by Bob Walsh
Happy Turkey Day to one and all. I hope you all manage to eat yourselves into a Turkey Coma and enjoy some quality time with whatever of your friends and family who are out on parole, probation or some other form of conditional release.
Watch some sports. Watch some fake news. Watch some old movies on TV or maybe a new movie on DVD. Do like Joe Biden and listen to the record player. Go see the new Terminator movie. You will probably be the only person in the theater.
ENJOY!
Thursday, November 28, 2019
A SON FOR PAPA JOE TO BE PROUD OF
Hunter Biden suspected of smoking crack in DC strip club’s VIP room
By Joe Marino, Elizabeth Rosner and Bruce Golding
Page Six
November 26, 2019
Hunter Biden was suspected of smoking crack inside a strip club where he dropped “thousands of dollars” during multiple visits — at the same time he held a seat on the board of a controversial Ukrainian natural gas company, The Post has learned.
The incident, which took place at Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club in Washington, DC, late last year, represents the most recent alleged drug use by Biden, 49, who has acknowledged six stints in rehab for alcoholism and addiction that included a crack binge in 2016.
Workers at Archibald’s, located about three blocks north of the White House, said Biden was a regular there, with two bartenders and a security worker all instantly recognizing his photo and one worker identifying him by name.
Security worker Ranko Petrovic said Biden — the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner to challenge President Trump next year — would routinely hole up in a VIP room and drink during his visits.
Although Petrovic said the club “had no issue with him,” former Archibald’s managing partner James Ritter said one occasion in late 2018 was marred by a “suspicion of drug use.”
“There was a smell of burning Styrofoam in the VIP room. We told him nothing illegal can go on here,” Ritter said.
“We didn’t see anything illegal. After he was spoken to, the smell stopped.”
“VIP employees suspected it was crack,” he added.
Hunter spent “thousands and thousands of dollars in the Archibald’s VIP rooms,” and paid his bills with “credit cards that didn’t have his name on it.”
The club generally required customers to use credit cards that matched official IDs, but “Hunter was a bit of an exception,” Ritter said.
“Whenever he was in town he came in for two days in a row, disappeared and come back a month later,” Ritter said.
Archibald’s current owner, Dan Harris, didn’t return an email seeking comment.
At the time of the incident, Hunter was a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, which reportedly paid him as much as $50,000 a month.
That job lies at the heart of the ongoing impeachment inquiry against Trump, with Democrats alleging that the president withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in a bid to force an investigation into corruption allegations against Hunter and his dad.
Trump has denied any quid pro quo.
Hunter joined the Burisma board in April 2014 but declined the company’s offer to serve another term in May due to the controversy surrounding his membership, according to a July 1 profile by the New Yorker.
In an interview with ABC News last month, Hunter denied a suggestion that he wasn’t qualified because he “didn’t have any extensive knowledge about natural gas or Ukraine.”
“No, but I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else who was on the board — if not more,” he said.
Hunter — who’s currently embroiled in a paternity scandal with an Arkansas woman, Lunden Alexis Roberts — also conceded that being the son of the then-vice president “of course” played a role in his selection.
Hunter has never detailed the extent of the work he did for Burisma, although the New Yorker report said he attended board meetings and energy forums in Europe “once or twice a year.”
The magazine’s 11,000-word-plus profile was based on a series of warts-and-all interviews in which Hunter detailed a fall 2016 drug binge in Los Angeles, where he repeatedly bought crack at a homeless encampment while going without sleep for several days.
On Oct. 28, 2016, he checked into rehab at the Grace Grove Lifestyle Center in Sedona, Ariz., but left after only a week and headed to the nearby Mii Amo resort spa.
Hunter was joined there by former sister-in-law Hallie Biden — widow of his older brother, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in May 2015 — and they launched an affair that lasted about a year, according to the New Yorker.
Hunter — whose first wife, Kathleen, obtained a divorce from him amid his relationship with Hallie — remarried in May following a six-day romance with Melissa Cohen, 33.
In his ABC interview last month, Hunter said he’d “done estimable things and things I regret,” but was now in “probably the best place I’ve ever been in my life.”
His personal lawyer and spokesman, George Mesires, didn’t return requests for comment.
__________
Strippers used sex toy on Hunter Biden at NYC’s Hustler Club: sources
By Elizabeth Rosner
Page Six
November 27, 2019
Hunter Biden spent several thousand dollars at a Manhattan strip club during a pair of visits — including one that sent a staffer scrambling to buy a sex toy so strippers could use it on him, sources told The Post on Wednesday.
Biden — who’s been dogged by a series of strip-club allegations uncovered by The Post this week — was accompanied by a woman both times he went to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club NYC in Hell’s Kitchen about a year ago, the sources said.
On each occasion, he and his companion holed up in a private room, where they ordered bottles of pricey booze and were joined by several strippers, sources said.
During one particularly wild night, workers suspected Biden — son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race to challenge President Donald Trump — was high, and he was warned that drugs weren’t allowed on the premises, sources said.
That same night, a worker had to be sent out to purchase a dildo so the gals could use it on Hunter, sources said.
It’s unclear if the club didn’t have a similar device on hand or if he insisted on a brand-new one fresh out of the package.
Despite the lurid allegations, Hunter was described as an almost-ideal customer.
“He was a pretty nice guy,” one source said.
“He was pretty friendly and a pretty good tipper.”
Hunter’s personal lawyer and spokesman, George Mesires, didn’t return messages seeking comment late Wednesday afternoon.
By Joe Marino, Elizabeth Rosner and Bruce Golding
Page Six
November 26, 2019
Hunter Biden was suspected of smoking crack inside a strip club where he dropped “thousands of dollars” during multiple visits — at the same time he held a seat on the board of a controversial Ukrainian natural gas company, The Post has learned.
The incident, which took place at Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club in Washington, DC, late last year, represents the most recent alleged drug use by Biden, 49, who has acknowledged six stints in rehab for alcoholism and addiction that included a crack binge in 2016.
Workers at Archibald’s, located about three blocks north of the White House, said Biden was a regular there, with two bartenders and a security worker all instantly recognizing his photo and one worker identifying him by name.
Security worker Ranko Petrovic said Biden — the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner to challenge President Trump next year — would routinely hole up in a VIP room and drink during his visits.
Although Petrovic said the club “had no issue with him,” former Archibald’s managing partner James Ritter said one occasion in late 2018 was marred by a “suspicion of drug use.”
“There was a smell of burning Styrofoam in the VIP room. We told him nothing illegal can go on here,” Ritter said.
“We didn’t see anything illegal. After he was spoken to, the smell stopped.”
“VIP employees suspected it was crack,” he added.
Hunter spent “thousands and thousands of dollars in the Archibald’s VIP rooms,” and paid his bills with “credit cards that didn’t have his name on it.”
The club generally required customers to use credit cards that matched official IDs, but “Hunter was a bit of an exception,” Ritter said.
“Whenever he was in town he came in for two days in a row, disappeared and come back a month later,” Ritter said.
Archibald’s current owner, Dan Harris, didn’t return an email seeking comment.
At the time of the incident, Hunter was a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, which reportedly paid him as much as $50,000 a month.
That job lies at the heart of the ongoing impeachment inquiry against Trump, with Democrats alleging that the president withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in a bid to force an investigation into corruption allegations against Hunter and his dad.
Trump has denied any quid pro quo.
Hunter joined the Burisma board in April 2014 but declined the company’s offer to serve another term in May due to the controversy surrounding his membership, according to a July 1 profile by the New Yorker.
In an interview with ABC News last month, Hunter denied a suggestion that he wasn’t qualified because he “didn’t have any extensive knowledge about natural gas or Ukraine.”
“No, but I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else who was on the board — if not more,” he said.
Hunter — who’s currently embroiled in a paternity scandal with an Arkansas woman, Lunden Alexis Roberts — also conceded that being the son of the then-vice president “of course” played a role in his selection.
Hunter has never detailed the extent of the work he did for Burisma, although the New Yorker report said he attended board meetings and energy forums in Europe “once or twice a year.”
The magazine’s 11,000-word-plus profile was based on a series of warts-and-all interviews in which Hunter detailed a fall 2016 drug binge in Los Angeles, where he repeatedly bought crack at a homeless encampment while going without sleep for several days.
On Oct. 28, 2016, he checked into rehab at the Grace Grove Lifestyle Center in Sedona, Ariz., but left after only a week and headed to the nearby Mii Amo resort spa.
Hunter was joined there by former sister-in-law Hallie Biden — widow of his older brother, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in May 2015 — and they launched an affair that lasted about a year, according to the New Yorker.
