CBS Report Calls Assault on Rand Paul a "Fight"

Just watched a CBS report on the assault of Rand Paul by his neighbor, Rene Boucher.  The police are still investigating but discovered enough evidence to charge Mr. Boucher with 4th degree misdemeanor assault. That carries a possible prison sentence of up to one year. Crimes that result in a prison sentence of more than one year are classed a felonies.  According to a Kentucky state police officer interviewed about the case, the charges could be elevated to a felony if, after the investigation is complete, the crime warrants it.

Rene Boucher is out of jail on a low $7500 bail.  That's reasonable; the wealthy neighbor of Mr. Paul is not a flight risk.  Mr. Boucher, under U.S. law. is innocent until proven guilty.

 Rand Paul is far from my favorite congressman but I think he deserves to be treated as well as Boucher, the alleged perpetrator of a crime.  Being treated fairly means not having the media behaving like the defense attorney for Mr. Boucher  who, as a wealthy physician, has hired the very best.  The unfair treatment I speak of is, in their TV broadcast, calling the attack on Mr. Paul "a fight."

It may appear a small distinction but it's not. A fight assumes that Mr. Paul was an active participant before the facts of his injury.  We don't know that.  Nowhere is that reported except in the broadcast by CBS.  CBS cites their sources of a "fight" as being the neighbors.  It may be appropriate to report the opinions of neighbors in a news piece but not as an absolute fact. This is what CBS has done.  It has not said "alleged fight." It has absolutely stated there was a fight.

Being attacked from behind while sitting on a lawnmower (the police version of an action resulting in a charge of 4th Degree Assault) is not a fight.  If you or any other person is attacked from behind at a subway station or anywhere else, would CBS call that a fight too.  Let me answer that for you. They wouldn't.

To be quite honest, Rand Paul pisses me off with what I view has his obstructionist tactics.  But unless it's proven there was " a fight," he should be fairly treated, especially by a major news organization which leans to one side, and may be gratified by neighborhood gossip about a dispute over lawn care.

Virginia Company Gives Employee the Finger

The Guardian, a left-leaning British newspaper, is up in arms about a Virginia woman fired from her job with a marketing/communications company doing business with the federal government.    Juli Briskman was riding her bicycle when Donald Trump’s presidential motorcade passed her by.  Unwilling to forgo a missed opportunity to express her political views, Ms. Briskman gave the president her middle finger.  A photographer with the presidential motorcade saw her little act of protest, took a picture and posted it on the internet.   Freedom of expression all around!   This is good right? 1^st Amendment! 

 But when Akima LLC, the government contractor company she works for exercised its own right of free speech  and gave her the finger, The Guardian seems to think it’s an outrage.  No,  the 1^st Amendment applies to everyone equally.   Screw you Juli Briskman and your sense of privilege and entitlement.   You know how it works, don’t you?

You live in an area where few Americans can afford to live and work.  You are well paid by a company which does contract work with our government.  Your company needs those contracts in order to pay you.  When they seek such contracts they ensure your employer (the taxpayer) that the company will represent the hiring party in the best way possible. The best way possible does not include a rump-heavy employee   lumbering along on her bicycle beside a presidential motorcade   giving an American president the finger.   

If the government were looking to hire a plumber, would they hire the plumber who gets their attention with an obscene gesture?  At least a plumber being fired for making an obscene gesture at an American president would understand why he/she was fired. Ms. Briskman seems to think that she can defecate where she eats and be applauded for it.

What is it about you that thinks your company should continue to pay you for hurting their business?  And do  you think the Office of Management and Budget will want to hire an entire phalanx of people like you to represent them? Do you think   using the viral picture as your icon on social media is a badge of honor?   And how did you manage now to block that image from social media?  You did it. You should own it.

But now you’re fired!  The taxpayers have given you the finger. That’s their right of free speech.  They are okay with the fact you don’t like the president or his policies. Just don’t make them pay public money for your elitist sense of entitlement. Where is your integrity?  Did Akima not ask you to further their business objectives?  Why did you take money from a governmental administration you are so vehemently opposed to anyway?

Perhaps when you find that job you say you’re looking for with Planned Parenthood or PETA, you will be sensible enough not to march outside with signs or obscene gestures protesting the organization’s mission.

Dark Underbelly of Fusion GPS in 2016 National Elections

One of my dark secrets is that I have a psycho-crush on Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel.  Making it clear, she had nothing to do with this writing.  You really need to read her column today in the WSJ to get the full picture, but I’m breaking it down here for the street.

If today you hear of Rep. Adam Schiff tearing his hair out and throwing a tantrum on the House floor, it’s because Strassel has shined a spotlight on his misdeeds as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. That committee is a misnomer (intelligence) where Schiff is concerned.  He’s an infiltrator, representing some arcane and unknown parties, and he’s been tasked with obstructing probes into the Democrats’ collusion with the shady FUSION GPS during the 2016 elections. 

Fusion GPS is above the law, you understand. That’s according to its many lawyers who are sliming a congressional investigation into its activities.  Now why would Fusion GPS and Adam Schiff be smearing Rep. Nunez who heads the Intelligence Committee?  Why do they fear a probe into their relationship with a former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele?

Steele, you remember, is the guy who colluded with some unsavory (or unnamed) supposedly Russian FSB-KGB types to create a fake dossier sabotaging Trump (I voted for Bush, incidentally) during the presidential campaign.  Real steamy stuff in the dossier too – the kind of behavior you expect from top Democrats like Harvey Weinstein.   

