Tag: Crime & Punishment

Wolves In Priest Clothing

One of the biggest stories this past week was abuse cases in Baltimore.

Yet another scandal involving the Catholic Church…..sexual abuse, in cased you were confused….

This time it is the archdiocese of Baltimore and the number of cases is greater than 500….

Maryland’s attorney general released the results Wednesday of a four-year state investigation into the sexual abuse and torture of children by clergy members and employees of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The report covers the totality of 80 years of mistreatment, during which it says 156 members of Catholic clergy abused at least 600 children, CNN reports. From the 1940s through 2002, the report says, they “engaged in horrific and repeated abuse of the most vulnerable children in their communities while Archdiocese leadership looked the other way.” At a news conference, Anthony Brown pronounced Wednesday “a day of reckoning and a day of accounting.”

The investigation found that one deacon admitted abusing more than 100 children, the Baltimore Sun reports. Even after the Rev. John Joseph Mike pleaded guilty to abusing a boy, he was assigned to a parish in Clarksville. A victim wrote in his diary that Mike tied him up, suspended him from a basketball backboard in the parish gym, and whipped him 150 times. Hundreds of abuse survivors were interviewed for the investigation; the state report called the scope of the abuse “astonishing.” Brown met with advocates and survivors Wednesday to hear their accounts. “What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities,” he said.

In many cases, the report says, the archdiocese knew of the abusers but did little to stop them. They often were transferred to new jobs, even after admitting to abuse, where they mistreated more children. When looking into abuse, the report said, police, prosecutors, and local news media often treated church leaders with deference. The attorney general said many of the abusers have since died or can’t be prosecuted because of statutes of limitations. “While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the archdiocese’s transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward,” Brown said.

When will the church start making these perverts pay for the crimes?

After all these religious types are sexual predators….plain and simple.

Warning:  Keep your children away from youth ministers.

Happy Easter

Enjoy your day….be well and be safe.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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That Trump Thing

The biggest story for the MSM over the weekend was those indictments of our dear beloved ex-president….so I thought I should bow to conventional wisdom and do what needs to be done.

Personally I am sick of the whole idea of Trump….

The news is Trump is making a deal for his appearance on Tuesday…..

Court officials in New York said Friday that they plan to arraign Donald Trump at 2pm Tuesday. The former president’s presence is expected in a 15th-floor Manhattan courtroom for the proceeding, they said. A lawyer for Trump said his team has agreed with the district attorney’s office on how the arrest will be handled, Fox News reports: Trump is to surrender to detectives, who will not handcuff him. The Secret Service will decide how the former president is brought to Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom. A meeting was scheduled for Friday afternoon among representatives of the FBI, New York City police, New York state court officers, the Secret Service, and the district attorney’s office to settle logistical and security arrangements.

The prosecutor in the case responded Friday to intense criticism from Republican lawmakers over the indictment. A letter from District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to three GOP committee chairmen called their accusation that the indictment is politically motivated “misleading and meritless.” General counsel Leslie Dubeck wrote that Trump is entitled to fight the charges in court, per Politico. “What neither Mr. Trump nor Congress may do is interfere with the ordinary course of proceedings in New York State,” the letter says. Dubeck asked that Reps. Jim Jordan, James Comer, and Bryan Steil withdraw their demands for information about the case and allow the case to “proceed without unlawful political interference.”

Trump launched fresh attacks Friday on the judge he’ll stand before Tuesday, posting that “the Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case … HATES ME.” Merchan handled unrelated accusations against the Trump Organization, and Trump said the judge treated him “viciously.” Partly because of Trump’s recent social media posts, fears of political violence related to the case have increased. The New York mayor’s office tweeted Friday afternoon that no credible threats have been received, per the Independent

We will see what this shakes out of the woodwork.

Meanwhile the Trump sycophants are running to the closest camera and spouting their usual crap….how will that play out?