Hunter — whose first wife, Kathleen, obtained a divorce from him amid his relationship with Hallie — remarried in May following a six-day romance with Melissa Cohen, 33.
In his ABC interview last month, Hunter said he’d “done estimable things and things I regret,” but was now in “probably the best place I’ve ever been in my life.”
His personal lawyer and spokesman, George Mesires, didn’t return requests for comment.
__________
Strippers used sex toy on Hunter Biden at NYC’s Hustler Club: sources
By Elizabeth Rosner
Page Six
November 27, 2019
Hunter Biden spent several thousand dollars at a Manhattan strip club during a pair of visits — including one that sent a staffer scrambling to buy a sex toy so strippers could use it on him, sources told The Post on Wednesday.
Biden — who’s been dogged by a series of strip-club allegations uncovered by The Post this week — was accompanied by a woman both times he went to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club NYC in Hell’s Kitchen about a year ago, the sources said.
On each occasion, he and his companion holed up in a private room, where they ordered bottles of pricey booze and were joined by several strippers, sources said.
During one particularly wild night, workers suspected Biden — son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race to challenge President Donald Trump — was high, and he was warned that drugs weren’t allowed on the premises, sources said.
That same night, a worker had to be sent out to purchase a dildo so the gals could use it on Hunter, sources said.
It’s unclear if the club didn’t have a similar device on hand or if he insisted on a brand-new one fresh out of the package.
Despite the lurid allegations, Hunter was described as an almost-ideal customer.
“He was a pretty nice guy,” one source said.
“He was pretty friendly and a pretty good tipper.”
Hunter’s personal lawyer and spokesman, George Mesires, didn’t return messages seeking comment late Wednesday afternoon.
OKLAHOMA COP INDICTED FOR SHOOTING ROAD RAGE SUSPECT WHO FIRED ON COPS
by Bob Walsh
A grand jury has indicted Lt. John Mitchell, 40, for shooting and killing a road rage shooting suspect in the early morning of May 20.
Michael Ann Godsey, 34, had, prior to her being shot and killed, fired at least two shots at the cops and two shots at her own mother. She is known to have fired other shots at apparently random people in town.
Lt. Mitchell and one other officer engaged her with rifle fire, shooting into her pickup truck. They continued to fire even after the truck stopped moving. When the smoke cleared Godsey was found deader than dogshit in the drivers seat of the truck. Lt. Mitchell fired about 60 rounds at the suspect, which the grand jury apparently found to be excessive.
The members of the grand jury had probably never been shot at by a violent criminal.
Lt. Mitchell's attorney describes Godsey as a violent, fleeing felon. Sounds like a reasonable description to me. Mitchell is facing second-degree murder charges, which could get him ten years if he is convicted.
A grand jury has indicted Lt. John Mitchell, 40, for shooting and killing a road rage shooting suspect in the early morning of May 20.
Michael Ann Godsey, 34, had, prior to her being shot and killed, fired at least two shots at the cops and two shots at her own mother. She is known to have fired other shots at apparently random people in town.
Lt. Mitchell and one other officer engaged her with rifle fire, shooting into her pickup truck. They continued to fire even after the truck stopped moving. When the smoke cleared Godsey was found deader than dogshit in the drivers seat of the truck. Lt. Mitchell fired about 60 rounds at the suspect, which the grand jury apparently found to be excessive.
The members of the grand jury had probably never been shot at by a violent criminal.
Lt. Mitchell's attorney describes Godsey as a violent, fleeing felon. Sounds like a reasonable description to me. Mitchell is facing second-degree murder charges, which could get him ten years if he is convicted.
AUBREY HUFF STRIKES OUT KATHY GRIFFIN AND TOM ARNOLD
Retired MLB star Aubrey Huff boasts he's 'teaching his sons to shoot guns in case Bernie beats Trump' sparking furious Twitter spat with Kathy Griffin and Tom Arnold
Daily Mail
November 27, 2019
Retired MLB star Aubrey Huff ignited an uproar on social media by tweeting a picture from a San Diego gun range, where he claimed to be preparing his sons for the possibility of a Bernie Sanders presidency and an ensuing civil war.
'Getting my boys trained up on how to use a gun in the unlikely event @BernieSanders beats @realDonaldTrump in 2020,' Huff wrote on Twitter. 'In which case knowing how to effectively use a gun under socialism will be a must.'
Huff included a picture in his post, showing him holding up a target with clusters of bullet holes around the head and chest.
When asked by one Twitter user whom Huff plans to shoot, the two-time World Series champion and former San Francisco Giants slugger issued a hit list: 'Ummmm crazy people rioting and trying to break into my house for food or shelter.'
The original post elicited thousands of responses on social media, including reactions from comedians and Trump critics Kathy Griffin and Tom Arnold.
Griffin's response was succinct: 'This dumb fuck right here.'
Huff reacted to Griffin immediately, referencing an infamous tour poster of hers that featured the comedian holding a replica of Trump's severed head. 'My boys and I were shooting a fake paper target, as I was teaching them safe gun practices,' Huff wrote. 'Yet here's a picture of you holding a fake head of @realDonaldTrump murdered by your hand with a knife. How'd that work out for your career? The hypocrisy is strong with this one. #moron.'
Arnold, who once appeared on Trump's reality show, piled on after Griffin: 'Kathy Griffin just handed Aubrey Huff his ass.'
In response, Huff took a swipe at Arnold by referencing his four divorces. 'She's not gonna bang u Tom,' Huff wrote. 'If I were you I'd focus on hanging on to that 4th wife before you lose the rest of your money on alimony payments.'
Daily Mail
November 27, 2019
Retired MLB star Aubrey Huff ignited an uproar on social media by tweeting a picture from a San Diego gun range, where he claimed to be preparing his sons for the possibility of a Bernie Sanders presidency and an ensuing civil war.
'Getting my boys trained up on how to use a gun in the unlikely event @BernieSanders beats @realDonaldTrump in 2020,' Huff wrote on Twitter. 'In which case knowing how to effectively use a gun under socialism will be a must.'
Huff included a picture in his post, showing him holding up a target with clusters of bullet holes around the head and chest.
When asked by one Twitter user whom Huff plans to shoot, the two-time World Series champion and former San Francisco Giants slugger issued a hit list: 'Ummmm crazy people rioting and trying to break into my house for food or shelter.'
The original post elicited thousands of responses on social media, including reactions from comedians and Trump critics Kathy Griffin and Tom Arnold.
Griffin's response was succinct: 'This dumb fuck right here.'
Huff reacted to Griffin immediately, referencing an infamous tour poster of hers that featured the comedian holding a replica of Trump's severed head. 'My boys and I were shooting a fake paper target, as I was teaching them safe gun practices,' Huff wrote. 'Yet here's a picture of you holding a fake head of @realDonaldTrump murdered by your hand with a knife. How'd that work out for your career? The hypocrisy is strong with this one. #moron.'
Arnold, who once appeared on Trump's reality show, piled on after Griffin: 'Kathy Griffin just handed Aubrey Huff his ass.'
In response, Huff took a swipe at Arnold by referencing his four divorces. 'She's not gonna bang u Tom,' Huff wrote. 'If I were you I'd focus on hanging on to that 4th wife before you lose the rest of your money on alimony payments.'
HOW TO DEMOTE FROM LIEUTENANT GENERAL TO MAJOR GENERAL
‘Oink, oink.’ Lieutenant general belittled staff, mocked female airman’s weight, IG found. It cost him a star
By Stephen Losey
Air Force Times
November 26, 2019
According to some who worked for him, there were two sides to former Lt. Gen. Lee Levy.
In public, the former head of the Air Force Sustainment Center was “self-confident, articulate, charismatic, passionate, likeable [and] charming,” witnesses told investigators from the Air Force’s Office of the Inspector General. But some who worked for him saw a very different leader — one who “repeatedly, publicly and personally belittled and berated” his staff, was “abrasive” and created an environment “infused with fear and intimidation.”
Subordinates were “walking on eggshells” to avoid upsetting him, according to a March 2019 IG report.
A comment by one unnamed witness reveals just how reviled Levy — and the toxic command climate he created — was by some: “I think if he was in the battlefield, he probably would’ve been shot in the back,” the witness said.
The IG report, which the Air Force provided at Air Force Times’ request, indicates this witness wasn’t alone.
“Though stated in a number of ways, this sentiment was expressed by virtually every member of Lt. Gen. Levy’s [redacted]," the report says.
Levy’s bullying behavior — which investigators found even extended to making degrading remarks and pig noises in public about a female subordinate’s eating habits — ultimately cost him his third star. He officially retired as a major general on Nov. 1, over a year after he left the center and his formal retirement ceremony was held.
