Even petty blackmailer extortionists know to warn "if anything happens to me, incriminating evidence will be released to the media." Billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is already fading from the news and not one vanilla envelope has dropped. What does that tell you about what "happened" to Jeffrey Epstein? It didn't. You might think his suicide was really a murder, but let's remember he counted the most powerful pervs among his friends. Fat chance any of them wanted their friend and primo procurer killed. Before his suicide, Jeffrey Epstein signed a will, his last legal opportunity to do so, then he did El Chapo one better. With allegedly dozing guards (one of them a temp with a shorter personnel record, maybe more easily impersonated), and under faulty surveillance cameras, El Epstein disappeared from federal custody into his own self-financed witness protection plan. What's it take? An anesthetic cocktail for the short gurney ride, not that many parties to pay off or knock off later, your body is released to an unnamed "Epstein Associate," and it's party time again at your Virgin Island! Pretty damn obvious.
Tag: Crime
Immaturity is not a juvenile crime
Should five teenagers, who dropped rocks from an overpass until one killed a random motorist, be tried as adults? The inconceavably thoughtless act was murder, sure, or aggravated premeditated manslaughter for certain, but was it the crime of an adult? It was not. I'll concede that immaturity can be criminal as an adult, it should be impeachable for adult presidents, but not for juveniles. What is the point of differentiating juveniles from grown ups if you're going prosecute bored stone throwers as adults?
14-yr-old black men rape 18-yr-old girl
You read that right. All parties are teenagers but the younger African American males (ages 14 to 17) are being charged as adults.
Paul Castaway and a mother’s grief
DENVER, COLORADO- On July 19th 2015, I met the Mother of Paul Castaway, a young native American man who was shot four times by the Denver Police Department and died of those fatal shots. At the memorial service she saw me sitting there watching her, she quietly walked up and held out her hand and ask me my name, then in a very soft and quiet voice she said "Thank You, for coming" With her eyes and slow movement of her step you could see the weight of her grief. I was stunned into silence. 44226
President Obama concedes there is no mechanism for punishing rich rapists.
In light of the unsealed deposition where Bill Cosby admitted to procuring Quaaludes to facilitate raping young women, a reporter asked President Obama if the celebrity's Freedom Medal could be revoked. There is no mechanism to do so, was Obama's reply. Not one pundit asked if there wasn't a precedent to seek a remedy within the justice system or law enforcement or department of corrections. Not all Bill Cosby's assaults fall beyond the statute of limitation, if even that should apply to rape.
The Death Penalty
In May of 1960, I was place in the "Hole" for ten days, at that time they would feed you a bowl of spinach once a day. The "Hole" was in cell house three, which also housed death row. When the guard came to my cell, I refused the spinach. He told me that he bet I'd be eating it by the end of ten days. Directly on the tier above me was death row. One of the prisoners on death row (David F. Early) over-heard my conversation with the guard. 44053
Are escapees Richard Matt and David Sweat hardened criminals? Maybe, but they’re only dangerous if you’re a cop.
New York State authorities are warning the pubic that prison escapees David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, are hardened criminals and extremely dangerous. However, they didn't kill anyone while making their escape from a maximum security prison, and unless you are Matt's former boss, who he killed, or a Sheriff's deputy who stood in their way, such as Sweat plead guilty to co-killing, there's no past record to suggest the pair mean you any harm. Having the police tell everyone "if you see something, say something" does make everyone the fugitives encounter a potential snitch. NY law enforcement should be held accountable for what the pair might be forced to do as a result. Freedom for prisoners. Abolish all prisons. Now we need homeless vagabonds to head to New York state in pairs to assist the manhunt.
Deadliest motorcycle “gang” in Waco shoot-out was not Bandidos, Cossacks, Scimitars, or Vaqueros. It was police.
