Oregon US Representative Earl Blumenauer Introduces Blueprint to Legalize Marijuana

PREDICTION:

Cannabis WILL be legalized within the next 6 – 8 months at the Federal level.

As state after state, and nation after nation is legalizing or decriminalizing cannabis in one form, or another, the United States is facing a decision which was made nearly 100 years ago to make illegal a practically harmless substance, which itself has shown, and continues to show significant promise for the amelioration of serious disease, malady, and human suffering.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, in their 2017 “Drugs of Abuse” report,

“No deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.”

The National Cancer Institute has written that it’s impossible to overdose on cannabis, because our body’s cannabinoid receptors — the chemicals that bind to THC — are not located in areas of the brainstem that control respiration. For that reason, a “lethal dose” of cannabis is like the flying spaghetti monster: It DOES NOT EXIST.

In stark contrast, the CDC has stated in January 2018 that

“excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths.“

Significantly greater lethality comes from tobacco use, and in April 2018, the CDC stated that

“cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year.“

In 1972, the Schaffer Commission, officially, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, issued a report entitled Marihuana: A signal of misunderstanding which was the first report by the United States Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, was largely dismissive of specious claims that there was danger in its use, and recommended ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage use.

Specifically, it debunked false claims made about cannabis, and found that, contrary to earlier assertions made about during efforts to keep it illegal,

“marihuana was usually found to inhibit the expression of aggressive impulses by pacifying the user.”

It stated further that,

“neither informed current professional opinion nor empirical research, ranging from the 1930’s to the present, has produced systematic evidence to support the thesis that marihuana use, by itself, either invariably or generally leads to or causes crime, including acts of violence, juvenile delinquency or aggressive behavior.”

Another infamously false claim that marijuana use caused “insanity,” was similarly debunked, and the Commission wrote that

“previous estimates of marihuana’s role in causing crime and insanity were based on quite erroneous information.”

They even warned that
maintaining cannabis’ illegal status
“carries heavy social costs”
and that
“the better method {to discourage its use}
is persuasion
rather than prosecution.”

And in fact, they wrote that “we reject the total prohibition approach and its variations” and instead recommended “a decriminalization of possession of marihuana for personal use on both the state and federal levels.”

A portion of their recommendation was regulation, and wrote in part that “by establishing a legitimate channel of supply and distribution, society can theoretically control the quality and potency of the product.”

Of course, none of the recommendations were followed, and instead, Nixon, the paranoid president who maintained an “enemies list” (and recorded conversations, and narrowly missed criminal indictment, for which reason he resigned the Presidency), initiated his now-infamously-failed “War on Drugs,” and kept marijuana listed on Schedule I.

Nixon’s Domestic Policy Advisor, John Erlichman (1925-1999), was quoted by Dan Baum in Harper’s Magazine April 2016, and said the following of Nixon’s War on Drugs:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968,
and the Nixon White House after that,
had two enemies:
The antiwar left and Black people.
You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be
either against the war or Black,
but by getting the public to
associate the hippies with marijuana
and Blacks with heroin,
and then criminalizing both heavily,
we could disrupt those communities.
We could arrest their leaders,
raid their homes,
break up their meetings,
and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs?
Of course we did.”

Such statements seem to very clearly suggest that laws prohibiting cannabis consumption were left in place for one purpose alone, and that is to use the instrument of law to keep under foot those who might be socially undesirable – most notably, the poor, and ethnic minorities – and that is an egregious abuse of law, and contradicts almost every idea of equality under law in our Constitution.

Our Federal government, along with State and Local governments, regulates and taxes beverage Alcohol and Tobacco (which is 2/3 of the ATF’s name), and does so successfully, and in the process, generates significant revenue for all three levels of governments. Along with that, entrepreneurial enterprises in those two industries hire almost countless numbers of people, and generate significant revenue nationally, and globally through export.

The Libertarian think-tank Cato Institute, in their statement which decries that which they call the “nanny state,” quotes late, former POTUS Ronald Reagan in former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s book “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” as having said, “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” (Penguin Press, Chapter 4, (p. 87), 2007.)

In keeping with the overall sentiment expressed in the Shafer Commission report,

50 Years Of Failure – Total Wa$te Of Time And Money

How long does it take to see a failed social experiment for what it is – a total, abysmal failure, which has taken a wrecking ball to society?

Apparently, at least 50 years.

We learned much more quickly with beverage alcohol.

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The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later

After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, “What Good Is It Doing For Us?”

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us

When Aaron Hinton walked through the housing project in Brownsville on a recent summer afternoon, he voiced love and pride for this tight-knit, but troubled working-class neighborhood in New York City where he grew up.

He pointed to a community garden, the lush plots of vegetables and flowers tended by volunteers, and to the library where he has led after-school programs for kids.

But he also expressed deep rage and sorrow over the scars left by the nation’s 50-year-long War on Drugs. “What good is it doing for us?,” Hinton asked.

As the United States’ harsh approach to drug use and addiction hits the half-century milestone, this question is being asked by a growing number of lawmakers, public health experts and community leaders.

In many parts of the U.S., some of the most severe policies implemented during the drug war are being scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Hinton, a 37-year-old community organizer and activist, said the reckoning is long overdue. He described watching Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year and swept into the nation’s burgeoning prison system.

“They’re spending so much money on these prisons to keep kids locked up. They don’t even spend a fraction of that money sending them to college or some kind of school,”  said Hinton, shaking his head.

Republican President Richard Nixon explains aspects of the special message sent to the Congress, June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to start his infamous social experiment which he called the “War on Drugs.” He labeled addiction and drug misuse “a national emergency” and said the money would be used to “tighten the noose around the necks of drug peddlers and thereby loosen the noose around the necks of drug users.” In 50 years, his plan has proven to be an abysmal failure. Behind him on the LEFT is Egil Krogh, Deputy Director of the Domestic Council. At right is Dr. Jerome Jaffe, MD who Nixon recruited to lead a new drug strategy. (AP Photo/Harvey Georges)

Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He said Brownsville needed help coping with cocaine, heroin and drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s.

His own family was scarred by addiction.

“I’ve known my mom to be a drug user my whole entire life. She chose to run the streets and left me with my great-grandmother,” Hinton said.

Four years ago, his mom overdosed and died after taking prescription painkillers, part of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Hinton said her death sealed his belief that tough drug war policies and aggressive police tactics would never make his family or his community safer.

The nation pivots (slowly) as evidence mounts against the drug war

During months of interviews for this project, NPR found a growing consensus across the political spectrum — including among some in law enforcement — that the drug war simply didn’t work.

“We have been involved in the failed War on Drugs for so very long,” said retired Major Neill Franklin, a retired Major with the Baltimore City Police and the Maryland State Police who led drug task forces for years.

During a press conference this week, he said,

The Best

The Best – and Worst – of Everything

If you’ve done any Internet-based searches for practically any product, good, or service, you may have noticed at least one recurring theme:

Best.

In an email today, I found the following:

• The 100 Best Movies on Netflix (June 2021)
• The 30 Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix
• The Best Sitcoms on Netflix Right Now (June 2021)
• The 35 Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now
• The 20 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix (June 2021)
• The Best Comedies on Netflix Right Now (June 2021)
• The 7 Best Fantasy Movies on Netflix
• The Trailer Park: The Best New Movie Trailers of the
• The 60 Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now (2021)
• The 10 Best Movies in Theaters Right Now
• The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Amazon Prime (2021)

I thought that I would vomit after reading that garbage, because it was so nauseating.

The best

Slap the word “best” into the headline, and POOF! “Suddenly,” it’s the ultimate, never-to-be challenged, or surpassed. And who, or what group established any “standards” by which the items were compared to establish what is “best,” or “worst”?

And what are the qualifications of the writers to establish what thing is “best,” or not?

It’s so just because they say so.

Again, an utter failure.

And then, when it comes to “news,” or what is often allegedly passed off as “news,” there are at least

America Invented Global Narcotraffickers

Make no mistake, I openly advocate for the wholesale legalization, taxation, and regulation of cannabis similarly as is done for beverage alcohol — though I have not always. And yet, as a licensed healthcare professional, I am under no misguided notion that there are genuine scientific considerations to be had.

Like many others, this is not a simple matter, per se — it is as complex as we human beings, with myriad matters which “Just Say ‘NO!’” has never, nor will ever, satisfy. Science and understanding is not advanced by the word “NO!”

Similarly as well, there is practically no disagreement that historic American jurisprudence on the matter not only had its genesis with deep roots in racism – which remains to this day – but has almost single-handedly created the global criminal cabal of narcotrafficking enterprises that have now become international terrorist organizations. It has now become a matter of national security, and not just for the United States. Global security is predicated upon addressing these concerns.

Jesus Malverde is a mythical figure, allegedly born as Jesús Juárez Mazo on December 24, 1870, just outside Culiacán, the state capital of Sinaloa, whom is said to be the “patron saint” of “narcotraficantes” (drug traffickers), and is known by his devotees as “el ángel de los pobres” (the angel of the poor).
According to legend, he was a lifetime resident of Sinaloa, an historically poverty-stricken area which is now recognized as the de facto headquarters location for a bloodthirsty global narcotrafficking cartel bearing the state’s name, which is infamous for their nefarious misdeeds, cold-blooded murders, and other heinous acts.
The legends, which vary widely, typically assert that Malverde was a “Robinhood” type character, who stole from the wealthy and distributed to the poor. In reality, narco-money has significantly revitalized Sinaloa, and to a large extent, reinforced ancient customs, including the veneration of folk saints as Jesus Malverde.

It is, in fact, fueling the civil sociopolitical upheaval in Central American nations such as

“God told me to.” A hallmark of mental instability.

I would be very surprised if the judge in his case did not mandate that he receive mental health help. And, s/he certainly should.

The man is clearly delusional.

And with severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, that’s often the case, that, not only are the individuals delusional, but they’re also frequently highly religious.

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Man accused of stealing fire service car from Alabama fire station.
Said,“God told me to.”

By Mary Helene Hall
mhall@al.com
2021-06-03, 15:05:32
https://www.al.com/news/2021/06/man-accused-of-stealing-marked-car-from-alabama-fire-station-god-told-me-to.html

A man accused of stealing a marked fire vehicle from a Prichard, Alabama Fire-Rescue station was arrested Wednesday. Prichard is in Mobile County, and adjacent the City of Mobile on its Northern border. The town’s population is under 23,000.

According to FOX10 News – WALA-TV, Virtual Channel 10 (RF Channel 9), Mobile, Alabama – Jeffrey McCants was found a few hours after the crime was committed. The vehicle was stolen from the central station on Turner Road.

Prichard Police tracked the car down and got the suspect out at gun point.

Surveillance video shows Jeffery McCants Jr. walking into central fire station on Turner Road in Prichard.

He had a gas can in his hand and was looking in an area where Prichard Fire and Rescue members say they once stored gasoline. He then walked over to the station’s Ford Crown Victoria, got inside, sat there for a moment and then started it up. He then backed it up, and drove it out of the garage.

“It had the keys in it. I needed some gas so therefore I took the car, I had to. It was the only way to get gas. It said ‘hey man, you’ll get there faster if you take me,’ so I said, ‘ok, car, ima take it,’ so I took it and I washed it. I washed the car,” he said.

The fire department said

Michael Flynn Should Be Reactivated, Tried Under UCMJ, And Have Retirement Revoked

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency; official portrait

This past Sunday, 30 May 2021, in Dallas, TX, disgraced former National Security Advisor LTG Michael Flynn, U.S. Army (ret.) made remarks at a QAnon gathering which billed itself as a “For God & and Country Patriot Roundup.”

An audience member who identified himself as a Marine, asked Mr. Flynn:
“I want to know why what happened in Minamar [sic]can’t happen here.”

Mr. Flynn replied:
“No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That’s right.”

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Congress should revoke Mr. Flynn’s Army (Federal Government) retirement.

Michael Flynn with Vladimir Putin at RT (Russia Today, a state propaganda outlet) sponsored dinner.

And, he should be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“Under the so-called “Hiss Act,” Members of Congress (and most other officers and employees of the federal government) will forfeit their entire federal employee retirement annuities if convicted of a federal crime that relates to espionage, treason, or several other national security offenses against the United States.”

–– reference: “Loss of Federal Pensions for Members of Congress Convicted of Certain Offenses,” 96-530, by Jack Maskell, Legislative Attorney, September 12, 2013, Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, http://www.crs.gov

Military retirees are also still subject to the UCMJ. There is also the possibility that Flynn could be reactivated, and charged under the UCMJ in order to stop his retirement.

DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7B, CHAPTER 3 PAYMENT RESTRICTIONS, SECTION C – EXPIRATION OF ELIGIBILITY TO RETIRED PAY, 30321. Conditions

e. National Security Violations Within the Scope of 5 U.S.C. 8311-8322.
Note: The “Hiss Act,” Public Law 769,1 Sep 1954 (68 Stat 1142) codified as 5 U.S.C. 2281-2288. The Act, as amended, prohibited the payment of retired pay to military personnel who were convicted of any

GOP Insurrectionists

The Insurrectionist wing of the Republican Party has problems.

Fox News Republicans…

…Live in their own little world.

But most objective observers already knew that – or, at least, strongly suspected it.

Now, scientific research has shown it to be true.

On practically every issue in society touching upon government has policy, or law, Fox News Republicans are far right wing extremists on everything.

And, their opinion of the 45th President is similarly high – and disturbingly so, at 98%.

The negative correlation – that of overwhelmingly negative views of high-profile Democrats – is no less than 93%.

There is in many cases a disparity between Fox News Republicans (FNRs) and Republicans (Rs). For example, FNRs gave the 45th President an 80% Strongly Approve (SA) rating, while Non-Fox News Republicans (NFNRs)  gave him 42% Strong Approval (SA). There were similar disparities between FNRs and NFNRs on matters of economic importance, with FNRs expressing 86% SA, while NFNRs were 53% SA.

Even on handling of the coronavirus pandemic, FNRs were almost double the SA difference with 59%, while NFNRs were 29%. And on dealing with protests following police killings of Black Americans, FNRs had 55% SA, while NFNRs had 28% SA.

The disparity, chasm, and gulf between FNRs an NFNRs demonstrates that the Once Grand Old Party is not merely fractured, fissured, or split, but broken asunder, and perhaps beyond repair.

The differences and the issues were almost stereotypical in their responses, whether Abortion, Appointment of SCOTUS Justices, Jobs/Unemployment, Immigration, Federal Deficit, Trade Agreements, Healthcare, coronavirus pandemic, Foreign governments’ interference in US election, Racial inequality, Increasing disparity between rich & poor, and climate change. The differences between FNRs an NFNRs was at least 3%, and as great as 20%+.

And this is telling, as well:

“Fox News Republicans are more likely than all Americans and non–Fox News Republicans to say that Confederate symbols are more symbols of Southern pride than symbols of racism. More than nine in ten Fox News Republicans believe that both Confederate flags (92%) and monuments to Confederate soldiers (94%) are symbols of Southern pride. Non–Fox News Republicans are only somewhat less likely to say the same about flags and monuments (81% and 87%, respectively). All Americans are much more divided, with 47% who say the flag is a symbol of Southern pride and 59% who say the same of Confederate monuments.”

And interestingly, they also believe that they are victims of discrimination:

“Consistent with their other views on discrimination, more than eight in ten Fox News Republicans (83%) agree with the statement that “discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against Black Americans and other minorities.” Two-thirds of non-Fox News Republicans (66%) agree with the statement, compared to just 42% of all Americans.”

Fox News Republicans
• Urban/Suburban 79
• White 81
• Male 57
• Evangelical/Mainline Protestant 36/21
• No College Degree 70
• Attend religious services once or more weekly 46
• Almost evenly distributed ages 30-65+ 30-49/30; 50-64/28; 65+/32
• Household income $50,000-$100,000 43

The survey was conducted in all 50 states by

Is White Supremacy The New World Order?

Let’s get one thing straight: The United States Department of Justice, agencies of National Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation should waste no time in rounding up White Supremacist scum and prosecuting them for every imaginable crime, hate crime, treason, using RICO statutes, and every law enforcement tool available to them.

The Capital Police should have used flame throwers to quell the goddamned insurrectionists, and cooked those domestic terrorist motherfuckers to a toasty, black, crispy piece of garbage.

Every. God. Damn. One. Of. Them.

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From the Past, a Chilling Warning About the Extremists of the Present

By Neil MacFarquhar
May 1 ,2021

June 18, 1984 – Alan Berg, a liberal Jewish attorney talk show host in Denver, Colorado at KHOW Radlo, lies slain in the driveway of his townhome, next to his black VW Beetle convertible. He had returned from dinner date with his wife and was gunned down in retaliation for speaking his views opposing White Supremacy and racism by members of White Supremacist group “The Order” who illegally modified a semi-automatic MAC-10 to become a fully automatic submachine gun, and was shot 12 times. (Photo By Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

They robbed an armored car outside a sprawling Seattle shopping mall.

They bombed a synagogue in Boise, Idaho, and within weeks assassinated a Jewish talk radio attorney host in Denver.

Then a month later, they plundered another armored car on a California highway in a spectacular daylight heist that netted more than $3.6 million.

What initially seemed to F.B.I. agents like distant, disparate crimes turned out to be the opening salvos in a war against the federal government by members of a violent extremist group called the Order, who sought to establish a Whites-only homeland out West.

Their crime spree played out in 1984. Fast forward to 2021. Federal agents and prosecutors who dismantled the Order see troubling echoes of its threat to democracy in the Capitol riot and the growing extremist activity across the country.

“When you see the country as politically and philosophically divided as it is today, that makes it more likely that somebody could take advantage of these times to bring about another revolutionary concept like the Order. We stopped the Order. We did not stop the ideology,” said Wayne F. Manis, the main F.B.I. agent on the case.

Those who tracked the Order say the legacy of the group can be seen in the prominent role that far-right extemist organizations like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers played in storming the Capitol on January 6.

“Many of the participants of these groups today come from the same sources as the Order. I think they might be just as committed to totally changing democracy as we know it,” said Gene Wilson, the lead prosecutor, who went on to become a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Seattle before switching to private practice.

The agents who played central roles in disbanding the Order still consider it the most important case of their lives. Given the Order’s “potential for violence and destruction,” said Mr. Manis, no other domestic group posed a similar threat to the United States.

The Order collapsed after

God Wanted Them Dead: TN Diet Guru/Christian Cult Leader Gwen Shamblin Lara’s Jet Crashed

N66BK is a 1982 Cessna Citation 501 2-turbofan engine private jet registered to: JL&GL Productions LP, 902 Franklin Road, Brentwood, Williamson County, Tennessee 37027-6535, United States. JL & GL are Joe Lara & Gwen Lara, Limited Partnership.

Diet guru / Christian cult leader Gwen Shamblin Lara, founder of the Remnant Fellowship Church and author/founder of “The Weigh Down Workshop,” her husband William J. “Joe” Lara who were residents of Nashville’s wealthy/ritzy Brentwood enclave, and 5 others are presumed dead after her Cessna C501 Citation private jet crashed into the waters of Percy Priest Lake near and southeast of Nashville, Saturday at 10:55 AM CDT shortly after takeoff from nearby Smyrna Rutherford County Airport.

Rutherford County spokesperson Ashley McDonald said the Cessna Citation 501 single pilot jet was bound for Palm Beach International Airport in Florida when it crashed into nearby Percy Priest Lake shortly after takeoff.

Federal Aviation Administration registry indicates that the private jet was registered to JL & GL Productions LP, located in Bradwell, Tennessee, while the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website indicated that JL & GL Productions LP was owned by Gwen Shamblin Lara.

The private jet, which was registered to their company JL&GL Productions LP, has not been found, though parts have been retrieved, along with human remains, and Rutherford County Fire Rescue Captain John Ingle said the debris field is about a half-mile wide.

On Sunday, officials said that dive teams have recovered several components of the Cessna Citation jet, along with human remains, from Percy Priest Lake. Recovery efforts will continue Monday, which is Memorial Day.

Tennessee Highway Patrol investigators said that a small aircraft had been seen descending into the lake, and that debris consistent with the jet had been found near a boat ramp.

Gwen Lara’s daughter, Elizabeth Hannah, sent a text message to church members stating that, in addition to her husband Brandon, her mother and father, all passengers had ties to the church, and that it was forced to make a “quick, controlled landing.” Authorities identified other passengers as David and Jennifer Martin, and Jonathan and Jessica Walters.

Elizabeth Hannah messaged further that “More information to come, but be in prayer—and be at peace. My brother and I are asking for immediate prayers right now, as we have just gotten word that Gwen and Joe Lara’s plane had to go down. GOD IS IN CONTROL, and we will not stop moving forward with WHAT GOD WANTS with this church.”

https://news.yahoo.com/plane-said-carry-christian-diet-232123416.html

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Based exclusively upon daughter Elizabeth’s text message, clearly, god wanted them dead, since “GOD IS IN CONTROL” because that’s “WHAT GOD WANTS.”

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The church’s website states that, “Gwen, her husband Joe Lara, and their children and grandchildren live within a few houses of each other.”

Based upon FAA registrations to JL&GL Productions LP,

Denial Is Not Just A River In Egypt

Bill Cosby is led to prison following his conviction.

The luminary former stand-up comedian-funnyman, actor in the comedy serial “I Spy” 1965-68, portrayed gym teacher Chet Kincaid on “The Bill Cosby Show” 1969-71, was the voice of principal cartoon character on “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” 1972-85, earned the Ed.D. 1976, played the inimitable obstetric physician Dr. Huckstable, MD, of “The Cosby Show” 1984-92, author, and winner of numerous entertainment, and music awards – Presidential Medal of Freedom 2002, Emmy awards, Golden Globes, Grammys – will die in prison all because he chooses to deny the truth – like liar Trump, and his cultic supporters – that he’s a serial rapist/sexual predator, and got off practically scot-free.

With any luck, maybe he’ll die in prison.

Wouldn’t that be funny!?!

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Bill Cosby Refuses Treatment In State Prison Sex Offender Program, And Is Denied Parole

https://apnews.com/article/pa-state-wire-bill-cosby-entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-1dbde3849fb68ca116fcfa875ca886b7

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Actor Bill Cosby won’t be paroled this year after refusing to participate in sex offender programs during his nearly three years in state prison in Pennsylvania.

The 83-year-old Cosby has long said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it means

NYC Bird-Watcher Case NOT What It Seems

By now, I suppose that you’ve probably read at least 2, 3, or maybe even 4 articles on this matter, and perhaps heard 5, 6, or more stories on teevee and/or radio about it, as well.

And, you’ve probably also found that, almost without exception, they practically say the exact same thing.

But, when you read THIS article – and I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE your readership of it (it’s pasted herein below) – you’ll notice MANY things in this story that are DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT from 99.9% of all other stories covering the exact same subject matter.

ALL other articles on this topic are like cotton candy – colorful, appear larger than life, are sweet, fun to eat, easy to swallow… and entirely without substance.

After you eat it all, you’re immediately left wanting more. It’s NOT satisfying in any way.

Again, this article is 100% different, and is almost entirely satisfying – unlike all others.

From the outset, I’ve contended that there was, and is, MUCH MORE to that story than was being reported —and— I was also then aware of the bird-watcher’s habit of threatening dog owners, and his boastful tweets about the same in which he openly wrote/stated that he carried poisoned dog treats (in his backpack) “for such occasions.”

This story details the numerous similar incidents in which he was historically and regularly involved, and cites the individuals whom he threatened, and their reports of them.

I’d be very surprised if this woman didn’t become a multi-millionaire from this, and subsequent lawsuits, related to that most unfortunate incident in Central Park.

Woman in NYC Bird-Watcher Case Sues Former Employer Franklin Templeton over Firing
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/woman-who-called-cops-on-black-bird-watcher-sues-over-her-firing
–––––––––––––––––––––
–––––––––––––––––––––
For your benefit, here’s the article:

Woman in NYC Bird-Watcher Case Sues Franklin Templeton in Firing (1)

By Patrick Dorrian
May 26, 2021, 9:21 AM; Updated: May 26, 2021, 11:16 AM

COURT: S.D.N.Y.
TRACK DOCKET: No. 1:21-cv-04692

• JUDGE: Ronnie Abrams
• COMPANY INFO: Franklin Templeton

Franklin Templeton characterized a former employee as “racist” for calling the police on a Black birdwatcher whom she had words with while walking her dog in Central Park, publicized the incident on Twitter, and falsely claimed it conducted an investigation before firing her, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Amy Cooper said the May 25, 2020, incident was spurred by her fear of the birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, who she says had a history of “aggressively confronting” dog owners for walking their dogs off-leash. He similarly initiated the dispute with her in the same aggressive manner while she was walking her dog alone, causing her “to reasonably fear” for the safety of her and her pet, Cooper said.

That’s why she called the police, Cooper told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in a Tuesday complaint. Franklin Templeton would have known that if had performed the investigation it told the public it had conducted, she said.

“We believe the circumstances of the situation speak for themselves and that the Company responded appropriately,” Franklin Templeton told Bloomberg Law on Wednesday in an email. “We will defend against these baseless claims.”