The Air Force Sustainment Center, which is headquartered at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, is part of Air Force Materiel Command and provides depot maintenance, supply chain management and installation support to sustain multiple aircraft including the A-10 Warthog, AC-130, B-1 Lancer, B-52 Stratofortress, F-15, F-16 and F-22 fighters, and the KC-130 Stratotanker.
One witness said that although she knew and liked Levy at first, after going to work for him, things became so bad she began to lose sleep and was unable to get out of bed on weekends.
“There were a lot of nights when I would come home just in tears or … just absolutely emotionally and mentally exhausted from the work,” she said. “After I worked for him and experienced that, it was more of, he’s the boogeyman that you just wanted to run away from.”
In a statement provided by his attorney, Levy said he disagreed with the allegations and characterizations against him in the report.
“I attempted to be tough but fair in my leadership style as we strove for excellence in everything we did,” Levy said. “Had concerns been voiced at the time, I would certainly have addressed the issue to resolve it. Unfortunately, those who are now complaining waited until I left command and was retiring.”
But the IG report detailed repeated, specific incidents that investigators concluded amounted to a failure to set and maintain a healthy command climate.
‘You’re always eating’
Perhaps the most egregious of Levy’s comments — corroborated by multiple witnesses — were directed toward one woman under his command about her eating habits and weight.
This airman told investigators that Levy would “always have to somewhat make a joke at my expense" to groups of people, typically when she was the lowest ranking airman. Although she never had any weight issues or difficulty meeting Air Force fitness standards due to her eating habits — one witness described her as “very much in shape” — Levy would comment about what she was eating, claim she was always sleeping, or say she never knew what she was doing.
She told investigators that one day, as she was sitting at her desk at lunchtime, Levy walked by and said, “Oink, oink, [redacted]. Are you really eating again?”
Levy’s comments made another person so uncomfortable he stepped away, the report stated. Levy looked at her, laughed and grabbed his own lunch before saying, “You’re always eating.”
Another witness corroborated her testimony and said Levy’s conduct was “terribly degrading and rude,” and a sign of toxic leadership.
Levy told investigators he didn’t recall that incident, or making comments about that airman’s weight and eating habits. When asked if he said the airman was “always eating,” he told investigators, “Mmm, I might have said that when I … I don’t know. I don’t know.” He also said if he did say something like that, “it was part of good-natured give-and-take between the two of them” and that the female airman would have participated in it by making jokes about her own eating.
In an email Monday, Levy’s attorney, Richard Stevens, said he denied making pig noises or saying anything intended to be personally belittling or demeaning.
“In general, there were frequently conversations and light-hearted banter among the ‘inner circle’ staff about who was eating what, among many, many other topics every single day,” Stevens said.
But the female airman did not feel it was so light-hearted. She told investigators she felt she was being compared to a pig, and that she didn’t feel his comments were good-natured. To the contrary, she told the IG, they made her feel “terrible.” Like many women, she said, she is conscious about her weight.
That wasn’t the only instance when Levy allegedly made such comments to her. On a business trip to Washington around March 2017, Levy reportedly made another remark about her weight while riding in a government vehicle as it was going over bumps on a freeway.
An unidentified witness said Levy said something along the lines of “if you lose a few pounds, maybe the vehicle would have less strain on it.”
The female airman also testified that Levy said during that drive that she needed to be careful about how much she ate, because her uniform pants might not fit anymore.
The IG said that even if Levy was trying to be humorous and was oblivious that his comments were not being taken in that light, “his comments were inappropriate, particularly given his position and the public contexts in which they were made, (though even if made in private the comments would still not have been appropriate). They undermined [the airman’s] dignity and were not respectful of her.”
‘Do you know who I am?’
The report also detailed multiple other instances in which Levy is said to have bullied or humiliated his subordinates, even on a matter as small as his coffee not being hot enough or dust being on the top of picture frames. Wing commanders also were subject to Levy’s poor treatment, witnesses told the IG, though the report did not detail such incidents.
He once publicly reprimanded a civilian employee for not pulling him out of a meeting with a four-star general when a senator called, even though the senator said not to disturb Levy and left a message wishing Levy happy holidays.
“General Levy was yelling at me so loud that … everybody else … all came out [of their offices] to see who he was yelling at and what he was yelling about,” that witness said. “I was almost in tears. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough, but I stood there and took the, what I call a tongue-lashing, and just kept saying, ‘Yes sir, it won’t happen again.’”
Witnesses told investigators that Levy repeatedly dropped folders and packages on the floor for subordinates in piles to pick up. Several thought it was intentional, and one said he believed it was a “total power move.” One subordinate was so shocked that he took a picture of the pile.
“I still don’t quite know how to respond to it,” said one witness who had to pick up folders Levy left on the floor three separate times. “At the time I felt like was a, you know, ‘Get on your knees, boy … pick that stuff up.’"
Another was so bothered by the disrespect that, after the third time Levy left folders on the floor, told another official that “If that happens again … I will walk out of the office.”
Levy also chewed out another subordinate over the phone over a minor change to a change-of-command ceremony script, flipping the order when the chaplain and the speaker were announced.
“He asked me, do I know who he is? And I said, ‘Yes sir,’” the subordinate told the IG. “And he said, ‘Uh, do you know that I am the three-star commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center?’ and I said, ‘Yes sir, I know.’”
That subordinate told the IG the call was done to humiliate her, and that she “shut down” and lost respect for Levy after that.
Another witness testified that Levy said “I want a head on a platter” over this incident.
Levy told investigators he did not recall it.
Personal expenses
The IG said Levy "wrongfully accepted loans from a lesser paid employee,' by having that junior officer pay his personal travel expenses on her own personal bank card in violation of Defense Department ethics regulations. Although Levy at first advanced the subordinate enough money to cover his expenses, the report said, Levy several times failed to replenish that amount to keep up with his spending, and at times he owed her several hundred dollars for months.
As Levy’s planned retirement approached last year, and after several attempts to get repaid, the subordinate began to get nervous that she might not be getting the money she was owed. She asked another official for help, who called Levy and shortly thereafter, Levy cut the subordinate a check.
Stevens, Levy’s attorney, said in a statement to Air Force Times that is a “gross mischaracterization.” He said junior officers had access to a personal bank account of Levy and his wife, and that they were to alert them if that account ran low and never to cover expenses with their own funds.
In this instance, Stevens said, a junior officer overspent the account without Levy’s knowledge and covered the error with her own funds, and then sought reimbursement. Levy did not authorize the overspending or ask to borrow money, and was unhappy his rule against overspending had been broken, Stevens said.
During his interview with the IG, the report said, Levy said he only became aware that his indebtedness to the subordinate was an issue when he read the allegation. When asked about the phone call with the person who intervened to obtain the final payment, said “I have no knowledge of what you’re talking about whatsoever.”
The IG said Levy’s denial was not persuasive, and that the official’s testimony was more credible than Levy’s and such a phone call “is not one that would likely have been overlooked or forgotten.”
“This stark and troubling difference in testimony about whether a telephone call took place raises the specter of a false official statement under Article 107, Uniform Code of Military Justice,” the IG said.
In fact, the IG said, Levy “claimed a lack of memory of events at all or details of the same” when asked about many events and allegations against him throughout his interview.
According to Air Force officials, there was not sufficient evidence to charge Levy with making a false official statement.
Levy offered 13 high-ranking officers and civilians as character witnesses to the IG, although all but three lacked first-hand knowledge or evidence as to the instances regarding his command climate.
Several of Levy’s character witnesses offered positive views about how he treated them personally and mentored them in their careers, the report said, although some acknowledged he could be difficult to please and “long had a reputation for being direct or intense.” Several said Levy’s style was not one they themselves would embrace, and a general officer cited as a character witness said he had turned down a chance to work for him because of his reputation.
In a memo to Air Force Times, Stevens included excerpts from multiple letters of support from those who worked side-by-side with Levy, to refute the claims that Levy had a “dual personality.” Several called Levy a mentor who challenged them to grow as officers and improve their own performance.
“Lt. Gen. Levy was ‘game on’ every day," one letter, whose writer was not identified, said. He “was admittedly a ‘tough’ commander with high expectations. … [T]here was not an unhealthy command climate at the AFSC during my assignment. There was a command climate that expected people to work hard, reach for high goals, and perform at their best every day, but there was absolutely not a disrespectful, belittling or humiliating environment. It was a challenging place to work, but I am a better airman for being pushed to perform my best every day.”
“I would follow Lt. Gen. Lee Levy into combat as his colleague or his subordinate again in any organization,” said another colleague, who also called Levy brilliant, articulate and decisive.
