Tag: Crime & Punishment

Closing Thought–26Mar20

We all have heard of those people (I use the term loosely) that are coughing on fruit or sneezing on toilet seats, licking stuff…..etc etc etc…….these people need to be stopped and held accountable for the endangering people’s lives.

Well someone has stepped up…..

A 26-year-old Missouri man was arrested this week after he allegedly made a video of himself licking items at a Walmart in an attempt to mock the coronavirus, which has killed thousands of people across the globe.

The Warren County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on Tuesday charged Cody Lee Pfister with making a terrorist threat in the second degree, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The incident took place on March 11 at the Warrenton Walmart, according to court records.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/489495-police-missouri-man-charged-with-making-terrorist-threat-for

Now the DOJ has stepped up as well……

People who intentionally spread the coronavirus could face criminal charges under federal terrorism laws, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official said Tuesday.

In a memo to top Justice Department leaders, law enforcement agency chiefs and U.S. Attorneys across the country, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said prosecutors and investigators could come across cases of “purposeful exposure and infection of others with COVID-19.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/coronavirus-terrorism-justice-department-147821

Now my governor (the moron he is) has decided to follow Trump’s lead and not to order a stay at home order……my question for the DOJ is……since that could make the virus spread faster could the moron Tate Reeves be charged?

God I hope so!

1,000 Americans have died from this virus……how many more will have to do the same to protect stupidity?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Does Anyone Remember The Hack Of 2016?

Closing Thought–23Mar20

I know that events and situations around this pandemic are moving at a break neck speed and issues of 4 years ago hold no interests these days…..but after all the exposure the Mueller thingy and the investigation digging and finding Russians were truly messing in our elections.

Does any of that ring a bell?

Just thought you might like to know……after all the pundits opinions, money spent, investigations and indictments issued…..the DOJ has decided to drop the cases……

Big news Monday night: Buried amid the panic over the corona virus. Robert Mueller’s prosecutors got the green light to flush down the toilet  one of their major cases alleging that Russia hacked the 2016 U.S. Presidential election – US District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich on Monday evening granted the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case against Concord Management and Consulting. This is more than a black eye. It is an indictment and rebuke of a corrupt group of prosecutors who worked for Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. They filed a case without foundation and smeared a group of foreigners that they (the prosecutors) did not think would fight back. Big mistake.

Let me take you back to February 2018. The headlines of the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and The Atlantic blared the following propaganda:

A Cornerstone of Russia Hacked the 2016 Election Collapses

More on the decision…..

The Justice Department is moving to drop charges against two Russian companies that were accused of funding a social media campaign to sway American public opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Prosecutors said they concluded that a trial, against a corporate defendant with no presence in the United States and no prospect of meaningful punishment even if convicted, would likely expose sensitive law enforcement tools and techniques, “potentially undermining their effectiveness.”

Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering were among three companies and 13 individuals charged in 2018 by special counsel Robert Mueller in a conspiracy to spread disinformation on social media during the 2016 presidential race. The effort was aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord in the electorate, officials said.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-to-drop-case-against-two-russian-companies-accused-of-2016-election-meddling-2020-03-16

So basically the whole investigation and indictment process was a massive waste of time and money.

Glad to see that DC is still the wasteful pile of manure it has always been.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Women’s History #2–Patty And The SLA

Long before ISIS or Al-Qaeda…there was the SLA…

SLA?

Symbionese Liberation Army!

Maybe one of their famous members might help you understand……Patty Hearst…..does that ring a bell?

(At the sound of the horn sprint to Google and learn)

The older you are the more that name will mean to you….

First Patty Hearst…….

Around 9 o’clock in the evening on February 4, 1974, there was a knock on the door of apartment #4 at 2603 Benvenue Street in Berkeley, California. In burst a group of men and women with their guns drawn. They grabbed a surprised 19-year-old college student named Patty Hearst, beat up her fiancé, threw her in the trunk of their car and drove off.

Thus began one of the strangest cases in FBI history.

Hearst, it was soon discovered, had been kidnapped by a group of armed radicals that billed themselves as the Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA. Led by a hardened criminal named Donald DeFreeze, the SLA wanted nothing less than to incite a guerrilla war against the U.S. government and destroy what they called the “capitalist state.” Their ranks included women and men, blacks and whites, and anarchists and extremists from various walks in life.