We know former President Trump has been indicted, though we don’t know the exact charges just yet. Still, the unprecedented move to indict a former president has given political observers across the political spectrum plenty to consider:

  • Worth the worry: Columnist Nicholas Kristof is worried that a failed prosecution would strengthen Trump. “Yet I’d also worry—even more—about the message of impunity that would be sent if prosecutors averted their eyes because the suspect was a former president,” he writes in the New York Times. Kristof cites the example of a police officer who ticketed then-President Ulysses S. Grant for speeding with a horse. “If a police officer in 1872 could hold out his hand and force the president’s speeding carriage to a stop, then we, too, should do what we can to uphold the magnificent principle of equality before the law.”
  • Trouble ahead: The conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, while frequent critics of Trump, see the move as a mistake akin to opening Pandora’s box. “The danger for America is the precedent this prosecution sets,” reads the editorial. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “is busting a political norm that has stood for 230 years,” and you can bet that Republican prosecutors will try to make a name for themselves by reciprocating against a Democratic president. Our “democracy will be further abused and battered,” it warns. “Bragg, the provincial progressive, is unleashing forces that all of us may come to regret.”
  • Glenn Beck: The right-wing pundit donned a MAGA hat on Fox News and declared, “This is the way the average American feels tonight.” Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show, he said: “The bill of rights is gone. Nobody is paying attention. … Donald Trump is not even a person anymore. He’s a symbol. He’s a symbol of the average everyday guy that keeps getting screwed every single time.” Watch the clip.
  • On the left: In the Nation, Elie Mystal writes that he doesn’t care if this makes Trump more popular politically. Still, he’s not optimistic about a conviction. “I want to get him, and these charges don’t feel likely to accomplish that,” he writes. “A federal case against Trump for tax and campaign finance fraud two years ago would have been welcome. But going at Trump with shaky jurisdictional authority, two years too late, feels doomed.”

Now you have the most recent thoughts….you decide what is right and what is wrong.

Me?  I’ll take vanilla.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

To Arrest A President

Yes more history from the old Professor.

All the blah blah about the possibility of the arrest of an American president, Donald Trump. Many have raised concern because no American president has been arrested so why start a precedent now.   (Personally I think many of them should have been….but that is just me)

There are the so-called Dems that keep going on and on without much thought behind their idiotic ramblings.

All that aside has any president ever been arrested?

Glad you asked….yes there has been one incident.

There is a lot of hullaballoo about whether former President Trump will soon be indicted, but there is one former president who was definitely arrested while in office: Ulysses S. Grant. The crime, per the Washington Post, was born of “Grant’s love of fast horses,” and ended with the arrest of a sitting president by a Black man who had served in his army during the Civil War. The Post cites a 1908 story in the Washington Evening Star in which one since-retired police officer, William H. West, gave a bit of a tell-all about the time in 1872 in which he arrested his former boss. It goes a little like this:

DC cops had been getting complaints of speeding carriages; there had been an accident, and West was investigating when another group of scofflaws sped toward him. He flagged them down, including one man driving “a pair of fast steppers,” per the Star story, which “he had some difficulty in halting.” It was the president, He was less than pleased, asking West, “what do you want with me?” West informed him that he was “violating the law by speeding along this street,” and further had “set an example for a lot of other gentlemen.” Grant made his apologies, said it would never happen again, and was let off with a warning. But the next night, West again busted Grant going so fast that, per the Post, “it took him an entire block to stop.” Grant told West he had no idea he was going so fast.

This time West wasn’t having it. He told the Star that Grant was smiling and looked like a busted schoolkid. West’s quote, which granted is recalling a 36-year-old incident, is thus: “I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it. For you are the chief of the nation, and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest.” And so he did. Grant and some other alleged speeders went down to the DC pokey, and the sitting president of the United States of America had to pony up $20 as collateral. A trial was held for the drivers the next day, and fines and a “scathing rebuke” were issued. But the president, dear readers, was a no-show.

If Trump is arrested he would not be the first.

But that was then and this is now….different times indeed.

So what will all this notoriety do for his possible campaign?

First of all, let’s get the obvious question out of the way: No, the indictment of Donald Trump does not bar him from running for president. In fact, even a conviction likely wouldn’t put the kibosh on his presidential campaign. “There are actually not that many constitutional requirements to run for president,” a law professor explains to the Washington Post. “There is not an explicit prohibition in the Constitution in respects to having a pending indictment or even being convicted.” The Post notes, however, that practically speaking, it could be difficult to run for president and face a criminal trial at the same time.

