Ignore that man behind the curtain.

Back in the Jerry Orbach days of the TV show Law and Order, there was an episode where an old VW van was found in a river or other body of water. In the van were human remains. The investigation showed that the van had been in the water since about 1968. It was owned by a New York Police Officer who had gone missing and it was his remains in the van. He was working undercover on a college campus trying to infiltrate violent student groups. Investigators talked to people involved in protests at the time as well as other officers who also worked under cover. The investigation showed many of the problems on campuses were actually fomented by under cover police officers. I scoffed at the concept when I saw that program almost twenty years ago.

A big story in the news over the past year or so has been about the supposed plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan,  Gretchen Whitmer. It turns out that many of the people in the "plot" were government agents. Reports indicate that those agents are actually the ones behind the plot and using it to entrap conservatives so that they could be arrested.

Another story in the news concerns the events from January 6. There is a man who is seen urging people to storm the Capitol, a man by the name of Ray Epps, who is seen inciting people to occupy the building. In one video, people are seen shouting "Fed.  Fed. Fed. Fed. Fed," indicating that they suspect Epps of being a government plant. While being wanted early on by the FBI, Epps was later dropped from the Wanted List and the FBI seems to have little interest in him these days. The main stream media also has little interest in investigating Mr. Epps as well, saying he is just a conspiracy theory by conservatives.

 

It almost seems that there are more and more cases coming to light where people are being paid to manufacture crimes where one may not have existed otherwise. Of course, agencies need larger and larger budgets to handle these cases, and these agencies get more and more power as well. Along with that, the people in these agencies make more and more more and get more and more power as well. In cases and where it appears that crimes have been committed, nothing happens if powerful people are involved or if the crimes support a certain potical viewpoint. It is enough to make one cynical.

I am all for law and order, but there certainly is room to question whether that is motivating factor law enforcement today.

Controlling The Narrative

Have you all been following the awful rape of a special needs little girl in Idaho? There's more:

The following is a news release issued late Friday from the office of United States Attorney Wendy J. Olson.

“BOISE – The United States Attorney’s Office extends its support to the five-year-old victim of assault, and her family, at the Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls.

“The United States Attorney’s Office further encourages community members in Twin Falls and throughout Idaho to remain calm and supportive, to pay close attention to the facts that have been released by law enforcement and the prosecuting attorney, and to avoid spreading false rumors and inaccuracies.

“Grant Loebs is an experienced prosecutor, and Chief Craig Kingsbury is an experienced law enforcement officer. They are moving fairly and thoughtfully in this case,” said Wendy J. Olson, U.S. Attorney for Idaho. “As Mr. Loebs and Chief Kingsbury informed the public, the subjects in this case are juveniles, ages 14, 10 and 7. The criminal justice system, whether at the state or federal level, requires that juveniles be afforded a specific process with significant restrictions on the information that can be released. The fact that the subjects are juveniles in no way lessens the harm to or impact on the victim and her family.”

Olson continued, saying:

“The spread of false information or inflammatory or threatening statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself reduces public safety and may violate federal law. We have seen time and again that the spread of falsehoods about refugees divides our communities. I urge all citizens and residents to allow Mr. Loebs and Chief Kingsbury and their teams to do their jobs.”

As one of 93 U.S. attorneys, Olson represents the federal government in all civil and criminal cases within her state.

Olson was appointed to her post in 2010 by President Obama and has a history of taking strong stands against “anti-Muslim bias.”

Another One Bites The Dust

Now that we've seen the official evidence, let's look at what happened in real time. The embed code is wacky for this next video, so I'll have to link the Bundy Ranch facebook page where it resides.

Please go here to watch the video taken from inside the vehicle.  

Fighting The Good Fight?

Here's a very good article at the Conservative Treehouse about the mess in Burns, Oregon. This part of the saga really bothered me:

"In October 2015, the 9th District Court “resentenced” Dwight and Steven, requiring them to return to prison for several more years. Steven (46) has a wife and 3 children. Dwight (74) will leave Susan (74) to be alone after 55 years of marriage. If he survives, he will be 79 when he is released."