The company didn’t really look into the incident before firing Cooper the following day, just shy of five years after she was hired, the suit said.

It only interviewed her in the immediate aftermath, when she was still “palpably distraught and fearful of her safety,” Cooper said. And it never spoke or tried to speak with Christian Cooper or any of the other dogwalkers he had previously accosted, she said.

That includes a Black man who issued a statement to the media May 26, 2020, stating that he too feared Christian Cooper “because of his body language and screaming” when confronting him while he was walking his dog off-leash in the park, the suit said.

Nor did Franklin Templeton

Moscow Mitch McConnell Redux As Senate “Grim Reaper”

“Some folks just need killin’.”

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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/555877-mcconnell-returns-as-senate-grim-reaper

By Alexander Bolton, 05/29/21 05:52 AM EDT

Too bad he didn’t hit his head and die. The world would have been much better off without “Moscow” Mitch McConnell, seen here as then-Kentucky Republican Senate Majority Leader proudly displaying the Nike brand athletic shoes which he blames for his fall which ironically, injured his LEFT shoulder.

The Senate’s self-proclaimed “Grim Reaper” has returned.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of KY is keeping his Republican conference largely unified, and it’s creating major obstacles to President Biden’s legislative agenda.

McConnell has maintained the loyalty of his fellow GOP senators despite repeated attacks by former President Trump, who has called on Senate Republicans to oust him as their leader.

And it was McConnell’s opposition to a House-passed bill establishing a bipartisan January 6 commission that snuffed out the legislation in the Senate on Friday.

One GOP senator said the measure would have garnered enough votes to pass the chamber and eventually land on POTUS Biden’s desk had McConnell not gotten involved.

“The vote on the commission would have had 60 votes in the absence of McConnell’s position,” said the Republican lawmaker who ended up voting against the bill.

The senator said the vote outcome was a good example of just how influential McConnell is in the conference.

McConnell warned GOP senators at a Republican lunch earlier this week that

A Radicalized Supreme Court

Democratic senators say if the Supreme Court strikes a blow against Roe v. Wade by upholding a Mississippi abortion law, it will fuel an effort to add justices to the court or otherwise reform it.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority this week agreed to hear the Mississippi case, which could dramatically narrow abortion rights by allowing states to make it illegal to get an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“It’s already driving that movement,” he added.

Senator Blumenthal said it doesn’t mean that a Congress led by Democrats would immediately be able to add justices to the court, but he suggested it would add momentum to reform efforts at a minimum.

“Chipping away at Roe v. Wade will precipitate a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents,” he said.

No one knows for sure when the Supreme Court will hand down its decision on the Mississippi abortion law, but it is widely expected to hear arguments after it convenes in October. That could set up a decision next year.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said the court’s review of the Mississippi law raises serious concerns.

“It really enlivens the concerns that we have about the extent to which right-wing billionaire money has influenced the makeup of the court and may even be pulling strings at the court,” he said.

“We’ve got a whole array of options we’re looking at in the courts committee,” Senator Whitehouse said of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, which President Biden established by executive order in April.

Senator Whitehouse said even if

Electric Automobiles: Putting The Naysayers To Rest

A friend in Alabama, whom is the quintessential example of a Trump supporter – a White, poorly-educated, hard-shell, far right-wing, Christian Baptist Evangelical RINO – recently sent this to me.

I have no idea where he found it – I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say – though I rather suspect that, more likely than not, he found it on Facebook somewhere. (And indeed, that is the case.) So I can’t, and won’t attempt, to vouch for the claims made in the accompanying description, which is, as it’s read, but an oblique, limp, halfhearted, milquetoast denunciation of renewable energy and Electric Vehicles – and a phenomenally poor one, at that.

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“This is

Gaetz Of Hell: Joel Greenberg Cops Pleas To 6 Federal Felonies, Child Sex Trafficking, Identity Theft, Wire Fraud, Conspiracy, Etc.

No ham sandwich needed.

Solomon “Sol” Wachtler (b.1930), the former Republican Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, coined the phrase “indict a ham sandwich” in a January 1985 interview with Marcia Kramer and Frank Lombardi of the New York Daily News.

In part, the article read that:

“In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.

“Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

A month later, the New York Times noted that Judge Wachtler believed that Grand Juries “operate more often as the prosecutor’s pawn than the citizen’s shield.”

That belief – that Prosecutors can get Grand Juries to do whatever they want them to do – may sound familiar to anyone who has read, or heard, news items of the criticisms of almost any Grand Jury in the United States.

But, of course, the adage doesn’t always true.

At least not in this instance, when the Feds have the goods on their will-plead-guilty-Monday-morning 17 May 2021 suspect – such as DNA and fingerprints – and as an unexpected by-product of the investigation are – more than likely –  working on another very closely-related suspect, who – as of yet – remains unnamed, and unindicted.

That as-yet unnamed, and unindicted suspect would be Florida’s Republican Representative for the 1st Congressional District, Matt Gaetz.

Gatez and Greenberg are each quintessential examples of a Florida Manchild. They’re each multi-millionaires from daddy’s money – Greenberg from his father’s dental clinics, and Gaetz from his father’s pharmaceutical interests – and are, as such, spoiled brats and children of privilege who think the world is their oyster.

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One “Florida Man” in the headline, of course, is Joel Greenberg, who was formerly a Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida, and a very good buddy to the other Florida Man, the Banana Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz of the state’s 1st Congressional District in Fort Walton.

After his election to public office, Greenberg immediately began ingratiating himself to Trump supporters, and spoke at a rally in Sanford, FL in late 2016. Investigative reporting by the New York Times found that Greenberg and Gaetz had initially met one another through their support of Trump some time in 2017 and in June that year, Gaetz suggested to Greenberg that he consider campaigning for U.S. Congress. And on July 8 that year, Greenberg posted on Twitter a picture himself, along with convicted Federal felon, Nixon aficionado and political dirty-trickster Roger Stone, and Gaetz.

In this September 30, 2019, file photo, Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg talks to the Orlando Sentinel during an interview at his office in Lake Mary, Florida. As a key figure in the federal investigation of Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, Greenberg is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges next week. Joel Greenberg will appear Monday, 17 May 2021 in Federal court in Orlando, Florida for a change of plea hearing, according to court documents. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)

Investigation into Greenberg’s dealings was first initiated by the Secret Service, in response to complaints that he improperly used county resources to mine Bitcoin… after cryptocurrency mining computers he’d purchased with taxpayer dollars for his private personal use caused an electrical system overload, resulting in a fire, which altogether caused over $7000 worth of uninsured damage to Seminole County property.

When the Feds wrapped up their investigation into Greenberg and his activities, they had leveled a 33 count indictment of violating several Federal laws – on charges ranging from stalking to sex trafficking, and conspiracy to fraud – so a plea deal down to 6 is a significant reduction – a very nearly 82% reduction.

David Weinstein, a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida said of Greenberg’s plea deal that, “His cooperation requires him to be providing truthful testimony and to provide it at the government’s request.”

As part of his plea agreement, on Monday, 17 May 2021 in Orlando at the George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Joel Greenberg will admit to recruiting women for commercial sexual exploitation, paying them over $70K from 2016 to 2018, including at least one underage girl then-aged 17, whom he paid to have sex with him, and with others, including Matt Gaetz.

Greenberg’s Plea Agreement, which he signed, and was filed Friday, 14 May 2021, states that he will plead guilty to:

Count One: Sex Trafficking of a Child – 18 USC § 1591
Count Eight: Producing a False ID – 18 US § 1028(a)(1)
Count Nine: Aggravated Identity Theft – 18 USA § 1028A
Count Fourteen: Wire Fraud – 18 USC § 1343
Count Twenty-Four: Stalking – 18 USC § 2261A
County Twenty-Six: Conspiracy – 18 USC § 371

Minimum & Maximum Penalties

Count One: Mandatory Minimum 10 years, up to life, $250,000 fine, supervised release not less than 5 years up to life, special assessment $100

Count Eight: Maximum sentence 15 years, $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Nine: Mandatory Minimum 2 years (consecutive to any other conviction), $250,000 fine, 1 year supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Fourteen: Maximum 20 years, $250,000 fine or 2x gross loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Twenty-Four: 5 years maximum $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Twenty-Six: Maximum 15 years, $250,000 fine or twice gross gain or loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100 – because offense was committed while on pre-trial release, and was warned about it

Federal prosecutors say that Greenberg abused his public office as Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida not only by embezzling $400,000, but also by improperly using a statewide driver license database to “investigate” information about sexual partners, including a then-17-year old girl with whom he, and others had paid to have sex with.

He was also charged with numerous violations of the Federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, on multiple counts of producing a fraudulent identification document and creating false identification documents, along with aggravated identity theft.

Specifically, Greenberg also abused his elected office by using “his access to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office to take surrendered driver licenses before they were shredded,” and then he “used the surrendered driver licenses that he had taken to cause fake driver licenses to be produced that had his photograph but the personal information of the victims whose driver licenses he had taken.”

Prosecutors also say that Greenberg’s corrupt house of cards began to crumble with a series of falsified letters which Greenberg had crafted and mailed [fraudulent use of U.S. Mail] which purported to be from a non-existent “very concerned student” enrolled at a private prep school where Brian Beute – a Republican candidate for Tax Collector and political opponent – taught music, and falsely alleged that the music teacher (Greenberg’s political opponent) had engaged in sexual misconduct with another student.

As part of that Roger-Stone-initiated ruse, he also created fake social media accounts in order to pose as Beute, or others, in an attempt to discredit him.

But his problems began in earnest last summer when he was arrested on charges of stalking his political opponent.

Republicans excel, are expert in, and frequent users of, the tactic of psychological projection – falsely claiming that an opponent is engaging in the very activities which they (the accuser) are/have engaged in.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg III testified in court that investigators found Greenberg’s fingerprints and DNA on the letters, and traced the fake social media accounts to his computer’s IP address.

Prosecutors say that Greenberg initially met the under-age girl through

Israeli Racism: Calling a Spade, a Spade

In every story you read about the matter, simply substitute the word “White” for Israel/Israelis, and substitute the word “Black” for Palestine/Palestinians.

It’ll become much more clear.

The scenario in Gaza with the Israelis attacking their own residents, is frankly, a Jewish version of “Jim Crow” laws in America which prevented Blacks from being considered FULL citizens with an EQUAL RIGHT to the land.

Just you think about it.

What if White Americans relegated and segregated Blacks to live in a very tiny, certain area of this land – like, being required to live in Mississippi, and being denied the right to live anywhere else?

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, leader of the far-right Likud party

That’s what Israelis are doing to Palestinians.

“As leader of the right-wing Likud party which has dominated Israel’s national parliamentary government, the 120-member Knesset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a record-breaking uninterrupted 12-year tenure.

“The “left-extreme left” government Netanyahu warns of (adding that it will not survive for more than a day) will include (if it will actually be formed) three right-wing parties (Yamina, New Hope, and Yisrael Beytenu), all three of which consist of both conservative and liberal elements, which together command 20 Knesset seats. It will include two centrist parties, with a slight inclination to the Right (Yesh Atid and Blue and White), and two left-wing parties – the Labor Party and Meretz – neither of which would be counted as “extreme left” anywhere in the democratic world (well, Donald Trump excluded). Yes, and it, too, will require Arab support from the outside.

“As long as Netanyahu remains an actor in Israeli politics, no one can form a government without some form of Arab support – and that, in my opinion, is one of the few positive results from the current situation. The Arabs constitute around 20% of the citizens of Israel, and with all the necessary precautions, not letting them play some sort of role in Israel’s government system is antidemocratic.”

–– “Netanyahu’s dream of right-wing government may not happen – opinion,” by Susan Hattis Rolef; April 25, 2021 20:44, The Jerusalem Post

“​​Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett said on Monday that he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his Likud party can count on his faction’s vote to form a right-wing government.

“The two met at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem shortly after Bennett’s statement. A joint statement said they agreed negotiation teams would continue talks.

“As you may already know, I could’ve already been a prime minister by now,” Bennett said on the matter on Monday. “But, my main objective is to thwart a fifth election round,” he added.”

–– “Bennett Says Ready to Join Right-wing Government With Netanyahu’s Likud,” by Jonathan Lis; April 12, 2021, Haaretz

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/05/993933467/netanyahu-opponent-yair-lapid-given-4-weeks-to-form-new-government-in-israel

And then, imagine if White Americans regularly attacked and bombed those segregated Black Americans.

That’s what Israelis are doing to Palestinians.

