According to sources, Hernandez came forward to confess his crime. According to some, he has cancer and is facing marital problems. According to police, Hernandez worked at the bodega that Patz visited when he went to go buy a soda. That store was right near Etan’s apartment, the very area that was searched last month. According to what we know, Hernandez has confessed to the crime of strangling Patz after he was lured down into the basement. Afterwards, Hernandez threw Etan’s remains into the trash. Hernandez has been a suspect in the past, and apparently has confessed to several people, but only just now come forward to the police.

Back in 1979, prosecutors identified Jose Antonio Ramos, a child molester, as the criminal. Ramos is currently serving jail time for molesting children, and is scheduled to be released in November 2012.

What makes the Patz story so remarkble is that he was the first child to appear on milk cartons across the country.

Now, in their “cost cutting” zeal, Congressional Republicans want to deep-six this “between the census” program, which has been around in varying forms since the 1850s. The survey helps define the best ways for the government to spend over $400 billion in funds for so-called “social programs” from heating assistance to job training.

Last week, the Republicans in the House voted to eliminate the survey. Daniel Webster, a first-term Republican from Florida, said “This is a program that intrudes on people’s lives, just like the Environmental Protection Agency or the bank regulators. We’re spending $70 per person to fill this out. That’s just not cost effective, especially since in the end, this is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey.” Let’s just ignore the fact that statisticians say random surveys are the most scientific of all.

Every year, about three million households participate. The survey gathers information about demographics, habits, languages spoken, occupation, health care and insurance, housing situation, ages, disabilities, education levels, income, a whole range of factors that impact and shape our lives. The survey does not ask about political affiliation or opinions on political subjects. It is just the nuts-and-bolts of living and surviving, thriving or barely getting by. And, I’m sorry to disagree with Mr. Webster, but the woman who was taking the survey sure wasn’t being paid $420 an hour for her time with my family. So, who wrote to their Congresspersons and objected to the survey? Technically, participation is mandatory. But it was not presented to us that way. The woman who took the survey did not mention penalties or fines for not participating, she just explained what the survey was for and how it helped the community.

The Repubs like to cite the question about flush toilets as offensively intrusive. It is used to assess groundwater contamination in areas where there are no sewer systems (and no laws like Vermont’s that specify where septic systems can be placed.) It helps assess the possible need for a sewer system to be extended beyond its present limits to include newer development.

And in the most egregious aspect of the stupidity of the Repubs, most of the questions on the survey were generated because of laws passed by Congress, including the newest ones about computers and internet access, which was specifically requested by Congress in 2008. Mr. Webster himself cites the survey in posting to his constituents on his Congressional webpage.

It seems that Speaker Boehner, who used to hand out lobbyist checks on the floor of the House in his early days, forgot to instruct his caucus as to who they actually represent.

McDonalds does not count steeples to determine where they will site a new store. They use the American Community Survey. Retail chains use it. The United States Chamber of Commerce uses it. In fact, anyone with half a brain, in both business and government, uses it. You can probably cite instances in your own community where someone did something totally stupid…like my city deciding it wanted to put a methadone clinic up at the hospital, when most of the need is on the other side of the city. Those are the people who didn’t use the survey, the ones with less than half a brain.

In addition to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Home Builders are screaming over this ridiculous idea to end a survey that so many of their members depend upon. So are economic development organizations, state education departments that determine where to site community colleges and what programs to offer, factory owners who want to locate where there are available employees with the needed educations and skills.

But, in typical Tea Party blindness, Rep. Webster insists that “What really promotes business in this country is liberty, not demand for information.”

Really?

Businesses need information. Without knowing where the customers are, they don’t know where to locate their businesses. Without knowing where the customers are, they don’t know how to target their advertising. Without knowing where the workers are, they don’t know where to locate their factories.

Governments and community assistance groups need information. Without knowing where the people with no health insurance are concentrated, they don’t know where to locate free or assisted clinics. Without knowing where the uninsulated houses are, they don’t know where to target their information about weatherization projects and loans. Without knowing where the children are, they don’t know where to locate a day care facility. Everything from bus routes to zoning to border crossings to the development of broadband capability and placement of cell phone towers depends on information generated by the American Community Survey.

Webster and his anti-government allies are even claiming that the survey is unconstitutional. The actual census is called for in the Constitution, and the courts have ruled that the ACS is also constitutional. It might be nice if some of these tea party folks learned to read and how to research the law and court rulings.

The fact is, Webster is part of the right wing anti-government faction that joined government to dismantle it, and the people who oppose this survey are the same kind that killed a census taker in 2010 – people who believe the whole extreme end of the right wing that preaches how the government under any Democrat is going to take away your guns and your rights, even though it was a Republican administration that crafted and forced the Patriot Act which really did take away our rights, and it has been every Republican president since Nixon who has authorized the domestic spying capabilities of intelligence agencies, after the Democratic presidents voided them. The problem isn’t the intrusiveness of the survey, it’s the culture of fear of the government that the right wing nurtures and Republicans take advantage of to get votes.

Some people are suggesting that the survey be made purely voluntary, but a voluntary survey would generate bad data and probably result in whole swaths of the country never being surveyed. Whether or not there is a compromise on the House bill is entirely up to the Senate and Majority Leader Harry Reid. There would be worse things in the world than Reid deciding to shelve this bill. Just think about it….with most of the business community supporting the survey, it certainly wouldn’t hurt the Democratic Party to show who really supports business in this country.

Related articles

• Congressional Threat to Every Investor, Business Owner and Citizen(ritholtz.com)

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• Republicans Declare War On Accurate Economic Data from Calculated Risk(jhaines6.wordpress.com)

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• The GOP’s anti-research agenda (maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com)
• News Analysis: The Debate Over the American Community Survey (nytimes.com)
• Republicans Declare War On Accurate Economic Data (businessinsider.com)
• Operating in the Dark (nytimes.com)
• Government by Paranoiacs: The U.S. Census Edition (mikethemadbiologist.com)
• House attack on survey is nonsensical (mysanantonio.com)
• Census savings would put us on track for big waste (kansascity.com)

A Classic Tennessee Walker

Soft drink maker Pepsi said yesterday that it was dropping sponsorship of the prestigious Walking Horse National Celebration, one day after ABC News broadcast footage from an undercover investigation conducted by the Humane Society of the United States.

The video showed several types of torture used to train Tennessee Walking horses, to create pain in the front hooves to cause the horse to lift its front legs high and touch them to the ground only briefly. This is a process called “soring” a horse, essentially making its feet “sore”, and has been illegal for over 30 years.

Show horse with padded shoes

In addition to soring, there are the “legal” shoes, which also encourage the horse to pick its feet up. The most common of these is the “padded” shoe. The pads force the horse to pick up his front feet and throw them in front of him in order to walk. They also make him stand at an unnatural angle and stress all kinds of things in his legs and back. Keep in mind that the horse must wear them all the time. He can never take them off and get comfortable after a long day. These horses almost always are stall-bound.

Plantation Shoes

This is followed by the Plantation Shoe. Lots of Walking Horse owners think that it’s okay to have these shoes. These shoes weigh between 3 and 5 pounds EACH. The effect is similar to the pads. Both of these practices are acceptable.

Unfortunately, because chemical and mechanical soring is difficult to catch, the practice remains among a substantial portion of professional trainers. For them, winning a show isn’t about the blue ribbon or the prize money; it’s about the millions of dollars in stud fees or foal sales from a champion horse.

The abuse is long-lasting in a psychological sense. Even years after retiring from the show circuit, these horses may still think their front hooves are “heavy”, and pick them up accordingly. They may shy away from items that were used to torture them, or from having their feet handled, or from a particular gender of human. They may be intractable. They may be sick. Yes, sick. Most of the chemicals used on horses cause permanent deep-tissue damage, and long exposure can damage their overall health, if not kill them.

Chemicals being applied

An animal rights activist went to work in a horse barn and secretly taped the abuse in March and April, 2011. It shows the horses being beaten with wooden sticks and poked with electric cattle prods. The horses’ ankles were slathered with caustic chemicals and ankles wrapped with plastic to amplify the pain. One horse can be heard moaning and crying from the pain as a pair of handlers try to force the horse to its feet.

You can watch the ABC News Nightline Report here. Warning: the clips from the undercover video are very graphic and disturbing.

Related articles

• Pepsi Drops Tenn. Horse Sponsorship (abcnews.go.com)
• Horse Community Reacts to Shocking Video of Horse Abuse (wreg.com)
• Horse Training Abuse Case Gains Momentum as PepsiCo Pulls Support from Shows (rtfitchauthor.com)

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (with thanks to Creative Commons)

Originally published May 10, 2012

The Department of Justice has finally gotten tired of trying to be co-operative and rational in dealing with Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. They are going to sue him.

The DoJ had to find a way to deal with hundreds of complaints about racial discrimination in the Sheriff’s Office, ranging from vigilante sweeps of “illegals” to racial profiling to failure to investigate crimes committed against Hispanics. They tried to find a way to work out these problems without shutting down the Sheriff’s Office and turning law enforcement in Maricopa County over to the Federal Marshal’s Office or the National Guard, which is the most extreme response to a corrupt law enforcement agency. But Arpaio has fought them tooth and nail all through the investigation and is resisting the least intrusive involvement of the DoJ in “his” department.

So, it is time to prove to Joe Arpaio that it is not “his” department, but the law enforcement agency of the people of Maricopa County and that includes the Hispanic population. Maricopa County is 58.7% white and 31.7% Hispanic and Native American. Arpaio has chosen to be the Sheriff of the 60% at the expense of the 30% and that is both unethical and illegal.

The agreement the DoJ originally reached with Arpaio called for training for deputies in how to make constitutional traffic stops, how to collect data on people arrest in traffic stops, how to rebuild the department’s relationship with the Hispanic community, an essential factor in fighting drug smuggling and distribution. Arpaio was supposed to reopen over 400 rape and sexual assault cases involving Hispanic women and children, and make arrests. There was supposed to be a court-appointed monitor to make sure that the training was carried through in daily implementation.