Do not excited right now.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

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“lego ergo scribo”

“No Foul Play Suspected”

Those terms come from the ME office when a death is investigated.

Then there is the report from my home state of Mississippi….

On Oct. 2, a frantic Rasheem Carter called his mother and told her “three truckloads of white men” were chasing him. She told him to call the police, and when she didn’t hear from him again, she reported him missing. A month later, his body was found in a wooded area near Taylorsville, Mississippi, where he’d been working. It had been dismembered, with his head and other body parts severed, the Washington Post reports. The local sheriff initially said there was “no reason” to suspect foul play—but now, months later and after outcry from Carter’s family, he’s changing his tune. More from the coverage:

What happened: Carter was working in Taylorsville, about 100 miles away from his home in Fayette, Mississippi, on a short-term contracting job as he saved money to reopen his restaurant, which shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic. His mother says he fled the job in October after some sort of disagreement with at least one co-worker, NBC News reports. She says he mentioned multiple people from the job as possibly threatening him. The sheriff confirms there were “a couple of verbal altercations” between Carter and at least one colleague, but hasn’t revealed what they were about.

  • Not himself: Smith County Sheriff Joel Houston says everyone at that job has been interviewed. “They said [Carter’s] whole demeanor had changed. They weren’t sure what was going on,” he says. “They just said he kept to himself more. He usually joked around, and in the last week or so they weren’t able to do that.” The colleagues mentioned as possible threats were confirmed to have been at another job site almost 100 miles away when Carter was last seen alive.
  • Timeline: Carter did go to the police station after his last conversation with his mom, but Houston said last year that Carter did not report that he was in any sort of danger, and simply appeared to be in need of a ride back to his hotel. Carter was last spotted in the woods around 4:30pm on Oct. 2 in footage from a private landowner’s game camera, apparently alone.
  • Police theory: Houston says that “there’s no indication that someone killed him. The evidence we do have does coincide with what animals would do to a body.”
  • Family disagrees: But Carter’s family isn’t buying the idea that an animal is responsible for dismembering Carter. “There is nothing natural about this. What we have is a Mississippi lynching,” family attorney Benjamin Crump says, per the BBC. “This was a nefarious act. This was an evil act.” Carter’s mom says he was lucid when they spoke, not under the influence of any intoxicants, and that he had no history of mental health issues.
  • Sheriff’s current stance: On Tuesday, the day after a family press conference with Crump, Houston clarified that he has not ruled out the possibility Carter was murdered. “Nothing is being swept under the rug. There’s nothing to hide,” he said, adding that the investigation is ongoing and search warrants are in process.

This is not the only time this announcement was made over a death….

Just a little homespun news for my readers….get to know Mississippi.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–12Jan23

950 and counting

That is the total so far of people arrested and charged for their participation in the insurrection of 06 January….

And the word is there will be more to come……

In the two years since a violent mob forced its way into the U.S. Capitol, more than 950 people have been charged for their roles in the riot, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to seek hundreds more.

“Our work is far from over,” Attorney General Merrick Garland stated Wednesday, regarding the investigation into the deadly attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Roughly 350 suspects remain on the FBI’s wanted list of violent offenders at the Capitol that day, Garland’s office stated. More than two-thirds are wanted for violence against the estimated 140 law enforcement officers assaulted that day.

Garland’s office reports more than 950 have been charged. Roughly 230 of those were arrested in 2022, records show. But arrests continue, with at least 17 in December.

More than 3,860 counts of criminal activity had been alleged against 934 of the defendants through mid-December. USA TODAY tracks initial charges as they are announced by the Department of Justice. 

Nearly all the accused rioters were charged with disorderly and disruptive conduct. Most also were charged with entering and/or remaining in a restricted building or grounds. 

More than a quarter, 284, have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, Garland’s office said. Of those, 99 were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

  • Roughly 350 suspects remain on the FBI’s wanted list of violent offenders.
  • Arrests slowed in 2022, with at least 230 charged, compared with roughly 700 in 2021.
  • Of the 192 people who have been sentenced to incarceration, the average incarceration time levied is 16 months.

