read through more than half of the 1,500-word story before coming across this little tidbit, which some might consider relevant: “Norma . . . had left the country voluntarily after an immigration arrest in 2002 but returned the same year, ICE officials said.”
With this story and so many others like it, we are being asked to endorse the proposition that illegal immigrants should be unburdened by the fear of deportation unless they are convicted of a serious crime. I’m not unsympathetic to Norma, but we are either a nation of laws or we are not. She should have remained in her native country in 2002, and she should be sent back there today.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
COST TOO HIGH TO STOP SMUGGLING AND USE OF CELL PHONES
What is it about ‘pay now or you’ll pay more later’ that the Kookfornia legislators don’t get?
CALIFORNIA BILL TO RID PRISONS OF SMUGGLED CELL PHONES SHELVED OVER COSTS
By Julie Small
KPCC
April 22, 2011
In most states, if you smuggle a cell phone into a prison, you’ll end up spending time in prison - but not here. California has no law to keep contraband cell phones from inmates. Law enforcement officials and most lawmakers agree California needs one, but it’s unlikely to pass this year - because it costs too much.
Robert Johnson used to be a prison guard captain in South Carolina. Last year, he was getting ready for work when someone kicked in the front door of his house.
"All of a sudden I hear this ‘boom,’" Johnson recalls. "I heard somebody yell ‘Police!’ So I come out the bathroom. We meet in the hallway."
Johnson came face-to-face with a man holding a gun.
"We tussled and somehow I guess he broke away and he raised his .38 and he shot me at point-blank range in the stomach and chest six times," Johnson says.
That pistol wasn’t the only weapon aimed at Johnson. The other was the cell phone used to order the "hit." Johnson says an inmate had been selling cell phones to other inmates for $800 a pop. Johnson had cracked down on his operation and his profits.
"Through a cell phone, he found exactly where I lived," Johnson says "He found the city. He even found my phone number all through the Internet with his cell phone. And he found an ex-inmate; he paid him thousands of dollars to kill me."
The suspects are facing federal charges, including the inmate accused of arranging the hit. Robert Johnson, now 58, spent three months in the hospital, and he’s not done yet. His medical bills have topped $1 million. His days as a prison guard are over.
Johnson recounted his harrowing story at a recent conference hosted by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Corrections officials say inmates use cell phones to order hits, run drug rings – and threaten victims, witnesses and judges. Prison guards have confiscated a cell phone from Charles Manson – twice.
Deputy Corrections Director Richard Subia says prison staff confiscated 11,000 cell phones from inmates last year. "We’ve found them in walls, put down inside of walls, inside of toilets, in peanut butter, in garlic..." Subia says you’d be surprised.
Subia says prison visitors, men and women, young and old, smuggle phones to inmates. So does a full spectrum of prison workers. "We had an officer that we stopped in one of our Northern California prisons who said he made $100,000 one year for bringing in cell phones."
The Department of Corrections fires staff that smuggle cell phones into prisons. But the Attorney General can’t prosecute them or the inmates that use the phones unless a phone was used to commit a crime. State Senator Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley) says that’s not good enough.
Padilla told the Senate Appropriation Committee last week, "There are no consequences either for the inmates who are caught with cell phones and there is no consequence for either a visitor or an employee who is caught smuggling cell phones in, and that is unacceptable."
Padilla was arguing for a bill he authored to make it a misdemeanor to smuggle cell phones into a California prison. Anyone convicted would get six months in jail and up to a $5,000 fine, per phone. Padilla’s bill would also add extra time to the sentences of inmates found with contraband phones – but reducing good time credits.
But that’s why the Senate Appropriations Committee shelved the measure. The Department of Finance estimates the longer sentences could cost up to $50,000 more per year, per inmate.
Senator Padilla argues the state will save money by preventing crimes that inmates could carry out with cell phones. "We don’t suspect, we know that they are being used by inmates to commit and coordinate crimes both inside and outside of prisons," Padilla said in closing.
The Senate Appropriations Committee put Padilla’s bill "on suspense" – a kind of legislative backwater for more costly bills. The committee will reconsider all those bills on a single day next month. Most bills "on suspense" end up dying in committee.
This is Padilla's third attempt to criminalize cell phones. Last year the legislature passed a similar bill. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.
CALIFORNIA BILL TO RID PRISONS OF SMUGGLED CELL PHONES SHELVED OVER COSTS
By Julie Small
KPCC
April 22, 2011
In most states, if you smuggle a cell phone into a prison, you’ll end up spending time in prison - but not here. California has no law to keep contraband cell phones from inmates. Law enforcement officials and most lawmakers agree California needs one, but it’s unlikely to pass this year - because it costs too much.
Robert Johnson used to be a prison guard captain in South Carolina. Last year, he was getting ready for work when someone kicked in the front door of his house.
"All of a sudden I hear this ‘boom,’" Johnson recalls. "I heard somebody yell ‘Police!’ So I come out the bathroom. We meet in the hallway."
Johnson came face-to-face with a man holding a gun.
"We tussled and somehow I guess he broke away and he raised his .38 and he shot me at point-blank range in the stomach and chest six times," Johnson says.
That pistol wasn’t the only weapon aimed at Johnson. The other was the cell phone used to order the "hit." Johnson says an inmate had been selling cell phones to other inmates for $800 a pop. Johnson had cracked down on his operation and his profits.
"Through a cell phone, he found exactly where I lived," Johnson says "He found the city. He even found my phone number all through the Internet with his cell phone. And he found an ex-inmate; he paid him thousands of dollars to kill me."
The suspects are facing federal charges, including the inmate accused of arranging the hit. Robert Johnson, now 58, spent three months in the hospital, and he’s not done yet. His medical bills have topped $1 million. His days as a prison guard are over.
Johnson recounted his harrowing story at a recent conference hosted by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Corrections officials say inmates use cell phones to order hits, run drug rings – and threaten victims, witnesses and judges. Prison guards have confiscated a cell phone from Charles Manson – twice.
Deputy Corrections Director Richard Subia says prison staff confiscated 11,000 cell phones from inmates last year. "We’ve found them in walls, put down inside of walls, inside of toilets, in peanut butter, in garlic..." Subia says you’d be surprised.
Subia says prison visitors, men and women, young and old, smuggle phones to inmates. So does a full spectrum of prison workers. "We had an officer that we stopped in one of our Northern California prisons who said he made $100,000 one year for bringing in cell phones."
The Department of Corrections fires staff that smuggle cell phones into prisons. But the Attorney General can’t prosecute them or the inmates that use the phones unless a phone was used to commit a crime. State Senator Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley) says that’s not good enough.
Padilla told the Senate Appropriation Committee last week, "There are no consequences either for the inmates who are caught with cell phones and there is no consequence for either a visitor or an employee who is caught smuggling cell phones in, and that is unacceptable."
Padilla was arguing for a bill he authored to make it a misdemeanor to smuggle cell phones into a California prison. Anyone convicted would get six months in jail and up to a $5,000 fine, per phone. Padilla’s bill would also add extra time to the sentences of inmates found with contraband phones – but reducing good time credits.
But that’s why the Senate Appropriations Committee shelved the measure. The Department of Finance estimates the longer sentences could cost up to $50,000 more per year, per inmate.
Senator Padilla argues the state will save money by preventing crimes that inmates could carry out with cell phones. "We don’t suspect, we know that they are being used by inmates to commit and coordinate crimes both inside and outside of prisons," Padilla said in closing.
The Senate Appropriations Committee put Padilla’s bill "on suspense" – a kind of legislative backwater for more costly bills. The committee will reconsider all those bills on a single day next month. Most bills "on suspense" end up dying in committee.
This is Padilla's third attempt to criminalize cell phones. Last year the legislature passed a similar bill. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.
CONSEQUENCES OF MASS POVERTY
From the April 24 Borderland Beat:
MEXICO’S YOUNGEST ASSASSINS
For many of Mexico’s youths, a job with a narco-cartel is the only job they can find—and the only one they may ever get
By: Jana Schroeder
Homeland Security Today
An increasingly disturbing factor in the vicious violence that is plaguing Mexico is the youthfulness of the individuals involved, whether as assassins or victims. There is no doubt that the great majority of the rank and file of Mexico’s organized crime groups are young men in their twenties and, increasingly, in their teens.
According to the Mexican government, most of the 30,000-plus deaths occurring since President Felipe Calderón took office four years ago and began the war against the drug cartels can be attributed to rivalries between criminal organizations. Their violence continues to be part of daily life in many areas of Mexico. The mutilated, tortured bodies found on city streets, in remote mountain areas, in trash dumps and hung from freeway overpasses have become painfully commonplace. The only factor that varies is the exact daily count.
The intensity of this violence is clearly unprecedented in Mexico. Perhaps worst of all, it is intended to terrorize citizens, to challenge the government and to make it clear who has the power to act with impunity.
UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF RECRUITS
“The labor force willing to enter into the criminal world is more than enough,” Luis Astorga, an expert on drug trafficking in Mexico, told Homeland Security Today. He said there is a “reserve army” of young people without options, from both rural and urban areas.
“We mostly hear about marginalized youth in the cities,” added Astorga, who teaches at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). “But there are large numbers of young people in rural areas who are involved in growing marijuana and opium poppies, in packaging drugs, for example, and they are also the hired assassins in those parts of the country.”
As concern mounted last year over the increasing numbers of young people with nothing motivating for them on the horizon, a new term was coined in Mexico: “ninis,” an abbreviation in Spanish for young people who are not studying or working, “ni estudian, ni trabajan.”