Arpaio refuses to permit the monitor. He says it would demean his authority by putting every decision through the monitor instead of being issued by him. It has also been revealed through audio tapes of his speeches outside of Arizona that he has no intention of complying with the DoJ or pulling back on any of his racist policies.

The DoJ informed Arpaio’s lawyer on April 3^rd that the refusal to accept the court monitor was a deal breaker, and on May 9^th, Assistant U. S. Attorney General Thomas Perez notified Arpaio’s lawyers of the DoJ’s “intent to file civil action.” Perez, head of the DoJ Civil Rights Division, filed its findings with the Maricopa Sheriff’s Office more than 100 days earlier, and Arpaio’s lawyers have ignored requests for meetings since February.

Arpaio came out swinging, as always. At a news conference, he accused the DoJ of breaking off communication. “If they sue, we’ll go to court, and then we’ll find out the real story…They’re telling me how to run my organization. I’d like to get this resolved, but I’m not going to give up my authority to the Federal government. It’s as simple as that.”

He may be running out of time to bluster and fume at Federal authority. Arpaio is implicated in a conspiracy to investigate and bring criminal charges against his political opponents. His co-conspirator has been disbarred. Civil suits have been filed and criminal charges are being debated. And then there’s the election in November.

The citizens of Maricopa County must decide if backing Joe Arpaio is still in their best interests. It’s been kind of exciting to be the home of “America’s toughest sheriff” and have television shows and fading movie stars highlighting Arpaio’s work. But what is being showcased now is not flattering to Maricopa County, particularly the idea that the Sheriff’s Office refused to investigate charges of child sexual abuse in the Hispanic community because Arpaio hates Hispanics and doesn’t give a damn what happens to them. In Pima County, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has proven that all Arizonans don’t share Arpaio’s racist hatred, and his department vigorously investigates crimes against Hispanics, even as right wingers like Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly call for his recall for being a “leftist activist.” Arpaio, who will shortly turn 80, is seeking re-election this fall. The voters of Maricopa County can put their county out of its misery or they can support this corrupt, racist, strutting peacock who thinks Maricopa County is his personal kingdom and he has no obligation to abide by the Constitution of either Arizona or the United States.

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• Investigation Hits Sheriff Joe By Tangent(lezgetreal.com)

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• The U.S. v. Joe Arpaio: Justice Department Sues Arizona Sheriff for Racial Profiling of Latinos(democracynow.org)

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• Overheard on CNN.com: ‘I stand with Joe Arpaio,’ reader says about lawsuit(news.blogs.cnn.com)

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• Feds: We’re Taking Sheriff Joe to Court (newser.com)
• Kristian Ramos: Who Still Stands With Sheriff Joe Arpaio? (huffingtonpost.com)

Christopher Hecker

Originally published May 8, 2012

Sooner or later, one of Ted Nugent’s followers would hit the big time.

Last month, Turner Corp., the parent company of CNN received an interesting e-mail. It read, in part, “I sent a bomb threat to the White House today and to several radio stations. Sooner or later I will grab someone, maybe in the woods, on the trail, and beat the life out of them. He [Obama] is the one that is destroying patriotism in the U.S.A. Ted Nugent is right. So, Obama is allowing me to be tortured to the point that I may murder someone, rather that deal with the mess he made. Your president is a coward.”

The author of this and several other threatening e-mails, Christopher Hecker of Waynesboro, Virginia, was arrested outside the Waynesboro Public Library where he had been using their computers to send the e-mails. He threatened to bomb the White House, hotels, the Philadelphia City Hall, and the World Trade Center site. The e-mails were sent to a variety of media outlets.

Hecker was arraigned in Federal Court in Harrisonburg, Virginia, on Friday. At the hearing, Hecker said he was going to plead “no contest” to the charges and wanted to be immediately given the death sentence. The judge ordered a psyche evaluation on him.

Now, didn’t we say at the time of Nugent’s NRA rant that there was probably some lunatic who would take him seriously? Okay, Nugent, if you really want to convince us that you were just being rhetorical, how about you volunteer to pay this poor man’s legal costs?

Related articles

• Virginia man accused of threatening to kill President Obama (rawstory.com)
• Man accused of Obama threats (timesleader.com)
• Virginia man accused of threatening to kill President Obama | The Raw Story (tribuneofthepeople.com)
• Army Cancels Ted Nugent Concert After Threatening Remarks (towleroad.com)

Marissa Alexander reacts to her sentence

Last week Marissa Alexander, a mother of three, was sentenced to 20 years for three counts of aggravated assault with a weapon with no intent to kill. The charges against her, for which she was convicted by a jury in March of this year, arose out of a confrontation between Alexander and her husband at the time, Rico Gray, in August of 2010, nine days after giving birth to her six-week-premature daughter.

Gray has a history of domestic violence. He was arrested in both 2006 and 2009 on domestic battery charges (against another woman and then Alexander). Alexander had a court-issued protection order in place against him. He also had such an order against her, which rather begs the question of why he was in her house that day in August 2010.

Alexander alleged that Gray found text messages on her cell phone from her first husband, Lincoln Alexander. Gray became enraged, choked her and threatened to kill her, “If I can’t have you, nobody will.”

After breaking away from him, Alexander ran into the garage and found her escape thwarted by a jammed garage door. She needed her cellphone and another exit to escape, so she grabbed her handgun out of her glove compartment and returned to the house.

Gray moved to stop her. Feeling in fear for her life, Alexander fired a warning shot into the ceiling near Gray and his two children who were with him. No one was shot or injured.

Mr. Gray admitted in his deposition that he threatened his wife’s safety on the day she fired the gun into the ceiling. He also admitted that Ms. Alexander never aimed her gun at him (or his two children who were also present). According to Mr. Gray, after she told him to leave her house and he refused, she discharged the gun into the ceiling and no one was hurt. He later called the police and told them what had happened. Ms. Alexander was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault (one count related to her husband, and two more for her stepsons).

Last year the trial judge rejected a motion by Alexander’s attorneys to dismiss the case as a “Stand Your Ground” situation. The judge rejected her justifiable use of deadly force plea because she had returned to the house, placing herself back into the threatening situation. She said Alexander could have fled the scene (through the bedroom window?). Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law says that a person does not have a duty to retreat; that is why it is called “Stand Your Ground”.

State Attorney Angela Corey (Getty Images via @daylife)

State Attorney Angela Corey’s office, which prosecuted the case, confirmed that she was offered a 3-year prison sentence plea deal, but Alexander chose to take her case to trial. If the name’s familiar, that would be because Corey is the prosecuting attorney in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. In that case, George Zimmerman is charged with second degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, after Zimmerman left his vehicle against the advice of the police dispatcher he was speaking with and confronted Martin, who he suspected of being a thief casing homes in the neighborhood. Zimmerman is also planning to present a “Stand Your Ground” defense, which Corey has said will not fly in that case, either.

In sentencing her last week to the state-required minimum of 20 years in prison, the judge reiterated that she could have fled the scene, retreating from the threat, instead of firing that warning shot and placing two children in jeopardy.

OPINION

It seems that the judiciary in Florida is not consistently applying their “Stand Your Ground” law. There have been numerous cases thrown out based on that law, but there are other judges, like the one in Alexander’s case, who are using the older, more common interpretation of self-defense. In that interpretation, the person in fear for their life should flee if possible; that the person doing the threatening should have physically initiated the confrontation (thrown the first punch, etc.) and that there was truly no other option available to the defendant but to fire their weapon or take a swipe with a knife.

Unfortunately for Alexander, she had escaped as far as the garage. She did not have to return to the house; she could have stayed in the garage with her gun and waited for Gray to either leave or come after her. If he had her backed into a corner and was continuing to threaten her, then she would have had a better chance of claiming justifiable use of deadly force.

Of course, I have yet to meet any battered woman who is thinking rationally when that final confrontation happens, when they are truly in fear for their life. In Alexander’s mind, she needed those keys to get her far enough away from that man to feel safe. Gray claims she came back with the gun to shoot him in anger, not out of fear. Apparently no one pointed out that anger is a frequent result of fear.

better days

Related articles

• Florida woman sentenced to 20 years in controversial warning shot case – CNN (edition.cnn.com)
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The two are set to be tried as adults. According to attorney Tommy Maddox “He was just violated in every way you can imagine.” Forensics indicate that the allegations have merit, and it appears to have not been the first time that the student was assaulted by the two teens as they allegedly went on for months, but the ten-year-old boy was too afraid to report the attacks.

Troy Newman, President Operation Rescue

Operation Rescue in Kansas has received records from the Central Family Medicine clinic which the clinic says were discarded in a locked trash bin. They say the records involve abortions and treatments for 86 women and minors treated at the clinic in April and were “improperly” disposed of by the clinic, and were handed over to the anti-abortion group by an activist.

Clinic officials have notified the Kansas City police and the FBI of the break-in and theft last week.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman told the Kansas City Star that the records are being kept in a secure location and have been offered to state officials. He assured the press that his group has no intention of making the records public. He did not say why his organization has held on to them and did not turn them over to the authorities immediately, or advise the authorities of the identity of the thief. Operation Rescue is guilty of receiving and retaining stolen confidential medical records, and aiding and abetting a felon after the fact.

If Kansas law enforcement won’t arrest and prosecute all those at Operation Rescue who were involved in this crime, it is up to the FBI and the Justice Department. These records are covered under Federal law, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 covering patient rights to confidentiality.

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Authorities do not know Ready’s motives, but did recover two handguns and a shotgun from the scene. Ready committed suicide. The youngest of the victims was a girl between the ages of one and two. According to AZ Central “The shootings occurred sometime after 1 p.m. in a residential area in the 500 block of West Tumbleweed Road, near Warner and Cooper roads.”

Police Sergeant Balafas noted that the youngest victim was still alive when they arrived and was transported to Maricopa Medical Center where she was pronounced dead. Balafas stated “There were signs of life, that’s why we transported her. This is a domestic situation. We do have a witness that our investigators are interviewing.”

Mesquite Junior High School and Gilbert Elementary School were both placed on a modified lockdown. Classes occurred as normal, but students were not allowed to leave and no one was allowed to enter the buildings until about 2pm.