In the two years since a violent mob forced its way into the U.S. Capitol, more than 950 people have been charged for their roles in the riot, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to seek hundreds more.

“Our work is far from over,” Attorney General Merrick Garland stated Wednesday, regarding the investigation into the deadly attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Roughly 350 suspects remain on the FBI’s wanted list of violent offenders at the Capitol that day, Garland’s office stated. More than two-thirds are wanted for violence against the estimated 140 law enforcement officers assaulted that day.

Garland’s office reports more than 950 have been charged. Roughly 230 of those were arrested in 2022, records show. But arrests continue, with at least 17 in December.

The FBI has reviewed almost 4 million files, including 30,000 video files and continues to seek tips from the public.

More than 3,860 counts of criminal activity had been alleged against 934 of the defendants through mid-December. USA TODAY tracks initial charges as they are announced by the Department of Justice. 

Nearly all the accused rioters were charged with disorderly and disruptive conduct. Most also were charged with entering and/or remaining in a restricted building or grounds. 

More than a quarter, 284, have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, Garland’s office said. Of those, 99 were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. 

More than 295 were charged with “corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so,” the department said.

Among the charges are at least: 

  • 315 counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct. 
  • 222 counts of civil disorder or interfering with law enforcement during civil disorder.
  • 95 counts of conspiracy. 
  • 17 counts of seditious conspiracy.

(usatoday.com)

Still not enough are paying for this affront to our society.

Personally I think that some of these law breakers got off too lightly….

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“Dead Eye Dick” Is Guilty

06 January conspirator has had his day in court and is found guilty…..

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted Tuesday of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential win, handing the Justice Department a major victory in its massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. A Washington, DC, jury found Rhodes guilty of sedition after three days of deliberations in the nearly two-month-long trial that showcased the far-right extremist group’s efforts to keep Donald Trump in the White House at all costs, the AP reports. The rarely used, Civil War-era charge calls for up to 20 years behind bars. Rhodes didn’t go inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, but was accused of leading a plot that began shortly after the 2020 election to wage an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power.

Through recordings and encrypted messages, jurors heard how Rhodes rallied his followers to fight to keep Trump in office, warned of a possible “bloody” civil war and expressed regret that the Oath Keepers didn’t bring rifles to the Capitol on Jan. 6. In an extraordinary move, Rhodes and two other defendants took the stand in their defense, opening themselves up to intense questioning from prosecutors. Rhodes told jurors there was no plan to attack the Capitol and insisted that his followers who went inside the building went rogue.

On trial alongside Rhodes were Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired Navy intelligence officer from Virginia; and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group. Meggs was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy but Harrelson, Watkins, and Caldwell were found not guilty of the charge, the BBC reports. All five defendants were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding.

Only right wing dipshits will mourn his conviction…..not even his family has anything good to say about Dead Eye Dick……

Prosecutors with the Justice Department were handed a big win Tuesday with the conviction of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes on sedition charges, but they’re not the only ones celebrating a victory. “I am beyond happy,” Tasha Adams, the far-right militia leader’s estranged wife, tells Insider. “He has absolutely never had to face a consequence in his entire life.” Adams, who shares six children with Rhodes, adds: “He’s spent his life making others pay; this was past due for him.” The outlet notes that Adams has previously talked about the fear she had of her husband, whom she married in 1994 after dating for three years.

She says that Rhodes was emotionally and physically abusive to the children, and that he “viciously pushed every psychological button after just the slightest request of him,” per Insider. She adds that she breathed a sigh of relief when he was arrested earlier this year on the Jan. 6 charges. Now, “I am thrilled that he’s finally facing justice,” she says, though she warns that her spouse will likely try to seek a pardon from former President Trump if he is elected back to the Oval Office, per HuffPost.

She’s not the only family member speaking out. The Daily Beast reports that, after Tuesday’s verdict was read, Dakota Adams, the couple’s 25-year-old son, took to Twitter to post a three-second YouTube clip from It’s a Wonderful Life, in which the villainous Mr. Potter exclaims, “Happy new year to you … in jail!” In a second tweet, Dakota added: “So much weight is off now.” The BBC has a longer take on the ordeal of Rhodes’ family, and how Dakota Adams helped them all escape from him in 2018. “Until I was an adult man, I lived absolutely under the thumb of an emotional terrorist,” Adams says. The family’s full story here.