In the first week of 2011, Calderón’s administration acknowledged that only one in every three young people entering the economically active population found formal employment during the first four years of his current term, which began in 2006. Another third found work in the country’s “informal sector,” and the other third remained unemployed, according to reports in the national press.
Organized crime analyst Jose Luis Piñeyro, who teaches at Mexico City’s Metropolitan Autonomous University, told Homeland Security Today, “The most obvious change I see is that those being recruited as hit men or hired assassins are young people—very young people—who are unemployed and poor or drug addicts. They’re not professional assassins, and they don’t have particular knowledge of how to use weapons.” He added: “They’re disposable, they’re recyclable. They’re hired for an average of US $500 to $650 a month to kill an unlimited number of people or to carry out other acts of violence. Ten years ago, a hired assassin charged US $12,000 to $13,000 to kill just one person. So you could say that hiring assassins has become cheaper for drug traffickers.”
But no one in Mexico was prepared for the news in December 2010, when a 14-year-old nicknamed “El Ponchis” was arrested in Cuernavaca, Morelos, trying to take a flight to San Diego after appearing in a gruesome video on YouTube. He is believed to have been recruited by the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and told reporters he had participated in four beheadings. When asked how and why he could do such a thing, he said he was drugged and threatened with death if he did not participate.
CENTRAL AMERICAN MIGRANTS TARGETED
An equal dose of shock was felt in Mexican society in August, when 72 Central American migrants were found dead, blindfolded and shot at a ranch in the state of Tamaulipas. The national press identified those responsible as gunmen with Los Zetas, who kidnapped and then killed the migrants when ransom money was not paid and they refused to work for the criminal organization.
The mass killing brought attention to a not-so-new problem. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) revealed that reports of such kidnappings go back to at least 2007. And the numbers are astounding. According to the commission’s figures, 10,000 migrants were kidnapped between April and September 2010. In general, these crimes have not been investigated, and whereabouts of most of the kidnapped migrants are unknown.
The kidnappings target the thousands of Central Americans who travel through southern Mexico, hanging on to the sides and tops of northbound freight trains with the hope of reaching the United States. But as characterized in the Mexican press, many migrants find themselves living their worst nightmare long before they reach the American dream.
The story of one migrant who managed to escape, a Honduran man named Eimar, was told in El Excelsior newspaper. He said he was forced off the train and taken to a safe house where there were more than 200 other migrants. They were beaten and sometimes tortured to force them to call family members already living in the United States and demand ransoms of US $2,000 to $4,000 each.
Los Zetas are reportedly the main organized crime group controlling the traffic of Central Americans migrating to the US, and it is estimated this criminal activity brings in millions of dollars in profits. The chairman of CNDH, Raúl Plascencia Villanueva, was quoted in La Jornada newspaper in January saying that in many cases there is evidence of police officers and immigration agents participating in “apparent collusion with criminals.”
Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest, directs a shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, for migrants who come through on the freight trains. He reported receiving death threats from members of Los Zetas, who demanded he turn over migrants who escaped from a mass kidnapping in December along one of the most dangerous stretches of the train route through southern Mexico.
MEXICO’S YOUNGEST ASSASSINS
For many of Mexico’s youths, a job with a narco-cartel is the only job they can find—and the only one they may ever get
By: Jana Schroeder
Homeland Security Today
An increasingly disturbing factor in the vicious violence that is plaguing Mexico is the youthfulness of the individuals involved, whether as assassins or victims. There is no doubt that the great majority of the rank and file of Mexico’s organized crime groups are young men in their twenties and, increasingly, in their teens.
According to the Mexican government, most of the 30,000-plus deaths occurring since President Felipe Calderón took office four years ago and began the war against the drug cartels can be attributed to rivalries between criminal organizations. Their violence continues to be part of daily life in many areas of Mexico. The mutilated, tortured bodies found on city streets, in remote mountain areas, in trash dumps and hung from freeway overpasses have become painfully commonplace. The only factor that varies is the exact daily count.
The intensity of this violence is clearly unprecedented in Mexico. Perhaps worst of all, it is intended to terrorize citizens, to challenge the government and to make it clear who has the power to act with impunity.
UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF RECRUITS
“The labor force willing to enter into the criminal world is more than enough,” Luis Astorga, an expert on drug trafficking in Mexico, told Homeland Security Today. He said there is a “reserve army” of young people without options, from both rural and urban areas.
“We mostly hear about marginalized youth in the cities,” added Astorga, who teaches at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). “But there are large numbers of young people in rural areas who are involved in growing marijuana and opium poppies, in packaging drugs, for example, and they are also the hired assassins in those parts of the country.”
As concern mounted last year over the increasing numbers of young people with nothing motivating for them on the horizon, a new term was coined in Mexico: “ninis,” an abbreviation in Spanish for young people who are not studying or working, “ni estudian, ni trabajan.”
In the first week of 2011, Calderón’s administration acknowledged that only one in every three young people entering the economically active population found formal employment during the first four years of his current term, which began in 2006. Another third found work in the country’s “informal sector,” and the other third remained unemployed, according to reports in the national press.
Organized crime analyst Jose Luis Piñeyro, who teaches at Mexico City’s Metropolitan Autonomous University, told Homeland Security Today, “The most obvious change I see is that those being recruited as hit men or hired assassins are young people—very young people—who are unemployed and poor or drug addicts. They’re not professional assassins, and they don’t have particular knowledge of how to use weapons.” He added: “They’re disposable, they’re recyclable. They’re hired for an average of US $500 to $650 a month to kill an unlimited number of people or to carry out other acts of violence. Ten years ago, a hired assassin charged US $12,000 to $13,000 to kill just one person. So you could say that hiring assassins has become cheaper for drug traffickers.”
But no one in Mexico was prepared for the news in December 2010, when a 14-year-old nicknamed “El Ponchis” was arrested in Cuernavaca, Morelos, trying to take a flight to San Diego after appearing in a gruesome video on YouTube. He is believed to have been recruited by the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and told reporters he had participated in four beheadings. When asked how and why he could do such a thing, he said he was drugged and threatened with death if he did not participate.
CENTRAL AMERICAN MIGRANTS TARGETED
An equal dose of shock was felt in Mexican society in August, when 72 Central American migrants were found dead, blindfolded and shot at a ranch in the state of Tamaulipas. The national press identified those responsible as gunmen with Los Zetas, who kidnapped and then killed the migrants when ransom money was not paid and they refused to work for the criminal organization.
The mass killing brought attention to a not-so-new problem. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) revealed that reports of such kidnappings go back to at least 2007. And the numbers are astounding. According to the commission’s figures, 10,000 migrants were kidnapped between April and September 2010. In general, these crimes have not been investigated, and whereabouts of most of the kidnapped migrants are unknown.
The kidnappings target the thousands of Central Americans who travel through southern Mexico, hanging on to the sides and tops of northbound freight trains with the hope of reaching the United States. But as characterized in the Mexican press, many migrants find themselves living their worst nightmare long before they reach the American dream.
The story of one migrant who managed to escape, a Honduran man named Eimar, was told in El Excelsior newspaper. He said he was forced off the train and taken to a safe house where there were more than 200 other migrants. They were beaten and sometimes tortured to force them to call family members already living in the United States and demand ransoms of US $2,000 to $4,000 each.
Los Zetas are reportedly the main organized crime group controlling the traffic of Central Americans migrating to the US, and it is estimated this criminal activity brings in millions of dollars in profits. The chairman of CNDH, Raúl Plascencia Villanueva, was quoted in La Jornada newspaper in January saying that in many cases there is evidence of police officers and immigration agents participating in “apparent collusion with criminals.”
Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest, directs a shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, for migrants who come through on the freight trains. He reported receiving death threats from members of Los Zetas, who demanded he turn over migrants who escaped from a mass kidnapping in December along one of the most dangerous stretches of the train route through southern Mexico.
COMPARED TO THE CARTOONS OF BUSH AND OBAMA
The ‘moderate’ Jordanians won’t let a sleeping dog lie. Compared to many of the cartoon depictions of Bush and Obama, the 2008 Danish cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was quite tame by comparison.
JORDAN BEGINS TRIAL OF DANISH MOHAMMED CARTOONIST
The Straits Times
April 25, 2011
AMMAN - A JORDANIAN court on Monday put on trial in absentia Danish artist Kurt Westergaard who is being sued in the kingdom for blasphemy over a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
'A court in Amman began today the trial in absentia of those who insulted the Prophet, including Westergaard and Danish newspapers which published his offensive cartoon,' said Tareq Hawamdeh, lawyer for local journalists and activists who brought the suit. 'Judge Nathir Shehadeh adjourned the trial until May 8 to hear the witnesses,' he said in a statement.
The court subpoenaed Westergaard on April 14 after accusing him of committing 'the crime of blasphemy' for depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban in 2008.
A Jordanian prosecutor summoned Westergaard for questioning that year after 30 independent newspapers, websites and radio stations in Jordan sued him over the cartoon, which was published in at least 17 Danish dailies, sparking violent protests in a number of Muslim countries, including Jordan.
Westergaard, 75, told AFP after the subpoena that 'I have not heard about this trial and have not been informed. In any case, I have no intention of going even if I am asked to,' he said on Friday, pointing out that 'I do not want to risk becoming familiar with the Jordanian prisons, which would be hell.'