Attorney Eric Holder and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announcing arrests

Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have announced the arrest of 108 persons in every aspect of health care who have defrauded the Medicare system of upwards of $455 million. The arrests took place in Miami, Tampa, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Baton Rouge. Local news reports have added suburbs of these cities as the sites of arrests as well. This is the third, and largest, wide-spread arrest of people who have committed Medicare fraud.

In Miami, 45 defendants are accused of $159 million in false billing for home health care, mental health services, durable medical equipment, physical therapy and HIV infusions. Two defendants in Houston are charged with $62 million in false billings for home health care. In the home health care cases, the agencies which provide home health care aides paid people to claim they were receiving home health care. This one is particularly heinous. The state of Vermont has proven that paying for home health care aides, including paying relatives to provide that aid, is cheaper than keeping Medicare patients in nursing homes, and better for most patients who prefer to stay in their homes among their relatives. The spread of the use of home health care services could be a wonderful way to reduce Medicare costs, but these frauds put the whole idea at risk.

President Obama has stated repeatedly that major savings could be made in Medicare if we had a better system in place to find and eliminate fraud. The Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services are working to prove that claim.

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• FBI makes arrests in metro Detroit in nationwide crackdown on Medicare fraud (clickondetroit.com)
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• 100 charged in Medicare fraud busts in 7 cities – San Francisco Chronicle (drugstoresource.wordpress.com)

The suspects apparently had initially planned to use smoke grenades to distract law enforcement in order to give them the ability to topple financial institution signs atop highrise buildings in Cleveland, but later thought about a plot that “called for C-4 explosives contained in two improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, to be placed and remotely detonated, according to authorities.”

Finally, they settled on a plan that would have destroyed the “Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge, which crosses from Brecksville to Sagamore Hills, as the designated target. The IED drop location was reportedly under the bridge on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail near the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad Brecksville Station. “

The suspects were identified as Brandon Baxter, 20; Anthony Hayne, 35; Joshua Stafford, 23; Connor Stevens, 20; and Douglas Wright, 26. Baxter, Hayne and Wright were arrested on Monday. According to Special Agent Stephen D. Anthony “The safety of the citizens of the Northern District of Ohio is and continues to be our primary focus. The individuals charged in this plot were intent on using violence to express their ideological views. The Joint Terrorism Task Force will continue to be vigilant in its efforts to detect and disrupt any terrorism threat, domestic or international.”

Back in March, police Chief Bill Lee temporarily stepped down and Captain Darren Scott has been running the department.

According to the Orlando Sentinal:

As city manager, Bonaparte oversees the city’s police department and does not need the City Commission’s approval to hire an interim chief. However, commissioners will have to approve a compensation package.

Myers, 57, also served as chief in Appleton, Wis., and in suburbs of Chicago and Detroit. He is a 35-year law enforcement veteran. A native of Rochester, Mich., he retired about six months ago as chief in Colorado Springs. He was forced out of the job by the mayor’s desire to “change direction,” according to the city’s newspaper. Myers left following several controversies, including the arrest of two officers, one of whom was charged with molesting children.

Another controversy involved an undercover police sting at the restaurant chain Hooters.

Myers has a history of reforming problematic police departments. In 2007, he was hired by Colorado Springs after the previous police chief was run out of office for losing evidence.

Sunland Park, NM, Mayor Daniel Salina, mug shot

For months now, the Republicans have been chorkling over a locally-initiated, grossly failed attempt at a gun running sting called “Fast and Furious.” They have demanded Attorney General Eric Holder’s head on a platter, even though Holder did not come up with the plan or authorize it and called half his office liars because they have testified they didn’t know about “Fast and Furious” before it failed. The idea was to allow agents of the Mexican drug cartels to buy guns in America and with the help of both local and Mexican law enforcement, intercept the gun smuggling operation. It didn’t work. Hundreds of guns ended up in the hands of the Mexican cartels and among those killed by them is an American border agent.

But, how effective can the Federal government be in stopping drug trafficking, human trafficking and gun smuggling if a couple thousand dollars will assure that a local cop won’t be patrolling a particular road on a particular night?

For the past two years, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and every other relevant Federal agency have been engaged in a systematic investigation of and crackdown on the local officials in border towns who have been enabling criminal infiltration of our country by Mexican drug cartels and human traffickers. In some border towns, the arrests for corruption have been wide-ranging.

In Columbus, New Mexico, the mayor, police chief and 12 others were arrested in 2012. They have since pleaded guilty to assisting gun running operations. In El Paso, Texas, the tally was 28 local officials on charges of voting scandals, awarding fraudulent contracts and other corruption charges.

But so far, the prize for most corrupt town may have been won by tiny Sunland Park, New Mexico.

A complaint about the local elections led to an investigation that just kept snowballing. Two dozen felony charges have been filed against Mayor Daniel Salinas, who was elected but not allowed to take his post. Salinas told his co-defendants that he could have witnesses killed by the cartels. The mayor’s office in Sunland Park has a bit of a problem history. Salinas was appointed temporary mayor after former mayor Martin Resendiz decided to run for Congress and had to drop out after admitting he signed city contracts while drunk. Salinas won the latest mayoral election, only to be taken off in handcuffs before taking the oath of office. The city council has now appointed 24-year-old Javier Perea to be mayor pro tem. Perea’s previous job was working in a mall jewelry store in El Paso.

Sunland Park sits between El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico. It also abuts the Mexican city of Juarez. It is fairly up-scale, with a racetrack and gambling casino. The small group of people who ran the city government used their positions to build personal fortunes, mostly through illegal means.

In addition to Salinas, the city manager, public information officer, public works director, former city councilors and the former police chief have all been indicted.

The city first came to the attention of the state government in 2004 with evidence of dozens of violations of state and local law. Nothing came of the investigations, and the city’s corrupt government thought they could just keep getting away with it. Among Salinas’ crimes are allegations of trying to blackmail his mayoral election opponent with a tape of the candidate, Gerardo Hernandez, getting a lap dance. Awarding the former police chief with the chief’s job after the man convinced his sister not to run against a Salinas friend for the city council, and billing hookers, drinks and campaign videos to a $12 million fund strongarmed out of the racetrack/casino owner to help get a legitimate border crossing in Sunland Park.

The corruption investigations and arrests have been conducted very quietly. Even the mainstream media that is supposedly a big supporter of President Obama has not made a national news story about them nor linked them to the reasons President Obama’s administration is doing a far better job of securing our border than the previous administration did.

The Republicans should be careful what they wish for. Their furor over Fast and Furious has raised some serious questions about how the gun smugglers could disappear off the Federal law enforcement radar and get into Mexico with the guns. While the Republicans are busy blaming the Attorney General, there will be attention paid by the Feds to those border towns where the guns disappeared. There is no way to predict at this point how many more cities like Columbus, El Paso and Sunland Park are sitting on our Mexican border with leaders who are benefitting from the drug cartels.

If President Obama blows his own administration’s horn over success stories, he ignored or called a distorter of the truth by the right wing media. If he doesn’t, no one knows what good has come out of this administration. If the mainstream media were really on the President’s side, this story would have made all the news networks and blogs.

Related articles

• Government border town crackdowns on the rise (heraldonline.com)
• New Mexico’s Burgeoning Border Scandal (northernbarbarians.wordpress.com)
• Sunland Park: The Surprise that Keeps Surprising (northernbarbarians.wordpress.com)
• From brutality to boredom across the Mexico-U.S. border (rawstory.com)

Governor Rick Scott

The Republican Party is adamant…they are not engaged in a war on women. But no one told Florida’s Governor Rick Scott. In a move that shocked the Florida Council Againt Sexual Violence and ordinary Floridians, he vetoed $1.5 million in funding for thirty rape crisis centers in the state.

Scott’s press secretary, Lane Wright, excused the veto by saying that the rape crisis centers duplicated other state programs, such as the $6.5 million for rape prevention and sexual assault services and the $29 million for domestic violence programs. Wright said that rape victims can and do seek refuge at women’s shelters and there is no indication that the needs of rape victims are not being met.

Okay, let’s see if we’ve got this right…rape and sexual assault prevention programs are designed to prevent the crime, right? Shelters for battered women are for women who need to flee their homes, often with children, to escape beatings, right? Prevention does nothing for the victims after the fact and much of the money is for education programs. Shelters are not set up for the medical and criminal investigation needs of victims of rape. Rape victims may want to leave their homes, but it is not necessarily a case of them having no where else to go.

As it stands right now, rape victims in Florida wait anywhere from six weeks to three months for counseling services. The number of rape survivors in Florida is on the rise. The Florida Council Against Sexual Violence provided tons of data on the need for an expansion of services. The $1.5 million would be spread over 67 counties, allocated by population. Florida has a verified rate of over 12,000 forcible sexual assaults last year, with less than a third that number of arrests. The FBI usually estimates that actual rapes are only reported in 40% of cases. That would put the actual rate of sexual assaults at close to 30,000. All the Council asked for was $50 per victim to provide counseling, assistance through the legal process, family counseling, medical care assistance.

This is the same governor who has cut a billion dollars from education for Florida’s children, while handing out the requisite tax cuts for the rich.

Wright got all huffy when questioned about the veto, saying “Anyone who’s trying to say this veto is evidence of a war on women, is deliberately trying to mislead the public for political ends.”

Damn straight we are, but you guys started it.

Related articles

• FL Gov. Rick Scott Vetoes Funding for Rape Crisis Centers(littlegreenfootballs.com)

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio has never been described as a nice man, but an audio recording of Arpaio made in September, 2009, in Houston, Texas, really drives home exactly what kind of person Joe Arpaio really is…probably in line to be the most infamous sheriff since that nasty guy in Nottingham.

The speech he gave at a fundraiser for an anti-illegal immigrant group came shortly after the Justice Department started investigating allegations of misconduct brought against Arpaio’s department by the Hispanic community in Maricopa County. Arpaio ridiculed the politicians who initiated the investigation and was contemptuous of the investigators.

