Tag: Crime

A Domestic Disturbance Force?

WTF?

The moron SecDef has announced, I am sure with Little Donny’s help, that the defense department will intervene in domestic problems…..

The Department of Defense is planning to create a rapid response force of National Guard troops to quickly deploy to American cities where protests or unrest are occurring.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that it obtained documents showing the Pentagon is creating a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force.”

“The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour,” the outlet explained. “They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.”

One hundred troops at each base would be on standby to deploy within an hour, while the entire quick force would begin operations within 12 hours. The National Guard will be equipped with weapons and riot gear, and the deployments will be limited to 90 days to prevent burnout among the troops.

On Monday, Trump announced a major crackdown on crime in Washington, DC, by federalizing the Metropolitan DC police and deploying 800 National Guard troops to the capital city. “This is Liberation Day in DC, and we’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House. “I’m officially invoking the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. And placing the DC Metropolitan Police under direct federal control.”

“In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help restore law, order and public safety,” he added.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said residents of DC will soon see the National Guard in the capital. “You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week,” he explained. “At your direction as well, sir, there are other units we are prepared to bring in — other National Guard units, other specialized units. They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.”

The new quick reaction force may be deployed to other American cities if Trump perceives that there is too much crime. Trump threatened to take similar steps in other major cities, noting he hopes some of them “self-clean up.” “If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” the president said.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/pentagon-to-create-domestic-civil-disturbance-quick-reaction-force/

So the fate of American cities is left up to a lying sack of crap that makes up stats to justify is idiotic policies.

This smells like an attempt to silence any opposition by using some lie to justifying using troops to break up any and all protests.

I said this smells….and it does….

Donald Trump has opened a new, explosive salvo in his battle with elected Democrats across the country.

By revoking part of Washington DC’s right to govern itself and announcing the deployment of National Guard troops to deal with a largely non-existent crime wave in the city, the US President made it clear that he planned to take similar actions in other Democratic Party strongholds in the months ahead.

Trump’s description of life in the nation’s capital bears no resemblance whatsoever to the experience of the vast majority of its citizens. He described a city riddled with “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, squalor and worse”, and in cadences redolent of his “American Carnage” inaugural address of January 2017, spoke of a city of “complete and total lawlessness”.

Trump himself so rarely ventures outside the protective bubble of the White House that he may not even understand how ludicrous his claims sound to the ears of DC residents. Official statistics – as opposed to the unsourced numbers that the US President shared with reporters on Monday – show that violent crime is now at a 30-year low in the city.

Trump’s troop deployment won’t end with the US capital – it’s his blueprint for America

Most idiots get their info from sniveling weasels like Charlie Kirk…..who thinks it is a great idea for the occupation of American cities…

MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk celebrated President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” takeover of the nation’s capital by calling for the Trump administration to unleash a “full military occupation” of other large American cities “once we liberate” Washington, D.C.

In what appeared to be spurred by the recent late-night attack on former DOGE employee Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, who was allegedly assaulted during an attempted carjacking, Trump announced on Monday that he was deploying 800 National Guard troops and temporarily taking control of Washington’s police department to fight crime in the city.

“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we’re not going to let it happen anymore,” Trump exclaimed on Monday. Despite violent crime falling for two straight years in Washington under the current chief of police, the president likened the city to the “worst places on Earth” while repeatedly framing it as a dystopian hellscape.

Having already deployed thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer to quell protests that erupted over his immigration raids, Trump also suggested that other large cities in Democratic-led states – such as New York City and Chicago – could be next.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/charlie-kirk-trump-military-occupation-b2805750.html

I have NO use for anyone that supports this invasion into our rights….and protests are a right….and crime figures are not fact…..not anymore.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Crime Is Out Of Control!

We are hearing this statement playing out with every campaign speech.

That is one of the taglines for the Trump campaign…..a good hook for idiots and the truth is it is so much bullsh*t.

The fact is crime has been in decline….regardless what Donald has said…..there is no proof it is out of control….