Jordanian MPs have demanded that the government sever ties with Denmark, and Amman has condemned the caricature, warning that it could spark further extremism and harm relations between Denmark and Muslim countries. -- AFP
JORDAN BEGINS TRIAL OF DANISH MOHAMMED CARTOONIST
The Straits Times
April 25, 2011
AMMAN - A JORDANIAN court on Monday put on trial in absentia Danish artist Kurt Westergaard who is being sued in the kingdom for blasphemy over a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
'A court in Amman began today the trial in absentia of those who insulted the Prophet, including Westergaard and Danish newspapers which published his offensive cartoon,' said Tareq Hawamdeh, lawyer for local journalists and activists who brought the suit. 'Judge Nathir Shehadeh adjourned the trial until May 8 to hear the witnesses,' he said in a statement.
The court subpoenaed Westergaard on April 14 after accusing him of committing 'the crime of blasphemy' for depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban in 2008.
A Jordanian prosecutor summoned Westergaard for questioning that year after 30 independent newspapers, websites and radio stations in Jordan sued him over the cartoon, which was published in at least 17 Danish dailies, sparking violent protests in a number of Muslim countries, including Jordan.
Westergaard, 75, told AFP after the subpoena that 'I have not heard about this trial and have not been informed. In any case, I have no intention of going even if I am asked to,' he said on Friday, pointing out that 'I do not want to risk becoming familiar with the Jordanian prisons, which would be hell.'
Jordanian MPs have demanded that the government sever ties with Denmark, and Amman has condemned the caricature, warning that it could spark further extremism and harm relations between Denmark and Muslim countries. -- AFP
Monday, April 25, 2011
DEPRESSING PREDICTION
Bob Walsh, who sent this to me, says: ‘Depressing as hell, but it's completely possible that Williams is right. He is a smart guy.’ And Bob is right. Williams' depressing prediction makes a lot of sense.
NO MATTER WHAT
By Dr. Walter Williams
Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can't. I am going on record as saying that President Barak Obama will win a second term. The media won't tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama's case billions) of dollars to them in advertising. But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barak Obama can be defeated in 2012.
The quality of the Republican candidate doesn't matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas prices moving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East ? He wins a second term. America's role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barak Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama's extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.
You are crazy Williams. Don't you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do. And that's why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated. Even when Obama's policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn't his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.
Obama's reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:
1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn't matter what he does. It's a race thing. He's one of us,
2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It's really not more complex than that,
3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,
4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,
5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,
6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,
7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more everyday. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,
8) The media love him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,
9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won't vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,
10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn't need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned.
The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.
EDITOR’S UPDATE 4-27-11:
Greg wrote: I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard that Walter Williams did NOT write this article. That someone had hacked into his website and stuck it in there. Rush Limbaugh, who is a friend of Williams (a guest host for Limbaugh), said that the article is bogus!
Be that as it may, regardless of who actually composed that depressing prediction, it still makes a lot of sense.
NO MATTER WHAT
By Dr. Walter Williams
Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can't. I am going on record as saying that President Barak Obama will win a second term. The media won't tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama's case billions) of dollars to them in advertising. But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barak Obama can be defeated in 2012.
The quality of the Republican candidate doesn't matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas prices moving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East ? He wins a second term. America's role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barak Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama's extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.
You are crazy Williams. Don't you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do. And that's why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated. Even when Obama's policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn't his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.
Obama's reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:
1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn't matter what he does. It's a race thing. He's one of us,
2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It's really not more complex than that,
3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,
4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,
5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,
6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,
7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more everyday. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,
8) The media love him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,
9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won't vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,
10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn't need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned.
The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.
EDITOR’S UPDATE 4-27-11:
Greg wrote: I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard that Walter Williams did NOT write this article. That someone had hacked into his website and stuck it in there. Rush Limbaugh, who is a friend of Williams (a guest host for Limbaugh), said that the article is bogus!
Be that as it may, regardless of who actually composed that depressing prediction, it still makes a lot of sense.
SOME AUSSIES KNOW WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT
This would make a great Bud Light ‘Here We Go’ commercial.
AUSTRALIANS RESCUE ALCOHOL, LEAVE MAN TO DIE
The Straits Times
April 24, 2011
SYDNEY - A GROUP of Australians went to the effort of rescuing cases of alcohol that fell off the back of their pick-up after a night out but left a man to die who had fallen off with them, police said on Sunday.
A number of the group were thrown from the back of the vehicle as it rounded a corner close to midnight on Saturday in the country's rural south-east, shortly after leaving a local bar in the town of Maude.
One man, 31, hit his head on the road, sustaining fatal injuries.
'It will be alleged that the driver and remaining passengers picked up a number of cartons of alcohol which had fallen from the vehicle, placed them back on the tray, and then drove off, leaving the critically injured man on the road,' police said.
'He was located a short time later by the occupants of another vehicle, who contacted police and emergency services. Attempts to revive the man were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced deceased at the scene.'
Traffic services commander Joe Cassar said police were still trying to establish whether the man had known the others in the car. -- AFP
AUSTRALIANS RESCUE ALCOHOL, LEAVE MAN TO DIE
The Straits Times
April 24, 2011
SYDNEY - A GROUP of Australians went to the effort of rescuing cases of alcohol that fell off the back of their pick-up after a night out but left a man to die who had fallen off with them, police said on Sunday.
A number of the group were thrown from the back of the vehicle as it rounded a corner close to midnight on Saturday in the country's rural south-east, shortly after leaving a local bar in the town of Maude.
One man, 31, hit his head on the road, sustaining fatal injuries.
'It will be alleged that the driver and remaining passengers picked up a number of cartons of alcohol which had fallen from the vehicle, placed them back on the tray, and then drove off, leaving the critically injured man on the road,' police said.
'He was located a short time later by the occupants of another vehicle, who contacted police and emergency services. Attempts to revive the man were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced deceased at the scene.'
Traffic services commander Joe Cassar said police were still trying to establish whether the man had known the others in the car. -- AFP
TAPS
It seems like every three or four months the following story on the birth of “Taps”, the bugle tune played at military funerals, circulates around the internet:
“Reportedly, it all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison’s Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land.
During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention.
Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son.
The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army.
The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was only partially granted. The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. The request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician.
The Captain chose a bugle. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth’s uniform. This wish was granted. The haunting melody, we now know as “Taps” used at military funerals was born.”
What a great story! If it doesn’t bring a lump in your throat and make your heart skip a beat, nothing ever will. Can’t you just see how poor Capt. Ellicombe must have felt when he not only found his own beloved son dead on the battlefield, but also that the boy had joined up to fight for the Confederacy?
Well, you can relax now. That’s not how Taps came into being. There is no record of any Union officer by the name of Robert Ellicombe. There was no dead son or Confederate soldier involved in the birth of Taps. This is a myth that got started in the 1930s and refuses to die.
Here is the real story on the origin of Taps:
It was Union Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, who gave birth to Taps at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia in July 1862. He composed Taps by altering the words from the French army bugle call ‘Tattoo’, which signaled ‘Lights out.’ Gen. Butterfield showed his brigade bugler, Pvt. Oliver Norton, some notes he had scribbled on an envelope and asked him to sound them on his bugle. And the rest is history..
“Reportedly, it all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison’s Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land.
During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention.
Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son.
The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army.
The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was only partially granted. The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. The request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician.
The Captain chose a bugle. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth’s uniform. This wish was granted. The haunting melody, we now know as “Taps” used at military funerals was born.”
What a great story! If it doesn’t bring a lump in your throat and make your heart skip a beat, nothing ever will. Can’t you just see how poor Capt. Ellicombe must have felt when he not only found his own beloved son dead on the battlefield, but also that the boy had joined up to fight for the Confederacy?
Well, you can relax now. That’s not how Taps came into being. There is no record of any Union officer by the name of Robert Ellicombe. There was no dead son or Confederate soldier involved in the birth of Taps. This is a myth that got started in the 1930s and refuses to die.
Here is the real story on the origin of Taps:
It was Union Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, who gave birth to Taps at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia in July 1862. He composed Taps by altering the words from the French army bugle call ‘Tattoo’, which signaled ‘Lights out.’ Gen. Butterfield showed his brigade bugler, Pvt. Oliver Norton, some notes he had scribbled on an envelope and asked him to sound them on his bugle. And the rest is history..
LEAP INTO CANYON ENDS IN THUD
He should have looked before he leaped.
MAN LEAPS INTO GRAQND CANYON TO AVOID ARREST
The Straits Times
April 24, 2011
A MAN leapt into the Grand Canyon in an attempt to dodge police arrest.
But he was still arrested because his desperate jump took him less far than expected -- 8 meters.
Terrance Deering Black, 48, of Dallas, was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Susan Loper, 40, who went missing last Tuesday from the Texas country club she worked in. Her body was found in the woods on Wednesday, a day after she went missing. A police warrant had been issued for his arrest, a British newspaper reported.
Officials from the Grand Canyon National Park said they received a report of a man begging on the south rim of the park on Friday around 1.45pm. When rangers approached the man, however, he refused to give his identification, and jumped over the edge in flight.
But he fell just 8 meters before he was rescued by rangers. The man, who was later identified as Black, was immediately handcuffed and taken to the hospital for treatment. Once released from the hospital, he will be taken into custody.
The murdered victim's ex-husband, Craig Loper, said that Black was always jealous of their friendship even after their divorce. He added that Susan seemed to have moved on and had been dating someone else for a while after breaking up with Black. -- THE KOREA HERALD/ANN
MAN LEAPS INTO GRAQND CANYON TO AVOID ARREST
The Straits Times
April 24, 2011
A MAN leapt into the Grand Canyon in an attempt to dodge police arrest.