He bragged about not co-operating with the investigation, but promising to tone down the sweeps he conducted using a combination of his deputies and volunteers, but “After they went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite.” The audience laughed over that one. Half of the people his sweeps arrested turned out to be legal immigrants or natural citizens, but it could take days for Arpaio to release them.

Arpaio, in an interview last week, defended the speech as “strictly a speech that when I’m talking to certain groups, they like to hear what I have to say, because they know I’m under the gun.” It might be more accurate to say they like to hear how he stands up to the Feds, which is viewed as an enemy by many.

The investigation isn’t a laughing matter. The Maricopa Sheriff’s Office has been accused of not investigating rapes of Hispanic women, profiling Hispanics and harassing Hispanics. His “immigrant sweeps” violated laws. He held the people gathered up in the sweeps in outdoor pens, his personal Gitmo, and made his detainees wear pink underwear. He has been incriminated in a series of “investigations” and prosecutions targeting political opponents, using his “anti-public corruption” squad. The cases he and Andrew Thomas brought collapsed in court and Thomas has been disbarred by a state ethics committee.

At the time of the speech in Houston, Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley had been criminally charged in the Arpaio-Thomas. Arpaio told the audience, “We have already indicted one, so I am not their favorite guy. The county has cut my budget $35 million just for spite, but I’m still locking them all up. I have ways to get the job done.” Sharpley’s attorney, Paul Charlton, has listened to the tape and characterized the comment as a confession. “He is drawing the nexus himself between the budget cut of $35 million and an investigation of the Board of Supervisors. A threat to lock them up, which in fact he did.”

Arpaio also made fun of the Justice Department, boasted about kicking civil rights investigators out of his office, said that his re-election campaign received $50,000 in donations after Rev. Al Sharpton visited Arizona and suggested that he might subpoena the President to testify if a civil rights case was brought against him. This past winter, Arpaio pulled together a team of volunteers to determine that the President’s birth certificates were forgeries. He ended the speech in Houston signing copies of one of his books.

Democratic State Representative Steve Gallardo said the speech proves that “This is not about enforcing our laws. This is about going after human beings. This is about targeting elected officials. This is about, exactly, using immigrants as props or pawns in his own world.” Arpaio has turned his office into a platform to get himself titled “The Toughest Sheriff In America,” and an American “hero.” Trashing the Constitution is not heroic, its fascist.

Arpaio has only one regret about this audio tape surfacing. He says he used the wrong number for the illegals he arrested “just for spite.” Sheriff Joe now claims “It was wrong. It wasn’t 500. It was thousands.”

The Justice Department has been investigating this man for over two years. It is time to throw the Constitution at him, preferably a copy with annotations and cross-references to the Federalist Papers, very well bound in Corinthian leather on the heaviest paper available.

Related articles

• Investigation Hits Sheriff Joe By Tangent (lezgetreal.com)
• Sheriff Joe Arpaio busted mocking racial profiling of Latinos (lameducks.wordpress.com)
• AP: AZ Sheriff Played Probe for Laughs (myfoxphoenix.com)
• AP Newsbreak: AZ sheriff played probe for laughs (kansascity.com)
• Sheriff Arpaio’s Former Associate Disbarred (lezgetreal.com)

Window Sticker

Once upon a time, when food stamps were actual paper funny money, it was relatively easy to find someone who would give you cash for your food stamps so you could buy cigarettes, booze or even diapers. Of course you would lose 25-50% of the value on the transaction, but hey, that was the price of doing business.

The other common “scam” was more or less legal. If you lived in an urban area and you needed a small amount of cash, for a pack of cigs for instance, you took your food stamps and went from store to store, buying a pack of gum and getting hard cash for change. You did this until you had enough change for what you needed.

Massachusetts EBT card

Then the food stamp program went electronic, to prevent this type of abuse. Now food stamp benefits, called SNAP for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, are loaded into an EBT card (short for Electronic Benefits Transfer) that is restricted to purchase only eligible food. There is no cash involved, no ability to use the card for non-food purchases, and the benefits don’t get lost in the mail.

Pat Lu at his arraignment

Well, one inspired mini-mart operator in Quincy, Massachusetts figured out how to scam the system. Pat Lu, 48, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and fraud after police raided his mini-mart and said he was personally skimming $30,000 per month from the food-stamp debit card system. Bail was set at $100,000.

Lu was allegedly the brains behind the fraud that netted $700,000 in the past year and a half.

Police said customers would come into Lu’s store with their EBT cards. Lu would swipe the card, process a phony sale for the value on the card, give the customer 50 cents on the dollar in cash, and pocket the rest.

“The word was on the street, so to speak, that you could come to this store and cash in an EBT card,” Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley told the Patriot-Ledger.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said there were 31 arrests in Boston on Thursday, though police refused to disclose the locations. Another 21 people have been charged with redeeming their food stamp benefits fraudulently.

Related articles

• Pat Lu: Welfare Fraud Ringleader Skimming $30K Per Month (inquisitr.com)
• Our Food Stamp President: Heroin Dealer Allegedly Posts Bail With His EBT Card (tarpon.wordpress.com)
• Food Stamp Costs Up 70%, GOP Blames Expanded Criteria [The War on Welfare] (inquisitr.com)

Photo credit: AP/Brian Blanco

Just after midnight on Monday, 4/23/12, George Zimmerman left the John E. Polk Correctional Facility (JEPCF) at the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, after posting $150,000 bond and being fitted with a GPS monitoring device. His whereabouts will be monitored by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and Seminole County Probation.

Bail Bond agency

Just a quick note on bail versus bond: while his bail was set at $150,000, the amount his family and supporters actually had to raise in cash was probably only 10% of that, $15,000. That would represent the standard fee for a bail bondsman, who is actually liable for the $150,000 if Zimmerman fails to appear. “Writing a bond” is the actual process of a bondsman filing documents with the court giving his word, or bond, that the defendant will appear when scheduled.

Zimmerman’s family will have put up some kind of collateral for the bond, such as a family home. If Zimmerman disappears, and the bondsman is unable to locate and recover him, then the bond will have to be paid to the court and the collateral will be forfeit to the bondsman.

All of that is brought to you courtesy of the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. Amazing what you can learn from lighthearted crime novels.

Related articles

• Zimmerman Released on $150K Bond (abcnews.go.com)
• Zimmerman urged to keep low profile after release from jail (thegrio.com)

Wal-Mart in Merida, Mexico

Here’s the short version of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Law which was passed in 1977 – if an American company pays money or items of value to a foreign official to get any kind of preferential treatment, that’s bribery and it’s illegal. It is doubly illegal if it violates the law in the country where the bribery took place. American companies, and the Chamber of Commerce, say the law is too vague about what a “foreign official” is. The government says that if the person being paid the bribe gets his/her paycheck from the foreign government, for example an employee of a state-owned company, that is a foreign official. Companies say that bribery, or “greasing the wheels,” is necessary in some countries and any payment that simply makes a person do what they were going to do anyway, just a little faster, should not be considered an illegal bribe. Like too many laws, this one is too vague, but making it less vague welcomes accusations of over-regulating.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, apparently engaged in a considerable amount of bribery in order to build stores in Mexico, considerable as in millions of dollars over several years. The company’s top management first learned of the bribery in 2005 through information given them by their top executive in Mexico. An internal investigation was begun, without notifying the relevant Federal regulators or law enforcement in either country. The New York Times has learned that Wal-Mart’s lead investigator issued a report telling management that both American and Mexican laws had probably been violated, at which point, Wal-Mart shut down the investigation.

Twenty percent of all Wal-Mart stores are in Mexico. With 209,000 employees, it is Mexico’s largest private employer. The bribes were paid to facilitate the building of stores across Mexico. Since the bribes were paid to obtain building permits, there is no question they were paid to government officials.

Wal-Mart finally got around to notifying the Justice Department after The New York Times started investigating the situation, this past December. Wal-Mart’s big defense? Many of the “alleged activities” took place more than six years ago. So, Wal-Mart’s spokesman, David Tovar, said “If these allegations are true, it is not a reflection of who we are or what we stand for.” Yup. It is not who they are now. Siblings Jim, Alice and S. Robson Walton, along with sister-in-law Christy, have been the first-tier heirs and owners for twenty years, but, they are not in any way responsible for what the company has done in the past six years, are they? Of course not. That’s what they pay eight figures to a CEO for, so they can just lounge around and enjoy their places in the top ten of the Forbes 400 billionaires list.

Tovar also said that the company takes the law very seriously and “We are deeply concerned by these allegations and are working aggressively to determine what happened.” They have turned over the investigation to outside lawyers and accountants who are FCPA experts. It has also upgraded its executive training in Mexico.

Founder Sam Walton set a very high standard for ethics and morality in his company, as well as a commitment to selling American-made products. Since his death twenty years ago, the company has fought to balance his standards with their drive to aggressively expand across the globe. They ditched the American-made products commitment years ago.

So far, the investigations have uncovered over $24 million in bribes, and evidence that CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr., who served from 2000 to 2009, had the internal investigation in 2005 run by the general counsel for Wal-Mart de Mexico, who allegedly authorized the bribes and naturally cleared the company of any wrongdoing. Scott is the man who oversaw Wal-Mart’s expansion program.

There’s something very circular about this story breaking on the day that Chuck Colson died. One of the more famous observations about Watergate was that if the crime doesn’t get you, the cover-up will.

Related articles

• Report: Wal-Mart hushed up bribe network in Mexico(washingtontimes.com)

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• Report: Wal-Mart hushed up bribe network in Mexico(sfgate.com)

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• Report: Wal-Mart hushed up bribe network in Mexico (usatoday.com)

George Zimmerman

Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Lester has set bail for George Zimmerman at $150,000. Conditions of his release are that he cannot have any firearms, drink alcohol or use drugs. He must observe a curfew and wear an electronic monitoring device. He may be allowed to leave Florida.

He will not be released immediately, as details need to be worked out between the attorneys and law enforcement, both in Florida and wherever he intends to hide until his trial.

He apologized to Trayvon Martin’s parents in the courtroom, telling them he had not known Trayvon was unarmed.

Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio

The Arizona Supreme Court’s three-person disciplinary panel has ruled that there is evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County and three of his associates took part in a federal crime in 2009.

The ruling was a result of an investigation into the conduct of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his aide Lisa Aubuchon. The case was brought before the State Bar of Arizona almost two years ago and resulted in Aubuchon’s and Thomas’ disbarment last week. At issue was criminal investigations conducted against 14 of Arpaio’s and Thomas’ political opponents in local government. The investigation against Thomas and Aubuchon focused on their ethics, but the investigation of Arpaio focuses on the criminality of using the authority of the Sheriff’s Office to harass people for political reasons.

The U. S. Department of Justice has been investigating Sheriff Arpaio for months because of complaints about the Sheriff’s Office’s conduct with the Hispanic community in Phoenix.

The disciplinary panel took particular interest in a December 8, 2009, meeting between Thomas, Aubuchon, Arpaio and Chief Deputy David Hendershott. The panel’s ruling stated:

             “The evidence clearly and convincingly suggests that Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon, together with Chief Deputy Hendershott and Sheriff Arpaio, met on December 9, 2008, (sic) with the intention of stopping Judge Donahoe from issuing a ruling at a hearing scheduled the next day by filing criminal charges against him. That evidence is detailed in full throughout this opinion. Perhaps most telling, however, is the testimony of Sergeant Brandon Luth, who recounted Hendershott’s and Aubuchon’s reactions upon learning that the hearing had been vacated after the direct complaint against Judge Donahoe had been filed. Sgt. Luth testified that Aubuchon “looked pleased” when she mentioned to Sgt. Luth that the hearing had been cancelled. In addition, Sgt. Luth testified that when he handed the direct complaint to Mr. Hendershott and informed him that the hearing had been vacated, Mr. Hendershott uttered the word “checkmate.” This, together with all the evidence, clearly and convincingly suggests that Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon conspired to muzzle Judge Donahoe.

Were this a criminal case, we are confident that the evidence would establish this conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The panel noted that the meeting constituted a violation of federal law, which “makes it a crime to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any person in the free exercise or enjoyment of a right or privilege secured to him by the U.S. Constitution.”

The target of the Thomas-Arpaio criminal investigations were all five members of the county Board of Supervisors, four judges, the county’s top two appointed officials, a county attorney and two private attorneys. All the charges that Arpaio dug up were thrown out, either due to lack of hard evidence or rulings that the alleged crimes had taken place so far in the past that they had run out the statute of limitations. None of them were serious crimes.

Thomas and Aubuchon are appealing their disbarment. Where this ruling will fit into the Justice Department’s investigation of Arpaio. To this point, the Justice Department had agreed to substantial reforms in the Sheriff’s Office and no criminal charges. That may change now.

Arpaio is running for re-election.

Related articles

• Sheriff Arpaio’s Former Associate Disbarred(lezgetreal.com)

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• Former Maricopa County Attorney Thomas Disbarred; Compares Himself To Gandhi(jonathanturley.org)

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• Sheriff Joe Arpaio defiant as negotiations with Justice Department break down(dailykos.com)

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• Arpaio Seizes Ton Of Pot, Blames ‘Illegal Aliens’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Finally? (talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Feds Attempt to Install Embedded Monitor In Sheriff Arpaio’s Office As His Cold Case Posse Continues Their Obama Investigation (jhaines6.wordpress.com)

Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler

Defense lawyer Mark O’Mara’s office said a motion was filed under seal with the Seminole County Court requesting that Judge Jessica Recksiedler withdraw from the trial of George Zimmerman.

Recksiedler revealed at a hearing last week that her husband works with Mark NeJame, a television analyst for CNN who was contacted by Zimmerman’s family as part of their search for a defense attorney. NeJame declined in favor of commenting on the case for CNN, and referred the Zimmermans to O’Mara.

George Zimmerman with attorney Mark O'Mara

There was no immediate word on the judge’s response to O’Mara’s motion but a bond hearing is set to take place on Friday. O’Mara has said that he will ask for Zimmerman to be released on his own recognizance while he awaits trial. According to the published bail guidelines for Seminole County, Zimmerman should not be eligible for release, period, as he is charged with a capital crime.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge on May 29 and could face life in prison if convicted.

Several news organizations—including CNN, USA Today and the Miami Herald—have petitioned the court to reverse an order sealing records in the case. O’Mara told CNN yesterday that he wants the records to remain sealed, to prevent leaks that could put witnesses in jeopardy.

Related articles

• Zimmerman Judge Discloses Potential Conflicts of Interest (lezgetreal.com)
• Zimmerman asks for new judge; cites case conflict (timesleader.com)
• Media outlets seek to open sealed records in Trayvon Martin murder case (dailykos.com)

Both McCloskey, 55, and Johnston, 22, are transsexual, and both deny that they are involved in the bomb threats. According to McCloskey “We have absolutely nothing to do with (the threats), except for wanting the people who are making the threats caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Whoever is doing this is a lunatic.”

Both of them have surrendered their computers for study and will appear before the grand jury.

Johnston stated “I’m very afraid, but I’m as confident as any innocent person can be in this country.” So far, it is not clear if anyone else has been ordered to appear at the grand jury, and the coujple did not know of any other subpoenas. The US Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case.

McCloskey believed that her and Johnston’s names were given to the authorities due to an ongoing legal dispute between Johnston and the university. According to Pittsburgh Live:

The university in January expelled Johnston, a junior computer science student, from Pitt-Johnstown this year and charged him with indecent exposure after he used a men’s locker room. His birth certificate identifies him as female though he is undergoing hormone therapy.

Johnston is appealing the expulsion to Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg and is awaiting trial on the criminal charges. He said he filed a civil lawsuit and complaints with several human relations commissions against the university.

“They already had this issue going on. Why not kill an extra bird with one stone?” Johnston said.

Ganja Granny

As I sit here in Vermont, trying to figure out month to month how I’m going to pay the bills on my disability, sweet little old Darlene Mayes (73) of Oklahoma has it all figured out: become a marijuana distributor. She has been dubbed the “Ganja Granny”.

Last week police raided her home, finding 4 pounds of marijuana and $276,000 in bundled cash. Mayes told the police the cash was part of her retirement fund. Fortunately, neither she nor her son Jerry, who was also arrested, decided to shoot it out with the illegal semi-automatic pistol or the revolver she also had stashed.

Close up of high-quality bud

Investigators believe her pot-dealing network spanned four states: from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri. She utilized a network of dealers, including son Jerry, to supply up to 40% of the marijuana in that area.

Law enforcement expert Brad Garrett said, “It doesn’t surprise me that someone this age would be actively involved in marijuana distribution because there’s just too much money to be made. If they keep a low profile, they don’t talk to many people, and they don’t get greedy, they can go on for years.”

Now I know what I’m doing wrong…

Related articles

• Darlene Mayes, 73-Year-Old, Sold Pot And Had Illegal Guns In Oklahoma, Cops Say (89lp63.wordpress.com)
• Granny in Oklahoma Is Drug Kingpin – a “Pot Drug Kingpin” Is Ridiculous-go Granny Go! (bonjupatten.com)
• Katherine Mangu-Ward on Medical Marijuana (reason.com)

2012 Booking Photo

The court formally set the bail hearing for George Zimmerman, charged with 2^nd degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, for April 20^th. Attorney Mark O’Mara said that while he will seek bail for his client, he did not request his release at his initial court appearance out of concern for his safety. Considering the overwhelming number of death threats and calls for vigilante justice, this is a very real concern.

I find it very interesting that this hearing is even being held. According to the Seminole County Bail Schedule, individuals accused of Life or Capital Felonies (such as 2^nd degree murder) are ineligible for bail. I assume the only reason it is being held is pro forma – to formally deny bail.

Wonder how much money it costs to hold a bail hearing? Wonder how much money it would cost to just have it done by swapping paper – lawyer files bail request, prosecutor files his/her bail argument, judge issues judgment. Done deal, no drama, less expense.

I know, it’ll never happen that way, but I can dream, can’t I?

Related articles

• Atty: Zimmerman Bail Hearing To Be Held Next Week (miami.cbslocal.com)
• Zimmerman Bond Hearing Set; Attorney Hopes to Get Bail (fox2now.com)

Judge Jessica Recksiedler

Yesterday (4/13/12) Judge Jessica Recksiedler called a surprise hearing with Mark O’Mara, George Zimmerman’s attorney, and prosecutors from Special Prosecutor Angela Corey’s office to explain certain relationships of her husband, Jason Recksiedler.

Attorney Jason Recksiedler

She disclosed that he works for the law firm of Mark NeJame, a prominent Orlando attorney, who had been approached to act as Zimmerman’s attorney but declined to accept an offer from CNN to do commentary on the case. NeJame then provided a list of potential attorneys to the Zimmerman family, who chose O’Mara from that list.

Attorney Mark NeJame

Judge Recksiedler then gave both parties until next week to file objections, in which case she will probably recuse herself from the case. The judge said she had an ethical obligation to reveal the relationships.

Wow. Ethics.

Related articles

• Judge’s husband becomes an issue in Trayvon Martin case (thegrio.com)
• astrology and numerology for Jessica Recksiedler (George Zimmerman second-degree murder trial) (judgerecksiedler.wordpress.com)
• Judge says she may have conflict in Zimmerman case (ajc.com)

George Zimmerman, left, and attorney Mark O'Mara

Yesterday (4/12/2012) George Zimmerman appeared before a judge in a jailhouse courtroom while the prosecution presented its affidavit of probable cause for his arrest and the charge of second degree murder. The presiding judge agreed that there is probable cause to pursue the charge, sent Zimmerman back to county jail and assigned the case to Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler, a 39-year-old former assistant state attorney from Sanford who was elected to the bench in 2010.

Later in the day Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, stated that he expects a bail hearing on April 20^th of next week, and that he hopes Zimmerman will be allowed to post bail and leave jail. He answered a question about his client’s calm and erect demeanor during the earlier hearing, stating that “He is tired. He has gone through some tribulations, and he is facing second-degree murder charges now. He is frightened. That would frighten any of us.”