Reckon what

Insurrectionist Writes Jailhouse Letter

In Exclusive Jailhouse Letter, Capitol Riot Defendant Explains Motives, Remains Boastful

The material obtained by ProPublica sheds light on the radicalization of a January 6 defendant whom prosecutors have characterized as a “serious danger … not only to his family and Congress, but to the entire system of justice.”

by Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien
May 11, 12:30 p.m. EDT

https://www.propublica.org/article/in-exclusive-jailhouse-letter-capital-riot-defendant-explains-motives-remains-boastful

In a letter sent from behind bars, a key defendant in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol said he and fellow inmates have bonded in jail, and boasted that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted.

The letter is signed “the 1/6ers” and expresses no remorse for the assault on the Capitol, in which five people died. While no names appeared on it, ProPublica was able to determine, through interviews with his family and a review of his correspondence from jail, that it was penned by Guy Reffitt, a member of the Three Percenter right-wing militant group accused of participating in the riot. The letter said the inmates arrested for their role in the attack regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance inside the Washington, D.C. jail and sing the national anthem “all in unison, loud and proud most everyday.”

“January 6th was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government,” said the letter, written by hand on lined yellow paper. “If overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown.”

The letter sent to ProPublica is believed to be one of the first public statements from a January 6 rioter currently in detention. ProPublica also obtained text messages with Reffitt’s family and was able to ask a few questions of him via text from the D.C. Jail, with his wife, Nicole Reffitt, acting as a relay. Guy Reffitt declined to participate in a fuller interview on the advice of his lawyer, his wife said.

Reffitt faces a variety of charges, including obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. He is awaiting trial and has pleaded not guilty. In text messages he sent last month to his wife, Reffitt said he was resigning from the Texas Three Percenters.

An excerpt of a letter witten by Guy Reffitt, sent to ProPublica from jail.

Last week, Reffitt told ProPublica via his wife that more than 30 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack had discussed the letter while in custody. He said that the “1/6ers” are “not organized” and that there are “no leaders,” just “people chatting about things” because they are “stuck here together.”

Reffitt said that the suspects communicate with one another with what are known as “kites,” jailhouse slang for messages passed from cell to cell. They are also able to socialize during the two hours a day they’re let out of their cells. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

Those detained in connection with the Capitol siege have been treated by D.C. officials as “maximum security” prisoners and kept in restrictive housing, according to media reports. Three defendants that Nicole Reffitt said she understood to be parties to the letter denied any knowledge of it when contacted by ProPublica. One of them said he became friends with Guy Reffitt inside the D.C. Jail, but had been moved to another unit by the time the letter was penned.

Nicole Reffitt said she helped her husband write the letter and solicit support through phone calls and a jailhouse messaging app inmates are allowed to use periodically to communicate with the outside world. The D.C. Jail has held dozens of defendants in connection with the riot, on charges ranging from obstructing an official proceeding to assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon.

The letter counters the notion that

Ravi Zacharias International Sexual Predator Evaded Detection for Years as Christian Minister

RZIM, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in the metro Atlanta, Georgia area, was stunned to learn that the ministry’s late founder and namesake, Ravi Zacharias, after intensive independent investigation, was confirmed to have been a long-term sexual predator who craftily and skillfully covered his tracks by using the ministry as a front for his sexual predatory and criminal behaviors on a global scale.

Zacharias, who for 40 years was previously held in high esteem in Christendom as an apologist – one who gives a reasoned, rational, and logical defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the sinless resurrected son of God, miracle worker, etc. – died 19 May 2020 of a rare form of bone cancer located in his spine. It was an altogether ironically telling end to his life, that the foundation upon which he built his religious empire was a corrupted, and diseased fraud, just like the cancer in his spine.

Ravi Zacharias () was a liar, fraudster, international sexual predator, swindler, and all-around miserable scumbag who got away with his crimes by using a front as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth

During his lifetime, there were unverified rumors – scuttlebutt – of things possibly amiss and awry, and some of his claims about his academic accomplishment and achievements were not merely questionable, but entirely fabricated, and fully false, as well as the existence of hushed rumors of possible sexual impropriety. But none of them were ever fully investigated because of his stature, until after his death at age 74.

Some skeptics who continued a vigilant watch over his ministry were the proverbial “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” albeit were largely – if not fully – discounted by the religious Christian community precisely because the claims and investigations were made by atheists.

One such investigator is a fellow named Steve Baughman who owns the website RaviWatch.com, is an attorney, and describes himself as a “part-time lawyer, part-time touring and teaching musician, part-time philosophy student, and full-time dilettante.”

On the “about me” page of the site, he wrote that “The Ravi Zacharias project fell into my lap most unexpectedly in 2015 when I was seeking the best and brightest defenders of the Christian religion. I began earnestly to look into his work and quickly found a scoundrel behind the smiling erudition.”

The front page of the RaviWatch.com website has a detailed narrative about the numerous extensive false claims made by Zacharias, and show a trend of changes to the RZIM website in response to the discovery of false claims made by Mr. Zacharias, most notably those being pertaining to educational achievement, and academic appointment at prestigious educational institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford, and others.

A video by Mr. Baughman published November 26, 2017 on the YouTube website, which link is posted below, gives significant detail about his findings of Ravi’s continued deliberate defrauding and lies about himself, and about his long-term online sexual relationship with “Lori Anne Thompson, a woman with whom he had maintained an online friendship for several years.”

“In April of 2017, Mr. Zacharias received a demand letter from Mark P. Bryant, of the Bryant Legal Center in Paducah, KY, who represented Lori Anne Thompson, which demanded $5 million in what can only be characterized as hush money. The letter accused Ravi of using Ms. Thompson for his sexual gratification, in violation of his duties as a minister.”

“The letter is not legally persuasive. But it makes an explosive claim. Mr. Bryant claims to have an email from Mr. Zacharias in which he threatened to commit suicide (“bid this world goodbye”) if Ms. Thompson told her husband about their relationship. (Mr. Zacharias does not deny this in his court filing but he remains free to do so as litigation proceeds. I am attempting to procure a copy of the email.)

“On July 31, 2017, Mr. Zacharias responded by filing a federal lawsuit against Ms. Thompson and her husband, Bradley Thompson, accusing them of carrying out an extortion scheme against him. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

“Looking only at the evidence presented by Mr. Zacharias we learn that he had indeed carried on an online relationship with Ms. Thompson, one that involved her sending him nude photos of herself. (There was no physical sexual contact between them.) After Bradley Thompson learned of this relationship, he emailed Mr. Zacharias and asked “why would you ask her to send you photos of herself?”

“Five days later, on January 21, 2017, Mr. Zacharias replied to Mr. Thompson. He denied soliciting such photos from Ms. Thompson but said that he did not want to risk “seeming to avoid the full force of the responsibility.” Mr. Zacharias admitted that “the blame is real and inescapable” and revealed that he had avoided meeting Ms. Thompson in person “so as not to continue what was wrong.”

“In his complaint Mr. Zacharias also reveals that when he learned that Ms. Thompson was coming to visit him from her home in Canada he deliberately left town to avoid meeting her.

“Curiously, while the complaint claims that at various times Mr. Zacharias attempted to block further messages from Ms. Thompson, it also says that he “remained amicable out of fear for his family’s safety and of potential damage to his professional reputation if he upset the Thompsons.”

“So it appears undisputed that, at very least, Mr. Zacharias continued for some time to receive sexual photos from Ms. Thompson even when he could have attempted to terminate contact with her, reported her behavior to his Board of Directors and gone about his business with no fear of reputational damage. It is also undisputed that something significant enough was going on between Ravi and Lori Anne that he deliberately left town when he knew she would be arriving.”

Mr. Baughman wrote that, “Ravi was a sexual predator, an academic fraud, and a man who led a double life. He made false claims on his book covers about his credentials, deceived tens of millions of Christians about his education, led trusting minds to believe there were simple answers to complex questions about God, operated two massage spas, and sexually abused massage therapists in the U.S. and across Asia. Ravi was also a vicious man who brutalized those who threatened to expose him. This is all confirmed now.”

On the RZIM website, there is posted an “Open Letter from the International Board of Directors of RZIM on the Investigation of Ravi Zacharias” which details in part the efforts the organization has undertaken to investigate the claims made by others about Ravi’s sexual predatory behavior. They wrote in part that,

Mother’s Day Mass Shootings 2021: It’s Mourning In America

The second Sunday in May in the United States is always Mother’s Day. This year – 2021 – it’s on the 9th of May.

Typically, Mother’s Day is a special day in the nation set aside to honor mothers nationwide.

Anna Jarvis, daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis, remained a childless spinster her entire life, initiated the idea of Mother’s Day in 1908, and in 1914, Mother’s Day became an official U.S. holiday.

By about 1920, however, Anna became disgusted with what she perceived that Mother’s Day had become – an commercialized business opportunity for florists, card companies, and other merchandisers – and denounced the day, and urged others to stop buying Mother’s Day flowers, cards, and candies.

But one thing Anna Javis never saw coming, was mass shootings across the nation around, or on, Mother’s Day.

Doubtless, she would have spoken out about, and condemned that, as well.

While this is being written,

Gun Control Now A Matter Of National Security

Why Gun Control Is Now a Matter of National Security

Opinion
By Steven Simon, Jonathan Stevenson
04/22/2021 06:30 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/22/why-gun-control-is-now-a-matter-of-national-security-484323

Steven Simon, an International Relations Professor at Colby College, served on the National Security Council during the Clinton and Obama administrations, including as Senior Director for Counterterrorism.

Jonathan Stevenson, a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Managing Editor of Survival, served on the National Security Council as Director for Political-Military Affairs, Middle East and North Africa, from 2011 to 2013.

For all the tragic mass shooting headlines this year, the American gun control debate seems permanently stuck. Last week, nine people were killed by AR-15 fire in Indianapolis; before that, 10 died in Boulder, and eight in Atlanta. Despite the anguish over the past month — and despite a push by President Joe Biden — Congress looks unlikely to take any immediate action.

We share Biden’s view that the level of U.S. gun violence is a “national embarrassment.” But as National Security Council veterans who have specialized in counterterrorism — with direct experience involving far-right American terrorism, burgeoning jihadism, and Northern Irish extremism in the 1990s — we also see a new threat rising, one that has the potential to change the urgency of the debate: the growing, and heavily armed, American militia movement, which made a show of force on January 6.

Armed demonstrators protest outside of the Michigan State Capitol on January 17, 2021 in Lansing. – Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Increasingly, as militias acquire and stockpile weapons, they’re turning guns from a public-health concern into a threat to national security. And it’s possible that if proponents of reform — including advocacy groups, congressional leaders and Biden — began addressing it that way, they’d have a chance of energizing the debate against the National Rifle Association and its allies. Indeed, the shock of the insurrection has increased the political burdens of an NRA in internal disarray and offered a new perspective on the need for significant gun control legislation.

As America learned on January 6, anti-government militia groups are more than willing to jump walls, break doors and disrupt the underpinnings of our democracy. These groups, with transnational ties, also enjoy easy access to high-power, high-capacity, small-caliber semiautomatic weapons—many of which can be converted to fully automatic. The concern isn’t that these weapons will somehow enable militias to challenge the U.S. military on the battlefield, which they certainly will not. It is that they make mass casualty attacks against political or cultural adversaries both easy to carry out, and easy to frame as inspirational events of the kind that mobilize insurrection.

The executive orders Biden issued earlier this month imposing restrictions on gun kits and devices that turn pistols into rifles are marginal safeguards and rather thin gruel overall. But his call for reviving the federal ban on assault weapons is more promising and an acknowledgment that serious action is required. An important additional measure would be more rigorous required background checks. At least one key Republican senator, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, has expressed openness to working with Biden on a gun bill.

Generating bipartisan consensus for an effective crackdown on firearms will always be difficult. While gun control is now unlikely to lose existing supporters, it is also unlikely to win many new ones. But reframing the issue as a national security imperative could galvanize passive backers now focused by the assault on the Capitol on maintaining political stability in the United States. A plausible objective would be to

At Least 50 Reasons Why Georgia SB202 Is A Bad Bill

FIFTY REASONS WHY GEORGIA SB 202 IS A BAD BILL

SB 202 Linked Here For Citations

HYPERCRIMINALIZATION: Georgia’s new law codifies mass disenfranchisement and intimidation and further expands criminalization policy in the voting process.1.Mass Challenges:Codifies that a single person can challenge the voter registration of an unlimited # of voters at once, resulting in that voter being purged. (lines 575–576)

1. Mass Challenges: Codifies that a single person can challenge the voter registration of an unlimited # of voters at once, resulting in that voter being purged. (lines 575–576)

2. Mass Challenges: Codifies that a single person can challenge the rights of an unlimited # of voters to cast their ballot in the upcoming election. 364k Georgians were frivolously challenged in the runoffs. In just 29 counties, 15,000 Black voters, 2,000 Hispanic voters, and 1500 AAPI voters were challenged.(lines 622–623)

Georgia’s nickname is the “Peach State,” and it is one of the 13 original colonies.