But he was still arrested because his desperate jump took him less far than expected -- 8 meters.
Terrance Deering Black, 48, of Dallas, was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Susan Loper, 40, who went missing last Tuesday from the Texas country club she worked in. Her body was found in the woods on Wednesday, a day after she went missing. A police warrant had been issued for his arrest, a British newspaper reported.
Officials from the Grand Canyon National Park said they received a report of a man begging on the south rim of the park on Friday around 1.45pm. When rangers approached the man, however, he refused to give his identification, and jumped over the edge in flight.
But he fell just 8 meters before he was rescued by rangers. The man, who was later identified as Black, was immediately handcuffed and taken to the hospital for treatment. Once released from the hospital, he will be taken into custody.
The murdered victim's ex-husband, Craig Loper, said that Black was always jealous of their friendship even after their divorce. He added that Susan seemed to have moved on and had been dating someone else for a while after breaking up with Black. -- THE KOREA HERALD/ANN
Sunday, April 24, 2011
CELEBRITY JUSTICE SWEETHEART RULING
Lindsay Lohan ‘allegedly’ stole a necklace from a jewelry store. The owners valued the piece of jewelry at $2,500. That makes the crime a felony. The L.A. district attorney’s office wanted to prosecute this case as a felony. However, Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner declared the necklace to be worth only $900 and, over the objection of the DA, ordered the case to be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.
Had Lohan been convicted of the felony theft charge she could have done up to three years in prison. If she is convicted of the misdemeanor theft charge, the most she can do is one year in county jail. And we all know that is not going to happen. Good old Lee ‘Pepe LePew’ Baca, sheriff to the stars, has a proven track record of not just early releases for Hollywood celebrities, but of almost instant releases. His justification: The time worn jail overcrowding excuse.
On Friday, Lohan was sentenced to four months in jail for violating her oft-violated probation. Judge Sautner thought that despite her vehement denials, Lohan did steal that necklace. Four months in jail? It’ll never happen. Pepe LePew will have her released in less than a month – it’s the jail overcrowding bit, you know.
During a press conference on Wednesday announcing that Lohan would play a starring role in a film about the life of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, she exposed most of her right breast while posing for publicity shots, arm-in-arm with former Mafia boss John Gotti, Jr. Lohan had been chosen for the movie part at the insistence of Gotti’s daughter Victoria. John Travolta will play the part of John Gotti, who was known as the ‘Dapper Don’ during his heyday.
Now, if my daughter or your daughter had stolen a necklace valued at $2,500 from a jewelry store, do you think a judge would have declared that necklace to be worth only $900? Not a fat chance in hell! That is, unless your daughter happens to be a Hollywood celebrity by the name of Lindsay Lohan.
Had Lohan been convicted of the felony theft charge she could have done up to three years in prison. If she is convicted of the misdemeanor theft charge, the most she can do is one year in county jail. And we all know that is not going to happen. Good old Lee ‘Pepe LePew’ Baca, sheriff to the stars, has a proven track record of not just early releases for Hollywood celebrities, but of almost instant releases. His justification: The time worn jail overcrowding excuse.
On Friday, Lohan was sentenced to four months in jail for violating her oft-violated probation. Judge Sautner thought that despite her vehement denials, Lohan did steal that necklace. Four months in jail? It’ll never happen. Pepe LePew will have her released in less than a month – it’s the jail overcrowding bit, you know.
During a press conference on Wednesday announcing that Lohan would play a starring role in a film about the life of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, she exposed most of her right breast while posing for publicity shots, arm-in-arm with former Mafia boss John Gotti, Jr. Lohan had been chosen for the movie part at the insistence of Gotti’s daughter Victoria. John Travolta will play the part of John Gotti, who was known as the ‘Dapper Don’ during his heyday.
Now, if my daughter or your daughter had stolen a necklace valued at $2,500 from a jewelry store, do you think a judge would have declared that necklace to be worth only $900? Not a fat chance in hell! That is, unless your daughter happens to be a Hollywood celebrity by the name of Lindsay Lohan.
NO PLACE FOR A LEISURE DRIVE
Mexico now looks much like the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. And without our military might to support the Mexican army, our southern neighbor is not winning its war against the crime cartels.
DRIVING MEXICO’S ‘HIGHWAY OF DEATH’
By William Booth and Nick Miroff
Washington Post
Borderland Beat
April 21, 2011
This is the time of year when Mexican families traditionally drive long distances to celebrate Easter together. But Highway 101 through the border state of Tamaulipas is empty now — a spooky, forlorn, potentially perilous journey, where travelers join in self-defensive convoys and race down the four-lane road at 90 miles per hour, stopping for nothing, and nobody ever drives at night.
“My friends thought I was crazy to come down,” said Ester Arce, traveling from Atlanta to San Luis Potosi in the south. Arce was stopped at a gas station, waiting for her husband to retie the ropes holding down luggage in the bed of their pickup truck.
Her husband cut the conversation short. “We got to get out of the state by nightfall or the criminals will get us,” he said. Ester Arce apologized, “No one wants to drive the road.”
As rumors spread that psychotic kidnappers were dragging passengers off buses and as authorities found mass graves piled with 145 bodies, people began calling this corridor “the highway of death” or “the devil’s road.”
The highway is so forbidding that even the news these past few weeks of the largest mass grave found in Mexico’s four-year drug war cannot lure TV trucks or journalists onto the road.
The bodies discovered earlier this month are in the same area where cartel kidnappers massacred 72 migrants from Central and South America in August. The terror has only spread since then. On Wednesday, Mexican authorities announced the rescue of 68 individuals found in a stash house in the border city of Reynosa. They had been snatched off buses or grabbed at bus stations.
In the town of San Fernando, where the 145 decomposing bodies were found, the governor of Tamaulipas, Egidio Torre Cantu, accompanied by several hundred federal police and soldiers, arrived for a meeting with city officials Tuesday. There was a single Mexican TV crew there. It had arrived escorted by Mexican marines.
IMPORTANT ROAD
Highway 101 is not a country road. In normal times, it is the most heavily traveled thoroughfare in the state, as vital an artery for commerce and movement in Mexico as Interstate 95 is between Washington and Philadelphia. The highway funnels trade from the interior of Mexico to the busiest border crossings in the world, with 15 bridges from Tamaulipas into the United States along the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros.
But now people who have driven Highway 101 all their lives, who like their Texas neighbors once thought nothing of driving four hours to go out to dinner with friends, refuse to get on the road.
“I waited almost two days in Brownsville, reading the newspapers, watching the news, trying to get up the courage to cross the border and come down,” said Robert Avila, who lives in Dallas but often comes to the state capital, Ciudad Victoria, to visit his parents and siblings.
“I thought about going home and getting my gun,” Avila said, but didn’t.
From the bus depot in Ciudad Victoria to the state morgue in the border city of Matamoros, where the 145 corpses were first taken, is 200 miles. The U.S. government has warned its citizens not to drive the road.
Some have taken to flying commuter planes along the route, rather than venture along the roadway. Bus companies stopped using the highway for two weeks, opting for a long, looping detour to the west, to Monterrey, adding hundreds of miles to the journey.
Highway 101 passes through communal farm lands and ranches named after heroes of the Mexican revolution. The low hills are covered with scrub forests of mesquite, creosote and prickly pear, and the land looks thirsty because of a lingering drought that has left cows dead and bloated in the roadside ditches.
It is humid and 100 degrees, good for the vast fields of sorghum that stretch to the horizon. Many of the vendors who used to line the road are gone, their clapboard stands that sold beef jerky, grapefruit and barbecue abandoned. The remaining commerce mostly involves gas and beer. For years, Texans drove south on Highway 101 to fish for bass in Lake Guerrero and shoot doves in the game ranches, but all that has stopped.
‘IN GOD’S HANDS’
Henry Davila drove from Minnesota to Brownsville and waited at the border for friends to form a caravan. He was driving a minivan stuffed with household items and towing a compact car he planned to sell in his home town of Guatemala City. He makes the trip six times a year and never saw traffic so light.
“We’re in God’s hands,” he said and rumbled off.
Short sections of the highway are now crawling with troops and police. Patrols of masked marines wielding .50-caliber machine guns and grenade launchers roar down the road. During the four-hour drive, a traveler encounters five government roadblocks, where drivers are questioned and vehicles searched. More than 25 federal police cruisers are spotted.
The security is designed to calm nerves.
“Of course, it is only a perception,” said Morelos Canseco Gomez, the lieutenant governor of Tamaulipas.
Canesco applauded the effort but offered a caution. “It’s not a matter of patrolling the roads, it’s a matter of gathering intelligence and information. Where do they hide? Where do they strike? Where do we get them? We’re not going to get them on the road,” he said.
DRIVING MEXICO’S ‘HIGHWAY OF DEATH’
By William Booth and Nick Miroff
Washington Post
Borderland Beat
April 21, 2011
This is the time of year when Mexican families traditionally drive long distances to celebrate Easter together. But Highway 101 through the border state of Tamaulipas is empty now — a spooky, forlorn, potentially perilous journey, where travelers join in self-defensive convoys and race down the four-lane road at 90 miles per hour, stopping for nothing, and nobody ever drives at night.
“My friends thought I was crazy to come down,” said Ester Arce, traveling from Atlanta to San Luis Potosi in the south. Arce was stopped at a gas station, waiting for her husband to retie the ropes holding down luggage in the bed of their pickup truck.
Her husband cut the conversation short. “We got to get out of the state by nightfall or the criminals will get us,” he said. Ester Arce apologized, “No one wants to drive the road.”