These guys at Fusion GPS are above the law. They don’t have to respond to congressional subpoenas like the rest of us plebes. They told the committee to go screw – refusing to answer a single question.  This happens  at the same time Democrats are making a big deal of  supposed   Russian ‘interference’ in the election.  That’s another joke – the idea that Democrats are worried about anyone but Hillary Clinton who lost the election. The idea that Russian hackers could have caused Hillary’s election loss is absurd.  How many Hillary supporters do you know who changed their vote because of some agit-prop in the media?  Show me one.

 The GPS lawyers and their lobbyist Schiff (really, he should register as a lobbyist)    argue Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. The laughs keep coming.

 Most Americans know courts are not supposed to interpret 5^th Amendment (taken in response to every question by the Congressional investigators) rights as admission of guilt but my little blog here is not a court of law.  We can rightly wonder and think about anything we please.  It is very important to know  what Fusion GPS  and Adam Schiff, their sleazy imposter on the House Intelligence Committee,   are hiding. 

The Americans Season 6 on FX in 2018: The Real Cold War

So here I am in the end-of-summer doldrums and waiting for the sixth and final series of “The Americans,” a spy drama that takes place when Reagan was president.  It will be a frustrating wait until the final season airs in 2018 because events happening now seem tangled up in events that happened then. 

Back then there was the Cold War.  The word “war” in that phrase was no exaggeration.  Nasty things were done to Russians and Europeans and Americans in the wake of Soviet style communism.  There is very little left of Soviet style communism which basically began to collapse in 1989 when Mikhail Gorbachev was Reagan’s opposite number.

The collapse became widespread in the 1990s and there was  a mad grab for money, power, and position.  Elbows were thrown. People were hurt.  A country doesn’t become a full fledged democracy in three seconds flat any more than American did after the American Revolution.

When the Soviet Union collapsed,  there was every reason to celebrate the demise of soul crushing communism.  But  then it was abandoned, forgotten, left along it until it was needed again by American political elites who wish to seize a political moment to gain and keep power and, with that in mind, to revive the Cold War.     

Every day someone gets up in Congress or goes on TV to talk about the ‘Russians’ as if a straight line runs from every event in that vast country to a former KGB Colonel become President named Vladimir Putin. Contrary to the average American’s real interests ( which include terrorists, the economy, high cost of health insurance premiums, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) both major political parties are trying to upstage each other with fake patriotism.   

Don’t believe it.  Don’t cooperate. It’s naïve, it’s stupid, it’s phony.   It’s never a good thing when you have nearly 99 percent of the members of Congress marching in lockstep, all trying to outdo each other by raising their voices the loudest and shouting meaningless cant about ‘Russia.’ 

And these same people think that ‘Russians’ changed all the people who were going to vote for Hillary Clinton into Donald Trump voters.  And that it was Vladimir Putin’s fingers on the keyboard used to hack into the Democratic National Committee election plans to reveal John Podesta’s sideways manipulations of Democrat Party dirty tricks.   Is all this blame-shifting and propagandizing against Russia not embarrassing?

We are not in the 1980s any more.

In the  First Episode of Season Five of "The Americans,"  there was a new character named Tuan.’ Tuan  is a young Vietnamese KGB trainee posted with Soviet spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings as their adopted son. He’s hard-core, a blind believer in the Soviet system, gung-ho to the point that even Elizabeth can hardly stand his psychotic utterings at the dinner table.  One astonished gaping look from Elizabeth  says it all. The kid is too whacked even by   KGB standards.

It’s not as if American espionage agents were playing softball.   The CIA has hired a dissident Russian working for the  U.S. to develop a strain of fungus that will destroy the Soviet Union’s wheat crop.   That’s a bit of overkill. The failure of the Soviet socialist-communist system is evident in filmed food lines, bare supermarket shelves, rotting food, tractors mired in mud up to the hubcaps.

There is a KGB joke which shows the cynicism that pervaded all aspects of Soviet Communism:  “ A guy goes into a food market and asks: “Don’t you have any meat?” Market owner replies: “We don’t have any fish. The market that doesn’t have any meat is across the street.”    Starving and chaotic Venezuela is a paradise by comparison.

The dissident scientist Alexei in  “The Americans”   has a great deal of enthusiasm for America, its freedom and plenty.   He criticizes  his home country while unwitting talking to Soviet spy Philip, who is disguised as an airline pilot.“Good thing you don’t work for Aeroflot. Their planes crash all the time. They’re dirty. You want food you have to stand in line for hours.  In Russia, you must share toilets, pay bribes. Awful country.”   

The Americans is never without humor, though it’s often of the droll, mordant kind. Stan Beeman is a Steven Martin style ‘lonely guy’ FBI agent when he pops in on the Jennings with a sixpack of beer.  Neighborly chit-chat.

Stan’s been isolated too long and divorced not long enough. He bores a wry Phillip (Matthew Rhys,  great actor, and real life husband of Keri Russell)  with a non-eventful tale about a woman he’s seen at the gym. “I met a woman,” he tells Phillip. To ordinary mortals, this would mean he has possibilities. To nerdish Stan however, it means the woman on the treadmill next to him smiled at him while walking away.  

But the primary concern of the Soviet spies  is to get a sample of a biological warfare agent developed at an FBI lab in Virginia.  The Lassa virus had accidentally killed one of the embedded Soviet agents and it’s up to Elizabeth and Philip to dig up his body to get another sample.    It’s not going to be easy.  The CIA secretly buried  the toxic foreign agent in a sealed plastic overcoat inside a metal box buried fifteen feet deep in Fort Dietrich’s   back yard.

A team of agents, under the guidance of Philip and Elizabeth, sap the perimeter of the American compound and beginning digging. And digging. And still more digging. It’s pretty hard to explain how about 20 minutes of film digging can make for exciting TV but it does. 