I say give him/them the max penalties….jail time and cash…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Vigilantes On Parade

Have you noticed in the past 10 years the amount of vigilantes hitting the streets has increased.

The individuals and groups that have been taking to the streets in the name of ‘freedom’….and the incidents of actual violence is increasing exponentially…..the most recent example is the trial of Rittenhouse….

The Wisconsin ruling clearing Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges for the killing of two Black Lives Matter activists looks to be a milestone moment for the rise of rightwing extremism in America. It’s not so much the details of this case and the spin that can be employed in interpreting the events that concerns me most. It’s the implications of the case, considering the larger political context and the threat of rising extremism.

A dangerous precedent has been set in this ruling, empowering vigilantes who believe they are deputized to enforce “the law” against perceived political enemies. Rittenhouse traveled to a city that he didn’t live in, to a state in which he is not a resident, while illegally possessing an assault rifle he had no right to wield, in the name of “protecting” property he didn’t own, in the process killing two men in violent altercations that would have been avoided entirely if Kenosha police had done their job, corralling vigilantes who looked to commit violence, and separating them from those engaged in protests or destruction of property. Even for those who are fixated on the property damage question, it’s difficult to defend Rittenhouse’s actions when he engaged in vigilante violence, with no training in dealing with conflict situations, and when responsibility for enforcing the law clearly falls on the police.

The Rittenhouse case shouldn’t be interpreted in a vacuum, as it occurred within a larger political environment in which other rightwing vigilantes seek to justify violence, and even murder, under the guise of “self-defense.” Consider, for example, the Ahmaud Arbery case in Georgia, where three white vigilantes stalked, cornered, and shot a black man who was jogging through a neighborhood – and away from them – under the false premise that he may have been responsible for a local burglary. There is no plausible scenario in which these three men can reasonably claim self-defense, when the altercation was entirely of their own initiation, when the man murdered was unarmed, and when he had nothing to do with the crime in question. And of course, there is the issue of implicit or explicit racial bias related to the defendants, which is also difficult to ignore in a country where research shows that assumptions of guilt related to violent crime are consistently racialized, with black men assumed to be the prime perpetrators in violent and other criminal acts. If the Arbery defendants successfully justify their actions as “self-defense,” then the courts will have effectively criminalized being black in America. An acquittal sends a message that white vigilantes can commit violence and murder at will against people of color who have the nerve to venture out into public, and with black men’s mere existence constituting a “threat” from which white people need “protection.”

Vigilantes on Parade: Rightwing Extremism and the Threat of National Implosion

All this does nothing to stop the social slide that has been developing over the last 25 years or so…..

None of this bode well for a orderly society and a stable nation.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Insurrection Update #21

This subject is not covered as much as it should be….it should NEVER be ignored for any reason…..I will do my part….

The insurrectionists are losing faith in their orange god…..it is so bad that some are helping with the prosecutions…..

Two key organizers of the main Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C. are coming in from the cold.

Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lynn Lawrence are set to testify next week before the House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The pair will deliver testimony and turn over documents, including text messages, that indicate the extensive involvement members of Congress and the Trump administration had in planning the House challenge to certifying Biden’s election and rally near the White House where Donald Trump spoke — efforts that ultimately contributed to a massive and violent attack on the Capitol.

Among the documents the couple is providing are conversations they had with staffers and members of Congress as they planned the main rally that took place on the White House Ellipse that day. Stockton described these discussions as largely logistical and focused on planning the members’ participation in objections to the electoral certification on the House floor and various events that were staged to protest against the election. They include Instagram messages Lawrence exchanged with Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) as she tried to get him to speak at the Ellipse rally. Cawthorn, whose office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, ultimately appeared onstage at that event.

Two Jan. 6 Organizers Are Coming Forward and Naming Names: ‘We’re Turning It All Over’

Speaking of pro-Trump idiots…..and their willy nilly approaches…..

Following the 2020 presidential election, attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne had a common goal: promoting the false and debunked claim that the election had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump. But a year later, journalist Matt Shuham emphasizes in Talking Points Memo, this crowd has become an example of bitter infighting in MAGA World.