Was the Waco Shoot-out a gunfight between rival gangs or an ambush laid by law enforcement? Police are monopolizing the testimony but the evidence suggests a barroom brawl became a pretext to kill or arrest club officers, essentially grassroots organizers, now charged with "organized crime". Investigators can litter the crime scene with brass-knuckles, knives and wallet chains, but the shell casings are going to be police issue. Motorcycle headlights were on, indicating club members were trying to leave. Police claim that the brawlers redirected their fire toward officers, but did that happen while the bikers were trying to ride off? Because riding requires both hands. This gangland "shoot-out" was a St Valentine's Day Massacre executed by cops. [5/20 Update: HA! The nine casualties died of gunshot wounds, sustained outside the restaurant. No shell casings were found around the bodies. Eight of the nine were Cossacks. The eighteen wounded are not expected to be charged. So much for the narrative that gangs were fighting each other, or that Bandidos were the aggressors.] 43153
Corporate coup leaders foil TPP protest by faking Democrat defeat of fast-track
NOW WHAT? Years of agitating for the media to EXPOSE THE TPP, culminating in last week's call-your-senator call-your-senator call-your-senator full court press, yielded what looked like Congress finally standing up against the trade pact corporate coup. Activists were ecstatic to see Democrats in the Senate unite to block to the fast-tracking of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, only to learn a day later that Dem objections had been placated and TPP approval would follow. Not only had the conversation been diverted from "what's the TPP" to "what's fast-track", demonstrations converted to celebrations, and now a pubic response would be too confused and short-noticed. Give the corporations credit for being in full control of their media, their puppets, and what's left of the skeptics among their subjects.
Film critics toe corporate line to re-kill messenger Gary Webb, after Hollywood
AT BEST "KILL THE MESSENGER" portrays suspiciously deceased journalist Gary Webb as a heroic sleuth who refused to compromise his principles. At best, the film re-reports the enormous crime which Webb exposed in his series DARK ALLIANCE, that the CIA's support of the Nicaraguan CONTRAs in the 1980s involved facilitating the smuggling of drugs into the US, in such large quantities as to precipitate the crack cocaine epidemic, delivered to our major inner cities by the CIA. UNFORTUNATELY the film muddies the crack connection, as Webb's detractors did back then. Two deliberate plot omissions suggest this is probably not a coincidence. 41204
It turns out the Pittsburgh Sophomore who stabbed classmates was an adult
Yes the crime was horific, highschoolers being stabbed from behind, their assailant without character enough to face his random victims, without motive, armed with such a weapon as any amateur can pick up in their parent's kitchen. Though signs migh point to medication or mental illness, the troubled 16-year-old is being charged as an adult, because schools have been failing Americans for generations before Alex Hribal.
I’ll believe corporations are people when one is not let off a criminal probe
I'll believe corporations are people when one is declined the chance to pay a fine instead of face criminal penalties. Imagine OJ Inc or Pistorius Inc or Bernie Madoff being able to pay off US marshalls instead of going to jail. Next question, who is the beneficiary Toyota's $1.2 Billion payoff?
Amanda Knox wishes Italy was like US where a black man in jail means whites go free
Amanda Knox is disappointed with the Italian judicial system. In America of course, if you can pin the crime on a black guy, white perpetrators go free. For the 2007 murder of Meredith Kerchner, African male Rudy Guede is serving 16 years, but Italian judges are convinced he was an accessory. And remember, first Knox tried to give them ANOTHER. Knox is appealing her slander conviction for falsely naming Patrick Lumumba, and now, instead of speaking appreciatively of her two year respite from prison after political pressure muddled an appeals court reversal, Knox says she "expected more". Not just that, she reminds us "this isn't going to bring Meredith Kercher back." 39888
Fuck the Police, say it for those who can’t
If you're bleeding from a rollover accident and you're a black male who's prompted a white suburbanite to call the police, who arrive and shoot you; if you're a non-suicidale teen who's fallen from an overpass, broken your back, only to be tased a dozen times for non-compliance; or if you're a 107-year-old man in his bedroom tormented by mischievous tenants who connive to have you terminated by SWAT, you can't say "fuck the police". We can hope each of these victims had the chance to curse the officers before their demise. It's probably not unimaginable that these law enforcement overreactions might have been occasioned by the victims' expressed astonishment, no doubt profane, that one, police were called without cause, two, they responded anyway, and three, their reaction was to escalate. If you are breaking no law and police are obstructing your pursuit of happiness, disabuse them of their misconception of authority, or they will kill all of us.