You smell the dirt in more ways than one. The KGB team digs up the stinking body of their dead agent, cuts a chunk of his flesh out for transport back to Moscow.  One of the KGB team members slips off the ladder and cuts his wrist during the process. This exposes him to the Lassa virus. He panics,knows he’s going to die.   Elizabeth calmly reassures him that everything’s going to be all right, don’t worry, be calm.  When the man calmsdown, Elizabeth pulls a pistol and  shoots him in the head. Dead fall into the hole.

The ends justify the means. It’s brutal. This is a depiction of the real Cold War. 

Things I Don’t Understand and Maybe Neither Do You

Media is abuzz with the story of Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised to give him the down-low-and-dirty on Hillary Clinton.  Trump Jr. admits the meeting, says it came to nothing, and released details and emails pertaining to that meeting in the interest of transparency.

Okay, Trump Jr. stumbled over himself in his enthusiasm to help his father.  But that’s not the real story. The real story is that there is no real story.  The battle lines in the Trump v. Hillary campaigns were already drawn sharply.   Hillary voters wouldn’t be deterred from voting for her if it was proven she had murdered someone. 

What I don’t understand is how  congressional  frauds like Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff and   ideological conservatives like Charles Krauthammer can tell people that things like this are even capable of influencing an American election.  If Americans are so vulnerable to such innuendo, they better put their hands in the air and wave the white flag because such people haven’t learned how to think for themselves.

And therefore, they are more dangerous to democracy than ‘the Russians’ or Vlad or anyone. 

      

News Flash: Portland is Not Portlandia

The TV series called "Portlandia" showcases the capital city of Oregon as a paradise of coffee and left-wing progressivism.  Until now the national media has been too busy in its navel-gazing exploits in Washington, D.C. to disabuse us of the notion. 

But finally CNN has found something to fill its Saturday programming that was really quite interesting.  It was in a segment of "CNN Newsroom with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul" (though I don't much care for CNN's biased coverage of late, I like both of them) that a professor named Randy Blazak appeared, not expressly to debunk the popular myths  about Portland (though he did that perhaps inadvertently) but to call for peace between dueling political factions scheduled to show up for competing political demonstrations tomorrow (Sunday). 

“We have this bubble we sort of live in –that it’s this sort of Portlandia liberal paradise but in fact there’s this racial tension been underneath all along.”

Blazak imparted a bit of interesting Oregon history, previously unknown to me.  (It's that state tucked up into the corner there so. . .)  During the Civil War era, Oregon had a bitter discussion regarding whether to be a slave state or to outlaw slavery in the state.  The anti-slavery group won the debate but with the provision that it be an "all-white" state. 

In other words, no blacks allowed?  Never heard of such a thing?  But this is a de-facto collective sociological  disorder among liberal states of the Northeast -- thinking of Vermont and New Hampshire particularly as I write this.

Professor Blazak advised that one or both groups should cancel in order to prevent violence.  He was particularly concerned that professional disruptors were coming from outside Portland with the intent of violent confrontation.   He described the left-wing organizers coming from out of town as feeling "there is a need to violently address the other side.”

I'm of largely conservative leanings, and as such very vehement in my concern for civil rights,  and I agree with Professor Blazak. Even if the progressive left threatens violence and mayhem in protest of the train stabbings that occurred during the past week, I think the conservative free-speech demonstrators planning a meetup in a park separated from the other by just one street should re-schedule theirs for another day.

Of course, they couldn't and shouldn't reschedule twice.  But it would be an informative exercise for the public.  It would clearly show who is really for 1st Amendment rights, and who really is operating in the interests of the country and its people. 

American Crime S3E4 Beating Them Down on the Farm

In the previous episode  of “American Crime,”  Coy Henson witnesses the rape of a young female field worker by Diego, one of the migrant labor bosses. As one of the few Anglo outsiders in a community of undocumented Latino farm laborers, Coy’s observance of the rape puts him in serious danger.

   Isaac is also on the spot as a go-between.  Jeanette Hesby is deeply disturbed about the fire that killed a group of farm workers but feels helpless to do anything about it.  Meanwhile, pregnant teenager Shae is sharing her own trauma in a group therapy session with  other teens at the shelter.

  Luis Salazar gets hot on the trail of his son Teo when a young Aztec woman tells Luis that one of the farm bosses gave Teo a beatdown when he tried to defend her from being raped.

Check out my review of the latest episode of American Crime on TVEskimo -- it's free. No signup or other b.s. required. Click HERE.

Voter Fraud Deniers in Alt.Left Media

I read two articles this morning about President Trump’s call for an investigation into voter fraud during presidential election years.  One was from the Associated Press and called up weak assertions that past assertions of voter fraud were insignificant overall. These voter fraud deniers were largely the statements of state officials entrusted with managing elections.  Why wouldn’t they reject assertions that they weren’t doing the job?  To admit voter fraud would mean they’d have to do something about it, and that would upset the mostly Democratic Party apple cart.

I saw the second article pushed  on me by my cell phone push system was from the New York Times. I thought ‘Hey, the NYT has become a liberal pamphlet but they still hire some decent reporters.”  Far worse! Their article, by reporters Jonathan Weisman and Steve Eder,  begins with the a priori conclusion that Trump is lying! Read it yourself but if you don’t have time, here is how it begins:I

“Standing by his false allegations of extensive voter fraud, President Trump promises a “major investigation.”