The preliminary hearing was not an arraignment, so Zimmerman did not enter his expected “not guilty” plea; that hearing is scheduled for May 29^th. Before then, however, O’Mara is expected to ask Judge Recksiedler for a hearing on Zimmerman’s “Stand Your Ground” defense. If the judge finds that by a preponderance of evidence the defense has shown that Zimmerman acted in self-defense, as defined by that law, she can throw the case out before it ever gets to the arraignment stage. To prove second-degree murder, prosecutors must show Zimmerman committed an “imminently dangerous” act that showed a “depraved” lack of regard for human life. The charge carries a mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison and a maximum of life.

The principle items of evidence presented as part of the affidavit are the 911 tapes of the calls between George Zimmerman and the police dispatcher. You can hear an unredacted copy of the first tape here. LezGetReal cannot warrant this as full and true, as it has passed through multiple sites before we located it, but it does not sound edited.

Related articles

• Atty: Zimmerman Bail Hearing to Be Held Next Week (abcnews.go.com)
• Prosecutors: Zimmerman Ignored Dispatcher Warning (abcnews.go.com)
• Zimmerman awaits arraignment (timesleader.com)

Jon Lovitz

There are dozens of variations on the idea of “what goes around comes around” but comedian Jon Lovitz has taken the idea into fabulous new territory.

The backstory is this: Lovitz has a friend with an adolescent daughter. Three of the daughter’s 14-year-old school mates were driven to her house one night last week by one girl’s mother. The girls used dog shit and syrup to paint swastikas and the word “Jew” on the friend’s front porch. The incident would have been bad enough under any circumstances, but this particular victim has a grandfather who was a Holocaust survivor.

Lovitz was furious. He got on Twitter, posted a picture of the mess and wrote “Swastikas in sh** left on my friend’s front porch were done by three 14-year-old girls, driven to the house by one of the girl’s mother.” He posted pictures of the girls, writing “The 3 girls who are bullying my friend’s daughter. They want to be known. Let them be famous as Jew Hater. Pls RT.”

And re-tweat they did. All 26,000 of Lovitz’s Twitter followers re-tweeted this hate.

On Monday, Lovitz posted that the three girls had been “charged with a hate incident.” It didn’t make the threshold for a crime because syrup isn’t permanent. And then, “UPDATE!!!! The three girls who vandalized my friends home with swastikas and dog crap, have been expelled from their school permanently.” The mother who drove the girls may also be charged in this “incident.”

It is brilliant, simply brilliant. When we are trying so hard to find ways to deal with bullying, Lovitz has shown the way – tweat it, show the world what is happening, show the schools and community who is doing this and to whom.

Very few students will step in to stop a bullying incident (my eldest is one of those few), but kids carry phones and those phones take pictures. Take a picture, take a video. First of all, it acts as proof should the bullied student go to the school authorities who often hide behind the “he said/she said” defense. Second, it can be tweated. Kids use social media, Facebook and Twitter, to bully, so why not turn it around and use it to out them as bullies? If someone receives a bullying tweat, re-tweat it with an addition, “See what a jerk Bill is?” – okay, get more creative. I’m too long out of the language of teenagers to offer ideas.

Lovitz used outrage, but a much stronger method is ridicule. Bullies draw their power from intimidating weaker people, not from achieving anything on their own. They draw their power from those too weak to stand up to them and who, out of fear of being a victim, cheer the bullying. A single thread is weak, but a hundred threads wrapped around each other is a rope. Lovitz did the right thing, he exposed the bullies and their crime and drew down the wrath of the community on them. Others can do the same.

Related articles

• WATCH: Jon Lovitz Takes On Teen Bullies With Twitter, Wins (huffingtonpost.com)
• Report: Girls Who Admitted To Drawing Swastikas In Maple Syrup Expelled From School (losangeles.cbslocal.com)
• Anti-Bullying Is Not Just For Kids (mommadjane.com)
• What Your Teen or Younger Child Can Do if They Are Being Bullied at School- Part 2 (familycouplescounselchino.wordpress.com)
• What Should I Do If I’m Bullied? (education.com)
• What is bullying and how does it differ in boys and girls? (education.com)
• Five Actions Parents Can Take If Their Child Has Been Involved in Bullying (education.com)
• Take a Stand With The Bully Project #cleverbullymovie #spon (formulamom.com)
• What Makes a Bully? (education.com)
• Emotional bullying (salemwitchhunt.wordpress.com)

George Zimmerman will be charged with murder in the second degree. She confirmed that Zimmerman turned himself in and is in custody. She refused to state where, she refused to answer questions about evidence, she refused to criticize the Sanford Police Department… she handled the media in a very professional manner, not giving a damned thing away that could jeopardize the court case or any other investigation that may be underway.

Angela Corey

Angela Corey

Special Prosecutor Angela Corey announced Tuesday she would hold a news conference within 72 hours presenting further information about the case

Special Prosecutor Corey announced this morning (4/11/12) that she would have an announcement by Friday evening about whether or not she would be charging George Zimmerman with a crime

Zimmerman’s lawyers, Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner, quit on Tuesday, saying that they had lost touch with their client over the weekend, and that he had contacted both the Special Prosecutor and Sean Hannity of Fox News without their knowledge or consultation

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity confirmed on his show Tuesday night that he had in fact spoken with George Zimmerman, but declined to give details of that conversation

This morning (4/11/12) Zimmerman’s former lawyers Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner stated that he isn’t a flight risk and is prepared to surrender himself if charged, in spite of saying earlier that he has left Florida and that due to his unstable emotional state he might not be in control of events (read: he’s a basket case and his family has taken control of him and have hidden him out-of-state)

US Attorney General Eric Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder, appearing before a civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton this morning (4/11/12), said of the Trayvon Martin investigation, “If we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will take appropriate action. I also can make you another promise: that at every level of today’s Justice Department — preventing and combating youth violence and victimization is, and will continue to be, a top priority.”

So, where does that leave things? The U.S. Attorney General is making the politically correct noises; the Special Prosecutor is completing her investigation and deciding if she is going to charge George Zimmerman with a crime (manslaughter would be the most appropriate charge); and Zimmerman is in the wind with no attorneys.

I do have to say that the last is the most disturbing. If Zimmerman has left the state already then he IS a flight risk. There has never been any statement from any official investigating this that Zimmerman’s location was known to them, only that he had been in touch by phone. Now he’s not talking to his lawyers, who have never met him in person, by the way.

I’m afraid that it is going to become apparent that he should have been taken into protective custody shortly after the February 26^th shooting, rather than allowing him to go into hiding on his own once the death threats started (his excuse for going into hiding in the first place). If he is charged, I have serious doubts about whether he will turn himself in… from wherever it is that he is hiding now.

Related articles

• Ex-Lawyers: Zimmerman ‘Emotionally Crippled’ From Pressure From The Case (tampa.cbslocal.com)
• Prosecutor Promises News as Zimmerman Lawyers Quit (abcnews.go.com)
• Exclusive: Trayvon Martin’s Family’s Attorney Responds as Zimmerman’s Lawyers Withdraw Counsel (newsfeed.time.com)
• George Zimmerman Goes Rogue (skydancingblog.com)

Andrew Thomas on the courthouse steps

Very old proverb – “A man is known by the company he keeps.” Well, if that one is true, the decision Tuesday by an Arizona disciplinary panel that former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas should be disbarred for abuse of power as a prosecutor says a lot about his buddy Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Thomas was Arpaio’s right hand for six years in his pursuit of persecuting political opponents. Thomas was elected County Attorney in 2004 and was re-elected in 2008. He resigned to run for State Attorney General in 2010 but lost in the Republican Primary. Thomas and Arpaio were often locked in battle with judges and local officials in their pursuit of power and control. It was those battles that led to Thomas being charged with ethics violations, and Arpaio has also been dealing with similar charges brought by the United States Department of Justice.

Thomas might appeal the decision, and he was certainly whining about how he is being persecuted. After the hearing, he said, “Today, corruption has won and justice as lost. The political witch hunt that’s just ended makes things worse by sending a chilling message to prosecutors: those who take on the powerful will lose their livelihood.” That’s not the way a lot of Arizonans view this. The reforms imposed by the DoJ on the Maricopa Sheriff’s Office and the disbarment of Thomas are cases of justice winning and corruption losing. No prosecutor or sheriff should be able to decide that a portion of the population does not deserve proper investigation of crimes or arrest of criminals while rounding up “suspects” based on racial profiling. No sheriff should be able to build his own personal Gitmo to hold thousands of wrongfully detained persons who are guilty of being the wrong race.

Arpaio, who will be 80 in June, is running for a sixth term as sheriff. The disbarment of Thomas may help convince Maricopa voters that it is past time for this power-crazed man to go.

Related articles

• Sheriff Arpaio Says He Will Co-operate With Reformers (lezgetreal.com)
• Feds Attempt to Install Embedded Monitor In Sheriff Arpaio’s Office As His Cold Case Posse Continues Their Obama Investigation (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
• Arguments Due Tuesday in Thomas Case (myfoxphoenix.com)
• Justice Department to sue Arizona sheriff after talks fall through (news.blogs.cnn.com)
• Arpaio to Doj: “i Will Not Surrender My Office to the Federal Government” (republicmainstreet.wordpress.com)
• Arpaio Suggests GOP Candidates Conspiring To Keep Obama’s Birthplace Secret: ‘How Come Everybody’s Hiding This?’ (thinkprogress.org)
• Justice Department Cancels Negotiations With Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Office Over Civil Rights Allegations (thehispanicblog.com)

George Zimmerman

George Zimmerman’s attorneys have withdrawn from the case after having not had any contact with their client for two days. According to Hal Uhrig, one of the attorneys,“On Sunday, we lost track of George, in that he would not return our calls. Craig Sonner “I’ve lost contact with him at this point.” Both have said that they felt it would be unethical for them to continue to be his lawyers.

Zimmerman has, apparently, contacted Sean Hannity of FOX News and the Special Prosecutor in the case without contact with the attorneys. Uhrig said that “We were a bit astonished.” Sonner did say that he would be willing to represent Zimmerman again if he got in touch with the lawyers. Zimmerman has been in hiding since the shooting of Trayvon Martin. It is not unheard of for lawyers to communicate with clients via the phone, but apparently Zimmerman has decided to not talk to his attorneys.