How can these guys be "resentenced" after they've already served their time? That stinks. Actually, this entire story stinks.

This won't end well. I question the sanity of the men staging this "protest", especially when they're bringing women and children to the standoff location. Are they intentionally provoking the Obama regime into a Waco/Ruby Ridge response? The attorney general hates her some white cracka people, and the prezzy could gain some street cred with the hood rats if he slaughters these families. Will he? Will he order them all killed?

No, this won't end well. If anything happens to these patriots (however misguided), the grassroots outrage and backlash will be brutal.  I'm just not sure our prezzy is smart enough to see the trap for what it is.  Whether it's a genuine protest or a false flag operation to expedite gun control legislation, it's playing with matches in a tinder box.

A Tale of Two Cases

The man saw some teenagers breaking into cars in his neighborhood. He did not call the police; instead he went out and confronted the teens. He said he had a gun and that the teens would wait there until the police responded.

This was not a “stand your ground” situation. The man with the gun initiated the contact.  It would not have made any difference anyway, as this incident occurred in New York State – which does not have a “stand your ground” law. New York does allow lethal force if there is absolutely no route of escape. Again, though, the man with the gun initiated the contact.

One of the teens ran at the man with the gun. The teen did not make contact with the man with the gun, but the man shot the teen in “self defense.”

Fraud, and More Fraud

I see SNAP abuses and "disability" fraud every time I go to WalMart (which isn't often these days). Perhaps if there were some kind of penalty for abusing the system, such as being declared ineligible for ALL taxpayer-funded benefits and "entitlements" for life, we could clean up this mess. Fraud, and more fraud.



H/T: The Blaze

Tarnished Silver Eagle

This story of an Army colonel run amok will drop your jaw.

Col. James Johnson, convicted of fraud, bigamy, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, was sentenced Thursday to a reprimand and a $300,000 fine.

The court-martial panel also imposed a sentence of five years’ confinement if Johnson, the former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, fails to pay the fine. He was not dismissed from the service and was not sentenced to forfeit his pay and allowances. His convictions all had to do with an affair he had with an Iraqi woman he met while deployed and his efforts to help her family.

Well, there's a bit more to it than that....read this article too.

It's crazy that the court-martial panel slapped this guy on the wrist, and even let him retain his job. He's a criminal and a liar, and a sleazeball too.

Johnson's father is a retired brigadier general and the court marshal was presided over by five colonels.

Oh. That might have something to do with it. I have a sneaking suspicion that Johnson will have no problem paying the fine.

The smirking guy on the left is James Johnson with his lawyer.

"A heinous, despicable and honourless crime"

The wonderful Canadian columnist, Christie Blatchford, has been reporting on this crime investigation and trial since the beginning. Here is her summary after the verdicts.

The trial judge:

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameless murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”

By using the words “honourless” and “shameless”, Maranger was tossing back at Shafia some of the very epithets he used so often when speaking about his dead daughters.

The mass honour slaying of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti — respectively 19, 17 and 13 — and 52-year-old Mohammad, Shafia’s other, and sadly barren, wife, ranks among the worst in the sordid history of honour crimes.

...And Injustice For All

 Two stories caught my eye this morning as I perused the Daily Mail.  The first one involves a drunk Jewish man, who, in a fit of anger, shoved a neighbor against a car, poured a can of beer on her, and screamed racial epithets.  The second involves a gang of youths who savagely beat a man who was enjoying an evening run.  Although the article doesn't mention it, I'm quite certain derogatory racial remarks were experienced by this poor guy as well.  What struck me was the charges prosecutors decided upon:

Pouring beer on your neighbor and calling her names is a HATE CRIME.

Beating a man to within an inch of his life is SECOND DEGREE ASSAULT.

Why the disparity? 

Clue one:  The perpetrator of this horrific "pour beer on someone" crime was Jewish, and the victim was Turkish.  Hate crime.