False allegations? How do they come up with “false allegations?”  How the New York Times can use such a self-condemning and Orwellian phrase like “false allegations” astounds me.  An allegation is an allegation.  What is a “false allegation?” I’ll tell you what a ‘false allegation’ is – a false allegation is a reporter who believes he/she can dictate the news rather than find facts and then report those facts.

Everyone knows there is voter fraud. The issue is more to determine how much voter fraud there is and how much can political parties get away with before they’re prosecuted? 

I’ll tell you where I’m coming from.  I was a Republican election monitor at two national elections, both of them resulting in the election of George W. Bush.  My ‘spot’ was sort of out in the boonies of Pennyslvania where I was virtually assaulted by a team of Democrats who barged in from somewhere shouting and intimidating anyone and asking loudly how anyone could vote for idiot Bush.  The guy leading them was about six foot six, maybe 250 (I’m good at guessing weight b/c I was a boxing trainer for a good number of years) and he had some followers who were far less intimidating but who, I assumed, were going to be duplicate voters. 

What I’m saying is not factual proof of voter fraud but it bears investigation.  Also bearing investigation is another voter, a Bulgarian immigrant ( a legal immigrant possessing a valid green card), who told me he voted Republican (that was a surprise) in the same election.  He was not a citizen yet. I know this because I personally drove him to Philadelphia for his citizenship swearing in ceremony. It was during our ride to the Philadelphia INS swearing-in ceremony that he told me he had voted in two elections, and so did many  of his Bulgarian (not yet citizens)  acquaintances.

Both of these anecdotes provide opportunities for plausible denial, which seems to be the mainstay of people running national elections.  But I know what I know and you should know it too.

It is hard to believe that there has been no serious or extensive federal investigation of the entire process which is so important to our democracy. This is in a country that has done extensive investigations into such vital topics as cow farts.

ADOPTIVE MOM AND BOYFRIEND CHARGED IN RAPE MURDER OF 14 YEAR OLD GRACE PARKER

This is a composite of a news story, an editorial, and a rant:

Two prime candidates for the death penalty were arrested in Pennyslvania yesterday in a shocking fantasy/rape/murder of a fourteen year old disabled child name Grace Parker.  Forty-four year old Jacob Sullivan was arrested after telling hospital staff that  he murdered and raped the child adopted by his girlfriend Grace Packer.  Sullivan was in the hospital after a suicide attempt which he survived when a second girlfriend found him unconscious at his home in Horsham Twp. PA.  Sullivan had taken an overdose of sleeping pills and left a suicide note calling authorities ‘pigs’ and expressing love for his ‘babies’ and ranting about how he was being falsely accused. 

His lover and the victim’s adoptive mother, who worked for seven years with Northampton County’s Children and Youth Services, also tried to commit suicide.  They were apparently capable of the most heinous crime imaginable, torturing the victim who had been awarded to them by the state’s child adoptive services.  Sara Packer, the adoptive mother of mentally challenged fourteen year old Grace Parker, also attempted suicide by overdose. 

According to an Abington Police Department public information release, Jacob Sullivan and Sara Packer had been planning to the murder-rape fantasy for a year or more and then decided to act upon it July 8.  They took Sara to another house that they had purchased, largely through moneys paid by the state and federal government for adoptions (the victim has a male sibling, also adopted by ‘mom’ Sara Parker).  Jacob Sullivan then beat and raped the 14 year old child, attempting then to kill her with an overdose of drugs. Sara Parker was 'aroused' by watching the torture, Sullivan told police.  Sullivan had taken Viagra to augment his manliness. Both alleged murder/rapists left the house and came back at 3:00 a.m. the next morning to find Sara still alive, whereupon Jacob Sullivan strangled her to death.

Packing the body into a container with moth balls and cat litter to stanch the odor of decay and death, the alleged murderers did not return until October when police announced they were going to enter the victim’s name into a national missing persons database.  This prompted Sara Parker to go to a Tractor Supply store to purchase a bow saw and two extra blades with which the two accused murderers dismembered Sara Parker’s body and scattered her remains in a far away remote Pennsylvania woody location in Wyoming County. The torso was  discovered by hunters; the other body parts found by police during the investigation. 

It is natural to wonder how such things happen and, once again, it seems that the system failed victim Grace Parker. After killing Grace, Sara continued to collect the child’s $700 plus Social Security disability check (likely SSI).  It is likely that other federal and state monies were paid to the evil couple – either foster care payments or federal disability checks. How do people manage to own two houses with no jobs or other visible means of support?  This is not to say that adoption payments, foster care payments, SSI, and other disability support aren’t warranted.  But it is to say that these programs and the systems dispensing such funds are unmonitored, and  out of control.

According to some news reports, Sara Parker was fired from her former position with Northampton County Children and Youth Services.  Can we assume it was ‘for cause?’  If it was ‘for cause,’ then why were the adopted children allowed to be near these monsters? And why should the state and the taxpayers pay for such hideous criminals? Alleged, of course, always alleged.

Celebrity Death

This is going to sound mean, but the death of a celebrity puts more points in the win column than your own. The latest celebration of tragedy concerns Carrie Fisher but the personality doesn’t matter.  Celebrity is the point and you’re invited to unburden yourself of emotions normally reserved for friends and immediate members of one’s own family.  I’m sounding the alarm bells now – it may be that, when you die, there’s not enough emotion left to invite even one tear to flow at your terminal service in this world.

I appreciate people of talent, whether it be Carrie Fisher or George Michael, but I’m finding these excesses a bit hysterical.  You turn on your TV and hear of these celebrity deaths and some talking head or other tries to coax from you some little memory that you can piously share on social media. 