Levy, who joined the Air Force in 1985, commanded AFSC from June 2015 until his change of command and retirement ceremonies were held on Aug. 7, 2018. But when allegations about his behavior emerged while he was on terminal leave, former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson extended his term on active duty and he was reassigned to the Pentagon while the investigation was conducted.
Levy was originally due to officially retire on Oct. 1, 2018. But because he was kept on active duty for the investigation, he reverted to his previous rank of major general last Oct. 6, 60 days after he left his command at AFSC. Stevens said the law requires three-star generals to revert to major general after being out of command 60 days.
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said an officer grade determination was conducted, which did not restore his third star. He officially retired as a two-star on Nov. 1.
By Stephen Losey
Air Force Times
November 26, 2019
According to some who worked for him, there were two sides to former Lt. Gen. Lee Levy.
In public, the former head of the Air Force Sustainment Center was “self-confident, articulate, charismatic, passionate, likeable [and] charming,” witnesses told investigators from the Air Force’s Office of the Inspector General. But some who worked for him saw a very different leader — one who “repeatedly, publicly and personally belittled and berated” his staff, was “abrasive” and created an environment “infused with fear and intimidation.”
Subordinates were “walking on eggshells” to avoid upsetting him, according to a March 2019 IG report.
A comment by one unnamed witness reveals just how reviled Levy — and the toxic command climate he created — was by some: “I think if he was in the battlefield, he probably would’ve been shot in the back,” the witness said.
The IG report, which the Air Force provided at Air Force Times’ request, indicates this witness wasn’t alone.
“Though stated in a number of ways, this sentiment was expressed by virtually every member of Lt. Gen. Levy’s [redacted]," the report says.
Levy’s bullying behavior — which investigators found even extended to making degrading remarks and pig noises in public about a female subordinate’s eating habits — ultimately cost him his third star. He officially retired as a major general on Nov. 1, over a year after he left the center and his formal retirement ceremony was held.
The Air Force Sustainment Center, which is headquartered at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, is part of Air Force Materiel Command and provides depot maintenance, supply chain management and installation support to sustain multiple aircraft including the A-10 Warthog, AC-130, B-1 Lancer, B-52 Stratofortress, F-15, F-16 and F-22 fighters, and the KC-130 Stratotanker.
One witness said that although she knew and liked Levy at first, after going to work for him, things became so bad she began to lose sleep and was unable to get out of bed on weekends.
“There were a lot of nights when I would come home just in tears or … just absolutely emotionally and mentally exhausted from the work,” she said. “After I worked for him and experienced that, it was more of, he’s the boogeyman that you just wanted to run away from.”
In a statement provided by his attorney, Levy said he disagreed with the allegations and characterizations against him in the report.
“I attempted to be tough but fair in my leadership style as we strove for excellence in everything we did,” Levy said. “Had concerns been voiced at the time, I would certainly have addressed the issue to resolve it. Unfortunately, those who are now complaining waited until I left command and was retiring.”
But the IG report detailed repeated, specific incidents that investigators concluded amounted to a failure to set and maintain a healthy command climate.
‘You’re always eating’
Perhaps the most egregious of Levy’s comments — corroborated by multiple witnesses — were directed toward one woman under his command about her eating habits and weight.
This airman told investigators that Levy would “always have to somewhat make a joke at my expense" to groups of people, typically when she was the lowest ranking airman. Although she never had any weight issues or difficulty meeting Air Force fitness standards due to her eating habits — one witness described her as “very much in shape” — Levy would comment about what she was eating, claim she was always sleeping, or say she never knew what she was doing.
She told investigators that one day, as she was sitting at her desk at lunchtime, Levy walked by and said, “Oink, oink, [redacted]. Are you really eating again?”
Levy’s comments made another person so uncomfortable he stepped away, the report stated. Levy looked at her, laughed and grabbed his own lunch before saying, “You’re always eating.”
Another witness corroborated her testimony and said Levy’s conduct was “terribly degrading and rude,” and a sign of toxic leadership.
Levy told investigators he didn’t recall that incident, or making comments about that airman’s weight and eating habits. When asked if he said the airman was “always eating,” he told investigators, “Mmm, I might have said that when I … I don’t know. I don’t know.” He also said if he did say something like that, “it was part of good-natured give-and-take between the two of them” and that the female airman would have participated in it by making jokes about her own eating.
In an email Monday, Levy’s attorney, Richard Stevens, said he denied making pig noises or saying anything intended to be personally belittling or demeaning.
“In general, there were frequently conversations and light-hearted banter among the ‘inner circle’ staff about who was eating what, among many, many other topics every single day,” Stevens said.
But the female airman did not feel it was so light-hearted. She told investigators she felt she was being compared to a pig, and that she didn’t feel his comments were good-natured. To the contrary, she told the IG, they made her feel “terrible.” Like many women, she said, she is conscious about her weight.
That wasn’t the only instance when Levy allegedly made such comments to her. On a business trip to Washington around March 2017, Levy reportedly made another remark about her weight while riding in a government vehicle as it was going over bumps on a freeway.
An unidentified witness said Levy said something along the lines of “if you lose a few pounds, maybe the vehicle would have less strain on it.”
The female airman also testified that Levy said during that drive that she needed to be careful about how much she ate, because her uniform pants might not fit anymore.
The IG said that even if Levy was trying to be humorous and was oblivious that his comments were not being taken in that light, “his comments were inappropriate, particularly given his position and the public contexts in which they were made, (though even if made in private the comments would still not have been appropriate). They undermined [the airman’s] dignity and were not respectful of her.”
‘Do you know who I am?’
The report also detailed multiple other instances in which Levy is said to have bullied or humiliated his subordinates, even on a matter as small as his coffee not being hot enough or dust being on the top of picture frames. Wing commanders also were subject to Levy’s poor treatment, witnesses told the IG, though the report did not detail such incidents.
He once publicly reprimanded a civilian employee for not pulling him out of a meeting with a four-star general when a senator called, even though the senator said not to disturb Levy and left a message wishing Levy happy holidays.
“General Levy was yelling at me so loud that … everybody else … all came out [of their offices] to see who he was yelling at and what he was yelling about,” that witness said. “I was almost in tears. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough, but I stood there and took the, what I call a tongue-lashing, and just kept saying, ‘Yes sir, it won’t happen again.’”
Witnesses told investigators that Levy repeatedly dropped folders and packages on the floor for subordinates in piles to pick up. Several thought it was intentional, and one said he believed it was a “total power move.” One subordinate was so shocked that he took a picture of the pile.
“I still don’t quite know how to respond to it,” said one witness who had to pick up folders Levy left on the floor three separate times. “At the time I felt like was a, you know, ‘Get on your knees, boy … pick that stuff up.’"
Another was so bothered by the disrespect that, after the third time Levy left folders on the floor, told another official that “If that happens again … I will walk out of the office.”
Levy also chewed out another subordinate over the phone over a minor change to a change-of-command ceremony script, flipping the order when the chaplain and the speaker were announced.
“He asked me, do I know who he is? And I said, ‘Yes sir,’” the subordinate told the IG. “And he said, ‘Uh, do you know that I am the three-star commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center?’ and I said, ‘Yes sir, I know.’”
That subordinate told the IG the call was done to humiliate her, and that she “shut down” and lost respect for Levy after that.
Another witness testified that Levy said “I want a head on a platter” over this incident.
Levy told investigators he did not recall it.
Personal expenses
The IG said Levy "wrongfully accepted loans from a lesser paid employee,' by having that junior officer pay his personal travel expenses on her own personal bank card in violation of Defense Department ethics regulations. Although Levy at first advanced the subordinate enough money to cover his expenses, the report said, Levy several times failed to replenish that amount to keep up with his spending, and at times he owed her several hundred dollars for months.
As Levy’s planned retirement approached last year, and after several attempts to get repaid, the subordinate began to get nervous that she might not be getting the money she was owed. She asked another official for help, who called Levy and shortly thereafter, Levy cut the subordinate a check.
Stevens, Levy’s attorney, said in a statement to Air Force Times that is a “gross mischaracterization.” He said junior officers had access to a personal bank account of Levy and his wife, and that they were to alert them if that account ran low and never to cover expenses with their own funds.
In this instance, Stevens said, a junior officer overspent the account without Levy’s knowledge and covered the error with her own funds, and then sought reimbursement. Levy did not authorize the overspending or ask to borrow money, and was unhappy his rule against overspending had been broken, Stevens said.
During his interview with the IG, the report said, Levy said he only became aware that his indebtedness to the subordinate was an issue when he read the allegation. When asked about the phone call with the person who intervened to obtain the final payment, said “I have no knowledge of what you’re talking about whatsoever.”
The IG said Levy’s denial was not persuasive, and that the official’s testimony was more credible than Levy’s and such a phone call “is not one that would likely have been overlooked or forgotten.”