Violent crime levels have dropped significantly in the first half of the year, according to a new report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Overall, violent crime dropped by 6 percent and homicides fell by 17 percent in 69 cities compared to the same period last year. Columbus, Ohio, saw the biggest drop in violent crime at 41 percent, according to an Axios data analysis. But cities including Miami, Washington, DC, and Austin, Texas, also saw large declines. Notably, New York City was not included in the data, though other reports have indicated that violent crime is falling there, too.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s causing the decline, which comes after a major Covid-19 crime wave. It may be partially due to policies aimed at tackling crime at the federal, state, and local levels. But it may also just be a symptom of the fact that normal life in America has resumed post-pandemic — or a combination of those and other factors.

Republicans have long tried to use concerns about crime as a political cudgel against President Joe Biden’s administration. While former President Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be giving up on that attack strategy just yet, Democrats can now use the new data as a defense. Whether that will be effective, however, is far from certain.

In a statement on Saturday, President Joe Biden credited the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in 2021, which allocated $15 billion toward public safety and violence prevention efforts, for helping bring down crime levels. He also cited bipartisan gun control law that expanded background checks and encouraged states to adopt “red flag” laws to prevent people who pose a danger to themselves or others from obtaining a gun.

But while those laws may have helped, some experts are highly skeptical of attributing the decrease to specific government initiatives.

“I think it’s early to know exactly why murder and violent crime are going down now,” said Jeff Asher, a crime researcher who runs a crime database at AH Datalytics. “Generally, I’m skeptical of political actions causing crime to go up or crime to go down, especially at the federal level.”

However, the pandemic crime was such an outlier in terms of the speed and degree to which it took hold that Asher said it’s possible that government spending on public safety helped interrupt such an acute increase in violence.

https://www.vox.com/policy/366622/violent-crime-dropping-pandemic-wave-2024

I am sure that these people will point to one city that is having a spree and claim the whole country is having it as well….that would be pure horse manure.

If you fancy yourself as a law and order voter then do not listen to crap, do the research and you will see that crime is declining across the nation.

Vote Smart!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Remember When Comic Books Were Dangerous?

No?

Well time for the Old Professor to drop some history.

These days comic books are a great source of entertainment and collecting them has become mainstream.

But it was not always so acceptable to read or collect these treasures.

Like today when some blame society’s ills on video games and music so it was that comics were accused as the source of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s.

Comic books are successful almost from their inception in the early 1930s, but also subject to attack by critics for the low quality of the art and writing, and for the emphasis on violent stories and images. These attacks come from adult critics, not the millions of monthly comics readers — mainly children and teenagers who love the vivid illustrations and exciting stories in the books.

After World War II, readership dwindles for popular superhero titles, such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Spirit, and many comics turn to gory, true-life stories, or tales of horror and the supernatural. E.C. Comics’ Vault of Horror, Crypt of Terror, and Haunt of Fear cram their pages with severed heads, drug use, and graphic violence. Some of the most popular of these extreme stories come from the pen of comic artist Jack Cole.

Throughout the decade, attacks against the violent comics mount. Citizens’ groups and religious organizations pressure publishers and news dealers to drop the most offensive lines. Newspaper editorial pages and national magazines debate the influence of comics on the young.

In 1954 the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency holds hearings on whether comic books inspire juvenile delinquency. A lead witness, psychologist Dr. Frederick Wertham, testifies that comics “create a mental readiness for temptation” and create “an atmosphere of deceit and cruelty” for children. He even attacks Superman for “arousing fantasies of sadistic joy in seeing others punished while you yourself remain immune.”

E.C. Comics publisher William Gaines speaks in the comics defense, emphasizing his stories’ endings, in which the criminals always pay for their crimes. “Good taste” is his only criterion. Senator Estes Kefauver asks if an E.C. Comics’ cover displaying a woman’s severed head and a bloody axe is Gaines’ idea of good taste. Backed into a corner, Gaines boldly answers ‘yes.’ The exchange makes the front page of the next day’s New York Times.

The committee’s subsequent report declares no proven connection between comics and delinquency. Nevertheless, the Senate calls for self-regulation by the comics industry to keep violent titles out of young hands. Seeking to diffuse the negative publicity, the comic book publishers create The Comics Magazine Association of America. The new trade group publishes a strict code of guidelines to control what content the comics will permit. The guidelines focus exclusively on crime and horror comics. Within a short time, the genre is no longer commercially viable.