“A year ago, they were pro-Trump conspiracy theorists at the top of their game,” Shuham notes. “In early December 2020, Lin Wood and Sidney Powell addressed a packed crowd in Georgia together. Wood modeled a ‘General Flynn’ ballcap and promised to ‘fight like a Flynn,’ a tribute to Powell’s client Michael Flynn, who Wood likened to George Washington. The day prior, Flynn and Wood both endorsed martial law and a national re-vote.”

https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/lin-wood-powell/

To this I say…GREAT!

DC is suing the ‘leaders’ of the 06 January insurrection to recoup the expenses that were made trying to protect the Capitol.

More than two dozen members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are being sued by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine in an effort to recover the millions of dollars the city spent to defend the US Capitol during the January 6 attack.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington, DC, accuses 31 members of the extremist groups of “conspiring to terrorize the District” on January 6, calling their actions “a coordinated act of domestic terrorism.”
Racine is asking the court to find the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys liable for the millions of dollars officials spent dispatching officers from the Metropolitan Police Department to the Capitol, along with the enormous expense of treating the injured officers and paying for their medical leave in the months after the attack.
 
Another great bit of news….I say sue them for every dime that have…..
 
The saga continues….hopefully the cowards that participated, all of them, will get what is coming to them.
 
More observations to come……
 
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“lego ergo scribo”

Those Civilian Deaths

There is a growing problem in our many many wars and conflicts…..civilian deaths.

Our ever expanding use of drones to attack ‘enemy’ positions the number of civilian deaths has risen…..for every single ‘bad guy’ taken out by a drone strike there is the chance that innocent civilians will be killed as well.

With every report that gets out about these deaths the US pledges to investigate the deaths…..this is to placate critics and in the end nothing is actually accomplished and the killers go unpunished.

The question needs to be asked if the US Pentagon be a good and good faith investigator?

Some of us say no…..

U.S. Central Command reported late on Friday a U.S. drone strike in Idlib, Syria against a senior member of al-Qaida, rather than against a member of the self-described Islamic State  — the ostensible legal justification the United States is even in Syria. Even more interestingly, CENTCOM claimed it “immediately self-reported” one civilian casualty that it is investigating. 

But U.S. policymakers should not defer to the military’s investigatory promises given its history of covering up or not sufficiently accounting for civilian casualties. In fact, the Associated Press has since reported that the strike wounded a family of 6, including a 10-year-old child.

It’s no coincidence the CENTCOM appears to have proactively taken responsibility for this latest civilian casualty. This incident came at the end of a week of rightful public uproar after the New York Times revealed the U.S. military’s apparent cover up of an airstrike killing 80 civilians in eastern Syria in 2019. Rather than allowing more exhaustive investigative journalism to uncover its destructive and deadly actions in Syria, it appears CENTCOM is hoping that announcing an investigation will stave off an intense media frenzy like the one following its botched August 29  drone strike in Kabul during the withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed Zemari Ahmadi, a civilian electrical engineer, and his family. 

We can’t trust the US military to investigate civilian casualties

As I was writing this draft more news has popped up……

The Pentagon won’t discipline any US personnel involved in the mistaken drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Afghanistan in August. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accepted recommendations on the issue that did not include punishment, press secretary John Kirby said Monday. The recommendations from two commanders were mostly procedural, the Hill reports, and Kirby said, “There was no overt recommendation made by either specific to accountability and any punishment for anyone.” An independent Pentagon review had come to a similar conclusion, saying there was no evidence of negligence. Seven of the 10 people killed were children.

The aid organization that one of the victims worked for immediately criticized the decision, per CNBC. Nutrition & Education International said the US hasn’t kept its promises to provide compensation to the victims’ families and get them out of the country. “How can our military wrongly take the lives of 10 precious Afghan people, and hold no one accountable in any way?” asked the group’s president, Dr. Steven Kwon. Zemerai Ahmadi, who was killed along with his family, worked for the organization for 15 years. US commanders mistakenly thought he was an ISIS-K operative when they ordered the strike in Kabul.