“This stark and troubling difference in testimony about whether a telephone call took place raises the specter of a false official statement under Article 107, Uniform Code of Military Justice,” the IG said.
In fact, the IG said, Levy “claimed a lack of memory of events at all or details of the same” when asked about many events and allegations against him throughout his interview.
According to Air Force officials, there was not sufficient evidence to charge Levy with making a false official statement.
Levy offered 13 high-ranking officers and civilians as character witnesses to the IG, although all but three lacked first-hand knowledge or evidence as to the instances regarding his command climate.
Several of Levy’s character witnesses offered positive views about how he treated them personally and mentored them in their careers, the report said, although some acknowledged he could be difficult to please and “long had a reputation for being direct or intense.” Several said Levy’s style was not one they themselves would embrace, and a general officer cited as a character witness said he had turned down a chance to work for him because of his reputation.
In a memo to Air Force Times, Stevens included excerpts from multiple letters of support from those who worked side-by-side with Levy, to refute the claims that Levy had a “dual personality.” Several called Levy a mentor who challenged them to grow as officers and improve their own performance.
“Lt. Gen. Levy was ‘game on’ every day," one letter, whose writer was not identified, said. He “was admittedly a ‘tough’ commander with high expectations. … [T]here was not an unhealthy command climate at the AFSC during my assignment. There was a command climate that expected people to work hard, reach for high goals, and perform at their best every day, but there was absolutely not a disrespectful, belittling or humiliating environment. It was a challenging place to work, but I am a better airman for being pushed to perform my best every day.”
“I would follow Lt. Gen. Lee Levy into combat as his colleague or his subordinate again in any organization,” said another colleague, who also called Levy brilliant, articulate and decisive.
Levy, who joined the Air Force in 1985, commanded AFSC from June 2015 until his change of command and retirement ceremonies were held on Aug. 7, 2018. But when allegations about his behavior emerged while he was on terminal leave, former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson extended his term on active duty and he was reassigned to the Pentagon while the investigation was conducted.
Levy was originally due to officially retire on Oct. 1, 2018. But because he was kept on active duty for the investigation, he reverted to his previous rank of major general last Oct. 6, 60 days after he left his command at AFSC. Stevens said the law requires three-star generals to revert to major general after being out of command 60 days.
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said an officer grade determination was conducted, which did not restore his third star. He officially retired as a two-star on Nov. 1.
ADL HAS LACKED THE COURAGE TO CALL OUT THAT VIOLENCE AND HATE TOWARDS THE JEWISH COMMUNITY HAS BEEN LARGELY LED BY AFRICAN-AMERICANS
Despite new push, doubt lingers over ADL’s ability to fight anti-Semitism
By Shiryn Ghermezian
JNS
November 25, 2019
Standing alongside Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams, local faith leaders, elected officials, and community partners, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt announced last week that the New York-based group will be doubling the number of Brooklyn schools involved in its “No Place for Hate Peer to Peer Program” for the 2019-2020 school year. The ADL committed $250,000 to expand the initiative, which has helped promote tolerance in more than 1,700 public and private schools nationwide since 1999.
The program has already been rolled out in 22 schools in Brooklyn, N.Y., and reached more than 8,200 students, according to ABC7. The number of schools administering the program will expand to up to 40 this academic year, with a focus on the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park, where most of the recent anti-Semitic incidents against Orthodox Jews have taken place.
“We track acts of harassment and vandalism and violence, and what’s so alarming is that the situation has not improved this year,” said Greenblatt. “The severity of the incidents seems to be increasing in terms of their frequency, their aggressiveness, and their physicality.”
The 2018 Hate Crime Statistics, released on Nov. 12 by the FBI, revealed that of the 1,617 victims of anti-religious hate crimes reported in the United States, “56.9% were victims of crimes motivated by offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.” Brooklyn alone experienced at least 93 incidents of anti-Semitic violence, harassment, and vandalism in 2018. The most recent acts of anti-Semitic vandalism involve the unprovoked attack on a 21-year-old Orthodox man in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and a series of egg-throwing incidents targeting Jews in Borough Park.
Despite the expansion of its education program, the ADL has been criticized for its approach to fighting anti-Semitism, especially in New York. Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, also the founder of Americans Against AntiSemitism, told JNS, “I just don’t have much faith in the ADL and what they represent these days. I think they need to be educated to recognize what’s going on in our communities, to be honest about what’s going on and to address what’s going on. They’re talking about education? I want to educate them.”
Citing some examples, Hikind expressed frustration at the ADL for never publicly criticizing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders – a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate – for appointing outspoken anti-Semite Linda Sarsour as an official campaign surrogate. He also said the ADL never publicly addressed a recent report that documents the “systemic anti-Semitism and an ingrained delegitimization of Israel” at New York’s Columbia University and its sister school, Barnard College.
“ADL is [supposed to be] there for the Jewish people to fight against anti-Semitism. How is it possible that this is going on in New York, the home of the ADL, and where is the ADL with regard to [anti-Semitism] at Columbia University, NYU and Kingsborough Community College? What are they doing in all these places? The answer is nothing,” said Hikind. “I know the ADL criticized [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu when he made certain remarks. That’s what we need the ADL for? They do wonderful reports, but beyond that, it’s a joke.”
He added that “they need to be educated into dealing with reality and to stop being so freaking politically correct. That’s sort of the moto of the ADL. Not to rock the boat.”
Bryan Leib, board member of Americans Against Anti-Semitism, also told JNS that he has little hope in the ADL and its newly announced initiative.
“While no effort to combat anti-Semitism should be overlooked or downplayed, the ADL has shown that it’s unwilling to address the problem head-on by getting to the crux of the matter, so I’m not expecting this program to have much of an immediate effect,” he said. “The ADL has failed to call out any form of anti-Semitism that isn’t borne of white supremacy, and their curriculum is more about tolerance and racism in general than it is about the unique history of anti-Semitism.
“We cannot expect to fight anti-Semitism if we don’t recognize its coming from the left and the right. So while teaching tolerance is always good, it won’t likely make a dent against the irrational hatred that is anti-Semitism,” he continued. “If city officials are actually interested in making a dent in the rise of violence, they should publicly announce that they are placing undercover police on the streets dressed as Orthodox Jews in the three main areas the attacks are taking place. At the very least, that would help deter future attacks.”
Nissan Jacobs, founder and CEO of WoMen Fight AntiSemitism, told JNS that while her organization is “overjoyed” to see the “No Place for Hate Peer to Peer Program” in New York, “the violence and hate towards the Jewish community has been largely led by African-Americans and Muslims, which does not fit the Trump right-wing paradigm, and indeed, ADL has lacked the courage to call this out.”
She said “the ADL is largely held to its donor base, and they have been absent in key areas of speaking out, which is why we and Hikind stepped forward. Obviously, had ADL been doing their job, we would not have had to hold a rally against such crimes in front of the New York City Mayor’s office. But the fact they are partnering with Brooklyn Borough president Adams clarifies that they may not have the guts to speak out and be honest to Jews who see through their silence on this essential part of the problem, but they are aware that throwing money, time and energy to the wind in any other direction is a futile waste.”
“The attacks in the key areas this initiative is focused on, Crown Heights, Borough Park and Williamsburg, are 99.99% perpetrated by anti-Semites from the African-American, Muslim and Latino communities. Again, we have to take credit for making this possible because up to now, the ADL has ignored this basic fact.”
Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, a leader in Crown Heights and founder of the New York-based volunteer group Jewish Future Alliance, found fault with the ADL’s national leadership. While commending the local leadership in New York for not politicizing the issue of anti-Semitism and being “honest, direct and responsive” about its source, he said about ADL’s national leaders: “I think they’re blaming everything on the alt-right, when in truth in Brooklyn the anti-Semitism is coming from the left.”
It’s agreed that more than education is needed to stop the wave of attacks, taking place across Brooklyn. Behrman said the ADL’s education program is not “the solution to the problem” in the borough “because it’s not catered to the issues we’re facing now.”
He explained, “I think if you want to solve the problems in Brooklyn, you have to address the issues head-on. Any curriculum has to cater to local problems; a lot of it is gentrification and the Jewish community being falsely blamed for the displacement of the African-American community. If you teach against hate, and someone can’t make their rent and the Jew is seen as the person to blame, I don’t think a curriculum about hate is necessarily going to make a real difference here.”
Though the issue does not have one simple solution, Behrman suggested doing a study in local schools to understand what factors are influencing people’s behaviors and leading to an increase in violent anti-Semitic attacks. “Once we have the results, we can create a curriculum to cater to those needs,” he said.