3. Mass Challenges: Mandates counties hold mass challenge hearings that challenged voter must show up to—within 10 days of frivolous challenge. (line 581)

4. Line–warming/Criminalization: Makes it a crime for volunteers or groups to hand water or snacks to voters in line. (lines 1873–1875)

5. Line–warming/Criminalization: Makes it a crime for *voters* in line to accept water or snacks from a volunteer or group. Bill later amended to allow an “unattended receptacle” near line. (lines 1873–1875, lines 1887–1889)

6. Criminalization: Creates a new misdemeanor for voters if the voter allows someone other than those authorized under state/federal law to see them marking their ballot at home. (lines 1339, 1347–1349)

7. Criminalization: Creates a new felony for anyone that witnesses someone else mark their *absentee* ballot at home — unless they are providing legally authorized assistance or are a child. (lines 2449–2454)

8. Criminalization: Creates a new misdemeanor for handling a completed application for anyone not authorized by law to assist voter. (lines 979–981)

9. Criminalization: Adds new misdemeanor for photographing your own *absentee* ballot or someone else’s. (expanding existing law to ensure VBM also criminalized) (line 2460)

10. Intimidation: Creates new fraud hotline that will accept “anonymous tips” and AG can launch investigations or prosecute within 3 days. (lines 171–178)

POWER GRABS/CONSOLIDATION OF ELECTION AUTHORITY: Georgia’s new law removes significant power from the Secretary of State and gives the GOP–led, gerrymandered state legislature majority control of the State Election Board.

11. Removes SOS Power: Removes the Secretary of State as Chair of the State Election Board (line 185).

12. State Legislature Controls SEB: Grants state legislature power to appoint new chair of State Election Board (SEB). Meaning state legislature will choose 3 out of 5 State Election Board members going forward, a majority. (lines 185 –189)

13. Removes SOS Power: Removes the SOS as a voting member of the State Election Board (lines 252–253).

14. Removes SOS Power: Bill amended at last second to remove SOS power to appoint members of performance review board. (lines 500–503, line 521, line 540 || vs. lines 499–502, line 520, line 540 of bill as passed SEI committee: LC280338S)

15. Removes SOS Power: Requires SOS provide all necessary support/assistance to SEB for county takeovers at the sole discretion of SEB (lines 270–281).

16. Removes SOS Power: Bans SOS/counties from proactively sending vote by mail applications without a request. (lines 966–970)

17. Legislative Power: Allows state legislature to overrule any emergency election rule (lines 2491–2494)

COUNTY ELECTION BOARD TAKEOVERS: Georgia’s new law removes judicial oversight from the county intervention process and grants a GOP–controlled State Election Board the power to replace county BOEs and local elections officials that have significant voter access and election certification responsibilities.

18. No Judicial Oversight: Removes judicial oversight from county takeover process. Georgia already had a process to deal with low–performing counties, but it required judicial oversight of the State Election Board (SEB). The new process replaces judicial oversight with opaque investigation/takeover powers. (See Georgia Code § 21–2–32 for previous process)

Topsy Turvy America

In America, you can get arrested for drinking a beer in public.

In Germany, one can legally walk around in public while drinking a beer. To do so is neither illegal, immoral, or unethical.

Of course, illegality, immorality, and unethical behavior are three entirely separate, and unique things. Suffice to say, they’re not the same.

In America, one cannot walk around in public while drinking a beer, or any other alcohol-containing beverage. In many, if not most, places, it’s illegal to do so – save, perhaps, for a few specially-designated areas, or upon certain occasions in those areas.

For example, it’s not uncommon to see pictures, or read news stories of college-aged students who can otherwise legally consume alcoholic beverages (being aged 21, or older), and even adults, who while enjoying almost any public beach in America, are accosted by local law enforcement authorities who either confiscate, or demand that the beer owner(s) destroy those ice-cold beverages by pouring them out, and sometimes, even arrest them, haul them off to jail, where they’re fingerprinted, photographed, and incarcerated, however briefly, as if they’re genuine threats to society, or had committed some grievously atrocious felony.

Of course, it almost goes without saying, that if anyone, anywhere in America was walking around in their local Wal-Mart, shopping while drinking a beer, the police would be called to the scene, and doubtlessly, the shopper/drinker would be arrested, and the story of it published on the worldwide web of the Internet for all the world to see.

Typically, in most all such instances, those individuals would be violating so-called “open container” laws, which forbid the public consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Yet interestingly enough, morbidly obese people can walk around in public eating hot dogs, doughnuts, and junk foods of seemingly innumerable variety and type, wash it all down with gallons of soda pop, and it’s not illegal to watch them commit their slow suicide in public, and no one dares think about calling the cops on them.

While it might seem that

Telling Tall Tales: Shared Mythology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Today I happened upon a description of a beer made by Cigar City Brewing of Tampa, FL – Double Barrel-aged Hunahpu’s – which is a 2016 release of an Imperial Stout, aged in rum barrels & apple brandy barrels and blended together.

As rated and ranked by the crowd-sourced beer enthusiast’s website BeerAdvocate, where reviewers rate beers according to various measures of quality, not upon “popularity” based upon sales volume, per se, Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout was graded 100, which is a perfect score, and was ranked 2nd within the category of Imperial Stouts, had a 3rd overall weighted rank, while the website’s contributors gave it an overall rating of 4.78 out of 5 truncated mean for all beers on the site. Its flavor notes read “Stout aged on Peruvian cacao nibs, ancho and pasilla chiles, cinnamon and Madagascar vanilla beans aged in apple brandy and rum barrels before being blended together.”

After having read the review notes, I navigated over to the Cigar City Brewing site to see the brewery’s page for the brew, to see what they said about it, and read that they describe it as being:

“Extremely dark in color with a brown head with notes of big notes of chocolate and espresso, moderate notes of vanilla and cinnamon and mild notes of tobacco and chilis. Flavor opens with a big blast of chocolate and moderate espresso with notes of dark toffee and interjecting notes of vanilla with lingering hints of cinnamon and tobacco and chili notes with a mild Scoville heat in the finish. Extensive aging in both rum and apple brandy barrels adds candied apple, allspice, vanilla and oaky tannic qualities to this rare and complex stout.”

I also found the following about the beer’s curious name:

Did you know?

In Mayan mythology, Hun Hunahpu was the father of the Mayan hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Hun Hunahpu, along with his brother Vucub Hunahpu, was tricked by the Dark Lords of the underworld and slain. Hun Hunahpu’s corpse morphed into a cacao tree, his head becoming a cacao pod, which in typically awesome mythology fashion, spit upon the hand of a young maiden named Xquic who promptly became pregnant with the hero twins. The twins would ultimately grow up to avenge their father and uncle and defeat the Dark Lords and ascend the heavens to become the moon and sun.

That’s quite a tale, to be certain, and as I read it, the preposterous absurdity of it all was reminiscent of another well-known fairy tale told by observant Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.

Artist’s depiction of the Hebrew exodus

That tall tale is of Moses, regarded as

Missouri Republican Lawmaker Ousted For Child Sex Abuse Of Adult Daughters

Once again, Banana Republicans are caught with their pants down.

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ajc.com

Republican Missouri Lawmaker Expelled Over Child Sex Abuse Charges By Adult Daughters

Rick Roeber expelled after GOP House-led investigation

By Tim Darnell, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, 24 April 2021

The Missouri House of Representatives voted Wednesday to expel a suburban Kansas City lawmaker over allegations he sexually abused two of his children years ago.

By an almost-unanimous vote, the GOP-led House expelled Rick Roeber, a Republican who was elected in November to represent the Lee’s Summit community.

Republican child sex abuser Rick Roeber of Missouri State House

The vote came after an ethics committee report on Monday that formally accused Roeber of sexually abusing two of his now-adult children when they were 5 and 9. The committee found their allegations credible.

The expulsion was the first time the Missouri House had expelled a member in more than 150 years.

No one opposed Roeber’s ouster, though one lawmaker voted “present” to sidestep taking a position.

“It is unacceptable what he has done to the home life of these children,” GOP House Speaker Rob Vescovo said, according to The Associated Press, during a speech from the chamber floor. “And I find him in the worst capacity to represent the people, and more specifically represent the children, of the 34th District or the children of the state of Missouri.”

Roeber previously told the committee that he didn’t sexually abuse his children.

Several of Roeber’s children testified to House investigators this year he also frequently beat them with a belt, choked them and once drowned a litter of puppies.

One child who said Roeber was sexually abusive told investigators that

TN GOP Governor Bill Lee Expected To Sign “Show Us Your Genitals” Law

50th Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R)

It makes me wonder… why are Banana Republicans so interested in others’ genitals – especially CHILDREN’S GENITALS?

Sounds VERY creepy to me.

In fact, it sounds very much like something a pedophile would do, or support.

What’s the possibility, eh?

Now, I’m not suggesting that the bill’s authors are pedophiles, but “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck,” it’s probably a cow… right?

Maybe a pedophile influenced, or wrote the bill, eh?

But then, why are Tennessee’s GOP legislators listening to pedophiles, eh?

Of couse, this sounds very much like a remedy in search of a problem, rather than vice versa. Seriously. I mean, how “bad” a problem is the so-called “problem” it purports to remedy?

I’ve yet to read any news items about any such matters. You know… something like “Man Shoots Trangendered Victim In Public Toilet,” or “Teacher Shoots Transgendered Teen In Lockerroom” something else patently and absurdly similar. After all, we’re assaulted daily, 24/7 with

Houston, TX Hospital System To Fire Employees Who Refuse COVID-19 Vaccination

Houston Methodist Hospital, a not-for-profit 8-hospital system – 4 of which are ANCC Nursing Magnet status accredited – and academic medical center, with over 2502 beds in the Houston, Texas metro area, has publicly announced that they will fire any employee who refuses to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

The Houston Press and Houston Chronicle reported today, Thursday, 22 April 2021, that Bob Nevens, the hospital chain’s Director of Corporate Risk and Insurance, and Jennifer Bridges, a Houston Methodist Registered Nurse at the system’s Baytown facility, are on schedule to be fired soon if they don’t comply by obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine within the hospital system’s deadline of June 7, 2021.

Dr. Marc L. Boom, MD, the hospital system’s CEO, had the idea to require all employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to keep their jobs, and offered $500 incentive bonuses to any employee who demonstrated proof of vaccination. Houston Methodist was the first hospital system nationally to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for employees.

Houston Methodist Hospital

And to this point, a clear majority – 84% – of the hospital system’s 26,000 employees have received at least 1 COVID-19 vaccine dose as of Tuesday this week, according to Houston Methodist’s Director of Public Relations Stefanie Asin.

Houston Methodist’s Human Resources Department has stated that the hospital system will consider requests from employees who don’t want to be vaccinated for medical or for religious reasons.

However, neither Mr. Nevens nor Nurse Bridges are refusing COVID vaccination on those grounds. And neither Mr. Nevens, who is a 10-year hospital system employee, nor Nurse Bridges, who is a 7-year employee, consider themselves “anti-vaxxers,” and both have for many years received the annual influenza vaccine.

Mr. Nevens and Nurse Bridges have both said that their reluctance to receive COVID-19 vaccinations arises fromtheir concerns with the vaccines’ emergency approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, rather than the more well-known and much lengthier standard, traditional, and much more well-known approval process.

Nurse Bridges said that as a Registered Nurse, “I’ve taken every vaccine you’re ever supposed to take. We just want more

Prediction: South Dakota GOP Governor Kristi Noem Will Report COVID-19 Infection Soon

Why?

She and Ted Nugent were snuggling together on the same aircraft for several hours while Ted was COVID-19 positive.

The backstory:

The once-and-former rocker, “Jailbait” singer/songwriter, and Motor City Moron Ted Nugent recently announced that he had become infected with the COVID-19 virus.

LEFT to RIGHT: Donna Mosing, spouse of Greg Mosing; Kristi Noem; Ted Nugent, spouse of Shemane Nugent.

However, a week before he made that announcement, Nugent’s wife Shemane posted a photo on Instagram which cross-posted to Twitter, of them standing with South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem and Republican donor Greg Mosing and his wife, Donna, alongside a private jet aircraft. None of them were wearing any type of protective nose/mouth covering.