It would be understandable when the celebrity in question is really a giant – say an Ernest Hemingway or a Muhammad Ali – but most of these teary drip-fests are for people of average talent who are hoisted into the celebrity success category by virtue of celebrity parents. This seems to be the case with Carrie Fisher, daughter of film star Debbie Reynolds and handsome Eddie Fisher. How hard can it be to achieve success when celebrity parents have already paved the way and no one dares to question the level of talent?

Part of this sententious kabuki theatre concerns the non-stop dramatization of the deceased celebrity’s struggle with a) drugs b)alcoholism c) mental health issues d) dysfunctional parents e) and most nauseatingly, with celebrity itself.

It’s okay for a news organization to report the death of a Carrie Fisher, a Prince, a George Michael or anyone it wants to.  But there are tabloid newspapers whose function it is to satisfy the consumer need for morbid pathos.  And they do a better job of it than CNN which spends precious hours sharing tired and clichéd eulogies of the ‘personality.’ 

I’m sure that the producers of these shows have the obituaries and eulogies already handy, and just pull them out of a drawer (a computer drawer) and use them up as if they are sheets of toilet paper.  You can’t know what’s going on in the world because the internet, too, gets clogged with wet tissue. 

All these eulogies are alike unless the deceased celebrity is a real larger-than-life figure – Malcom X and Martin Luther King come to mind – and at least these giants didn’t die by their own hand.  Some of the most touted celebrities on TV are people you don’t want your kid to emulate so what are they doing?  Haven’t they heard that excessive drinking, risky sex, and drugs aren’t good for them?

Stop please, we’ve had enough!  Our own close friends and family are dying too. So are our soldiers, our cops, our children of the streets.  That their eulogies will be quiet, largely unknown affairs doesn’t make them less important than the death-of-the-month celebrity.  I’m finding this death-of-a-celebrity business very twisted and nearly always these days carried to extremes. 

Gun Control New York Style (HS agent Leaves MP4 on Backseat

What happened in upstate New York would qualify for comedy if the MP4 stolen from Homeland Security agent Leroy Doctor didn’t end up in the hands of gangsters.  An MP4, if you don’t know, is a fully automatic version of the sporter rifle AR-15 (single-fire).  It’s just the thing a police officer with a family (or anyone else) would not want to go up against.

I don’t know if the thugs who trafficked the weapon will abide by Andrew Cuomo’s ten round limit. Probably  the two 30 round clips also stolen from the rear seat of the Homeland Security agent’s will be too tempting to dispose of.  Maybe the bulletproof tactical vest will also come in handy for some gangbanger.

This stuff can only happen when bureaucrats are running the show.  It boggles the mind how a federal security official would leave a machine gun in the back seat of a vehicle in his driveway or on a public street.  And no word on terminating the agent – or at least transferring him to washing cars in the motor pool where he can’t do any harm.

The agent’s excuse, according to the ATF affidavit, was that he locked the front doors but forgot to lock the back doors.  That’s the story we’re asked to believe.  Do people really think the public is that stupid? The excuse must be some kind of joke unless the HS agent was driving something like a 53 Ford. 

In any case, a heroin addicted thief stole the automatic rifle from the agent’s car and sold it, along with the two thirty-round clips and the bulletproof vest, to another player.  None of this has been recovered, and it looks like the agent still has his job, perhaps rescued by an uncle among the higher-ups.  Nothing of politics in New York will surprise anyone – we are beyond being shocked.

New York’s strict gun control laws provide nothing more than a platform for its politicians to preen over. It was just two years ago that Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a dead of night maneuver that trampled on democratic process, passed his 7 round magazine limitation order (later expanded to ten rounds).

The wishful thinking and infatuated views of Democrats and homogenized Republicans of this state is intended to make people believe they are doing something about crime. The fact of the matter is that the more gun control measures,  the more homicide.This applies to big cities like Chicago as well as small cities like Syracuse, New York which experienced its 27^th homicide.  This surpasses all previous records.

While the tendency is to beat their breasts piously and blame neighboring states for the problem, the reality of Cuomo’s edict is far different. The only people impacted by the New York gun restrictions are people who rarely, if ever, break the law.

On the other hand, the social engineers of this wealthy state seem to have done nothing but aid the criminals. Aid them, that is, when they are not arming them. 

Go here if you want to read the full story. http://on.rocne.ws/2fSFr4P

Anis Amri: Couldn't Make a Life So He Made a Death

He was shot to death about 3:30 in the a.m. by Italian police.  Anis Amri was armed with a .22 caliber handgun , which he pulled from his backpack, managing to shoot one of the police officers in the shoulder.  Both cops fired back, hitting Amri twice.  One of the cops’ bullets went where it was supposed to go – center mass – the thorax.  You don’t recover from that.  The officer who was shot is thankfully doing well and recovering, according to Italian officials, but Amri was likely dead before his body hit the ground.

I  understand the reasoning of people who say it would have been better if Anis Amri had been captured alive. Then law enforcement could perhaps find out more about his contacts and support system.  That presupposes that he would give up information under interrogation. Argue that all you want, but include me out.  Amri’s victims got justice at least, and justice is coming for the others who aided him.   

 But really, it is doubtful that the Berlin mass casualty killer would provide information to police when there is no death penalty in Germany . Anis Amri would have his rights, including the right to keep silent, the right to television, the right to get media interviews, maybe a book contract. Maybe even conjugal visits.  The authorities couldn’t offer any more than a long life sentence so he would probably adapt to the institutional life and perhaps proselytize to other inmates.