He also pointed out what he believes is a “general feeling of lawlessness” in New York, which he blamed on city and state officials instituting laws that are “effectively tying the hands of the police department and making it harder for them to arrest and do their job. And as a result, people are more likely to commit violent crimes.”
“New York is turning into Gotham in terms of lawlessness,” he asserted, “and we need a Batman to save the day.”
By Shiryn Ghermezian
JNS
November 25, 2019
Standing alongside Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams, local faith leaders, elected officials, and community partners, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt announced last week that the New York-based group will be doubling the number of Brooklyn schools involved in its “No Place for Hate Peer to Peer Program” for the 2019-2020 school year. The ADL committed $250,000 to expand the initiative, which has helped promote tolerance in more than 1,700 public and private schools nationwide since 1999.
The program has already been rolled out in 22 schools in Brooklyn, N.Y., and reached more than 8,200 students, according to ABC7. The number of schools administering the program will expand to up to 40 this academic year, with a focus on the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park, where most of the recent anti-Semitic incidents against Orthodox Jews have taken place.
“We track acts of harassment and vandalism and violence, and what’s so alarming is that the situation has not improved this year,” said Greenblatt. “The severity of the incidents seems to be increasing in terms of their frequency, their aggressiveness, and their physicality.”
The 2018 Hate Crime Statistics, released on Nov. 12 by the FBI, revealed that of the 1,617 victims of anti-religious hate crimes reported in the United States, “56.9% were victims of crimes motivated by offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.” Brooklyn alone experienced at least 93 incidents of anti-Semitic violence, harassment, and vandalism in 2018. The most recent acts of anti-Semitic vandalism involve the unprovoked attack on a 21-year-old Orthodox man in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and a series of egg-throwing incidents targeting Jews in Borough Park.
Despite the expansion of its education program, the ADL has been criticized for its approach to fighting anti-Semitism, especially in New York. Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, also the founder of Americans Against AntiSemitism, told JNS, “I just don’t have much faith in the ADL and what they represent these days. I think they need to be educated to recognize what’s going on in our communities, to be honest about what’s going on and to address what’s going on. They’re talking about education? I want to educate them.”
Citing some examples, Hikind expressed frustration at the ADL for never publicly criticizing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders – a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate – for appointing outspoken anti-Semite Linda Sarsour as an official campaign surrogate. He also said the ADL never publicly addressed a recent report that documents the “systemic anti-Semitism and an ingrained delegitimization of Israel” at New York’s Columbia University and its sister school, Barnard College.
“ADL is [supposed to be] there for the Jewish people to fight against anti-Semitism. How is it possible that this is going on in New York, the home of the ADL, and where is the ADL with regard to [anti-Semitism] at Columbia University, NYU and Kingsborough Community College? What are they doing in all these places? The answer is nothing,” said Hikind. “I know the ADL criticized [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu when he made certain remarks. That’s what we need the ADL for? They do wonderful reports, but beyond that, it’s a joke.”
He added that “they need to be educated into dealing with reality and to stop being so freaking politically correct. That’s sort of the moto of the ADL. Not to rock the boat.”
Bryan Leib, board member of Americans Against Anti-Semitism, also told JNS that he has little hope in the ADL and its newly announced initiative.
“While no effort to combat anti-Semitism should be overlooked or downplayed, the ADL has shown that it’s unwilling to address the problem head-on by getting to the crux of the matter, so I’m not expecting this program to have much of an immediate effect,” he said. “The ADL has failed to call out any form of anti-Semitism that isn’t borne of white supremacy, and their curriculum is more about tolerance and racism in general than it is about the unique history of anti-Semitism.
“We cannot expect to fight anti-Semitism if we don’t recognize its coming from the left and the right. So while teaching tolerance is always good, it won’t likely make a dent against the irrational hatred that is anti-Semitism,” he continued. “If city officials are actually interested in making a dent in the rise of violence, they should publicly announce that they are placing undercover police on the streets dressed as Orthodox Jews in the three main areas the attacks are taking place. At the very least, that would help deter future attacks.”
Nissan Jacobs, founder and CEO of WoMen Fight AntiSemitism, told JNS that while her organization is “overjoyed” to see the “No Place for Hate Peer to Peer Program” in New York, “the violence and hate towards the Jewish community has been largely led by African-Americans and Muslims, which does not fit the Trump right-wing paradigm, and indeed, ADL has lacked the courage to call this out.”
She said “the ADL is largely held to its donor base, and they have been absent in key areas of speaking out, which is why we and Hikind stepped forward. Obviously, had ADL been doing their job, we would not have had to hold a rally against such crimes in front of the New York City Mayor’s office. But the fact they are partnering with Brooklyn Borough president Adams clarifies that they may not have the guts to speak out and be honest to Jews who see through their silence on this essential part of the problem, but they are aware that throwing money, time and energy to the wind in any other direction is a futile waste.”
“The attacks in the key areas this initiative is focused on, Crown Heights, Borough Park and Williamsburg, are 99.99% perpetrated by anti-Semites from the African-American, Muslim and Latino communities. Again, we have to take credit for making this possible because up to now, the ADL has ignored this basic fact.”
Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, a leader in Crown Heights and founder of the New York-based volunteer group Jewish Future Alliance, found fault with the ADL’s national leadership. While commending the local leadership in New York for not politicizing the issue of anti-Semitism and being “honest, direct and responsive” about its source, he said about ADL’s national leaders: “I think they’re blaming everything on the alt-right, when in truth in Brooklyn the anti-Semitism is coming from the left.”
It’s agreed that more than education is needed to stop the wave of attacks, taking place across Brooklyn. Behrman said the ADL’s education program is not “the solution to the problem” in the borough “because it’s not catered to the issues we’re facing now.”
He explained, “I think if you want to solve the problems in Brooklyn, you have to address the issues head-on. Any curriculum has to cater to local problems; a lot of it is gentrification and the Jewish community being falsely blamed for the displacement of the African-American community. If you teach against hate, and someone can’t make their rent and the Jew is seen as the person to blame, I don’t think a curriculum about hate is necessarily going to make a real difference here.”
Though the issue does not have one simple solution, Behrman suggested doing a study in local schools to understand what factors are influencing people’s behaviors and leading to an increase in violent anti-Semitic attacks. “Once we have the results, we can create a curriculum to cater to those needs,” he said.
He also pointed out what he believes is a “general feeling of lawlessness” in New York, which he blamed on city and state officials instituting laws that are “effectively tying the hands of the police department and making it harder for them to arrest and do their job. And as a result, people are more likely to commit violent crimes.”
“New York is turning into Gotham in terms of lawlessness,” he asserted, “and we need a Batman to save the day.”
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
HOW TRUMP WANTS TO BE SEEN
And that's how Trey Rusk and Dave Freeman see Trump
Rocky Trump, a true champion, eager to take on all challengers, including Adam Schitt and Jerry Nadler
Rocky Trump, a true champion, eager to take on all challengers, including Adam Schitt and Jerry Nadler
JORDANAIAN RESEARCHERS SAY ONLY 400,000 JEWS WERE KILED BY THE NAZIS AND THEY DESERVED IT
The Holocaust – “Biggest Lie in Modern History”
By Edy Cohen
Israel Today
November 26, 2019
In many countries around the world denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense that can lead to lengthy imprisonment. In Arab countries, not only do they not teach about the Holocaust, but they openly deny the Holocaust to ridicule Israel and the Jewish people.
In October, a conference was organized for Jordanian researchers and journalists under the banner “The Holocaust – the Biggest Lie in Modern History.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a video with English subtitles exposing some of the shocking statements made at the conference. Organizers claimed that between 600,000-800,000 victims were killed in the Nazi concentration camps, and of these, only half were Jewish, meaning that no more than 400,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
The common antisemitic distortion used to justify the horrors of the Holocaust was repeated at the conference, which asserted that the Jews had it coming to them because they negatively influenced German and Western society. There was even the absurd claim made that there is no evidence proving the Holocaust – no bones, cremated bodies, gas chambers or any other physical indication that it ever happened, even though the evidence is well-documented and accessible to everyone.
At the end of the conference, one of the speakers said, “The Jews lie so much (about the Holocaust) that they have come to believe their own lies.” This statement echoes the infamous Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Nazi Propaganda, who said that if we repeat a lie enough times, the lie will get rooted in the consciousness of the masses as the truth.
It is important to understand that this despicable conference could not have taken place without the approval of the Jordanian authorities, who themselves publicly deny the Holocaust. They have decided that it is to their advantage to falsify historical and scientific data and ignore facts that have been researched comprehensively for many decades.
This kind of event not only encourages further Holocaust-denial in the Arab world, but also antisemitism that is on the rise on Arab streets and many other places across the globe.