Ohio

John Reed is not denying that he shot and killed his long time partner Jeffrey E. Caldwell, but his lawyer is saying that Reed was acting in self defense. The 54-year-old “informed officers that he had been in an argument with his roommate/life partner and the argument turned violent,” according to the police. Bail has been set at $250,000.

Reed “stated (that Caldwell) had been beating him, and he was fearing for his life. He grabbed his .22-caliber revolver and as (Caldwell) cornered him in the bathtub, he shot (Caldwell),” the report says.

The Dispatch reports that:

In a 911 call reporting the shooting, Reed told a dispatcher that he had just shot his roommate because “He was killing me, he was trying to kill me.”

He later told the dispatcher that Caldwell had chased him into the bathroom and thrown him against a wall before the shooting.

Defense attorney Terry K. Sherman informed Pollitt that his client “has a better case of self-defense than George Zimmerman.” Sherman also said that Reed was being attacked and did not fire until he was cornered in the bathroom, where the police did find the gun.

George Zimmerman

The shooting death of Trayvon Martin may not have been racially motivated. George Zimmerman may have been little more than a cavalier man with a guy who fired when he should not have. The facts of the case have long since disappeared, though, into a maelstrom of racial animosity, acrimonious charges of racism, and speculation. The truth has long since fallen to these problems.

Last night, Ed Schultz on MSNBC spoke to several people about Zimmerman and the racism that has filtered up over this case.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Meanwhile, last night, that bastion of media accountability called The Daily Show took on not only FOX News’ outrage over the MSNBC botched editing for the Zimmerman 911 call, but FOX’s sudden defense of activist judges.

While Spadaccini was kept out of sight in a holding cell, his alleged victims – in school uniforms – and their parents were in court waiting for a confession that did not come.

“He needs a bullet in the head,” said one disgruntled man.

Spadaccini has been jailed on $2 million bail since being arrested Sept. 19 and charged with a battery of sex and morals crimes.

“The evidence in our case is strong, and we’ll be prepared whether the trial is now or four months from now,” Assistant District Attorney Joseph McGlynn after the hearing.

The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests or SNAP issued a statement that said:

We are hopeful that this trial will bring healing to the victims of Louis Spadaccini. It is very rare that victims of childhood sexual abuse are given a chance to have their day in court , and while it may be difficult for them to go over the sexual violence inflicted on them by this alleged predator, we remain optimistic that hearing the truth become public will prove cathartic.

These brave victims deserve applause for coming forward and protecting other children from being abused by this coach. We hope others who may have seen, suspected, or suffered crimes by Spadaccini will come forward and add their voices to those of these young men.

Apparently, a Facebook post that appears to have been written by England blamed his father’s death on a Black man. Willingham stated that “It’s apparent from the posting on the Facebook page that he had an ax to grind, and that was possibly part of the motive. If you read the Facebook post and see what he’s accused of doing, you can see there’s link between the two of them.”

There has been a rise in the number of racially or sexuality motivated crimes in the United States in the last year, and especially in the wake of certain triggers like marriage amendment initiatives and events like the Trayvon Martin slaying.

According to John Haley, 19, “It wasn’t really much of a fight. It was basically a beating. I’ve never seen anyone so mad, so violent. The kid was on a rampage.” Haley suffered a black eye, cuts and bruises while protecting his friend from the attack. The intended victim was Danny Gocha. When an SUV full of these students went by screaming out an anti-gay epithet, Gocha responded in kind. The SUV stopped quickly and the men got out and attacked Gocha and his friends.

Colorado State University football player Trey Cassidy posted on Facebook an apology saying:

“Well first off, I want to apologize for what my teammates have done to three students last night. I just talked to the students who were assaulted. I hang out in their hall regularly, and do not believe that there is any hostility between us. I figured everyone else should know that not everyone on the team are like these athletes that get into fights every other weekend. But it is this select few… that get the rest of us labeled as a group, you would assume that everyone on campus would realize this. But let’s face reality people, some people are going to label the entire team as hot headed people that can’t be trusted.”

His goal was to make sure people did not paint the entire football team with the same brush.

CSU’s VP for Student Affairs, Jody Donovan, said that the police will hand over their report once the investigation was over and that “Depending upon the results of this investigation, sanctions will be applied. Students who violate the law or university policies are held accountable for their actions. Colorado State University does not tolerate this behavior.”

Three football players were ultimately suspended for their part in the assault. Head coach Jim McElwain suspended Norly Capi, Mike Orakpo and Colton Paulhus.

No word on any suspect being caught.

Trayvon on MySpace

NBC Newsis reporting that “Special prosecutor decides not to use a grand jury in the Trayvon Martin shooting death investigation.” That tweet came down just now. It should be noted that this does not mean that there will not be a case going forward, but any case is going to be hampered by the fact that the Sanford, FL police apparently botched the investigation badly.

Turner Clayton, president of the NAACP in that area, told the Huffington Post that the Sanford police are “notorious for mishandling investigations, not doing any follow-ups on various leads, or saying that they can’t get any leads. When a victim’s loved one asks for an update, the only thing they can say is, ‘We don’t have anything now.’ Seems like they never get anything at all.”

In investigating the case, the police never checked phone records, they did not do anything more than cursory interviews, and basically, did little to actually discover if Zimmerman’s account was correct and that he had used self defense. Even as evidence shows that Zimmerman’s claim of his nose being broken does not hold up, the early missteps of the police investigation may mean that charges are never brought against Zimmerman.

The suspect stole the woman’s money and then her car. The car was found about an hour later, abandoned.

The first incident occurred on 1 April when a man was robbed after he parked in his driveway. On 5 April, a woman was robbed as she exited her car at a convenience store.

The suspect is a white male between 5’6 and 5’10.

Police have stated that such robberies are atypical in Vermont.

Francis Grady

Fifty-year-old Francis Gerald Grady has been arrested on a probation violation and charged with two federal counts for placing a bomb on the windowsill of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute Sunday night. A security camera tape led to his arrest on Monday. The Federal charges were filed on Tuesday. They consist of arson of a building used in interstate commerce and intentionally damaging a facility that provides reproductive health services.

Grady has a long criminal history, going back at least to a 2004 conviction for manufacturing and distributing cocaine, multiple bail skips, a 2011 conviction for resisting and obstructing a police officer and a similar arrest this past March.   During a court appearance on Wednesday, Grady gave the usual reason for attacking Planned Parenthood “They are killing babies in there.”

There is still work to do in assuring that the arrest leads to a conviction. The security tape is grainy. The only thing that is clear is the vehicle used by the bomber and Grady was arrested in the vehicle. The bomb broke a window and set off a small fire that had burned out before the fire department arrived. The fact that it was a Planned Parenthood clinic raised the crime from the level of a nuisance to the involvement of the FBI, the ATF and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Grady was held in the Outagamie County Jail, but with the filing of the Federal charges, he will be or has been transferred to Federal custody.

Related articles

• Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Clinic Bombed, Sort of (lezgetreal.com)
• Planned Parenthood Bomber: ‘They’re Killing Babies There’ (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Planned Parenthood Bomber May Have Attended Anti-Abortion Protests (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Very Stupid Man Who Bombed Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Arrested [Roe V World] (jezebel.com)

The AP reported that:

Police gunned down 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison, who were both unarmed, and wounded four others on Sept. 4, 2005, less than a week after the storm devastated New Orleans. To cover it up, the officers planted a gun, fabricated witnesses and falsified reports. Defense attorneys have indicated they will appeal.

The rest of the AP report can be read here.

According to the Telegraph:

One theory is that the girl’s father, a Vatican employee, had stumbled on documents that connected the Vatican’s bank with organised crime in Rome and that she was seized in an attempt to silence him. The alleged mastermind of the kidnapping was Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, the leader of the Magliana gang, Rome’s most ruthless criminal band.

He was shot dead by rival gangsters in a street in central Rome in 1990 and his body interred in a crypt in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare.

It has always been seen as highly unusual that a known mafioso should have been given the honour of being buried in a church in which popes and cardinals are interred.

Right now, it comes down to a war of word between the two sides on this one. The Vatican is denying knowing anything about Miss Orlandi’s disappearance.

The fact that the Vatican is being targeted in this investigation is significant. Unlike past years, this means that the Vatican is starting to lose some of it’s unassailability, and is now increasingly vulnerable to allegations like this one.

You can read the rest here.

Detroit Police confirmed that Coko Williams was murde3red early this morning on the 100 block of Parkhurst near Woodward and McNichols Road. She was 35 and transgender. She was shot, but details are still sketchy.

Equality Michigan’s Director of Victim Services Nursrat Ventimiglia issued a statement saying:

“We are saddened to hear of yet another life ended too soon. Our thoughts go out to Ms. Williams’ family and friends who have suffered a great loss. We urge anyone with information about Coko’s killing to contact the Detroit Police at 313-596-2260. We unequivocally offer our support to law enforcement and the community so that Coko Williams’ killers are swiftly apprehended and brought to justice.”

“It has been widely reported that the area in which this crime occurred is known for sex work. To be clear, it is unknown at this time whether Ms. Williams was engaged in sex work at the time of her killing, however, it is clear that sex workers are often targets of severe violence. Further, transgender women are far too often victims of the most severe violence. Our most recent report through the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Communities in the United States in 2010, documented 27 anti gay, transgender and HIV positive murders, the second highest yearly total ever recorded by the coalition, and transgender women made up 44% of the 27 reported murders in 2010 while representing only 11% of total survivors and victims. Among transgender murder victims, 42% of transgender women killed last year were engaged in sex work at the time of their murder. Equality Michigan and the NCAVP denounce violence against sex workers and seek to raise awareness of the violence faced by gay and transgender sex workers as well as transgender women.”

Smedley, who is 45, admitted to administering the silicone injections to women in hotel rooms in DC, Baltimore, and other cities between 2003 and 2011, when she was finally busted. She was paid more than $200,000 for the injections over that period of time.