The imposition of the Comic Book Code bankrupts many of the horror and crime publishers, and many of the artists and writers leave the business for good. The most notable failure is E.C. Comics,

I always wonder why the dialog in the early comics was so horribly bad….like it was written by a 4 year old on Zanax……now you know.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–15Jun21

Over this past weekend there were shooting in 6 states…..when will enough be enough?

I recently read an article recently that explains the recent increase in murder and gun violence….it seems it is because there is more guns!

That got the immediate response from me…..

The year 2020 saw the largest recorded increase in homicides in United States history — an increase likely propelled by a complex mix of factors, from more guns to stresses of the pandemic to fewer police officers on the streets to a crisis in relations between police and citizens.

But one persistent theory is that a change in policing last summer primarily drove increased gun violence. This is an especially popular explanation among law enforcement figures. Former Baltimore Police Department Deputy Commissioner Jason Johnson recently argued that the real driver of last year’s murder rise was a severe decline in police activity, especially after protests erupted last summer in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

St. Louis Police Commissioner John Hayden suggested that the police resources devoted to protests prevented officers from engaging in neighborhood policing. Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said police were “stretched to the limit” by the protests and coronavirus restrictions. Summarizing widespread reductions in stops and arrests, Johnson wrote that “when the Thin Blue Line retreats, violence charges in.”

https://www.vox.com/22529989/2020-murders-guns

This is a growing problem in search of solution….the problem is there are none that want that solution….they prefer to keep uttering the mindless sympathy message of “thoughts and prayer”….and the killing goes on…..and on….

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Let’s Talk Pirates

Arrrr Matey!

NO!  This is not one of those posts on the pipe dream of hidden pirate loot waiting to be found.

I am not going on some diatribe about the Spanish Main and stuff…..nor am I going to report on the “pirates” off the Coast of Africa that keep taking over tankers and such….not the pirates that operate in the Caribbean looting and stealing yachts…..none of those are good enough for IST.

I will cover the “pirates” that operate withing the highway system here in the good old US of A……

On May 11, 2013, a semi cab made its way up Interstate 555 from Memphis, Tennessee, northwest to Jonesboro, Arkansas. The man driving — a career trucker from Memphis — was accompanied by his nephew, and the pair was bobtailing, meaning their truck wasn’t pulling a trailer. Drivers often have to travel between warehouses and shipping facilities to pick up a new load, and these two men were indeed in search of new cargo to haul. Only in this case, they weren’t looking to do it legally. They were cruising the truck stops along I-555 for unattended trailers to pick up and steal.

Truckers sometimes leave their trailers at truck stops or even in parking lots in order to visit a mechanic or drive the cab home for the weekend. So the men knew it was only a matter of time before they came across an unattached trailer, overlooked in the bustle of a busy truck stop. The pair’s combined experience came in handy, as either one of them could hook up to a trailer, crank up the landing gear and connect a few hoses, then drive right off in a matter of minutes. Working as a team would make the process faster, allowing the thieves to blend in with the endless streams of highway traffic and be gone before the trailer’s rightful driver realized what had hit him.

At around 5:40 p.m., the men found what they were looking for. A 52-foot Wabash trailer, sitting in the parking lot of the Snappy Mart Truck Stop in West Plains, Missouri. The nephew dropped out of the cab and ran over to the trailer, directing as his uncle backed up. They maneuvered the large, U-shaped coupling on the back of the tractor, under the trailer’s enormous kingpin, which clanked into place and locked automatically. The nephew hopped up and walked through the space between the tractor and the trailer to connect a few hoses and cables. He took a quick look around the lot as he hopped back into the cab and slammed the door. It appeared that nobody had seen them. The two men drove off with the errant trailer, itself worth $7,500 even empty, and hightailed it with whatever cargo was inside, intensely vigilant but giddy like kids at a criminal Christmas

The Pirates of the Highways

Leave it to the Old Professor to tell you something that you have been missing.

To brighten your day….Jimmy Buffet…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–22Apr20

The pandemic has lots of news around it…..the infect numbers…..the shortages…..sadly the death numbers…..there is yet another problem that Covid-19 is creating…….problems for the drug cartels….