The obvious purpose of this conference is to demonize Jews and delegitimize the State of Israel by minimizing the magnitude of the Holocaust, which is falsely perceived to be the main justification for the existence of the Jewish state.
Israel is failing to expose and deal with the phenomenon of Holocaust-denial in the Arab world. It is time to stop ignoring the dangerous propaganda and stop being afraid to confront those who promote the diabolical falsification of the Holocaust. Dialog or reconciliation cannot be achieved with Jordan, or any other country, whose starting point is antisemitism and Holocaust-denial.
By Edy Cohen
Israel Today
November 26, 2019
In many countries around the world denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense that can lead to lengthy imprisonment. In Arab countries, not only do they not teach about the Holocaust, but they openly deny the Holocaust to ridicule Israel and the Jewish people.
In October, a conference was organized for Jordanian researchers and journalists under the banner “The Holocaust – the Biggest Lie in Modern History.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a video with English subtitles exposing some of the shocking statements made at the conference. Organizers claimed that between 600,000-800,000 victims were killed in the Nazi concentration camps, and of these, only half were Jewish, meaning that no more than 400,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
The common antisemitic distortion used to justify the horrors of the Holocaust was repeated at the conference, which asserted that the Jews had it coming to them because they negatively influenced German and Western society. There was even the absurd claim made that there is no evidence proving the Holocaust – no bones, cremated bodies, gas chambers or any other physical indication that it ever happened, even though the evidence is well-documented and accessible to everyone.
At the end of the conference, one of the speakers said, “The Jews lie so much (about the Holocaust) that they have come to believe their own lies.” This statement echoes the infamous Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Nazi Propaganda, who said that if we repeat a lie enough times, the lie will get rooted in the consciousness of the masses as the truth.
It is important to understand that this despicable conference could not have taken place without the approval of the Jordanian authorities, who themselves publicly deny the Holocaust. They have decided that it is to their advantage to falsify historical and scientific data and ignore facts that have been researched comprehensively for many decades.
This kind of event not only encourages further Holocaust-denial in the Arab world, but also antisemitism that is on the rise on Arab streets and many other places across the globe.
The obvious purpose of this conference is to demonize Jews and delegitimize the State of Israel by minimizing the magnitude of the Holocaust, which is falsely perceived to be the main justification for the existence of the Jewish state.
Israel is failing to expose and deal with the phenomenon of Holocaust-denial in the Arab world. It is time to stop ignoring the dangerous propaganda and stop being afraid to confront those who promote the diabolical falsification of the Holocaust. Dialog or reconciliation cannot be achieved with Jordan, or any other country, whose starting point is antisemitism and Holocaust-denial.
LOOKS LIKE STEPHEN KING WAS RIGHT
by Bob Walsh
U C Santa Cruz has announced they have found a three times higher mercury concentration in the mountain lions in their area than in the mountain lions in the inland areas of the formerly great state of California. The suspected cause.....FOG.
They think (or at least want us to think) that the fog is leeching mercury out of the ocean and depositing it in coastal areas where it makes its way into the flora and fauna. They think the mercury originates with the burning of coal. (Think China and India.)
Just make sure you don't eat any mountain lions you might happen to shoot. It could be bad for you.
U C Santa Cruz has announced they have found a three times higher mercury concentration in the mountain lions in their area than in the mountain lions in the inland areas of the formerly great state of California. The suspected cause.....FOG.
They think (or at least want us to think) that the fog is leeching mercury out of the ocean and depositing it in coastal areas where it makes its way into the flora and fauna. They think the mercury originates with the burning of coal. (Think China and India.)
Just make sure you don't eat any mountain lions you might happen to shoot. It could be bad for you.
IS NANCY PELOSI'S SCROTUM SHRIVELING ?
by Bob Walsh
A careful read of some subtle and not so subtle clues and remarks being made, mostly on the QT, might tend to lead a reasonable person to believe that Nancy Pelosi really, really does not want to take an unsuccessful impeachment attempt forward and is trying to arrange a censure instead.
Trouble is, the psycho left really believes their own press. They really think that Trump did it and that Adam Schiff has all the proof in his back pocket and all they have to do is go forward with it and Trump will be impeached, removed from office and summarily executed, making Hillary Clinton the new president. (What can I say, they are idiots.)
Whether this is going to work out or not I have no idea. It is, however, still fun to watch and speculate.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Bob, have you had one to many of those bottles with the worm in them?
A careful read of some subtle and not so subtle clues and remarks being made, mostly on the QT, might tend to lead a reasonable person to believe that Nancy Pelosi really, really does not want to take an unsuccessful impeachment attempt forward and is trying to arrange a censure instead.
Trouble is, the psycho left really believes their own press. They really think that Trump did it and that Adam Schiff has all the proof in his back pocket and all they have to do is go forward with it and Trump will be impeached, removed from office and summarily executed, making Hillary Clinton the new president. (What can I say, they are idiots.)
Whether this is going to work out or not I have no idea. It is, however, still fun to watch and speculate.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Bob, have you had one to many of those bottles with the worm in them?
DRUGS TO US, GUNS TO MEXICO
Arizona guns quietly smuggled across border as bullets fly in Mexico
By Curt Prendergast
Arizona Daily Star
November 25, 2019
Images of charred, bullet-ridden trucks on a remote highway in Sonora and an hourslong gunbattle in the heart of Culiacan, Sinaloa, horrified the U.S. public in recent weeks.
The images showed where the “iron river” of guns and ammunition bought in the United States empties onto the streets of Mexico.
The headwaters of that river often spring from Southern Arizona, where federal court records show young people buying weapons for $100 payouts, a man buying rifles from gun stores every few days for nearly a year in Green Valley and Tucson, and heroin addicts selling .50-caliber rifles to their dealers.
After the fatal shooting of three women and six children in La Mora, Sonora, on Nov. 4, Mexican officials announced that some of the ammunition used in the attack came from the U.S.
To get a closer look at how the iron river flows from Southern Arizona into Mexico, the Arizona Daily Star analyzed the 32 weapons-smuggling cases involving Mexico filed in federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix in 2018.
The cases show that rather than dam up the iron river midstream at the Arizona-Sonora border, federal agencies focus on where the river ends and where it begins.
Only a handful of prosecutions came from firearms and ammunition being smuggled into Mexico through Arizona’s ports of entry. Most cases came from federal agents scouring suspicious paperwork at gun stores in Tucson and Phoenix or following up on firearms recovered in Mexico that were traced back to Arizona.
At Arizona’s ports of entry, customs officers catch thousands of pounds of hard drugs every year and inspect millions of travelers heading north, but they only caught six rifles and four handguns heading south in fiscal 2019, according to data provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Since 2012, customs officers in Arizona caught 106 rifles, 88 handguns and 202,000 rounds of ammunition.
Far more weapons were caught in Sonora after they crossed the border. Since 2009, the Mexican military recovered 6,700 illicit firearms, including 4,200 rifles, the Mexican newspaper El Imparcial reported on Nov. 18.
Firearms are largely illegal for civilians in Mexico, but they are used widely by drug cartels and other criminal groups.
The Mexican military estimates 1.6 million illicit firearms are circulating in Mexico, the Milenio news outlet reported in August. The estimate included 200,000 firearms smuggled into Mexico each year, most of which came from the U.S. but also from Spain, Italy and Austria.
A more solid number comes from weapons traced back to the U.S. after Mexican authorities recover them at crime scenes, find them abandoned, or under other circumstances. More than 67,000 firearms recovered in Mexico were traced to the U.S. from 2013 to 2018, according to ATF data.
The narratives included in court cases and search-warrant affidavits illustrate what Mexican commentators call an “operación hormiga,” or “ant operation,” of quietly buying firearms in Southern Arizona and smuggling them in small numbers across the border.
Even one such purchase can have “devastating repercussions” in Mexico, Angela Woolridge, a federal prosecutor who handles many of the firearm cases in Tucson’s federal court, wrote in sentencing memorandums.
“It is impossible to know how many people already have been or will be threatened, injured, or killed because of the single firearm the defendant purchased,” Woolridge wrote.
Last weekend, three people were fatally shot in San Luis Rio Colorado, the Mexican border town south of San Luis, Arizona. Mexican authorities recovered high-powered rifles, tactical gear and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Grenade launchers were at the heart of a 2018 case in which an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent set up two sting operations in Tucson and Chandler.
A man who was not named in court documents contacted the HSI agent online and asked about buying an M-16 automatic rifle and a grenade launcher. He and the undercover agent set a price of $3,650 and met in the parking lot of a big-box store in Tucson in September 2018. The man was arrested, as were two men the following month who met with the agent in Chandler to buy three machine guns with attached grenade launchers for $10,500.