She wrote: “Thank you for a great trip with Governor Kristi Noem, on Rockstar One (think Air Force One!).”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNoaOJ3MyFj/

Thank you Greg & Donna Mosing for a great trip with Governor Kristi Noem on Rockstar One (think Air Force One!) #adventure #adventuretime https://t.co/xjoFybKYHc

— Shemane Nugent (@ShemaneNugent) April 14, 2021

Publicly available data for the aircraft – N131GM – shows that

Ted Nugent Has COVID-19

After denying its existence, the washed-up once-upon-a-time rock musician, pedophile, and Motor City Moron

Ted Nugent has announced that he has become infected with COVID-19.

Not COVID 18, COVID 17, COVID 16, COVID 15, but COVID-19.

Perhaps this is Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, v2.0, eh?

Y’know, deep within, I had a feeling that it would only be a very short matter of time before he changed his tune… after becoming infected.

And sure ‘nuff… that’s what happened!

Musician Ted Nugent said yesterday, Monday 19 April 2021, that he tested positive for COVID-19 and had been experiencing intensely severe symptoms, even though he called the pandemic a “hoax” in the recent past.

During a FaceBook Live broadcast yesterday he said, “I was tested positive today. Everybody told me I should not announce this, but can you hear it, I have had flu symptoms for the last 10 days and I thought I was dying. I got the Chinese shit. Just a clusterfuck. I got a stuffed up head, body aches… oh my god, what a pain in the ass. I literally can hardly crawl out of bed, the last few days but I did. I crawled.”

[When faced with stark reality, suddenly, his tune changed. Fascinating.]

He also expressed

Banana Republicans Are Liars

U.S. Banana Republican Representative for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District Jim Banks – just look at the smirking smug look on that mofo’s face.

Banana Republicans are liars.

Period.

Full stop.

They will say, or do, anything to get, and retain, power.

Their last leader was a Liar of the First Order. Nothing he said could be believed.

Nothing.

Ever.

Nothing that he and his über-wealthy multi-millionaire henchmen – also known as his cabinet and administration – did ever benefited the working families of America.

Nothing.

Ever.

They don’t give a shit about you, until something happens to them.

Look at Kentucky U.S. Representative Andy Barr, a Banana Republican who ostensibly represents the 6th Congressional District in that state. His wife died aged 39 of MVP – Mitral Valve Prolapse – after being diagnosed with it some years earlier. Sure, that’s a sad thing to have happen. And it happens much more frequently than one would imagine. But, this is the VERY first time that a Banana Republican has done any goddamn thing about it.

Why?

Because it affected them, not you.

They’re inherently selfish bastards.

So now, Banana Republican Andy Barr of Kentucky has written a bill that has bipartisan support – H.R.1193 – Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy Act, aka the CAROL Act, after his late wife’s name – that would provide funding for research into heart valve diseases. How thoughtful, of him, eh?

He didn’t give a rat’s rip until it affected him. And then, it’s WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS HORRIBLE PROBLEM!

What we need to do is eliminate the hypocritical Banana Republicans.

Just look at the miserable POS Wilbur Ross, the lying asshole who was his Secretary of Commerce, who sought to exclude counting people in the Census, and actually went to a Supreme Court fight to attempt to shaft Americans.

Fortunately, the SCOTUS said “NO,” to his illegal, and anti-Constitutional ideas.

And then, there’s the scumbag who was POS45’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who aided and abetted

Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee Has Lost His Mind

A gun in every pocket.

Not a chicken in every pot.

No pot there, either.

Not even medical.

The state wants people to kill each other.

But not in the womb.

That’d be wrong.

Shooting people to kill them, is A-OK.

Shooting pregnant women is not.

Might harm the unborn, you know.

Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee has signed NRA-written legislation that allows any adult aged 21, or older, to carry a handgun either openly, or concealed without any special training, education, or permit. Active duty Military Service Members aged 18 to 21 are excepted.

Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the state, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, have told the Governor that they thought his idea was poor policy, but he ignored them, and signed into law a bill that removes restrictions on carrying firearms, either concealed, or openly.

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee (RIGHT) signs HB786 as the bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative William Lamberth of Portland, District 44, observes.

Despite law enforcement’s opposition to his legislation that would end gun permits in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee told a gathering from the National Rifle Association that his legislation would “make Tennessee safer.” However, he failed to mention how it would.

A spokesman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told a Senate committee, “The bureau has been consistent [in opposition] on this from a public safety standpoint.” The TBI and Tennessee Sheriff’s Association oppose eliminating requirements for concealed carry gun permits.

Governor Lee’s Press Secretary Casey Black said, “The ‘Constitutional Carry’ legislation is a key priority in the governor’s public safety package, which is focused on protecting law-abiding Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights, while also significantly increasing penalties for criminals who steal firearms.”

Advocates point to permitless carry which is often misnomered as

Tennessee’s Republican Legislators Seek To Cut Unemployment Benefits Time

Tennessee’s Republican State Legislators Have Lost Their Minds

Republican-written legislation being considered in the Tennessee General Assembly would kick to the curb over 65,000 unemployed Tennesseans who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic.

Republicans are seeking to cut in half the time frame for collecting unemployment benefits.

Richie Townsend, 39, an East Nashville resident and former bartender at Rolf and Daughters in Germantown, has struggled to find work after losing his restaurant job when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020.

In the time since, he’s held various unstable, low-paying jobs from which he, and others, have been fired over three times, due to no fault of his own. During those times, he has applied for, and has been granted access to his State Unemployment Compensation, a type of insurance paid for by employers, and backed by the state government, which all 50 states have.

Fortunately, he has benefits remaining, but only because of the extensions granted by Congress.

He’s recently started a new job in Franklin, but even as the state told him it is expediting his request for benefits, he’s reached out to his state House member but hasn’t gotten any payments on his latest extension.

“It sounds like an over-exaggeration by our local government to try to react to the fact that unemployment was extended for a year and a half in total,” he said.

Though he hates to admit it, Townsend says he’s

Alabama Is Sorry, Stupid, And Lazy

News reports this morning are stating that in the matter of the unionization vote at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, AL slightly over half of all ballots sent out were returned.

Of the nearly 5800 ballots mailed out to Amazon employees at their Bessemer, Alabama facility, only about 55% were returned.

Only 3,215 ballots were received by the National Labor Relations Board in the election.

There were 5,867 ballots were sent out to Amazon workers in early February – that’s a 54.798% return rate.

At 1025 CST today, unofficial results were that the “NO” votes on the question of unionization were 1,798, while the “YES” votes were 738.

Amazon challenged 505 challenged ballots, and there were 76 voided ballots.

At the conclusion of the tally, an official from the National Labor Relations Board – a Federal governmental entity – said that “Challenges are not sufficient in number to affect the results of this election.”

In January, the NLRB

Matt Gaetz Is Toast, And Awaits Federal Sentencing For Child Sex Trafficking

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And Florida’s CD-1 Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is burnt toast.

In a report published today (Thursday, April 8, 2021), Matt Gaetz is implicated in a pay-for-play scheme in which he laundered money in order to make his payments appear as if they were innocuous.

They were not.

The Daily Beast reported that Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz sent $900 to his friend Joel Greenberg, a Federally-accused sex trafficker and former Seminole County tax collector who is cooperating with Federal authorities, in two late-night Venmo transactions – a social media mobile payment service owned by PayPal – in May 2018. Over the course of eight minutes the next morning, Greenberg used the Venmo app to send varying sums of money to three young women, which altogether, transactions totaled $900.

Joel Greenberg, LEFT, & Matt Gaetz

In the first of Gaetz’s Venmo transactions to Greenberg, the memo field was titled “Test.” In the second transaction, he wrote

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill Caught With Pants Down

Looks like John let the little head do the thinking for the big head.

He also likes anal sex – something his wife apparently doesn’t give him.

Yes… it’s true:

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has been caught red-handed in an extra-marital relationship, much to the chagrin of his cult-like followers who were hoping he would campaign for the soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat held by almost-nonagenarian Democrat-turned-Republican-since-1994 Richard Shelby (b.1934), who has occupied the office since 1986, which is up for grabs in 2022.

“He was such an idiot. And he would talk, just… I don’t know if you ever met him outside of looking like he’s a professional, he’s a total [sic] different person. He’s sometimes funny, and he’s charismatic, and he has a sense of humor… but then, when the real John Merrill stands up, then you’re kinda’ like ‘uggh.'”

– Cesaire McPherson, 44-year old Legal Assistant, and lover to Alabama Republican Secretary of State John Merrill in phone interview with National File about their extramarital sexual relationship

Of note, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service on December 17, 2020 updated their report “Membership of the 116th Congress: A Profile” which found that the average age of the average Senator was 62.9 years, while the average age of the Members of the House of Representatives was 57.6. At the time of the report, there were only 3 African American Senators – Kamala Harris, D-CA Corey Booker, D-NJ, and Tim Scott, R-SC. Since Kamala Harris is now Vice President, there are now only 2 African American Senators. And, the oldest Senator in the 116th Congress was Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, born June 22, 1933, who was then aged 85.

Merrill’s official statement said that, “With the end of my term coming up in January of 2023, I have been presented with a variety of options for where my path in public service could lead. I have decided that I will not be a candidate for any office in 2022.”

In a confession to the Advance Local Media LLC-owned AL dot com news group, John Merrill said further that,

Happy Easter, er… Happy Fertility Day!

For Christians, today is Easter Sunday. It’s their annual high holy day which corresponds with the Spring Equinox in which they celebrate the alleged resurrection from the dead of their god, Jesus of Nazareth, whom they also call Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be God incarnate, and the “son of God,” even though in their story book, Jesus only referred to himself as “the son of man,” NEVER as “the son of God.” NEVER.

Of course, they’ll fight you tooth and nail in disagreement that Jesus of Nazareth is not their god all while saying “praise Jesus!” and making similar exclamations, but in the same breath, they’ll capitulate and confuse things by saying there’s a “trinity” of three separate divine beings whom they identify as “the Father,” “the Son,” and “the Holy Spirit” whom they claim are not separate, but are separate, and are “co-equal” yet distinct and unique.

Entire religions – actually, “denominations” – have been formed around the various interpretations of those blatantly absurdist claims. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of God  in Christ, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Cumberland Presbyterian, are but a few, and that’s just here in the United States.

Abroad, there’s Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian, Coptic Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Anglican, Anglican Catholic, and on, and on, and on, and on. Some have said there are probably tens of thousands of different denominations and sects of Christianity, while others say there are but a few hundred. And yet, the odd thing is, that while they’re all “doing their own thing” they pray and seemingly ask for “unity” which they call ecumenism.

Bottom line? It’ll never happen. Not until they all give up their own private interpretations, traditions, and everything about their religion.

There’s a long-standing joke – there’s ALWAYS truth in humor, and it serves to remind us of the matter about which it takes light-heartedly, and even

Right Wing Nut Jobs

Protestant Christians of the garden variety Evangelical type think they own God. God is always on their side, and all of their ideas are utterly and absolutely 100% correct and infallible, inerrable, and come from the throne room of Heaven itself. And because they work for Satan, the Democrats are always wrong, and given half a chance, they’ll eat your babies like a suckling pig on a spit, with your blood for a dipping sauce.

That’s what they’d have you believe… because they believe it too. They’re not just “two bricks shy of a load,” they’re full-tilt crazy. They’re conspiracy theorists – note just how many of them voted for Trump, not just once, but twice!

Former President George W. Bush had a saying about that which he made in his “Remarks by the President on Teaching American History and Civic Education,” as delivered at East Literature Magnet School, Nashville, Tennessee, September 17, 2002, 1:05 P.M. CDT:

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, ‘fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.'”

But, “get fooled again” is exactly what happened.

Rock guitarist/entertainer/musician Pete Townshend of The Who had something to say about that matter, as well, and

It’s OFFICIAL: Matt Gaetz is a POSSOB scumbag.

So the little “Florida Man” is trippin’ on the illicit street drug commonly known as “ecstasy” while paying to have sex with underage girls, hauling them across state lines, and then, showing nude photographs of them to fellow Members of Congress.

What a family guy!

True “family values,” eh?

Great “conservative values,” right?

Let’s check the list:
✅1.) Child molester
✅2.) Pedophile
✅3.) Child Sexual Predator
✅4.) Child Sexual Trafficker
✅5.) Liar
✅6.) Illicit drug abuser
✅7.) All-around low life
✅8.) “Florida Man”
✅9.) Hypocrite
✅10.) Soon to be ousted from Congress

Hope NOT to see you later, you miserable POSSOB!

We’ll be looking for your next assignment IN FEDERAL PRISON!

There, you’ll likely have the stuffing beat out of you, because in prison, child molesters are the LOWEST OF THE LOW.