What’s coming next (and has already begun) is the imbecilic question of whether Anis Amri was a ‘lone wolf’ or whether he was ‘self-radicalized.” Such questions do not apply to the world we live in. With the internet, we have become factional or even tribal. It’s easy to see how many little divisions and subdivisions there are in our society, all linked together in ‘groups” with ‘followers” and particular rules of engagement.  This bifurcation exists in all aspects of our society, even in music where a person’s choices are broken down into various classes (check Spotify, Amazon Music, I-Tunes, I-Heart Radio, and a whole bunch more)  Within the context of international terror, all you have to do to join ISIS or AQ is to have a smart phone and you’ll get hooked up. You’ve already acquired enough hate and resentment to become the slave of any master who relieves you of the burden of freedom by telling you whom to hate and what to do about it.

There are easily a thousand slave-mastering militant Islamist groups promulgating the notion that Muslims are victims of the ‘infidel.’ The ‘infidel’ can be anyone not Muslim, or better yet, not adhering to the basest interpretations of the political system sometimes described as a religion. 

By definition, Islam needs enemies. If every single person in the world were Muslim, and the Shiite Muslims converted to Sunni, then the remaining Muslims would invent an enemy.  Because to do otherwise would require rabid Islam (and I don’t mean secular Islam or the kind and tolerant Muslim lady who works in the local supermarket) to examine itself and pull back from its death dream of world political conquest.

Rape Kit Redux

It’s unfortunate that everyone seems to care about justice while few can agree even on what justice is. But some things are obvious – like the 12,000 untested rape kits held in Memphis Tennessee in 2013. 

That’s a number reported on CBS evening news this week.  And it’s not justice. When the red flag was raised on the staggering number, the county attorney general Amy Weyrich kicked up processing.  About 7,000 of the 12,000 were sent away for processing, returning about 3700 with DNA which could potentially be matched. 

The 3700 plus rape kits gave rise to only ten convictions, prompting  CBS reporter Jerika Duncan to comment: “That’s not a high number.” 

No, and it’s probably not any easier for the district attorneys in four cities with a backlog of nearly 29,000 untested rape kits.  That’s a whole lot of potential rapes in four cities (Houston, Memphis, Detroit, and Cleveland) even with a population as large as ours.  But when thousands of untested rape kits were processed, the number of convictions was remarkably low, around 1% . 

The one city where progress was made was Cleveland, where the state paid for the testing, allowing the prosecutor’s offices to hire 25 investigators and 6 more prosecutors. That resulted in 5000 kits tested with 239 convictions.

There are several reasons which justice will be avoided in thousands of rape cases, but an important one is that sexual assault cases have statutes of limitations. The rape kits are untested. Time flies. The states have limitation statutes ranging from 3 to 15 years.

It’s mostly a lack of money that allows rapists to go free. Lab fees for rape kit processing are in the range of $1,000 to $1500, according to endthebacklog.org.  Labs are overwhelmed with all kinds of cases requiring attention. Prosecutions are costly, too, and, in doing battle with defense lawyers, there are no guarantees of victory.  Moneyed defendants can often outwait and delay budget-strapped district attorney’s offices.

But there is another huge reason why the number of reported rapes, and rape kits is high while the number of convictions is low. Unless DNA is matched to a person already in a police database , processing of a rape kit only reveals the DNA of an unknown person. 

Out with the Ethanol – In with Scott Pruitt at the EPA

Earth people to Other-worldly Bureaucratic Elites – we have an announcement.  Donald Trump’s nominee for EPA head, Scott Pruitt, should be approved immediately. The sooner the better.  The EPAs Other-Worldly contingent, with its absolutely nuts RFS (Renewable Fuel Standards) is crushing us little people.  Mr. Pruitt has a history of opposing the RFS – for a variety of valid reasons. 

But let’s look at it on the human level. I had two chain saws destroyed by Ethanol before figuring out that it was ethanol that was throttling the engines, making them virtually unrepairable. Okay, I'm a nobody. I don't matter in the scheme of things. Who gives a damn about my little plebeian problems? 

  Then I found out there was a nation wide conspiracy against all of us who worked with our hands. The objective was to destroy our lawnmowers, chainsaws, tillers, and other small equipment so that we felt no longer competent to till the soil, mow the lawn, cut down a dead tree or any of the other myriad jobs we try to do ourselves because, unlike the EPA Green-elites, we don’t live in D.C. condos or tony Washington suburbs and can’t afford to hire people to do all these things for us.

Agricultural welfare may help politicians on both sides of the aisle stay in office, but it’s hypocritical to complain of one type of welfare while doling out another.  The ethanol in gas pumps is currently limited to 10 percent, but the current EPA wants to pump it up until gasoline powered cars choke out completely and we are forced to buy electric cars from Elon Musk.  Unfortunately, few people will be able to afford electric cars from Elon Musk and, even if he could, we would like to travel more than 100 miles. 

Of course, you could buy one of those Elon Musk designed Tesla Model S with their base starting price of $75,000.  That one supposedly has a range of 270 miles.  I saw one parked outside the Apple Corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California once – what a beauty!  Chump change for some people, I know.  Wouldn’t you rather own a house than a rapidly depreciating pile of status-y metal, glass, plastic, and rubber? If ethanol was such a good thing, maybe Tesla could produce hundreds of thousands of affordable cars running on 100 percent ethanol. Then everyone would be happy.

Now you must understand that a lot of people are hating on the ‘Big Oil Companies’ and unwilling to look beneath the hood.  But the fuel standards favor ‘BIG OIL’ because the large oil companies are the only ones with enough infrastructure to process the corn into ethanol (while depriving the starving people of the world). 