According to the Washington Examiner “Smedley also told women who received buttocks implants that the silicone was medical grade, but it actually was meant to be used for metal or plastic lubrication, as an additive for paint or in furniture or auto polishes, court documents say.”

Smedley stored the silicone in unlabeled water jugs, and used super glue and cotton balls to prevent the silicone from leaking out after the injection. She worked with Martin Freeman, a former DC cop, who provided security at the hotels where Smedley performed her “operations”.

The police only found out about this after an exotic dancer in Baltimore was hospitalized for shortness of breath after receiving the injections. Doctors discovered silicone in her lungs. The dancer had received some nine injections in each buttocks and other injections in her hips.

Social pressures on us women do nasty, terrible things to our minds, bodies and souls. For us, the pressure to look a certain way, behave a certain way, and dress a certain way often means that we have this pressure that hurts and wounds us to the point that we end up engaging in risky behaviors that can get us killed.

For some, that pressure means we drink, or have rampant sex, or do other things which are meant to stop us from feeling bad about how we look. For others, it means having tons of plastic surgery, and if we cannot afford that- well, there’s always those like Smedley who will prey upon that.

For transsexual, transgender and intersexual women, this pressure can be far, far worse because we already have body image issues. We don’t look right in certain aspects, so we often feel even more pressure to conform to the way that society says that we should look as women. We want to get rid of any hint of maleness in our bodies, and that often means taking extreme measures.

Women come in all shapes and forms. Like all the women in my immediate family, I am curved and a bit on the well built side. I’m taller than my family, but not the tallest of the whole family. My great-grandmother would have been taller than I am. She was 6 foot tall.

The time has come that we start rejecting the whole idea of women being forced into Fembot moulds and allowed to be ourselves. Then, perhaps, people like Smedley won’t prey on women’s insecurities any more.

ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In an operation that covered all fifty states, Puerto Rico and The District of Columbia, over six days, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency arrested 3,168 persons criminal aliens and fugitives. This was the largest “Cross-Check” operation to date.

There were 559 “re-entrants” among those arrested. These are people who have been deported in the past and who crossed back into the United States.

The Obama administration has put a major effort into creating cross-jurisdictional information sharing, the ability to quickly identify illegals who have been arrested on criminal charges. These “Cross-Check” operations are a consequence of that effort.

The administration has focused on deporting those who commit crimes beyond being here illegally. The numbers are confusing and somewhat conflicting. What matters is the 1,477 arrested who had felony convictions for murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, terrroristic threats, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against children and aggravated assault; the 698 who had been ordered deported but never left and the “re-entrants.”

There are an estimated eleven million illegal immigrants in America. The shift in focus from doing round-ups of illegal workers to targeting criminals is not intended to let illegals off scot free, but to remove from our country those illegals who pose a threat to our safety first.

Here in Vermont, three criminal aliens were arrested. It is estimated that we have around a thousand illegals in Vermont working on our dairy farms. Not only did Dubya kill the New England Dairy Compact that gave price support to small dairy farmers, but when the guest worker program was implemented, dairy farms were not allowed to hire foreign workers on 9 month visas. We routinely bring in foreign workers for our apple crop, with one orchard having contracted the same dozen Jamaicans for years now, but not one single person can be brought in to work the cow barns. It’s nice to have ICE verify that our dairy farmers have been very responsible about who they hire, especially since our state government has decided on a hands-off policy for these farm workers.

Related articles

• Immigration sweep arrests 200 in Northern California (mercurynews.com)
• Rural round-up (homepaddock.wordpress.com)
• Officials tout record roundup of ‘criminal aliens,’ Obama immigration policy – Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)
• 3,100 arrested in nationwide immigration enforcement sweep (ajc.com)

Planned Parenthood rally

The bomb was placed on a windowsill on the exterior of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. It went off around 7:30 Sunday night, after the clinic was closed and when no one was around. By the time the fire department arrived, the fire had burned itself out. The damage pretty much consisted of a busted window and some minor damage to an examination room. The clinic will be open on Tuesday.

The bomb was home-made and was constructed of a plastic bottle filled with “agents of an incendiary quality.” The clinic had not reported any threats to the police.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum weighed in on the bombing, saying, “While we can and should work to defund Planned Parenthood and push back against government mandates that force Americans and religious institutions to violate their faith, violence against our fellow citizens has no place in a freedom-loving America.” Thanks so very much, Saint Rick. It is the Republicans who have spread the lie that Planned Parenthood’s primary business is abortion, which has fueled the movement to defund it. Planned Parenthood’s business is women’s health, from breast cancer screenings to family planning. Defunding it, closing Planned Parenthood’s clinics, will have a devastating impact on women across the country, and particularly on lower-income women.

This bombing, as inept as it may have been, is a warning for all Planned Parenthood facilities. They need to arrange for better security, surveillance cameras, motion detectors, whatever it takes to protect themselves. They are the new target instead of individual abortion doctors and their offices or in addition to those older targets. Too many have died already to preserve a legal medical procedure. Planned Parenthood cannot and must not think that even though their principle business is women’s health, they would not be attacked.

Related articles

• Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Clinic Damaged in Bombing (dokmz.wordpress.com)
• Explosive Detonated At Planned Parenthood Clinic In Wisconsin Last Night (thefrisky.com)
• Planned Parenthood In Wisconsin Bombed (thinkprogress.org)
• Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Clinic Firebombed (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Ineptly Bombed [Planned Parenthood] (jezebel.com)

According to a quote printed in the LA Times from the university’s website, Oikos “was established specifically to serve the community of Northern California in general and San Francisco and Oakland areas in particular. Oikos University was launched to provide highest standard education with Christian value and inspiration.”

It goes on to say “Oikos University has a very specific goal and mission to offer education programs in the area of religious studies, music, and vocational nursing in that we motivate, educate and equip students in such a way that they will be able to live enriched life by fulfilling their goals in life and serve the community with their learned professions and skills.”

Addendum:

It has been reported now that the police are evacuating students form Oikos via armored vehicles. At least five people have been shot in the attack. The shooter is being described as a tall Asian male. There was one fatality at least.

Addendum 2:

An officer with the police reported that they could not confirm the number of fatalities to wounded. The reports of five wounded, one dead are not certain, and they are still searching for the gunman, and they are not sure if he is in the buildings or if he has already fled. They are prioritizing evacuation of wounded and standing.

Addendum 3:

Two have been confirmed dead. One person has been detained, but it not clear if this is the shooter or not.

Addendum 4:

Suspect is in custody. Reports are that as many as five people may have been killed in the shooting.

Addendum 5:

Six people were killed in the shooting. the suspect is in custody.

Ryan Cleary and his solicitor Karen Todner

Karen Todner, attorney for the 19-year-old Briton Ryan Cleary who was arrested last year for his involvement in LulzSec hackings has verified to the press that her client is back in custody. Cleary broke the terms of his bail and accessed the internet to communicate with American LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur over Christmas. One message might be a holiday greeting, multiple ones are harder to explain.

Cleary was re-arrested by London’s Metropolitan Police on March 5. On March 6, the FBI announced taht Monsegur, known on-line as Sabu, has been working with them as an informant. Sorry about that, Cleary. Cleary is now being held, with no chance of new bail, at Chelmsford Prison, 35 miles northeast of London. He is due to appear in Court in May.

LulzSec, which is short of Lulz Security, said it was doing its hacking for the fun of it. Among their targets have been Fox News, the BBC, PBS, ATMs in the United Kingdom, Sony Pictures Playstation 3, Black & Berg Cybersecurity Consulting, pornography sites, Facebook, Bethesda Game Sudios, Minecraft, League of Legends, The Escapist and EVE Online websites, S2 Games Heroes of Newerth server (they left Nintendo alone because they “like the N64 too much”) They hacked millions of user files and passwords. They also went after the British National Health Service, the United States Senate and the Pentagon, the Bank of Portugal and some Portugese government ministries.

In co-ordinated strikes, Scotland Yard and the FBI arrested several members of Lulzsec last year. Cleary was one of the more high-profile arrests in part because of his age. It turned out that most Lulzsec members were young adults. Lulzsec in some ways damaged Anonymous. By claiming an affiliation and then going after game sites and pulling childish pranks, harming innocent bystanders instead of the governments and corporations that Anonymous goes after, Lulzsec made Anonymous look less serious and committed to disclosure of government secrets for the benefit of the world. LulzSec’s activities have set of something of a cyberwar among hackers, while law enforcement in several countries are trying to pick their way through the chaos.

Related articles

• Top members of hacking group LulzSec arrested (content.usatoday.com)
• LulzSec hackers not “anonymous today,” says official (cbsnews.com)
• Hector Xavier Monsegur: LulzSec leader, FBI informant, and cyberpunk antihero (theverge.com)
• LulzSec Leaders No Longer Anonymous After Arrests Worldwide [Lulzsec] (kotaku.com)
• LulzSec’s Alleged Ringleader Helps FBI in Hacker Arrests (pcworld.com)
• LulzSec leader Sabu turns FBI snitch, reportedly gives up five top hackers (venturebeat.com)
• LulzSec Claims Comeback With Dating Site Hack (gizmodo.com.au)
• Cops swoop on top LulzSec hackers, including two Brits (thesun.co.uk)

Ralph Lang

Ralph Lang of Marshfield, Wisconsin, was charged in Federal Court on charges of attempting to injure, to intimidate and to interfere with persons participating in a program and activity receiving federal financial assistance, including the attempted use of a dangerous weapon and an attempt to kill. The second count charges Lang with using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.

The charges stem from a May 25 incident in which Lang accidently discharged a gun in a motel room, with the bullet entering the room across the hall from his. When the police arrived, he told them he was planning to kill a Madison Planned Parenthood doctor who performs abortions, and had traveled from Marshfield to Madison for the purpose of killing abortion providers. Marshfield is in north central Wisconsin, near the city of Wausau, around a hundred miles from Madison.

Lang has been in custody since his arrest and is scheduled to receive a competency evaluation and hearing. If convicted, Lang would receive a life sentence on the first count and 10 years on the second.