And who knows?

They could do us a favor by

Yes, Georgia’s New Republican Vote Restriction Law Makes Illegal Giving Water Or Food To Voters

Many questions have arisen, and comments have been made, about Georgia’s new voting restrictions law.

Republican state legislators who wrote, passed, and signed the bill into law (Republican Governor Brian Kemp was formerly Secretary of State when he campaigned for the Governor’s office… and as a state official, oversaw his own election… nope, no conflict of interest there, eh?) continue to claim that the “integrity” and “security” of the voting systems in Georgia should be strengthened – as if they were insecure to begin with.

They were not.

The essence of what has happened, as many have observed and stated, is that since Republicans lost in the national election for President, and in the Senate election, they’re changing the rules in order to make it easier for them to win next time.

There was NO fraud, NO irregularities, NO insecurity in the Georgia election, nor in any election in the nation. Period.

So, here for your perusal, is the word-for-word reading of the law, including a screenshot of the law as passed, and

Texas Prosecutes Black Woman Who Made An Honest Mistake

One of the tenets of law is intentionality, which is the foreknowledge of, and intent to willfully disobey, or violate, law, and often includes recklessness as an element of intent. Intent is part and parcel of motive, and in context, often accompanies an evil, or malicious motive. In law, typically, a person cannot be convicted of a crime if there is no intent. Motive, however, is different from intention, and is irrelevant in determining liability.

Sometimes it’s said that “ignorance is no excuse for the law,” but that’s a mere colloquialism which itself has no basis in law. It’s nothing but a hollow saying, for it has no support in any way. There is such as thing as “willful ignorance,” which is an intentional, and therefore deliberate, act. And, the classic Steve Martin comedy sketch in which he presents his defense to a “foul crime” as “I forgot” is funny precisely because there are crimes which are so inherently gross in their violation – rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, etc. – that no reasonable, or sane person could ever assert that they forgot it was illegal.

Negligence is similar, insofar as there is a risk which is assumed by the offending party, which has the potential to harm another person, or property. Negligence occurs when it is likely that harm will occur from the offending party’s conduct, and knowingly engages in the risk. Again, a deliberate action.

Recklessness requires determining that the offending party should have known they were taking a risk, but the difference between recklessness and negligence is not always clear. An example of recklessness would be DUI – the offending party clearly knows they were taking a risk, and continued with the conduct. Once again, a deliberateness is evident.

However, there are crimes that are not inherently, or morally wrong, and it is impossible for any one person to know all laws. Furthermore, many laws are intricately complex, which further adds to the confusing calculus. Because of that, it puts even the most circumspect and conscientious people at risk of violating laws for which many – including legislators, legal experts, jurists, attorneys, and others – are unaware of their requirements. And in that sense, the traditional protection afforded by determining culpability before conviction is dismissed.

Most folks would agree, I’m certain, that it’s probably not too uncommon for anyone to violate a law unknowingly. And, when such a thing occurs, and someone is arrested for the same – for unknowingly violating a law – when the time for prosecution comes around (if it does), because often, such cases are rapidly dismissed by the state (government) because intentionality is missing.

The state has a responsibility to its citizens to make them aware of the law, so that they can abide by it.

But, in Texas, there is presently a case which will undoubtedly be heard by that state’s Supreme Court (though it must first be heard by the TX Court of Criminal Appeals) which raises that very question:
Can a citizen be held to account for unintentionally violating a law, when the state had a responsibility – which they admittedly failed to do – to notify the citizen of their circumstances before the law, and liability to it?

Crystal Mason

A Fort Worth, TX woman – Crystal Mason – who happens to be Black, was on supervised release for a Federal felony conviction related to tax fraud, when she cast a provisional ballot in 2016. She had been released from prison the previous year. She and her former husband had owned a tax preparation business, and was accused of inflating tax deductions on some returns which they prepared for clients, and eventually plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government, and was sentenced to 5yrs in prison, and 3yrs supervised release. She was placed on probation for 2 of 3 other felonies, and received deferred adjudication for the 3rd.

Neither state, nor Federal authorities notified her that she was, by Texas state law, ineligible to vote until the entire term of her punishment was fully completed.

Officials who were overseeing her supervised release testified at her trial that they never informed her that she was ineligible to vote under Texas state law.

She was urged by

NCAA Claims Student Athletes Who Make Them BIG BUCK$ Don’t Deserve A $hare

Today, the NCAA is appearing before the United States Supreme Court today arguing about… money.

Yes, money.

This case verges on indentured servitude, and hypocrisy is open, and plainly evident.

But hey… what else is new when it comes to treatment of the impoverished, females, and minorities?

Meanwhile, the BIG BUCKS go to build lavish facilities for the male athletes, not all of which are for training, to the coaches for their $alarie$ and compen$ation, and to build extravagant stadiums and arenas.

Not even a fraction goes to the athletes.

And none of it goes to the students.

Not one thin dime.

Here’s an idea instead of paying coaches eye-popping salaries, how about capping their compensation, and placing about half of the money toward student scholarship?

It’d be an INVESTMENT in education, for that is the primary (hopefully) reason the athletes chose to become students at the university where they play.

And best of all, it would ALL come from the Private Sector, one of many “holy cows” of the GOP Brahmans.

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Take To The Court: Justices Will Hear Case On Student Athlete Compensation
March 31, 2021, 5:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
by Nina Totenberg

Nina Totenberg at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2019. (photo by Allison Shelley)

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/982836334/take-to-the-court-justices-will-hear-case-on-student-athlete-compensation

As March Madness plays out on TV, the U.S. Supreme Court takes a rare excursion into sports law Wednesday in a case testing whether the NCAA’s limits on compensation for student athletes violate the nation’s antitrust laws.

The outcome could have enormous consequences for college athletics.

The NCAA maintains that

Cindy Hyde-Smith… a Mississippi joke of a U.S. Senator

Yesterday, Cindy Hyde-Smith, a White Banana Republican United States Senator from Mississippi made some genuinely STUPID remarks in a Senate Rules Committee hearing.

She’s the same Cindy Hyde-Smith who not too long ago infamously said “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praised her on November 11, 2018.

I’ll let the Wonkette site headline speak for me… at least in part – on her current stupidism.

Cindy Hyde-Smith Is A Mississippi Goddamn Moron

by Evan Hurst
March 24, 2021; 4:20 PM

“In the Senate today, during the Rules Committee’s big hearing on HR1/S1, the “For The People” Act, which among other things would protect the right to vote for ALL eligible Americans, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican from Not Georgia, let us know why she thinks people shouldn’t be able to vote on Sundays, and definitely not in Mississippi.”

First of all, she’s a Banana Republican.

Secondly, she attended a segregated, Whites-only High School.

Thirdly, she’s from Mississippi.

Fourthly, she’s a Trump sycophant.

Need I continue?

But ANYONE can view her remarks in context in the links below. Also, her remarks are transcribed as follows.

The FULL Committee hearing may be viewed here:
https://www.rules.senate.gov/hearings/watch?hearingid=92E7CB0D-5056-A066-6054-8B48164806BF

The pertinent excerpt occurs here:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4954273/user-clip-ms-sen-cindy-hyde-smith-sunday-god

Her remarks begin at 2:46:10 as Committee Chair Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar acknowledges Mississippi Senator Hyde-Smith, who then states, “Before we start, I have a question for the Chair,” addressed to Chair Amy Klobuchar, which Chair Klobuchar acknowledges, and bids her to continue, which she does, as follows:

Cancun Cruz: It’s Show Time!

Ted “Cancun” Cruz is a goddamn fucking moron.

Nobody likes him.

Nobody in the Senate.

Few in Texas.

Even fewer nationally.

Wouldn’t it be ironic tragedy if he was shot?

Somehow, being shot seems to change people’s minds about firearms laws.

It changed people’s minds after POTUS JFK was assassinated.

It changed racist White Supremacist Alabama Governor George Wallace’s mind.

It changed POTUS Ronald Reagan’s mind.

It changed Reagan’s Press Secretary James and his wife Sarah Brady’s minds.

It changed Arizona U.S. Representative Gabby Gifford and her husband Mark Kelly’s minds.

It changed Louisiana U.S. Representative Steve Scalise’s mind.

It changed peoples’ minds in El Paso.

It changed peoples’ minds in Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Sadly, there’s a list of school shootings maintained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States)

It’s amazing how little pieces of lead have power to change people’s minds.

I wonder why?

Of course, none of that applies to Alabama’s 5th District Moron Brooks.

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Cruz Accuses Democrats Of Playing “Ridiculous Theater” In Proposals Following Mass Shootings

By Celine Castronuovo – 03/23/21 12:47 PM EDT

Cancun Cruz

Texas Senator Cancun Cruz (R) on Tuesday accused Democrats of playing “ridiculous theater” by proposing universal background checks and other reforms following mass shootings, which he claimed would take “away guns from law-abiding citizens.”

Cancun Cruz made his remarks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence that had been scheduled before of the deadly mass shootings at massage parlors in the Atlanta, Georgia area last week and at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store Monday evening.

Cancun Cruz said that

Research Study Finds COVID-19 Numbers Vastly Underestimated

This is some of the first proven and confirmed evidence that what we have been told by the experts is 100% accurate and true.

“Typhoid Mary” Mallon (1869-1938), was an impoverished, illiterate Irish emigrant to the United States who worked primarily as a cook, and who became infamous for spreading typhoid fever, which at the time was an incurable, easily-spread, often deadly disease, for which no vaccination existed.

People who DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE INFECTED ARE SPREADING THE DISEASE BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE SYMPTOMS.

It is a REPEAT of the classic example first shown by “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (1869-1938), an Irish emigrant to the United States who worked as a cook (one of the highest paying jobs at the time), and was actively infected with typhoid fever, yet NEVER – NOT EVEN ONCE – showed any signs of infection.

Tragically, however, as was common in the era in which she lived, she had low education and was practically illiterate, and her refusal to heed the advice of experts, and her insistence upon working in kitchens, resulted in the deaths of many people whom she thereby infected with typhoid fever because of her deliberately wanton disregard of advice, and disobedience to the order of law. She, however, claimed that she was being persecuted for being Irish and poor.

Her case was the first, and a prime example of the dangers of ignoring sound expert medical and scientific advice. As well, her case demonstrated the differences in attitudes toward public health between now, and then, because she filed lawsuits against the governmental authorities that detained her, and forbade her from either working, or being in public, and quarantined her. At the time, there was no vaccine against typhoid.

And throughout the remainder of her life, and up to the time she died, she never – not even once – ever showed signs of typhoid fever infection. And she did not die of typhoid fever. She died of

Death and Dying: By the Numbers In America

QUESTION: How many people in the U.S. die each day from overdoses involving PRESCRIPTION opioids?

ANSWER: According to recent data published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 41 people/day (14,965) are dying from an overdose involving prescription opioids. This CDC website – https://www.cdc.gov/rxawareness/index.html – provides resources for individuals struggling with opioid drug abuse.

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330,147,087

That’s the estimated population in the United States as of this writing, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Clock.

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539,320

Republican Anti-Maskers Behaving Badly

Yes, we all know that they’re jerkwads.

They also believe that the moon is made of green cheese, and that POS45 won re-election. That’s why he’s not in the White House – he’s on permanent vacation pooping into one of his golden toilets at his Palm Beach, FL resort, and playing golf. Because that’s what winners do, right?

And lie about practically everything. He’s a liar, so that almost goes without saying.

He deceived the American public – or, at least attempted to deceive the American public – about getting a vaccination against COVID-19 before leaving the White House.

• Trump Received COVID Vaccine at White House in January
by Alayna Treene, March 1, 2021

• Trump Privately Received The Coronavirus Vaccine While He Was President In January
by Oma Seddiq, March 1, 2021, 3:30 PM

• Trump Vaccinated In January After Claiming He Was ‘Immune’ To COVID-19
by Jemima McEvoy, March 1, 2021, 03:34pm EST

• Donald And Melania Trump Received COVID Vaccine At The White House In January
by Jim Acosta and Caroline Kelly, Updated 5:04 PM ET, Mon March 1, 2021

• Trump Received COVID-19 Vaccine at White House in January, Sources Say
by Weijia Jiang, Arden Farhi, March 2, 2021 / 7:08 AM /

• Trump Got Vaccinated Secretly, Because Otherwise He Might Have Helped the Country
by Ryan Bort, March 1, 2021, 7:19PM ET

• Trumps Received COVID-19 Vaccines at White House in January
by Brooke Singman, March 2, 2021

• Trump Received COVID Vaccine at White House in January
by Alayna Treene, Updated March 1, 2021

• Donald & Melania Trump Face Backlash For Getting COVID Vaccine After Claiming Virus‘Isn’t That Bad’
by Jason Brow, March 2, 2021 9:30AM EST

That’s what true leadership looks like, eh?