As rumors spread that psychotic kidnappers were dragging passengers off buses and as authorities found mass graves piled with 145 bodies, people began calling this corridor “the highway of death” or “the devil’s road.”
The highway is so forbidding that even the news these past few weeks of the largest mass grave found in Mexico’s four-year drug war cannot lure TV trucks or journalists onto the road.
The bodies discovered earlier this month are in the same area where cartel kidnappers massacred 72 migrants from Central and South America in August. The terror has only spread since then. On Wednesday, Mexican authorities announced the rescue of 68 individuals found in a stash house in the border city of Reynosa. They had been snatched off buses or grabbed at bus stations.
In the town of San Fernando, where the 145 decomposing bodies were found, the governor of Tamaulipas, Egidio Torre Cantu, accompanied by several hundred federal police and soldiers, arrived for a meeting with city officials Tuesday. There was a single Mexican TV crew there. It had arrived escorted by Mexican marines.
IMPORTANT ROAD
Highway 101 is not a country road. In normal times, it is the most heavily traveled thoroughfare in the state, as vital an artery for commerce and movement in Mexico as Interstate 95 is between Washington and Philadelphia. The highway funnels trade from the interior of Mexico to the busiest border crossings in the world, with 15 bridges from Tamaulipas into the United States along the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros.
But now people who have driven Highway 101 all their lives, who like their Texas neighbors once thought nothing of driving four hours to go out to dinner with friends, refuse to get on the road.
“I waited almost two days in Brownsville, reading the newspapers, watching the news, trying to get up the courage to cross the border and come down,” said Robert Avila, who lives in Dallas but often comes to the state capital, Ciudad Victoria, to visit his parents and siblings.
“I thought about going home and getting my gun,” Avila said, but didn’t.
From the bus depot in Ciudad Victoria to the state morgue in the border city of Matamoros, where the 145 corpses were first taken, is 200 miles. The U.S. government has warned its citizens not to drive the road.
Some have taken to flying commuter planes along the route, rather than venture along the roadway. Bus companies stopped using the highway for two weeks, opting for a long, looping detour to the west, to Monterrey, adding hundreds of miles to the journey.
Highway 101 passes through communal farm lands and ranches named after heroes of the Mexican revolution. The low hills are covered with scrub forests of mesquite, creosote and prickly pear, and the land looks thirsty because of a lingering drought that has left cows dead and bloated in the roadside ditches.
It is humid and 100 degrees, good for the vast fields of sorghum that stretch to the horizon. Many of the vendors who used to line the road are gone, their clapboard stands that sold beef jerky, grapefruit and barbecue abandoned. The remaining commerce mostly involves gas and beer. For years, Texans drove south on Highway 101 to fish for bass in Lake Guerrero and shoot doves in the game ranches, but all that has stopped.
‘IN GOD’S HANDS’
Henry Davila drove from Minnesota to Brownsville and waited at the border for friends to form a caravan. He was driving a minivan stuffed with household items and towing a compact car he planned to sell in his home town of Guatemala City. He makes the trip six times a year and never saw traffic so light.
“We’re in God’s hands,” he said and rumbled off.
Short sections of the highway are now crawling with troops and police. Patrols of masked marines wielding .50-caliber machine guns and grenade launchers roar down the road. During the four-hour drive, a traveler encounters five government roadblocks, where drivers are questioned and vehicles searched. More than 25 federal police cruisers are spotted.
The security is designed to calm nerves.
“Of course, it is only a perception,” said Morelos Canseco Gomez, the lieutenant governor of Tamaulipas.
Canesco applauded the effort but offered a caution. “It’s not a matter of patrolling the roads, it’s a matter of gathering intelligence and information. Where do they hide? Where do they strike? Where do we get them? We’re not going to get them on the road,” he said.
DON'T THEY CALL THAT 'PROFESSIONAL COURTESY'?
So what else is new? This has been a longtime tradition not only at NYPD, but among cops all over the country. When police officers give ‘passes’ to their family, friends, other cops and big shots, they justify it by saying they are just showing them a professional courtesy, just like doctors and lawyers do. Well, not exactly! When doctors and lawyers provide their services to each other and their family members for free, that’s not the same as letting someone slide with a violation of the law. And when cops get paid for fixing tickets, that’s just plain bribery!
INSIDE THE NYPD’S TICKET-FIXING SCANDAL
Internal Affairs caught a Bronx Sgt. trying to make a traffic violation disappear for an honorary deputy commissioner. Union officials say that fixing tickets has been part of the NYPD culture and has been widely accepted among department brass.
By Larry Celona and Bob Fredericks
The New York Post
April 23, 2011
NEW YORK — Internal Affairs cops got a big break in their exploding ticket-fixing probe when they caught a Bronx sergeant shamelessly trying to make a traffic violation disappear for an honorary NYPD deputy commissioner, The Post has learned.
The incident shed light on the widespread practice of cops quashing tickets for big shots, sometimes at the orders of their superiors.
Early last year, police-connected businessman Albert Thompson - who shares his deputy-commish title with celebs like Donald Trump and rubs shoulders with top brass, including Commissioner Ray Kelly - called his buddy, Sgt. Keshawn Hickman, saying he needed to get rid of a moving violation.
Hickman found out the ticket was already being heard in Bronx traffic court, and allegedly dispatched two rookies to take care of the problem.
"He told them to go down to traffic court and see officer so-and-so and have him take care of the ticket and say it's for the chief so-and-so," a source said.
That officer would then make up an excuse to the judge why the ticket should be voided, and the problem would be solved.
But the plan quickly unraveled when the cops sent to the courtroom started wandering around like lost puppies and drew the attention of a sergeant who was not in on the scheme.
"A sergeant comes up and says, 'Can I help you?' and they say they're there to take care of this ticket, and the sergeant says, 'What?' and he reports them to IAB," the source said.
When the unidentified chief learned of the plot, he said he'd never heard of Thompson - and Hickman was yanked from his cushy post at Bronx Borough headquarters near Crotona Park to the 41st Precinct near crime-ridden Hunts Point.
It's unclear what happened to the rookies, who spilled details of the plan to the IAB investigators.
Police conversations about this ticket-fix incident were later caught on wiretaps set up as part of the larger probe that began in 2008.
A source said the example proves that the fixing epidemic "is not a union issue, it is a job issue coming from all ranks, even much higher than sergeant."
As many as 400 cops - most of them assigned to 12 Bronx precincts - could face departmental charges for allegedly fixing tickets. If found guilty, they could be fired, lose benefits or be reprimanded.
And Bronx DA Robert Johnson has convened a grand jury that is weighing criminal charges against another 40 officers accused of taking bribes for fixing tickets for relatives and friends.
At least one Yankee executive saw his ticket go away, The Post has learned.
"I have been on the job for nearly three decades, and it was never deemed unusual to get calls from high-ranking department members when a summons was given to their family member or friends," said Edward Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association.
Thompson, who falsely claims he is the brother of former Comptroller Bill Thompson, played dumb when confronted outside his Harlem brownstone last night.
"Look, people drop my name all the time. I don't know what you're talking about," said the businessman, who was head of the honorary deputy police commissioners foundation.
"Al's always there during the good times and bad, at funerals, fundraisers and celebrations," the source said. "He's on a first-name basis with all police brass."
Honorary deputy police commissioners are civilians who've given money or benefits to the department or its charities. The plum honor includes a badge and ID card.
INSIDE THE NYPD’S TICKET-FIXING SCANDAL
Internal Affairs caught a Bronx Sgt. trying to make a traffic violation disappear for an honorary deputy commissioner. Union officials say that fixing tickets has been part of the NYPD culture and has been widely accepted among department brass.
By Larry Celona and Bob Fredericks
The New York Post
April 23, 2011
NEW YORK — Internal Affairs cops got a big break in their exploding ticket-fixing probe when they caught a Bronx sergeant shamelessly trying to make a traffic violation disappear for an honorary NYPD deputy commissioner, The Post has learned.
The incident shed light on the widespread practice of cops quashing tickets for big shots, sometimes at the orders of their superiors.
Early last year, police-connected businessman Albert Thompson - who shares his deputy-commish title with celebs like Donald Trump and rubs shoulders with top brass, including Commissioner Ray Kelly - called his buddy, Sgt. Keshawn Hickman, saying he needed to get rid of a moving violation.
Hickman found out the ticket was already being heard in Bronx traffic court, and allegedly dispatched two rookies to take care of the problem.
"He told them to go down to traffic court and see officer so-and-so and have him take care of the ticket and say it's for the chief so-and-so," a source said.
That officer would then make up an excuse to the judge why the ticket should be voided, and the problem would be solved.
But the plan quickly unraveled when the cops sent to the courtroom started wandering around like lost puppies and drew the attention of a sergeant who was not in on the scheme.
"A sergeant comes up and says, 'Can I help you?' and they say they're there to take care of this ticket, and the sergeant says, 'What?' and he reports them to IAB," the source said.
When the unidentified chief learned of the plot, he said he'd never heard of Thompson - and Hickman was yanked from his cushy post at Bronx Borough headquarters near Crotona Park to the 41st Precinct near crime-ridden Hunts Point.
It's unclear what happened to the rookies, who spilled details of the plan to the IAB investigators.
Police conversations about this ticket-fix incident were later caught on wiretaps set up as part of the larger probe that began in 2008.
A source said the example proves that the fixing epidemic "is not a union issue, it is a job issue coming from all ranks, even much higher than sergeant."
As many as 400 cops - most of them assigned to 12 Bronx precincts - could face departmental charges for allegedly fixing tickets. If found guilty, they could be fired, lose benefits or be reprimanded.