Bored Oklahoma teen murder suspects not bored or under-educated enough to be considered teens
Bored Oklahoma teens who shot a random jogger in the back are being tried as adults not juveniles because "it was an adult crime"; though killing while bored seems a juvenile crime by definition. So does immediately confessing a motive, "we were bored," to the police, it would seem to me. But there's more. Despite the confessions, it was not immediately clear who pulled the trigger as the three teens trailed their victim, Australian college baseball player Christopher Lane, in their car, then sped away to find a next target. But that didn't stop Oklahoma police from charging just TWO of the boys with first degree murder, bail denied, with the third considered an accessory. I've provided the mug shots to give you a hint. For which 15 and 16 year-old do you think the state of Oklahoma is seeking the death penalty? (Spoiler: YES) And the older accessory --17 but white-- gets bail and will be tried as a juvenile. Pundits deride African American leaders for not decrying the Lane murder like they did that of Trayvon Martin, presumably because the victim was white. But I'll ask where is the community outcry for young James Edwards and Chancy Luna, joy-killers
No! No War On Syria! Bad Dog of War! Bad Dog! Off my leg you ill-mannered Yankee cur!
The carnage in Syria should "shock our conscience" really? It's fraternity hazing compared to US collateral atrocities. And how simply grotesque for an American statesman to accuse anyone of "moral obscenity". Is the USG so sure another Maning or Snowden isn't going to unveil the real agents behind the "chemical attack" and the unidentified snipers firing on UN inspectors? And using Kosovo as a precedent for an air war to depose Bashar Assad, we've seen it before, and it was illegal then.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is no loser, his critics are louts
Apparently Edward Snowden is a good for nothing high school dropout, but he's a better man than you. Petty technocrats are splitting hairs to pretend that the NSA whistleblower broke the law while corporate mouthpieces are obfuscating that the public doesn't care about its privacy. But there's an easy legal precedent to judge whether Snowden's act was criminal. Was his leak worse than the crime he exposed? Of course ratting on the security apparatus is illegal, and the fact that the public doesn't know the extent to which their civil liberties are being violated is a clue the NSA is deeply in the wrong. The everyone upset about Edward Snowden are those exposed for their nefarious functions, those who don't condemn them, and more so, those who could have blown the whistle well before a 29 year old unemployable hero.
Police are pretty much thugs here, there, and everywhere
Mexico's and the USA's prison system is run by thugs! Capitalism has long created and enforced a thug-like prison system. I have recently been told the experience of someone in this system and which thousands of people do too. I am also reading The Trial by Franz Kafka and I was reminded of this experience. As I listened to this person in tears both of relief because he got out, but also because of complete fear for what happened to those not as lucky as him, I felt sorry for him because even if he was not put back in jail, he won't be able to become anything else because of capitalism's structure. And so here is his story and I hope that this will not be the fate of him, and that someday Mexico's thug-jails will be gone as will the criminality produced by poverty in an alienating system like Capitalism. 38492
Do you care about two white people in post colonial South Africa? Me either
Could this ugly crime matter less? Except that the media is exploiting the story to deny domestic violence (The Blade Runner couldn't have meant to kill his model girlfriend, she was so beautiful). And except now that it looks like the Oscar Pistorius case is taking a JonBenet Ramsey turn. A celebrity shoots his girlfriend through a locked bathroom door, and suddenly detectives are reported to be botching the case, misidentifying evidence and contaminating the crime scene. This is big league defense where the moneyed class walks even as one of their own dies, justice usually failing a woman. Why should a crime of passion ruin a second affluent life?