Clue two:  Although the article FAILS TO MENTION IT, the gang who perpetrated this savage attack were of a minority group, and the victim was not.  Second degree assault.

Here is what second degree assault looks like:

I'll let you use your own vivid imaginations to concoct the ghastly, sickening, gut-wrenching image of a woman drenched in beer.  As for the name-calling?  I'm sure everyone here has been taunted with ethnic/racial/religious slurs countless times in life.  And lived to tell the tale!  We were even taught a little rhyme when I was growing up, something about "sticks and stones".

 Don't get me wrong; I'm not defending the drunk Jewish guy.  He should be ashamed of himself for putting his hands on ANY woman, acting like a lout, and generally being a jerk.  Charge him with public intoxication and disturbing the peace.  When I think "hate crime" I picture a black man being dragged by a rope behind a pickup truck to his death, just because of his color.  I picture a gunman walking into a synagogue and spraying bullets at the congregants, just because of their ethnicity/religion.  I think of a gay man being savagely beaten to death because of his lifestyle.  I DO NOT picture drunken name-calling or beer-sloshing, no matter who is at the other end of the beer can or the words. 

In the other case, in a sane, functional system, savagely beating someone beyond recognition certainly merits a charge of attempted murder, irregardless of color or age.

And that's my two cents.

Bye Bye Blago

Poor Blago.  A jury has convicted the Illinois Sad Sack on 17 of 22 counts.  Will they lock him up and throw away the key?  Will he skip the country and live on the lam with the millions he stashed in an offshore account?  Was he smart enough to stash away millions?  Can he even spell the word "million"? 

If he receives a stiff sentence, he'll sing like a canary about The Chicago Way.  So...I'm betting six months in a country club prison, tops.

Obama:  I got your back, bro!

Blago:  You'd better!  Tweet, tweet, tweet...

The WSJ Tackles Food Stamp Fraud

It's great to see a major newspaper confronting what is obvious to anyone who has ever stood in line at a grocery store; our tax dollars are being squandered in the morass of social programs plaguing our society.  The food stamp program is one of many money pits the federal government demands that we subsidize. From James Bovard:

Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food stamps as long as they have little or no monthly income. Thirty-five states have abolished asset tests for most food-stamp recipients. These and similar "paperwork reduction" reforms advocated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are turning the food-stamp program into a magnet for abuses and absurdities.

The Obama administration is far more enthusiastic about boosting food-stamp enrollment than about preventing fraud. Thanks in part to vigorous federally funded campaigns by nonprofit groups, the government's AmericaCorps service program, and other organizations urging people to accept government handouts, the number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007, and costs have more than doubled to $77 billion from $33 billion.

The USDA's Food and Nutrition Service now has only 40 inspectors to oversee almost 200,000 merchants that accept food stamps nationwide. The Government Accountability Office reported last summer that retailers who traffic illegally in food stamps by redeeming stamps for cash or alcohol or other prohibited items "are less likely to face criminal penalties or prosecution" than in earlier years.

Lax attitudes toward fraud are spurring swindles across the nation:

Bovard's piece highlights incredible modes of outright fraud, committed without fear of prosecution.  He concludes:

H.L. Mencken quipped that the New Deal divided America into "those who work for a living and those who vote for a living." The explosion in the number of food-stamp recipients tilts the political playing field in favor of big government. The more people who become government dependents, the more likely that democracy will become a conspiracy against self-reliance.

We have more government employees than ever, yet we can't seem to control the fraud that runs rampant through programs like food stamps, subsidized housing, and medicaid.  These programs are meant to be a safety net, not a way of life, and certainly not a profitable business for cheats and crooks.  If the gov't cannot run these programs, perhaps they should be contracted out to private businesses.  Could the private sector  do a better job screening applicants for genuine need, rooting out fraud, and prosecuting thieves and liars?  Probably.  One thing is for certain; it would be damn hard to do a worse job.

Man Bites Dog!

Being a former victim customer of B of A, I really enjoyed this story. Imagine having to listen to people and fulfill your obligations. Novel concept.