Coronavirus is dealing a gut punch to the illegal drug trade, paralyzing economies, closing borders and severing supply chains in China that traffickers rely on for the chemicals to make such profitable drugs as methamphetamine and fentanyl.

One of the main suppliers that shut down is in Wuhan, the epicenter of the global outbreak.

Associated Press interviews with nearly two dozen law enforcement officials and trafficking experts found Mexican and Colombian cartels are still plying their trade as evidenced by recent drug seizures but the lockdowns that have turned cities into ghost towns are disrupting everything from production to transport to sales.

https://apnews.com/4f0a4ca93cc2fee94d386efb13db31a0

Speaking of crime and pandemic……

It appears that overall crime numbers are going down during this isolation thing……

Amid empty streets and shuttered shops, crime rates in some of the biggest U.S. cities have dropped — with a few exceptions. 

Car thefts and store robberies are spiking in some municipalities even as crime overall — especially violent offenses — dropped in 10 of the 20 most populated cities, more than halving in San Francisco alone. according to a Bloomberg News analysis of data from 10 major cities.

“It’s just a reflection of reduced opportunities for these kind of events,’’ said Daniel Nagin, a criminologist and professor of public policy at the H.J. Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “In the case of murders, these often occur in public places in bars and things like that. With those kinds of activities shut down there’s less social interaction.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/some-crimes-are-spiking-in-major-u-s-cities-amid-empty-streets

Covid-19 effects all aspects of society….even those that we pretend we do not see…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–05Mar20

Occasionally I write about my region and a recent report has me concerned.

The Coast is basically 30 miles….from bridge to bridge as we like to call it.

We have had our share of crime on the Coast but it is getting worse by the year……for instance homicides…..

Today’s fatal shooting in Biloxi makes number six on the growing homicide list in Harrison County.

Over the last week, a crime wave washed over the Coast, hitting Harrison County the hardest. Six Gulf Coast residents in seven days have been the victim of gun violence.

Monday, February 24th a Biloxi family lost 16-year-old Madison Harris after her family says they discovered on a doorbell home security video the suspects leaving the Harris grandparent’s home following an alleged robbery-turned-murder. The community held a vigil at the Biloxi Lighthouse to honor Madison’s memory on Tuesday.

Crime wave hits the Coast

I write about this because in a region with about 300,000 residents and a low incident of gun violence…this is a huge crime wave.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Money Laundering

I read where there might be some form of money laundering in the “Report”……so in keeping with my efforts I present an FYI post……

With all the horrible legal news that the president has been getting lately the one that may be the most damaging if proven to be true is “money laundering”…

This is not some accident where you cash goes through the wash cycle…..nope…this is a crime punishable by lots of prison time.

Bloomberg has shown how this crime is done……

You’re a Russian criminal with millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains but one big problem: Transferring slugs of money or carrying suitcases of cash will raise eyebrows. You need to “launder” the dough — make the dirty money appear to be the proceeds of legitimate enterprise. Then it can be spent anywhere in the world — say, on real estate or luxury yachts — no questions asked. Most countries and all the world’s major banks have controls in place to flag suspicious funds coming into the financial system. But as shown by the so-called Troika Laundromat scandal and the probes roiling European banks, bad actors come up with innovative ways to skirt the rules.

Hiding under shell companies

Deliberately opaque “shell” companies, which exist only on paper and have no active business operations, are easy and cheap to set up and effective at obscuring ownership. They’re key to what experts call the “layering phase” of money laundering, in which funds are shoveled around multiple times to make them harder to track. Shell companies are commonly found in traditional tax havens such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, but the U.S. states of Delaware and Nevada also permit corporations to be set up in anonymity. The international consortium of journalists that uncovered the Troika Laundromat scheme says it involved at least 75 shell companies that generated a total of $8.8 billion in transactions through made-up deals. There’s been a global push for more transparency, even in the U.K., whose crown dependencies include Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-09/money-to-launder-here-s-how-hint-find-a-bank-quicktake

And that is how it is done!  One does not be a rocket scientist to be able to achieve success.

Learn Stuff!

Report Of The Day!

All day long!

TV pundits have been waiting for this chance….they will have an entire day to pass on their opinions on what is the report and what it means…..the rest of us will have had enough by lunch.