But about the a-holes who spread disease in America…

They’re selfish SOBs.

And besides that, they’re stupid.

That’s all there is to it.

Period.

End of conversation.

Read these two latest articles about the morons who sadly, are our neighbors.

Kelly Yamanouchi, of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote this recent story about the fiends who attempt to fly the friendly skies without wearing face protection:

The Federal Aviation Administration is

Idiots Abound

Idiots abound.

They can be found everywhere. And lately, they’ve been popping up as radicalized right-wing nut jobs.

Remember a dude named “Cliven Bundy”?

He’s the asshole from Nevada who owed the United States government tons of money in back-owed grazing fees and in 2014 instigated an armed standoff with Federal agents and other Federal Law Enforcement Authorities in Bunkerville, Nevada where he resided, who sought his detention over his passive-aggressive response to the matter… along with his failure to pay the Bureau of Land Management the contractually agreed-upon fees for the privilege of allowing his cattle to graze upon BLM land.

Cliven Bundy

He had been illegally grazing his cattle herd on public land since 1993.

Later, he was arrested by the FBI at the Portland International Airport while he was on his way to the Malheur fracas. He had become a patsy for the right-wing extremist movement because of Fox News incessant telecasting of the matters surrounding him, and his movements.

Yeah… THAT’s the Bundy we’re talking about. Apparently, he’s no relation to the mass murderer Ted Bundy, or of the fictional teevee character “Al Bundy” of “Married… with Children.” Though, he could be.

Turned out, he’s at least two bricks shy of a load, as well, and made this incredibly racist, bigoted remark at one of is daily “press conferences” whih was picked up by the New York Times.

Mr. Bundy recollected once driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas several years ago and at the “press conference” said:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro… and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Bundy has a stable of kids, 14 in fact, all of whom are adults. The eldest is a son named Ammon. He’s an asshole just like his father. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, you know.

Ammon Bundy

Seems that Ammon has gotten himself into more trouble.

Naturally, he’s a

Trump Talks Like A Mafioso

Complete shyster, liar, prevaricator, chiseler, swindler, cheat.

He’ll be indicted by several authorities.

This is simply more damnable icing on the corrupt cake.

The things he says, and the way he says them are purposely ambiguous, so that to even an expert witness in syntax, one would not be able to definitively say that he unquestionably stated a thing certain.

That’s how the mafioso talks. They’re deliberately ambiguous, vague, and speak in riddles and figurative language, such as “I hear you paint houses,” which means “I understand that you’re a hit man and kill people.”

Simply read what he says.

It’s as clear as a bell that he’s being ambiguous. But by the same tone, it’s equally clear what he wants.

“Something bad happened. When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.”

-and-

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state. So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.” 

Neal Katyal, a Georgetown law professor who was Acting Solicitor General in the Obama administration, said Trump’s use of language is “the way that people in organized crime rings talk. I’ve heard the extraordinary excerpts that the Washington Post has and, at least based on those excerpts, it sounds like Donald Trump is talking like a mafia boss, and not a particularly smart mafia boss at that. This is the way that people in organized crime rings talk, and you see it there.”

“This is, you know, the heart of what the abuse of power that our founders worried about so much is — it’s, you know, the idea that the government official can use the powers of his office to try and stay in office and try and browbeat other officials that disagree with them.”

“So, one question is whether or not a high crime and misdemeanor was committed, certainly the tape makes it sound like it has. The second is whether or not there has been a criminal offense and the federal code 52 U.S.C. 20511 prohibits a federal official from interfering in a state election process.”

See also: Free speech or incitement? Here’s how Trump talks like a mob boss.
Mafia members like to use ambiguous language.
By Henry Farrell
February 10, 2021 at 12:20 p.m. CST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/28/how-trump-speaks-like-mob-boss/

Note: We are reposting (with a new introduction) an article from Nov. 9, 2019, written during hearings on Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s president, as it appears relevant to this week’s impeachment trial.

“Nothing the President said on January 6th was inciteful, let alone impeachable,” the Republican Party is arguing during former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, “and in fact, President Trump urged supporters to exercise their rights ‘peacefully and patriotically.’”

Of course, Trump did not directly instruct his supporters to attack the Capitol, stop official proceedings and threaten members of Congress until they agreed to keep Trump in power, despite the election results. That is not how he talks. In the past, Trump has said that, “I did not make a statement that, ‘You have to do this or I’m not going to give you A.’ I wouldn’t do that.” We know from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen that Trump does not like to say things explicitly when they might get him into trouble. Instead, he prefers to communicate indirectly.

Cohen has said Trump “doesn’t give orders. He speaks in code. And I understand that code.” That’s the way that Mafiosi speak to each other, to avoid trouble. In my book on the political economy of trust, I discuss the oblique ways in which Sicilian Mafiosi communicate with one another and how this affects trust and distrust among them, building on the work of sociologists such as Diego Gambetta.

Popular culture shows how mobsters communicate in code when they are worried about being overheard by law enforcement, using indirect language to describe their intentions, so as to make it harder to pin responsibility on them. Similarly, Trump very possibly never said explicitly that Ukraine would be frozen out unless it helped discredit Trump’s potential election rival. Sondland’s testimony suggests that Trump tried to get Ukraine to hurt his presidential opponent through intermediaries using careful language that left no doubt what he wanted, but did so in a way that would preserve a crucial minimum of deniability.

Ambiguity makes it difficult to prove intent.

There is a reason why mob bosses prefer ambiguous language: it makes it harder to prove charges against them. The same is plausibly true for Trump. That is especially so when much of the jury (in this case, Republican senators) have strong political reasons to want to find Trump innocent. Trump has made a very successful career out of speaking in code, and ruthlessly throwing subordinates under the bus when they do what he wants them to do but then gets caught. It’s unlikely that he is going to stop any time soon.

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Trump Call to Georgia Lead Investigator Reveals New Details

by Cameron McWhirter
Updated March 11, 2021 10:08 am ET

ATLANTA—Then-President Donald Trump urged the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office to

Guess Which One?

Which one’s which?

Find the M-16 and the AR-15.

And, did you know?

ALL parts are interchangeable on the M-16 and the AR-15.

Every single one of them.

Why is that?

When Eugene Stoner (1922-1997) of the Armalite corporation originally designed the weapon, it was at the behest of the United States Department of Defense which sought a firearm that was lightweight (under 6 pounds) had a high-capacity magazine (30 rounds), and could penetrate BOTH sides of a steel helmet at 500 yards. It was called the AR15, for Armalite Rifle version 15. There had been several previous iterations to the rifle, all of which were intended exclusively for military use.

The .223 caliber round (the bullet, not the shell/casing) had been introduced to market and made available to the civilian market by Remington, which commercially introduced the .222 Remington as a varmint cartridge in 1950 – a round intended for pest control.

Bullets are measured in size, which is called “caliber,” and refers to its diameter/circumference, and weight, which is measured in “grains.” So, a 60 grain bullet would weigh 3.887935 grams.

Sometimes also called “ball ammo,” bullets so described are lead bullets completely covered with metal, also known as FMJ, or Full Metal Jacket. Unlike hollow point bullets – bullets which have a hollowed-out center – ball ammo/FMJ bullets do not expand upon impact. Instead, they penetrate a target and quite possibly even penetrate the object behind the target.

There are also numerous varieties and shapes of ball ammunition which range from “boat tails,” flat nose (sometimes called dum-dum bullets), and ones with truncated cones. Each shape has a specific use, but all are made for one purpose in mind: Penetration.

Though the years, the development of the .223 caliber round, and the Armalite Rifle proceeded. The military was increasingly interested in both.

In 1957, events began to accelerate with development of both. Eugene Stoner had developed a rifle called the AR-10 in response to the Army’s request for a “small-caliber, high-velocity” (SCHV) cartridge – the entire shell casing and round, filled with gunpowder, a primer, and bullet. And that year, the Infantry Board had agreed upon the preliminary specifications, which called for a 6 pound, select-fire .22″ rifle with a conventional stock and a 20 round magazine. The proposed chambering had to penetrate the standard issue steel helmet, body armor, and a .135″ steel plate at 500 yards, while maintaining the trajectory and accuracy of M2 ball from a M1 Garand, and equaling or exceeding the “wounding” ability of the .30 Carbine.

In January 1963, just as the Vietnam “conflict” was simmering slightly below a boil, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the AR-15 adopted to replace the M14 which had been the standard issue infantry rifle, and standard issue for all branches of service for several years. His decision was based upon

ERCOT To Be Sued Into Oblivion

What’d I tell you, eh?

Just a matter of a few days ago, on Thursday, February 18, 2021, in an entry entitled “Details On Texas’ Electrical Power Grid Production Problems,” I wrote in part that,

“It would not be too far-fetched to imagine (unless the Texas State Legislature asserted otherwise, and chose not to protect the people, but industry instead), that in the future, if such deliberate failures to act to prevent catastrophic loss in Texas – primarily as loss of human life, but property loss, as well – would be subject to litigation by others against the offenders – that being the entire spectrum of participants, ranging from  Power Generators, Investor-Owned Utilities aka Retail Electricity Providers, and ERCOT as the esrtwhile ne’er do well pseudo-manager, and perhaps even the Public Utility Commission of Texas for allowing it all to happen under their watchful eyes.

“Ultimately, of course, the responsibility lies with Texas politicians who have horrifically and bitterly failed their constituents… again, and in magnificently resplendent fashion – making this catastrophic fiasco their magnum opus of failure.

“And there is precedent for the same. Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE), the primary electrical utility and NatGas service provider for California, was sued recently, and consequently filed bankruptcy because of the sheer volume of lawsuits filed citing PGE’s deliberate failures to act in a preventative manner to secure their power lines to prevent fire, which in turn caused massive wildfires in the state. To assert that affirmative corporate responsibility is somehow tortuous or onerous to justice or jurisprudence is beyond the scope of the pale. And ERCOT is a well-known name in Texas.”

And, have you noticed?

The ERCOT website, ERCOT.com has remained off-line for several days, and at last check, moments ago, remained off-line.

Fortunately, however, there is a thing called the “Internet Archive” which has a “Wayback Machine” that caches and “makes images” (copies) of websites worldwide. So the ERCOT website isn’t truly gone… even though they might wish it to be.

But ERCOT and Entergy… deserve to be punished for their failures.

The buck stops here.

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$100M Lawsuit Alleges Negligence By Power Company, Grid Operator Led To Texas Boy’s Death During Winter Storm

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/539798-100m-lawsuit-alleges-negligence-by-power-company-grid-operator-led-to

The family of an 11-year-old boy who died in the freezing Texas weather last week has filed a lawsuit against the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and power company Entergy, alleging that gross negligence led to the child’s death.

Local Houston news station KHOU reports that the family of Cristian Pavon has filed a lawsuit and is represented by attorney Tony Buzbee.

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Family of Conroe boy who died during winter storm suing ERCOT, Entergy for $100M

The lawsuit alleges gross negligence by the power grid operator and the electricity provider, saying it led to the death of 11-year-old Cristian Pavon.
Published: 7:24 PM CST February 20, 2021
https://www.kens5.com/article/weather/11-year-old-found-dead-after-freezing-cold-night-in-a-conroe-mobile-home-with-no-power/285-4781bcb9-6643-4224-8b5b-c1fc5c725b61

CONROE, Texas — A Conroe family whose young son died during the winter storm has enlisted to help of high-profile attorney Tony Buzbee in their lawsuit against ERCOT and Entergy.

The lawsuit alleges gross negligence by the power grid operator and the electricity provider, saying it led to the death of 11-year-old Christian Pavon.

The boy died Tuesday after spending the night in his frigid mobile home that lost power.

The lawsuit says Christian died of hypothermia, and the family is asking for more than $100 million in damages.

Medical examiners have not yet released his cause of death.

Entergy released the following statement on the lawsuit:
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community. We are unable to comment due to pending litigation.”

ERCOT also released a statement:
“We haven’t yet reviewed the lawsuits and

Donald V. Watkins, Sr. Is A Convicted Federal Felon

Update: Saturday, 20 February 2021
NOTE: TO THE READER: As you read any story anywhere mentioning, involving, or written by Donald V. Watkins, Sr., it must be borne in mind that he is now a Federal Convict, and along with his son, Donald V. Watkins, Jr., was found guilty of numerous charges.

“Donald Watkins Sr. was convicted of seven counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy.
Donald Watkins Jr. was convicted of one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy.”

As of the date of this note, he is in Federal Custody at