If the idea is to counter monopoly oil, the fuel standards are doing just the opposite. The smaller oil refineries cannot afford the expensive equipment needed to process and dilute petrol into the necessary solution capable of poisoning your lawnmower, and eventually your hoopty (jalopy to those of us of previous generations).

Now’s our chance to be rid of the EPA Renewable Fuel Standards fantasy. This is for the good of all political parties, Jill Stein’s included.  The standards have had no impact on environmental quality and cannot, because of the process of producing and delivering it.

Whether one likes Trump or hates him (and there is no room on the planet for haters), his pick for EPA top exec is a good one and should be supported.  

Manchester By the Sea – The film “Manchester by  the Sea” has got five Golden Globe Awards, in 3^rd place behind “La-la Land” and “Moonlight.” Released in November, let’s point out it’s not a Christmas Story.

Review and recap Manchester By the Sea
Now, so that we can go on and talk about other things, let’s just stipulate that the acting, script, and direction of the Kenneth Lonergan film ‘Manchester-by-the-Sea are worthy of film award nominations.  Major characters, minor characters, all fit seamlessly in the picture creating a realistic orbit of characters around the story line. With the exception of Samuel L. Jackson, whose criticism of it was largely incomprehensible, most everyone seems to praise the film, myself included. 
The background for this film is Massachusetts, in a fictional Manchester by the Sea. The people of this film have a backdrop behind them and inside them. Their personal histories are close and intertwined, and not all of it is pretty.

To continue reading my review, go here.

How Broadway Can Mess Up a Good Film (A Bronx Tale)

Aren’t you holding your breath until Broadway makes a musical from Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather chronicles?  Can’t wait to see some faux Marlon Brando dancing across the stage as Don Corleone? Then you might like what the easy money hucksters on the Great White Way are doing to ‘A Bronx Tale.”

You’ve heard of it? A while back there was this little movie called “A Bronx Tale” made by Robert De Niro and Chazz Palmentiri about a bus driver trying to raise a family in a Bronx neighborhood run by the mob.  The mobster is the local big shot, revered and/or feared by the locals.  A slick guy with a smooth line and plenty of cash. Great movie.

Anyway, the bus driver has a young boy who is fascinated by “Sonny’s (the mob boss) activities.  He’s a cute kid, Colagero is, and Sonny adopts him first as a kind of mascot and then as a runner and soon the kid is making a little bit of money at the periphery of this larger criminal enterprise.  Meanwhile, Colagero’s dad, a straight up hardworking type wants his son to grow up with traditional values – hard work, honesty, the straight and narrow.

The Italian neighborhood factored heavily in the film but it could have been any neighborhood group. In neighborhoods where African-Americans are heavily concentrated, adolescents and even young kids emulate former drug dealers covered with bling most of whom do not quit the game to become rappers.  Or maybe it could be some young, adolescent admirers of Irish gangs like the Westies? 

Anyway, the phenomenon is universal, but is this the stuff of musical?  The obvious argument for making it so is West Side Story, but in spite of the plagiarized or parallel universe of the 1950’s drama modeled loosely on the Puerto Rican ‘Capeman’ murders, this idea just does not work.  

I didn’t see it. I’m not going to. Not unless they resurrect Joey Ramone and put it to a soundtrack of his.  Can’t you hear it:  “Twenty, twenty, twenty four hours to go, I wanna’ be a bus driver. . .”

The public  is tired of remakes and sequels whose only purpose is to have a guaranteed audience without risk to the bottom line. Why not create something new and original, something that might replenish the artistic soul of the country?

I’m sure there are a lot of unknown talented people who have written smart musicals and plays who need the money and attention more than Robert De Niro.  But even as I write, I have heard a rumor that Broadway investment bankers are working on a rock opera about the Neopolitan Camorrah.

There is a brilliant Italian TV series they can rip off for that one. It's called "Gomorrah" -- don't you love the poetry?

FBI seizes FOUR Abedin/Weiner Email Devices In Weiner Teenage Sexting Investigation

Worm Turns in #HRC Unauthorized Email Scandal

Why did Huma Abedin use Anthony Weiner’s laptop anyway?

Clinton Staffer – “whole thing is *#$&ing insane”

The trick for Democrats is to allow themselves an escape route by appearing to be on both sides of a developing disaster.  Witness the words of Democrat Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco:  “This is particularly troubling since so many questions are unanswered,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein.  That mild rebuke is hardly a salve for the sucking chest wound our national security has received from Hillary Clinton’s licentious abuse of power and privilege.  

But is Senator Feinstein going to go the moral route? Ha-ha-ha-ha-etc…. Not in the rest of her quote where she assumes the role of defense attorney: ““It’s unclear whether these emails have already been reviewed or if Secretary Clinton sent or received them. In fact, we don’t even know if the F.B.I. has these emails in its possession.”  This kind of utterance is as low and dirty as Huma Abedin’s long ago forgiveness of her husband for sending pictures of his junk to teenage girls.

Before the news broke, but possibly with knowledge of what was coming, President Obama had this to say in a radio interview:   “My advice to Hillary would be just listen to your conscience and do what you this is right and worry about the politics later.”  Laughter could be heard all the way to the Pope in Italy.

A wormier, more rotten apple of a statement could not be made. “Listen to your conscience?”…. The obviously tone – deaf president has been too busy to keep up with the daily briefing.  This is the president who lied about Hillary’s classified email scandal, saying he didn’t know about it until he heard it on the news. Cut us a break, dumbo!  Your lie has been publicly exposed.

FBI Director Comey reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation not out of the goodness of his heart. He did so because some conscientious FBI agents working under him discovered more emails on FOUR devices used by Huma and Anthony Weiner. One of the FOUR devices belonged to Huma – the other three (cellphone, tab-type device, and a laptop) belonged to Anthony Weiner but all apparently contained emails that circulated to Hilllary, Anthony, and Huma and many are about government activity. 