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/patty-hearst

The group that took then converted Patty Hearst was the Symbionese Liberation Army…..

In 1974 a little-known but wealthy Berkeley undergraduate, Patricia Hearst, became a media celebrity after being kidnapped by a group of revolutionaries calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army. The kidnap victim transformed into a seemingly willing accomplice; over the months of her kidnapping, she participated in crimes, claimed allegiance to the S.L.A., and defended her captors as valiant heroes. From tape recordings, her trial testimony and own telling of the story years later, several different versions of events emerge, but there seems to be no resolution to the questions about her transformation. Her parents thought that she had been brainwashed; experts suggested that she was a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome, mistakenly identifying with her captors in an effort at self-preservation. Yet it is also possible that Hearst repudiated her upbringing to flirt with radical terrorism.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/guerrilla-rise-and-fall-symbionese-liberation-army/

The 1970s was a fascinating time in history….without Patty Hearst this group would have been just a minor footnote in history….if that….

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–26Feb20

How to counter fake news…..well Ethiopia has passed a new law to do just that…counter fake news…..

Ethiopia’s parliament, the House of Peoples’ Representatives (HoPR), has passed a law aimed at combating fake news and curbing hate speech.

The passage comes three months after the cabinet led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, approved it and forwarded it to the house. It is known as the Hate Speech and Misinformation Law and was approved with a majority vote, 23 against and 2 abstentions.

Core planks of the new law include:

  • Prevent individuals from engaging in speech that incites violence, promote hatred and discrimination against a person or a group.
  • Promote tolerance, civil discourse and dialogue, mutual respect and understanding and strengthening democratic governance.
  • Control and suppress the dissemination and proliferation of hate speech, disinformation and other related false and misleading information.
  • Prohibits disseminating hate speech by means of broadcasting, print or social media using text, image, audio or video.

“It is deemed necessary to enact the law because the nation cannot address problems arising from hate speeches and fake news with existing laws,” a November 2019 statement issued from the council of ministers said.

Social media has been identified as one of the main avenues used to incite ethically tinged violence leading to deaths and displacements in East Africa’s most populous nation. The law also comes with months to keenly awaited elections.

The country is currently listed among global leaders in the area of internally displaced people. Ethiopia, as Africa’s second most populous nation, had a restrictive media space prior to April 2018 and the coming into office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Sticking by his reform promise, Abiy released hundreds of political prisoners, jailed press men and opened up the media landscape. Under his watch, media outlets previously banned were allowed to return and operate in the country.

Social media has however been a blessing and headache for Abiy. His office has effectively used Twitter and Facebook to project work being done by government.

But the platform has also been blamed for the rise in the spread of fake news and the peddling of hate speech. As expected the new law continues to receive backlash from journalists and human rights activists especially.

(africanews.com)

But then who decides what is true and what is fake?

That eternal question….and fodder for so many blog posts.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Justice For Sale?

I have always believed that American politics is for sale and this year’s election is proving my point. Through all those years I believed that American justice was safe from the cash of millionaires…..I was so very wrong……

President Trump issued a pardon Tuesday to Michael Milken, the disgraced former junk bond king who later became a prominent Los Angeles philanthropist, in a mass clemency to 11 convicted felons that marked a dramatic expansion of the president’s intervention in judicial matters since his Senate impeachment acquittal.

…

Nearly all of those granted clemency had strong advocates who were the president’s close friends, including his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, and even Eddie Gallagher, the former Navy SEAL who was charged with war crimes — all were named in the White House official statement.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-18/trump-rod-blagojevich-commute-sentence

The list of all those wealthy d/bags that Trump has pardoned….https://www.businessinsider.com/who-has-trump-pardoned-so-far-arpaio-johnson-scooter-libby-2018-5

Let’s begin with the trial of the year 2008…the sell of a US Senate seat……

Rod Blagojevich is going home. President Trump on Tuesday commuted the sentence of the former Illinois governor, reports ABC News. Blagojevich has been imprisoned since 2012 after being convicted on corruption charges. Among other things, he famously tried to sell the vacant Senate seat of Barack Obama after Obama won the 2008 presidential election. Also Tuesday, Trump pardoned former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik and, earlier, he pardoned former NFL owner Edward Debartolo Jr. Coverage:

  • Blagojevich was serving a 14-year sentence and expected to get out in 2024 with good behavior. Instead, the AP reports that he is expected to walk out of prison on Tuesday.
  • Trump spoke briefly to reporters after the news, saying he didn’t know Blagojevich well (he noted Blagojevich’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice) and characterizing his 8 years behind bars as a “long time,” per ABC. He also called Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence “ridiculous.” Trump had previously floated the idea of commuting the sentence.
  • Talking Points Memo notes Trump also cited Blagojevich’s kids: “They’re growing older, they’re going to high school now, and they rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform.”
  • The New York Times reports that members of the GOP told Trump not to do it, “arguing that Mr. Blagojevich’s crime epitomizes the corruption that Mr. Trump had said he wanted to tackle as president.”
  • To that end, this from the conservative site Twitchy: “Is that how you ‘drain the swamp’? By letting people in the swamp out of it?” And the conservative Washington Examiner calls the commutation “very swampy,” arguing Blagojevich does not deserve it and that the president’s move “doesn’t simply fuel the swamp. It floods it with gallons of festering water and a banqueting invitation to the mosquito corruption clique.”
  • But Media Matters argues the commutation shows the influence Fox News has over Trump, calling the conservative hosts “sympathetic” to Blagojevich’s cause. The site notes that among Trump’s remarks Tuesday was this one: “I watched his wife on television,” which it pegs as a “clear reference” to her at least seven appearances on Fox News.
  • As for Kerik, the New York Post reports that he was actually released from prison in 2013 after serving three years of a four-year sentence. He previously pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to those vetting him for the position of Homeland Security director after George W. Bush nominated him.
  • CNBC reports via the White House that Trump “granted some form of executive clemency” to 11 people on Tuesday. Another one making headlines was former “junk bond king” Michael Milken, whom Trump pardoned, Reuters reports. Since serving two years behind bars on securities violations charges, he has started a nonprofit that funds research on cancer, financial markets, and a wide range of other issues.
  • The rest of those 11: Pardons were given to entrepreneur Ariel Friedler, former contractor Paul Pogue, former US government procurement officer David Safavian, and Angela Stanton, who was implicated in a stolen vehicle ring. Commutations were given to three women, two who were convicted on drug charges and one on healthcare fraud charges.

Is justice for sale?

Yes it is!

Out of the blue President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned or commuted the sentences of eleven people. One of those who received a full pardon from the president is Paul Pogue, the founder of a large Texas construction company.

Pogue pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes over a three-year period by $473,000. The White House published a long list of the charitable giving Pogue has made to support Trump’s decision to issue the pardon.

Family of One of the Felons President Pardoned Donated Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to Trump Campaign: Report

Money has it privileges and one of those is that they can commit crimes and walk……

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Assassination Investigation

Closing Thought–19Feb20

Nope this is not some BS about some Iranian general…this is about famous assassination….that of Malcolm X in 1965……

In case you did not pay attention in history class….I can help….

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/malcolm-x-assassinated

Looks like there may be a new look at this crime and those that were convicted….

Three men were convicted of assassinating Malcolm X in 1965. One of those men confessed, but the other two always maintained their innocence. Now, after the release of a Netflix documentary, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is considering reopening the case over what critics say was a botched police investigation. Coverage:

  • The trio: Three members of the Nation of Islam were sent to prison. Mujahid Abdul Halim (known then as Talmadge Hayer and Thomas Hagan), admitted he was one of the gunmen in New York City. But the other two men convicted, Muhammad Abdul Aziz (then known as Norman 3X Butler) and Khalil Islam (Thomas 15X Johnson) said they were innocent, per the Innocence Project. Halim backed them up.
  • Still fighting: Islam died in 2009, but Aziz is now 81 and hoping to clear his name with the help of the innocence group. He served 20 years in prison for a crime he says he did not commit.
  • DA’s office: The office is starting a “preliminary review” to decide whether the case should be reopened, reports WPIX. The six-part Netflix documentary, based on the work of historian Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, unearthed new evidence about the killing.
  • Who did it? The documentary suggests that Halim and three other members of a Nation of Islam mosque in New Jersey did the shooting, reports the New York Times. Halim and Islam (both known as “enforcers” of strict church doctrine) belonged to Malcolm X’s former mosque in Harlem. No evidence tied them to the crime and the documentary suggests they could not have been at the scene when the shooting took place.
  • Booker connection: One of the accused briefly appeared in a campaign ad for then Newark Mayor Cory Booker in 2010. Booker says in the film he had no idea about the assassination connection. “What got us hooked,” Rachel Dretzin, one of the film’s directors, tells the Times, “was the notion that the likely shotgun assassin of Malcolm X was living in plain sight in Newark, and that many people knew of his involvement, and he was uninvestigated, unprosecuted, unquestioned.” That man, now dead, denied involvement to the New York Daily News in 2015. The other suspected gunmen also are believed to be dead.
  • The background: Malcolm X was shot after splitting with the Nation of Islam and renouncing leader Elijah Muhammad, notes the Washington Post. Up-and-coming figure Louis Farrakhan wrote at the time that Malcolm X was “worthy of death,” and the civil rights leader’s home was firebombed only a week before his assassination.

A bit late…..by 55 years……

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Senate Impeachment Trial–Final Day

Mercifully It’s Over!

Finally this Greek comedy has mercifully come to an end…at least in the US Senate…..but we will see and hear more in the coming days until the writers get cramps and move on.

The final vote….and the vote was no surprise….

President Trump has been acquitted on both articles of impeachment and will not be removed from office, USA Today reports. The vote for the first article, abuse of power, was 52-48, CNN reports. All 47 Democratic senators voted to convict, the Wall Street Journal reports. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney also voted to convict, breaking with his fellow Republicans, a decision he had announced on the Senate floor before the vote Wednesday, the AP reports. Romney said Trump’s actions were “perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of oath of office that I can imagine.” He’s the only senator in US history who has ever voted to convict a president from his own party during an impeachment trial. Romney did not, however, vote with Democrats on the second article, obstruction of Congress; the vote on that charge was 53-47.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts declared, per the Guardian: “The Senate having tried Donald John Trump, President of the United States, upon two Articles of Impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives, and two-thirds of the Senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein: it is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charges in said articles.” Before the trial officially adjourned, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell presented Roberts with a golden gavel to thank him for presiding over the trial. “We typically award this to new senators after about 100 hours in the chair, but we can all believe that the chief justice has put in his due and then some,” he said. The Senate is now in recess until next week

The only thing this accomplishes is the rapid deterioration of our political system into chaos of corruption and greed…..well done GOP…..they have NEVER cared about the nation or the Constitution except when it is a slogan/prop for voters…..

The GOP can NO longer claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility or to champion the Constitution.

Not to worry the president will have to go before the cameras and doing his Reality TV thing on this acquittal…..

President Trump celebrated acquittal in his impeachment trial Wednesday by suggesting that he could remain president for more than 90,000 years—long beyond the limits set by both the human lifespan and the US Constitution. Trump tweeted a video based on a Time magazine cover from last year that shows campaign signs up to “Trump 2048,” the Hill reports. The video, which the president has shared before, shows the sign number ticking upward until it reaches “Trump 90,000,” followed by “Trump 4EVA.” Trump allies including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, meanwhile, tweeted about Trump being “acquitted for life,” the Week reports.

In another tweet, Trump slammed “failed presidential candidate” Sen. Mitt Romney, the only Republican senator to vote for conviction—and the only senator to vote against his party in any of the three presidential impeachment trials in US history. Had Romney “devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election,” said Trump, who also tweeted a video that claimed Romney was a “secret Democrat asset.” The president said he would make a statement at noon Thursday from the White House to “discuss our Country’s VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!”

It is over!

Trump will forever be an impeached president like Clinton…..on the other hand he was acquitted of the “crimes” like Clinton.

Now the story should be…..will there be  price for the Senators vote?

The Congress will take a week off to recover from having to work days on end…..their wallets are slimmer since the donors have been otherwise distracted.

Now the work of the country needs to be handled….like that will happen.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”