Today is the big day……..the Mueller Report will be released to the public sans the sensitive stuff that Barr does not want the public to see….

America is on the edge of their seats awaiting this report…..we want to see what is what for ourselves…..without the editorializing by AG Barr….

So here is everything you need to know when the report is finally released……

Almost two years in the making, a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Trump campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election is expected to be made public Thursday morning.

Mueller’s team of 19 lawyers and 40 investigators interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, issued 2,800 subpoenas, reached out to 13 foreign governments and executed almost 500 search warrants in the probe, which began in May 2017.

Many of those interviewed included those who’ve been at the highest levels of the White House, including former chiefs of staff John Kelly and Reince Preibus, and ex-White House counsel Don McGahn. The probe led to 35 people and three companies being criminally charged, including former nationa for I want to see who is going to experience that ire and the retaliation of a weak ego-centric president.l security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and the president’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/your-guide-mueller-s-report-trump-what-s-it-what-n995251

I cannot wait! I shall read all 400 pages for I want to see who will experience the ire and the retaliation of this weak ego-centric president.

Who will be the first to get their own Tweet from Herr trump lounging in his silk PJs while eating a Big Mac?

Who will it be?

The next question we should be asking……why is the AG acting as the PR person for the president?

For instance…..Barr will have a Presser to answer questions before the report is seen….

President Trump may not be too surprised by what’s in the soon-to-be-released Mueller report. Turns out the Justice Department has discussed it several times with White House lawyers, in effect helping them plan a counter-attack against Robert Mueller’s findings, insiders tell the New York Times. Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr has announced a 9:30am Thursday press conference before the redacted report comes out; Congress is expected to get a version with fewer redactions by around noon, per the AP. President Trump says he might hold his own presser about the Mueller report on Thursday, ABC News reports.

And finally……how can the president and his toadies prepare a rebuttal to a report they supposedly have not read?

So many questions for so many aspects of this situation.

The Devil Made Them Do It!

Sunday before the day every child looks forward to….Christmas….and I do not post much on religion or religious stuff but from time to time I read something that makes me want to post something and this Sunday is NO different…..

A little news……my granddaughter made me proud…..she became 2nd chair flute in the concert band…..sadly she is so busy these days that our gaming has suffered…..but that aside I am truly proud of her accomplishment.

Then there is MoMo…..she was up most of the nite arguing with a opossum….

She has this thing about this snake…..it just pisses her off…..

Enough of the “homey” stuff…..let’s get to the post shall we?

It seems that rural Alabama is having an increase in crime and a usual “suspect” has been identified……

Taking a page (or several) from the Old Testament, a police department in rural Alabama is blaming an increase in local discord—namely five homicides this year—on the community’s rejection of God, the Hill reports. In a Tuesday Facebook post (since deleted), the Opp Police Department wrote in all-caps, per the AP: “THESE MURDERS HAVE BEEN DONE BY OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE WE HAVE TURNED AWAY FROM GOD AND EMBRACED SATAN. WE MAY HAVE NOT MEANT TO DO SO BUT, WE HAVE. IT IS TIME TO ASK FOR GOD’S HELP TO STOP THIS.” The post, which you can see here, goes on to chastise parents and imply that the community does not support police, ending with: “BOTTOM LINE, THERE ARE SHEEP; THERE ARE WOLVES AND THERE ARE SHEEP DOGS. WHICH GROUP DO YOU BELONG TO?”

Some people on social media are having some fun with the whole thing. A Thursday post by the department warning of wet roads garnered comments like, “Satan’s fault.” On an earlier post about an approaching storm, a person commented, “Cloudy, with a higher than average chance of brimstone.” But the group Freedom From Religion says that the police department’s post isn’t funny at all. “The department has very directly endorsed one religious ideology to the exclusion of minority religions and atheism, and decried Satanism. Neither message is permissible,” Sam Grover, a lawyer for the group, says in a statement. (Satan made an appearance at the Illinois statehouse.)

Sounds like a cop out by the authorities…..it is an easy answer to a situation…..

These crimes are created by “Man” (generic not gender)……Period.

But I am sure that some will disagree with me…..and that is why I live in America.

Have a good day and if you are off to the relatives for Christmas have safe journey and enjoy yourselves…..chuq