As for the goodness of FBI Director Comey’s heart, consider that he granted immunity to top Clinton aides like Cheryl Mills and others for their cooperation. He didn’t need immunity – he had all the authority to subpoena, question, and seize their email devices too. 

The most AMAZING thing was that, not only did Comey  grant immunity to possible fellow criminal conspirators, he promised to destroy their laptops so that the information contained on them could never be looked at again. This is a particular DISASTER in that they, too, need to be REEXAMINED in light of the new email disclosures on Human Abedin/ Anthony Weiner devices.

John Edwards: A Senate Democrat’s 1980s Sex Scandal

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Gomorrah: Maria Pia Calzone as Imma Savastano

Yes, the Sundance Channel series Gomorrah is sub-titled. But you don’t have to speak Italian to enjoy the show.  The action is in the universal language.  Love, hate, violence, revenge. The blank spaces in the sub-titles are those four-letter words.  You can easily learn how to swear in Italian.  That will impress your friends in Milan.

But what I’m thinking about today is Immaculata. That is the real name of the top clan guy’s wife in the Gomorrah series. I’ve heard a lot of complaints here in the U.S. about the lack of female roles for actors over the age of twenty nine.  American TV and film needs to write a role like the one given this woman.

Maria Pia Calzone  portrays Immaculata (the Immaculate) with serious verve, style, focus, and a mysterious womanhood. Watching her in the series made me a bit ga-ga, I’ll admit.  When she hit up on one of my twitter posts, I discovered what it was like to walk on air. I went around the house acting like a celebrity to our dog for at least a week.

Imma’s a really unusual mom to her son Gennaro, a guileless and unruly kid who is over the moon about Noemi. l Gennaro’s gone to great lengths to impress Noemi. The girl is pretty and sexy but Imma can’t for a moment take the little fool seriously.

Yet she knows enough not to interfere with her son’s yearnings. She stands by and smiles as Gennaro romps around the place with Noemi both of them in their underwear. Mothers, you don’t want this girl in your crime family.

Eventually Gennaro matures and sees that Noemi is superficial. That only happens after mother Imma has sent him to Honduras, ostensibly for business reasons, but really to harden him in the cauldron of the drug cartels.

One Gennaro goes down to Honduras. Another Gennaro comes back, shoots Imma’s mastiff for attacking him on his unannounced return. This Genn

In previous episodes, Maria Pia Calzone appeared resigned to her role as the mobster’s wife. Obedient. Caring.  She’s  not shy about ruling the roost. But over all, Don Pietro had the final say about all business matters and even some domestic ones – like the sofa they have in the living room. He tosses the new sofa out because he thinks the Italian cops have bugged it. Imma is quiet but absorbs everything about her surroundings. She understands the business and has deep perception about the psychological underpinnings of the males who surround her.

She takes over the clan expecting a rebellion from the old school males allied with Don Pietro.

Gomorrah : Tales of the Italian Ghetto

Just finished watching an Italian TV series called Gomorrah.  Rhymes with Camorra.   Unlike the American Mafia or the Sicilian Mafia, the camorras have no hierarchical structures.  There is not one single camorra – there are several, rather like constellations.

Organization is horizontal, rather than pyramidal. Positions may be inherited. Rules are not always followed.

It seemed strange to me how the actors and directors of this TV series were, in interviews, saying such nice things about American films and TV series.  Unless they were referring to ‘slick,’ I kind of thought the opposite. The Italian version of a crime epic was grittier and more realistic than the ones I’ve watched – excepting perhaps “Casino” where there is not much room for romanticism. 

But even there, Gomorrah was hands-down more realistic than any mafia conforming fare found on American TV and film. Hey listen, wiseguy, I’m not putting down the American films like Godfather and Casino and TV shows like “The Sopranos.” I thought they were great.

Gomorrah is different, that’s all I’m saying.  Part of it is my own taste for realism. The more realistic the better. So let’s face it, the comorras of southern Italy don’t play very nice. 

Gomorrah, offered by Sundance TV and still “On Demand” has three directors. You may have noticed that earlier I used the plural when I referred to the director (s).

There is Stefano Sollima, the key director of the character Pietro Savanstano, head of the clan. His wife is named Imma for Immaculata – how’s that for an Italian name? She gets her own director but in most cases she needs one only to move her through the scenes. Then they have a son.  His name is Gennaro. At first he’s clueless but then grows into a chip off the old block.  His director is Claudioo Cupellini. 

What’s up with three directors?  Well, Stefano Sollima is the top man but the other two have a great deal of independence.  There are three driving forces therefore. Just as in real life the tensions occur between people, so it is with these characters.  It’s fascinating – it’s conflict you can feel. It gets under your skin. The characters are despicable and noble at the same time. As in Game of Thrones, these three characters live in separate kingdoms, separate domains.

Other details:  The screenwriter is Stefano Bises.  The filming makes use of 126 different locations, 225 actors, and hundreds of actors. Italians go big if they go at all. The series transformed Naples into a huge movie set.

Though some Italians have complained of bad publicity for Naples (See Naples and Die) actor Salvatore Esposito, who plays Gennaro Savastano, points out that tourism to Naples has increased, not the other way around. I have to say that I am curious, too.  My father was a ‘Napolitano” (Neopolitan). 

The stories are true. They come from Robert Savio’s book of the same name:  Gomorrah. Some of the inspiration, too, comes from Matteo’s film which was adapted also from Savio’s book.