And Bronx DA Robert Johnson has convened a grand jury that is weighing criminal charges against another 40 officers accused of taking bribes for fixing tickets for relatives and friends.
At least one Yankee executive saw his ticket go away, The Post has learned.
"I have been on the job for nearly three decades, and it was never deemed unusual to get calls from high-ranking department members when a summons was given to their family member or friends," said Edward Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association.
Thompson, who falsely claims he is the brother of former Comptroller Bill Thompson, played dumb when confronted outside his Harlem brownstone last night.
"Look, people drop my name all the time. I don't know what you're talking about," said the businessman, who was head of the honorary deputy police commissioners foundation.
"Al's always there during the good times and bad, at funerals, fundraisers and celebrations," the source said. "He's on a first-name basis with all police brass."
Honorary deputy police commissioners are civilians who've given money or benefits to the department or its charities. The plum honor includes a badge and ID card.
'HIS ARROGANCE GOT THE BETTER OF HIM, NOT A LACK OF INTELLIGENCE'
Getting that tattoo describes the meaning of the term ‘chutzpah.’
CALIFORNIA GANG MEMBER ANTHONY GARCIA’S TATTOO OF MURDER SCENE GETS HIM CONVICTED
By Jessica Hopper
abc News
April 22, 2011
Authorities relied on a chest tattoo that depicted the murder scene to apprehend and convict a California gang member for a deadly shooting.
Anthony Garcia, 25, was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder for the 2004 shooting at a liquor store in Pico Rivera. He could face life in prison for the crime when he is sentenced next month.
Garcia had avoided arrest for four years until he was picked up by police for driving with a suspended license in 2008. Because Garcia appeared to be an active member of the Rivera-13 gang, police snapped pictures of his tattoos, along with his mugshot.
Det. Sgt. Kevin Lloyd was looking through pictures of gang members' tattoos for leads on another crime when one image looked eerily familiar. Lloyd had worked as a sergeant at the Pico Rivera Sheriff's Station when the murder happened Jan. 23, 2004, at Mr. Ed's Liquor store.
"I was working on another case about this gang and looking for other examples. ... I just see that picture and something struck me." Lloyd said. "It looked like a murder from way back when."
Lloyd followed his hunch, driving to the liquor store named on the tattoo and pulling the old case file.
Garcia's tattoo captured the night of the shooting, from the Christmas lights outside the liquor store to the bent light post in the store's parking lot to the convalescent home called the Rivera, next door to the liquor store. The scene shows a chopper spraying bullets on a victim. Garcia's gang nickname is "Chopper."
The victim, John Juarez, is depicted as a Mr. Peanut. The peanut is commonly used as a symbol of a rival gang in Pico Rivera, Lloyd said. The crime scene is under a tattoo on Garcia's neck that reads "Rivera Kills."
The tattoo was so accurate that Lloyd called it a "crime scene sketch and a confession." Garcia's tattoo artist even matched the trajectory of the bullets, Lloyd said.
"Even the peanut guy; he's standing on corner, he gets shot in the head and you can see the shot in the head," Lloyd said. "He lays right there in the liquor store."
Garcia was arrested in October of 2008 and charged with the murder. He reportedly confessed to officers posing as gang members in the jail.
Deputy District Attorney Brock Lunsford prosecuted the case and called Garcia's tattoo a "non-verbal confession."
"It was offensive, the brazenness of it," Lunsford said. "I would never say that he's not intelligent. He was able to avoid detection for four years ... his arrogance got the better of him, not a lack of intelligence."
Lunsford said Garcia spent years perfecting the tattoo. A 2005 booking photo of him from an unspecified charge shows just the chopper shooting bullets at Mr. Peanut. A 2006 booking photo of him from another unspecified charge adds the liquor store and his 2008 booking photo from the suspended license charge shows the complete scene.
CALIFORNIA GANG MEMBER ANTHONY GARCIA’S TATTOO OF MURDER SCENE GETS HIM CONVICTED
By Jessica Hopper
abc News
April 22, 2011
Authorities relied on a chest tattoo that depicted the murder scene to apprehend and convict a California gang member for a deadly shooting.
Anthony Garcia, 25, was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder for the 2004 shooting at a liquor store in Pico Rivera. He could face life in prison for the crime when he is sentenced next month.
Garcia had avoided arrest for four years until he was picked up by police for driving with a suspended license in 2008. Because Garcia appeared to be an active member of the Rivera-13 gang, police snapped pictures of his tattoos, along with his mugshot.
Det. Sgt. Kevin Lloyd was looking through pictures of gang members' tattoos for leads on another crime when one image looked eerily familiar. Lloyd had worked as a sergeant at the Pico Rivera Sheriff's Station when the murder happened Jan. 23, 2004, at Mr. Ed's Liquor store.
"I was working on another case about this gang and looking for other examples. ... I just see that picture and something struck me." Lloyd said. "It looked like a murder from way back when."
Lloyd followed his hunch, driving to the liquor store named on the tattoo and pulling the old case file.
Garcia's tattoo captured the night of the shooting, from the Christmas lights outside the liquor store to the bent light post in the store's parking lot to the convalescent home called the Rivera, next door to the liquor store. The scene shows a chopper spraying bullets on a victim. Garcia's gang nickname is "Chopper."
The victim, John Juarez, is depicted as a Mr. Peanut. The peanut is commonly used as a symbol of a rival gang in Pico Rivera, Lloyd said. The crime scene is under a tattoo on Garcia's neck that reads "Rivera Kills."
The tattoo was so accurate that Lloyd called it a "crime scene sketch and a confession." Garcia's tattoo artist even matched the trajectory of the bullets, Lloyd said.
"Even the peanut guy; he's standing on corner, he gets shot in the head and you can see the shot in the head," Lloyd said. "He lays right there in the liquor store."
Garcia was arrested in October of 2008 and charged with the murder. He reportedly confessed to officers posing as gang members in the jail.
Deputy District Attorney Brock Lunsford prosecuted the case and called Garcia's tattoo a "non-verbal confession."
"It was offensive, the brazenness of it," Lunsford said. "I would never say that he's not intelligent. He was able to avoid detection for four years ... his arrogance got the better of him, not a lack of intelligence."
Lunsford said Garcia spent years perfecting the tattoo. A 2005 booking photo of him from an unspecified charge shows just the chopper shooting bullets at Mr. Peanut. A 2006 booking photo of him from another unspecified charge adds the liquor store and his 2008 booking photo from the suspended license charge shows the complete scene.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
PRISON CELL PHONE INTERCEPT PROGRAM NOT WORKING
It is apparent that the only way to prevent prison inmates from using contraband cell phones is to employ the technology that blocks all unauthorized cell phone use.
PROGRAM FAILS TO STEM FLOW OF CELL PHONES INTO PRISONS
By Michael Montgomery
California Watch
April 22, 2011
A two-year operation to intercept cell phones being smuggled into state prisons by employees has produced modest results and done little to stem the flow of contraband devices to inmates, according to state data.
Since 2009, authorities have seized 432 unauthorized cell phones from employees in random searches at adult prisons across the state.
It’s unclear how many of those devices were intended for the lucrative black market, said Terry Thornton, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Some people just forget to leave their personal cell phones at home,” she said.
The phones confiscated during “Operation Disconnect” represent just a fraction of the total number of cell phones circulating among inmates.
Last year, more than 10,000 devices were seized from inmates or found abandoned in cells, common areas and on prison yards. Authorities believe the actual number of phones being used by inmates is much higher.
In the prison black market cell phones can fetch prices of $1,000 or more.
While some inmates use the phones to communicate with friends and family, there are documented cases of prisoners using the devices to facilitate crimes and harass crime victims and witnesses.
The problem gained notoriety over the past year when authorities twice discovered contraband cell phones being used by convicted serial killer Charles Manson.
Under “Operation Disconnect” prisons are required to conduct monthly random checks on staff as they enter state facilities.
However, the searches usually do not cover all facility entrances and do not stretch to more than one work shift.
Unlike some other states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, California does not routinely search prison employees on their way into work.
In contrast, all visitors are required to pass through metal detectors before they enter state prisons. It remains unclear whether visitors contribute significantly to the cell phone black market since the department of corrections does not collect data on the number of devices confiscated from non-employees.
Corrections officials say the results from “Operation Disconnect” support the department’s view that there is no single source for illicit cell phones.
“They (contraband phones) come in through many ways – staff, vendors, contractors, packages, visitors, outside work crews,” Thornton said. “We have found them in the garbage, in cereal boxes, in hollowed out Bibles, in shoes, in footballs, in body cavities, in a can of food.”
Prison officials expressed some disappointment but said they never expected the operation would wipe out the black market in cell phones.
“It’s a piece of what we’re trying to do,” said Richard Subia, a corrections deputy director.
Subia said he would like to see the state establish “airport-style screening” at every adult prison but “fiscally we can’t do that.”
However, prison officials are planning to invest millions in technology they hope will block calls from unauthorized cell phones.
“So even if the phones get into the prisons, they can’t be used,” Subia said. “They would be worthless.”
PROGRAM FAILS TO STEM FLOW OF CELL PHONES INTO PRISONS
By Michael Montgomery
California Watch
April 22, 2011
A two-year operation to intercept cell phones being smuggled into state prisons by employees has produced modest results and done little to stem the flow of contraband devices to inmates, according to state data.
Since 2009, authorities have seized 432 unauthorized cell phones from employees in random searches at adult prisons across the state.