Rogue vigilante Chris Dorner burned at the stake by angry hooded white men
Tuning in to developments with fugitive cop-killer Chris Dorner in Big Bear on Tuesday, I half expected a televised denouement like Fahrenheit 451, where impatient viewers were given a contrived final scene, fitting the short arc of the average attention span for corporate media fodder. As I recall, that renegade fireman watched his pursuers stage his capture/demise, because authorities favored truncating a felon-on-the-lam narrative lest it generate a deviant hopeful following; it didn't matter if the criminal really escaped. Could Ray Bradbury have envisioned the expectations which reality TV has created to satiate real blood lust? 38425
Lance Armstrong setback for Team America, retroactive, so totally unfair
You can see why Lance Armstrong fans are upset. Even President Obama is satisfied not to look back, why should the sports-doping authority? Lance Armstrong beat their drug tests fair and square, what right have they to retest his blood and urine samples, based on the probable cause of mounting witness testimonies, and now that superior tests can detect his workarounds? IF Team America ever cheated, it was fair and square. All our ducks in a row. If US proof of Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out to be fabricated, it was fabricated to the standards required by veracity tests of the time. No fair revisiting spilt lives. If Barack Obama took the USADA's lead, he could rid American politics of all the Neocon cheats who still dominate the airwaves today. If Obama wanted to get lying, cheating, or taking unfair advantage out of the system. But breaking the rules, international law for example, the disproportionate use of force being a cherished national specialty, is the American Way.
One man’s war hero is another’s snitch. Iraqi informant Jasim Mohammed Ramadon is also an American rapist.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.-- Haha. Iraqi "war hero" Jasim Mohammed "Steve-O" Ramadon was granted asylum in the US after snitching on his countrymen, his tribe, and own father, as a youth informer for the US Army. An American soldier brought Ramadon back to Ft. Carson and praised him as a war hero in his memoir. Now Ramadan has been getting himself into trouble for drunk driving and beating women. Recently, he and four other Iraqi expats were arrested for the violent sexual assault of a neighbor, probably the everyday rape M.O. of American soldiers in occupied lands. I'm laughing because while Ramadon betrayed his dad, beat his girlfriend, and now faces charges of rape, local teabag Red White & Blue guy Jim Cross stepped forward as character witness for Ramadon, saying "his heart is in the right place." Does being a conservative jingoist mean you have to hit every sour note? I was reminded of Cross today because our City Hall fracking protest was interrupted by the stereotypical blimp-neck sticking his smartphone in our faces with lame gotcha questions, beginning with the usual insincere "So what's this about?" Today's idiot was no brighter than Cross, and thought he'd caught
Crime versus American Football – Where in the Hell are the police?
Oh American pro football! What warlock/ warlike glory! Gotta root for the home team we all do! But what if it degenerates down into criminal activity, where would the police be? 32005
Real estate is not for you
Here's how real estate works, though not for you or me, or the millions of Americans losing their homes to foreclosure. The Gazette recorded real estate developer Lars Akerberg, reacting to the foreclosure of the Chidlaw Building which he bought in 1993 for $2 million. "It kind of hurts in a way." Lars is actually defaulting on a 2006 loan for $14 million, only $1 million of it repaid. The article doesn't mention how much of that went into the building, to whom it was paid, or the property's current value, so Akerberg can probably say "It's a little bit emotional, but what can you do?" because he's losing $2 million but gets to keep an undisclosed part of the $13m. The Gazette article is a lesson in real estate, banking, and how the media obscures the swindles. Akerberg adds the salt, I think talking to you and me: "But that's the way things are. You can't help it."
It’s not a recession, it’s a robbery.
This image gets my vote for the KILLER APP of internet memes to explain what the "economic crisis" and its global banking "austerity measures" are really about: pure greed. All the rich have ever wanted is everything. Damn the middle class, the working class and the poor. Economists are part of their getaway illusionist crew, if you want to understand Milton Friedman and the banking economy, call CSI.