“What we saw here was a breakdown in process and execution in procedural events,” Kirby said Monday, “not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership.” Austin previously had called the drone attack a “horrible mistake,” though the Defense Department at first called it a “righteous strike.” US operations have killed hundreds of civilians, at least, in war zones over the past 20 years, rarely holding an individual responsible, per the Hill.

Seriously?  Just how accurate and fair is the perp given control of a death investigation?

American exceptionalism is a self-forged permission slip to engage in the kind of malicious behavior that the US would condemn from any other nation.

No one cares about the deaths of civilians…..as long as we have our Gummi vitamins and social influencers then all is well with the world.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Insurrection Update #20

There has been a slow trickle of news around the attempts to bring the insurrectionists of 06 January to task for their attempts to undermine the government of this country.

The big question mystery has been why was there no back up for the Capitol police when the trouble started on the fateful day?

There is now some news about that situation…..

A memo by a DC National Guard officer accuses two Army generals of lying to Congress about the response to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the Pentagon of trying to cover up the failures. Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt are “absolute and unmitigated liars,” Col. Earl Matthews wrote. The issue is whether the generals held up the deployment of the Guard to the Capitol while it was under attack, Politico reports. Matthews also criticized a report by the Army’s inspector general that he said is filled with mistakes and covers for the leaders. Flynn is the older brother of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.

An Army spokesperson said Flynn and Piatt “have been open, honest, and thorough in their sworn testimony with Congress and DOD investigators.” A spokesman for the inspector general’s office stood by the findings in its report, per NBC. On Jan. 6, Matthews’ job was serving as the top lawyer for Maj. Gen. William Walker, who has called for the inspector general to retract the report, which he said is inaccurate and sloppy. A House special committee is investigating the events of that day, including the Pentagon’s response. Matthews’ memo has gone to the panel.

Matthews said Piatt and Flynn, on a conference call that afternoon, argued that sending uniformed military personnel to the Capitol would not look good and suggested picking up DC police officers’ traffic duties so they could go instead. The two generals then recommended putting the Guard on standby, which the DC Guard’s timeline supports. Piatt later provided a written answer to a House panel saying, “At no point on January 6 did I tell anyone that the DC National Guard should not deploy directly to the Capitol.” Matthews says that statement was false.

I hear the news trying to play down the possibility of a return to the days of incitement….that is possible put not until the Orange Man from Florida is sidelined…..why do I say this?

Donald Trump has convinced tens of millions of Americans that the White House was stolen from him, and a significant number of them are ready to use violence to take back what he lost.

Nearly 70 percent of all Republicans believe the election was stolen from Trump, according to recent polls, but researchers found that 4 percent of Americans, or about 10 million adults, agreed that violent protest was worth the risk — but that number doubled when they were asked whether violence was justified to return Trump to the presidency, reported The Atlantic.

“This really is a new, politically violent mass movement,” said researcher Robert Pape, who studies political violence. “This is collective political violence.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-insurrection-2655927564/

Breaking news….a US Congressman talks of insurrection with ‘shock troops’…..

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Thursday talked with conservative broadcaster Steve Bannon about a plan to use “4,000 shock troops” to take over the jobs of federal government employees.

Bannon has previously said that the so-called “shock troops” need to be prepared prior to Republican control of the executive branch.

“People didn’t like that Donald Trump raised his voice but sometimes you’ve got to raise your voice to raise a ruckus and to raise an army of patriots who love this country and will fight for her,” Gaetz said on Bannon’s War Room program. “We’re going to operationalize the performance to go right after the people who are imposing the vaccine mandates, who are enriching themselves and who are selling out the country.”

“Understand, this is a theory of governing,” Bannon agreed. “It’s fresh and it’s new. This is Trumpism in power. That’s when we went to the 4,000 shock troops we have to have that’s going to man the government. Get them ready now. Right? We’re going to hit the beach with the landing teams and the beachhead teams and all that nomenclature they use when President Trump wins in 2024…….or before.”

https://www.rawstory.com/matt-gaetz-steve-bannon-shock-troops/

That language should get Gaetz thrown from the floor of the House…..at least charged with incitement.

Times are getting more dangerous by the speech from the uber morons.

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