It’s unclear how many of those devices were intended for the lucrative black market, said Terry Thornton, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Some people just forget to leave their personal cell phones at home,” she said.
The phones confiscated during “Operation Disconnect” represent just a fraction of the total number of cell phones circulating among inmates.
Last year, more than 10,000 devices were seized from inmates or found abandoned in cells, common areas and on prison yards. Authorities believe the actual number of phones being used by inmates is much higher.
In the prison black market cell phones can fetch prices of $1,000 or more.
While some inmates use the phones to communicate with friends and family, there are documented cases of prisoners using the devices to facilitate crimes and harass crime victims and witnesses.
The problem gained notoriety over the past year when authorities twice discovered contraband cell phones being used by convicted serial killer Charles Manson.
Under “Operation Disconnect” prisons are required to conduct monthly random checks on staff as they enter state facilities.
However, the searches usually do not cover all facility entrances and do not stretch to more than one work shift.
Unlike some other states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, California does not routinely search prison employees on their way into work.
In contrast, all visitors are required to pass through metal detectors before they enter state prisons. It remains unclear whether visitors contribute significantly to the cell phone black market since the department of corrections does not collect data on the number of devices confiscated from non-employees.
Corrections officials say the results from “Operation Disconnect” support the department’s view that there is no single source for illicit cell phones.
“They (contraband phones) come in through many ways – staff, vendors, contractors, packages, visitors, outside work crews,” Thornton said. “We have found them in the garbage, in cereal boxes, in hollowed out Bibles, in shoes, in footballs, in body cavities, in a can of food.”
Prison officials expressed some disappointment but said they never expected the operation would wipe out the black market in cell phones.
“It’s a piece of what we’re trying to do,” said Richard Subia, a corrections deputy director.
Subia said he would like to see the state establish “airport-style screening” at every adult prison but “fiscally we can’t do that.”
However, prison officials are planning to invest millions in technology they hope will block calls from unauthorized cell phones.
“So even if the phones get into the prisons, they can’t be used,” Subia said. “They would be worthless.”
OBAMA GETS A TASTE OF WHAT BUSH HAD TO ENDURE
It figures. After all it happened in San Fransicko, Kookfornia.
IT’S NOT SO MUCH FUN WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU
By Monica Crowley
politicalmavens.com
April 22, 2011
For years, the Left loved it when protesters got in the faces of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others in the Bush administration. They relished the idea of Cindy Sheehan perpetually reclining on her lawn chair near the Bush ranch. They ate it up when Code Pink stormed Secretary Rice at a Congressional hearing. They guffawed when Bush got called a “war criminal,” “Hitler,” and “evil” while being hung in effigy.
One of the lessons in life is that what goes around usually comes around. President Obama doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
Thursday morning, he spoke at a high-end fundraiser in San Francisco. A group of radical leftwingers bought their way in, and then proceeded to hijack the event. Here is the pool report. I have capitalized the particularly hilarious details:
Protesters hit high-end Obama fundraiser…
Thurs April 21 2011 12:52:09 EDT
Motorcade left the Intercontinental Hotel at 9 am local and arrived at the St. Regis for President Obama’s last Bay area fundraiser. A couple dozen demonstrators are on a corner across the street from the hotel. They have signs - “YES WE CANNIBIS” - and are chanting something your pooler couldn’t make out. One of them also has sign of Uncle Sam’s face with “LIAR” written on his hat.
About 200 donors were at the breakfast fundraiser, per a Democratic official. Your pooler counted 15 tables with 10 chairs each, however, NOT ALL THE TABLES WERE FULL, including one in the back where Valerie Jarrett, Jay Carney and Patrick Gaspard sat with two other people. Tickets are $35,800 each.
POTUS was introduced by Nancy Pelosi. “We can thank him for bringing HOPE where there was despair for some,” Ms. Pelosi said. POTUS, she said, was a JOB CREATOR from the start. “His re-election is absolutely essential to our country’s future,” Ms. Pelosi said. POTUS spoke with a handheld mic. “I’LL ADMIT THAT I SORT OF SLEPT IN,” POTUS said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Lt Gov. Gavin Newsom was seated front, former Mayor Willie Brown, “no matter how hard I try, Willie is still better dressed than me - although I’m still getting used to the NO MOUSTACHE thing.” POTUS called Ms. Pelosi one of the GREATEST SPEAKERS in history. He started to launch into his stump speech when MS. PELOSI INTERRUPTED to say Gov. Jerry Brown had been there.
Mr. Obama was in the middle of his remarks when a woman in a white suit stood up and said, “Mr. President we wrote you a song.” POTUS tried to get her to wait until later, but she persisted and the table of 10 broke into a song that pointed out they’d just spent $5,000 donating to his campaign and went on to protest the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning. The woman stayed standing as they sang. OBAMA LOOKED TO MS. PELOSI AND ASKED, “NANCY, DID YOU DO THIS?” MS. PELOSI HAD A LOOK ON HER FACE THAT DEFINITELY SAID SHE DID NOT. The song talked about Bradley Manning and how he is “alone in a cell…”
The 10 singers then passed around signs that said “Free Bradley Manning” or had a photo of him. Then the woman in the white suit STRIPPED OFF HER JACKET to reveal a black T-shirt that said Free Bradley Manning, with an image of him. US Secret Service and WH staff had moved near the table at this point. The woman was escorted out. As she left, she said, “Free Bradley Manning. I’m leaving. I HOPE I DON’T GET TORTURED IN JAIL.”
“That was a nice song,” a DISPLEASED Mr. Obama said. “Now where was I? THAT DIDN’T BREAK MY FLOW.”
For your enjoyment, here are the lyrics to the song with which they serenaded Obama:
Dear Mr. President we honor you today sir
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where’s our change?
We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true
Look at the Republicans - what else can we do
Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties
In what you seem content to call a free society
Yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free
To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy
But at another location in this country
Alone in a 6×12 cell sits Bradley
23 hours a day is night
The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right
We paid our dues, where’s our change?
It was all fun and games when it happened to Bush. Now, it’s not so amusing, Mr. President, is it? (Yes We Cannabis!)
IT’S NOT SO MUCH FUN WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU
By Monica Crowley
politicalmavens.com
April 22, 2011
For years, the Left loved it when protesters got in the faces of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others in the Bush administration. They relished the idea of Cindy Sheehan perpetually reclining on her lawn chair near the Bush ranch. They ate it up when Code Pink stormed Secretary Rice at a Congressional hearing. They guffawed when Bush got called a “war criminal,” “Hitler,” and “evil” while being hung in effigy.
One of the lessons in life is that what goes around usually comes around. President Obama doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
Thursday morning, he spoke at a high-end fundraiser in San Francisco. A group of radical leftwingers bought their way in, and then proceeded to hijack the event. Here is the pool report. I have capitalized the particularly hilarious details:
Protesters hit high-end Obama fundraiser…
Thurs April 21 2011 12:52:09 EDT
Motorcade left the Intercontinental Hotel at 9 am local and arrived at the St. Regis for President Obama’s last Bay area fundraiser. A couple dozen demonstrators are on a corner across the street from the hotel. They have signs - “YES WE CANNIBIS” - and are chanting something your pooler couldn’t make out. One of them also has sign of Uncle Sam’s face with “LIAR” written on his hat.
About 200 donors were at the breakfast fundraiser, per a Democratic official. Your pooler counted 15 tables with 10 chairs each, however, NOT ALL THE TABLES WERE FULL, including one in the back where Valerie Jarrett, Jay Carney and Patrick Gaspard sat with two other people. Tickets are $35,800 each.
POTUS was introduced by Nancy Pelosi. “We can thank him for bringing HOPE where there was despair for some,” Ms. Pelosi said. POTUS, she said, was a JOB CREATOR from the start. “His re-election is absolutely essential to our country’s future,” Ms. Pelosi said. POTUS spoke with a handheld mic. “I’LL ADMIT THAT I SORT OF SLEPT IN,” POTUS said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Lt Gov. Gavin Newsom was seated front, former Mayor Willie Brown, “no matter how hard I try, Willie is still better dressed than me - although I’m still getting used to the NO MOUSTACHE thing.” POTUS called Ms. Pelosi one of the GREATEST SPEAKERS in history. He started to launch into his stump speech when MS. PELOSI INTERRUPTED to say Gov. Jerry Brown had been there.
Mr. Obama was in the middle of his remarks when a woman in a white suit stood up and said, “Mr. President we wrote you a song.” POTUS tried to get her to wait until later, but she persisted and the table of 10 broke into a song that pointed out they’d just spent $5,000 donating to his campaign and went on to protest the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning. The woman stayed standing as they sang. OBAMA LOOKED TO MS. PELOSI AND ASKED, “NANCY, DID YOU DO THIS?” MS. PELOSI HAD A LOOK ON HER FACE THAT DEFINITELY SAID SHE DID NOT. The song talked about Bradley Manning and how he is “alone in a cell…”
The 10 singers then passed around signs that said “Free Bradley Manning” or had a photo of him. Then the woman in the white suit STRIPPED OFF HER JACKET to reveal a black T-shirt that said Free Bradley Manning, with an image of him. US Secret Service and WH staff had moved near the table at this point. The woman was escorted out. As she left, she said, “Free Bradley Manning. I’m leaving. I HOPE I DON’T GET TORTURED IN JAIL.”
“That was a nice song,” a DISPLEASED Mr. Obama said. “Now where was I? THAT DIDN’T BREAK MY FLOW.”
For your enjoyment, here are the lyrics to the song with which they serenaded Obama:
Dear Mr. President we honor you today sir
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where’s our change?
We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true
Look at the Republicans - what else can we do
Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties
In what you seem content to call a free society
Yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free
To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy
But at another location in this country
Alone in a 6×12 cell sits Bradley
23 hours a day is night
The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right
We paid our dues, where’s our change?
It was all fun and games when it happened to Bush. Now, it’s not so amusing, Mr. President, is it? (Yes We Cannabis!)
OOPS, SORRY WRONG CAR, YOU CAN GET UP AND DUST YOURSELVES OFF ... AND CHANGE YOUR PANTS, THAT'S DISGUSTING
Will the City of Los Angeles now pay for getting the pee and poop stains out of the news crew’s pants?
Reminds me of the time I was driving my state undercover car near March Air Force Base when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled me over and pointed his shotgun at me as he approached. It turned out that my car resembled that of a car used in a liquor store robbery. The wild look in that cop’s eyes as he pointed that shotgun at me and ordered me on the ground face down scared the supreme shit out of me.
NEWS CREW MISTAKEN FOR ROBBERS, SURROUNDED BY COPS
KTLA News
April 22, 2011
HOLLYWOOD -- A Bloomberg news crew was surrounded by police in Hollywood Thursday after their SUV was mistaken for a vehicle involved in an armed robbery.
The robbery happened in the 8900 block of Shoreham Drive, according to the LAPD.
Two male suspects took an ID, a gold watch and a ring from someone on the street. One of the suspects was carrying a semi-automatic handgun, police said.
About an hour after the robbery, an LAPD air unit started following a vehicle that matched the description of the suspect vehicle -- a dark-colored Yukon.
Police said it turned out to be the wrong car.
Twitter user Brittany Joe took photos of police stopping the vehicle.
The pictures show police with guns and rifles drawn, and the Bloomberg crew laying face down on the pavement.
After the ordeal, Bloomberg photographer Jonathan Alarcon, who was part of the group, posted on his Facebook page: "Was just prone on the ground felony stop with about 10 guns pointed at me and a news crew. Felony stop mistaken identity shotguns helicopter. The whole deal."
Reminds me of the time I was driving my state undercover car near March Air Force Base when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled me over and pointed his shotgun at me as he approached. It turned out that my car resembled that of a car used in a liquor store robbery. The wild look in that cop’s eyes as he pointed that shotgun at me and ordered me on the ground face down scared the supreme shit out of me.
NEWS CREW MISTAKEN FOR ROBBERS, SURROUNDED BY COPS
KTLA News
April 22, 2011
HOLLYWOOD -- A Bloomberg news crew was surrounded by police in Hollywood Thursday after their SUV was mistaken for a vehicle involved in an armed robbery.
The robbery happened in the 8900 block of Shoreham Drive, according to the LAPD.
Two male suspects took an ID, a gold watch and a ring from someone on the street. One of the suspects was carrying a semi-automatic handgun, police said.
About an hour after the robbery, an LAPD air unit started following a vehicle that matched the description of the suspect vehicle -- a dark-colored Yukon.
Police said it turned out to be the wrong car.
Twitter user Brittany Joe took photos of police stopping the vehicle.
The pictures show police with guns and rifles drawn, and the Bloomberg crew laying face down on the pavement.
After the ordeal, Bloomberg photographer Jonathan Alarcon, who was part of the group, posted on his Facebook page: "Was just prone on the ground felony stop with about 10 guns pointed at me and a news crew. Felony stop mistaken identity shotguns helicopter. The whole deal."
NO WHOPEE IN SPACE
American astronauts? Well maybe not in space but, for sure, Lisa Nowak and William Oefelein had sex on earth!
RUSSIANS ‘NEVER, EVER HAD SEX IN SPACE’
The Straits Times
April 22, 2011
MOSCOW - RUSSIAN or Soviet cosmonauts never had sex in space in the 50 years of human exploration of the cosmos. And that's official, according to a Russian expert. As for Americans, well, you'd better ask them.
'There's no official or unofficial evidence that there were instances of sexual intercourse or the carrying out of sexual experiments in space,' Valery Bogomolov, deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute of Biomedical Problems told the Interfax news agency.
'At least, in the history of Russian or Soviet space exploration this most certainly was not the case,' said Mr Bogomolov.
Rumours have persisted for years of secret Russian and American programmes to test the effects of weightlessness on sex but this has always been strongly denied by both sides.
'As for American space exploration, well, I just don't have the information to categorically deny that,' said Mr Bogomolov. 'There are just anecdotal rumours which are not worth trusting,' he added. -- AFP
RUSSIANS ‘NEVER, EVER HAD SEX IN SPACE’
The Straits Times
April 22, 2011
MOSCOW - RUSSIAN or Soviet cosmonauts never had sex in space in the 50 years of human exploration of the cosmos. And that's official, according to a Russian expert. As for Americans, well, you'd better ask them.
'There's no official or unofficial evidence that there were instances of sexual intercourse or the carrying out of sexual experiments in space,' Valery Bogomolov, deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute of Biomedical Problems told the Interfax news agency.
'At least, in the history of Russian or Soviet space exploration this most certainly was not the case,' said Mr Bogomolov.
Rumours have persisted for years of secret Russian and American programmes to test the effects of weightlessness on sex but this has always been strongly denied by both sides.
'As for American space exploration, well, I just don't have the information to categorically deny that,' said Mr Bogomolov. 'There are just anecdotal rumours which are not worth trusting,' he added. -- AFP
TRULY DUMB CRIMINALS
Most criminals are not dumb, but like the rest of us, they will occasionally do something dumb. Not these two – they are just plain outright dumb!
ESTEFANY MARTINEZ, RICKY GONZALEZ: BRAGGING ON FACEBOOK ABOUT YOUR BANK ROBBERY IS DUMB
By Richard Connelly
Houston Press Hair Balls
April 22, 2011
Facebook: You giveth and you taketh away. You especially taketh away from those who lack any common sense about what to post.
Federal court documents detail the case (first reported in the Houston Chronicle) of Estefany Martinez and Ricky Gonzalez, lovebirds who helped to rob the bank Martinez worked as a teller in of about $62,000.
Prosecutors say the day after the inside-job heist, Gonzalez, known as Ricko Gee, published this on his Facebook page:
__WOKE UP DIS MORNING! BUST DOWN A SWISHA!!! LOOK IN THE MIRROR LIKE I'M ONE RICH ASS NIKKA!! WIPE MY TEETH WITH HUNDREDS WIPE MY ASS WITH DIS 50s :$:$:$:$:$:$....U HAVE TO PAST THE LINE SOMETIMES!! TO GET DIS MONEY!!
Two days before the March 23 robbery, Martinez had posted "GET $$$(,."
Martinez, 19, had previously worked in a bank where a robbery, she believed, had gone unsolved, feds say. So the idea was hatched to try it on their own. Two men with masks came in near closing time to the International Bank of Commerce branch n Eldridge Parkway and made off with the cash, their loot helpfully stripped of any and all tracking devices.
It all began to unravel with a Crime Stoppers tip. Martinez was brought in and gave the feds about $10,800 in cash, what was left of her $12,000 take.
She had spent part of her ill-gotten gains bonding out Gonzalez, who had been arrested on a marijuana charge a few days after the robbery. He had been arrested in a motel room with about $10,800 in cash, but that had been booked as evidence.
As of now, Gonzalez' Facebook page has this self-description: "HighRoller at Make money both ways Dirty and Clean!!"
It also notes under "Interests" the "Church of Theistic Satanism," so it appears at least he has some faith which might help him get through this ass-wiping episode.
ESTEFANY MARTINEZ, RICKY GONZALEZ: BRAGGING ON FACEBOOK ABOUT YOUR BANK ROBBERY IS DUMB
By Richard Connelly
Houston Press Hair Balls
April 22, 2011
Facebook: You giveth and you taketh away. You especially taketh away from those who lack any common sense about what to post.
Federal court documents detail the case (first reported in the Houston Chronicle) of Estefany Martinez and Ricky Gonzalez, lovebirds who helped to rob the bank Martinez worked as a teller in of about $62,000.
Prosecutors say the day after the inside-job heist, Gonzalez, known as Ricko Gee, published this on his Facebook page:
__WOKE UP DIS MORNING! BUST DOWN A SWISHA!!! LOOK IN THE MIRROR LIKE I'M ONE RICH ASS NIKKA!! WIPE MY TEETH WITH HUNDREDS WIPE MY ASS WITH DIS 50s :$:$:$:$:$:$....U HAVE TO PAST THE LINE SOMETIMES!! TO GET DIS MONEY!!
Two days before the March 23 robbery, Martinez had posted "GET $$$(,."
Martinez, 19, had previously worked in a bank where a robbery, she believed, had gone unsolved, feds say. So the idea was hatched to try it on their own. Two men with masks came in near closing time to the International Bank of Commerce branch n Eldridge Parkway and made off with the cash, their loot helpfully stripped of any and all tracking devices.
It all began to unravel with a Crime Stoppers tip. Martinez was brought in and gave the feds about $10,800 in cash, what was left of her $12,000 take.
She had spent part of her ill-gotten gains bonding out Gonzalez, who had been arrested on a marijuana charge a few days after the robbery. He had been arrested in a motel room with about $10,800 in cash, but that had been booked as evidence.
As of now, Gonzalez' Facebook page has this self-description: "HighRoller at Make money both ways Dirty and Clean!!"
It also notes under "Interests" the "Church of Theistic Satanism," so it appears at least he has some faith which might help him get through this ass-wiping episode.
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