Another highly destructive weapon that figures prominently in cartel violence is the .50-caliber rifle, which can pierce armor and bring down helicopters.
When Mexican soldiers in Sinaloa took into custody the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, on Oct. 17 they set off an hourslong gunbattle with cartel soldiers, some of whom used .50-caliber rifles.
The .50-caliber rifles are “what the cartels need to strengthen their particular ‘armies,’ if you will,” said Monique Villegas, special agent in charge of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. If a competing cartel gets .50-caliber rifles, “that’s what they’re going to start looking for in the U.S.”
Buying one is relatively easy in Arizona and elsewhere, Villegas said.
“My 86-year-old grandmother could walk into a store and buy a .50-caliber rifle if she wants to,” Villegas said.
Michael Huynh, 29, and Katie O’Brien, 28, both Tucsonans, did just that on several occasions, court records show.
They were sentenced in September to five years in prison after they bought three .50-caliber rifles on behalf of their heroin dealer, who would then arrange to have them smuggled into Mexico. One of the .50-caliber rifles, a belt-fed TNW HBM2, is so heavy-duty that it is mounted on a tripod.
Huynh later said he had bought about 50 firearms for his heroin dealer in the previous year.
A rifle that Huynh bought in October 2017, a Century Arms RAS47 assault rifle, was recovered in Mexico three months later after a shootout between Mexican law enforcement and a cartel in La Paz, Baja California Sur.
During their investigation, ATF agents learned that another man, who was not charged, bought a Colt M4 rifle for Huynh’s heroin dealer in March 2017. That rifle was recovered in Culiacan four months later.
Although port busts are relatively rare, when they do happen they can lead to complex investigations.
In November 2017, customs officers busted a vehicle containing six firearms at a port of entry in Nogales, Arizona. Investigators found that one of the firearms was sold online to Gardenia Rincon Avilez two days before the bust, court records show.
Five months later, police in El Mirage searched the home of Nicholas Brasseur, a licensed firearms dealer, and found paperwork showing he had sold 50 lower receivers for AR-15 type rifles to Rincon in March 2018 for $21,000 and another 53 receivers to an associate of Rincon.
Brasseur told agents that Rincon had said she planned to take the receivers to Tucson, where they would be converted to fully automatic rifles and then taken to Mexico.
Weeks later, customs officers in Nogales stopped Rincon as she drove into Arizona. She told agents that she bought the receivers and took them to her sister’s house in Scottsdale, where she stored them in a Tupperware box in the garage.
She eventually took them to Tucson and sold them to the man who had told her which weapons to buy. She sold them for $700 each, or a profit of about $400 per receiver, according to court records.
Rincon said she was given cash in Mexico and brought it to Arizona to buy weapons. On one occasion, she was asked to buy a FN M249 belt-fed rifle in Phoenix. She bought the rifle for $8,000 and sold it in Tucson for $12,500.
Two of the rifles she bought in March 2018 were later recovered in Mexico.
Young buyers
In June 2017, an otherwise law-abiding 18-year-old in Tucson was pressured by a family friend to buy a rifle. The friend gave him the money and told him to buy a Century Arms WASR-10 assault rifle from a gun store in Tucson.
In exchange for $100, the young man lied to the store employee and said the rifle was for his own use, making him one of a half-dozen “straw buyers” in a smuggling ring that moved rifles through Nogales into Mexico, including one recovered in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
In another case, a 23-year-old woman bought a Century Arms RAS47 pistol in Tucson at the request of her boyfriend in December 2017. Hours later, he smuggled it through Nogales into Mexico. The pistol was used in a crime in Sinaloa less than two months later.
Young buyers are common in Arizona and throughout the states bordering Mexico, said the ATF’s Villegas.
“They probably have no ties to the cartel,” Villegas said, and instead are just looking to make a “quick couple hundred dollars.”
“A lot of these people don’t know guns really,” Villegas said. “They are told which guns are needed at that time and told which ones to get.”
Straw buyers need to have clean criminal histories and “the chances of having a criminal record goes down if you’re young,” said Scott Brown, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Phoenix.
As is the case with various types of crime, “some young people don’t recognize the significance of their actions,” Brown said.
Young people acting as straw buyers are among the biggest challenges to shutting down cross-border firearms trafficking in Southern Arizona, he said.
He called it “troubling” that so many people would agree to be straw buyers without “recognizing that you are buying a gun that is intended to be used in a crime by people with a callous attitude towards life,” Brown said.
Repeat buys
Gun-trafficking rings buy the same type of weapon over and over, court records show.
“Cartels know they can go to multiple stores and buy one or two firearms and it won’t pop up as a trafficking scheme,” Villegas said.
In one of the most egregious cases the Star found, Alejandro Navarro Mendez pleaded guilty earlier this month to buying 108 firearms knowing they would be smuggled into Mexico. His most common purchases were Savage .22-caliber rifles, which accounted for 36 of the firearms he bought.
He started buying the firearms in October 2017 and by the following February he had found his rhythm.
On Feb. 3, 2018, he walked into a sporting goods store in Tucson and bought a Ruger SR22 .22-caliber pistol. Three days later he bought three Savage 62F .22-caliber rifles at a Walmart in Tucson. On Feb. 9, he bought an Umarex Beretta 92 .22-caliber rifle at the same sporting goods store that he went to before.
On Feb. 12, he bought a Savage 64F .22-caliber rifle at a second Walmart in Tucson. Five days later, he bought a Glock 42 .380-caliber pistol from a small gun store in Tucson. The next day, he went back to a Walmart and bought a Savage 64F .22-caliber rifle. On Feb. 24, he went back to the small Tucson gun store and bought a Kel-Tec PMR30 .22-caliber pistol.
Every few days until September 2018, he cycled through different stores in Tucson and Green Valley, including 45 visits to four Walmart stores.
The road ahead
After the shooting in La Mora, Brown expects more national-level enforcement initiatives will start appearing. Villegas pointed to recent announcements by the Department of Justice of a crackdown on gun violence in the U.S.
At the federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix, prosecutors still lack a law specific to cross-border smuggling of firearms.
Instead, they generally charge gun smugglers at ports of entry with trying to export goods without a license.
Those accused of making straw purchases are charged with making false statements on ATF forms. Individuals who sell numerous guns can be charged with operating a firearms business without a license.
The number of these prosecutions continues to lag behind cases related to other border-related crimes. While 32 cases of smuggling firearms into Mexico were brought in federal court in Tucson and Phoenix in 2018, prosecutors filed 750 drug-smuggling cases that year and thousands of border-crossing cases.
The billions of dollars that can be made by selling drugs in the U.S. “cartels are going to continue to fight to sell drugs and make money,” Villegas said.
“As long as the need for drugs is there, guns will be going south,” she said.
By Curt Prendergast
Arizona Daily Star
November 25, 2019
Images of charred, bullet-ridden trucks on a remote highway in Sonora and an hourslong gunbattle in the heart of Culiacan, Sinaloa, horrified the U.S. public in recent weeks.
The images showed where the “iron river” of guns and ammunition bought in the United States empties onto the streets of Mexico.
The headwaters of that river often spring from Southern Arizona, where federal court records show young people buying weapons for $100 payouts, a man buying rifles from gun stores every few days for nearly a year in Green Valley and Tucson, and heroin addicts selling .50-caliber rifles to their dealers.
After the fatal shooting of three women and six children in La Mora, Sonora, on Nov. 4, Mexican officials announced that some of the ammunition used in the attack came from the U.S.
To get a closer look at how the iron river flows from Southern Arizona into Mexico, the Arizona Daily Star analyzed the 32 weapons-smuggling cases involving Mexico filed in federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix in 2018.
The cases show that rather than dam up the iron river midstream at the Arizona-Sonora border, federal agencies focus on where the river ends and where it begins.
Only a handful of prosecutions came from firearms and ammunition being smuggled into Mexico through Arizona’s ports of entry. Most cases came from federal agents scouring suspicious paperwork at gun stores in Tucson and Phoenix or following up on firearms recovered in Mexico that were traced back to Arizona.
At Arizona’s ports of entry, customs officers catch thousands of pounds of hard drugs every year and inspect millions of travelers heading north, but they only caught six rifles and four handguns heading south in fiscal 2019, according to data provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Since 2012, customs officers in Arizona caught 106 rifles, 88 handguns and 202,000 rounds of ammunition.
Far more weapons were caught in Sonora after they crossed the border. Since 2009, the Mexican military recovered 6,700 illicit firearms, including 4,200 rifles, the Mexican newspaper El Imparcial reported on Nov. 18.
Firearms are largely illegal for civilians in Mexico, but they are used widely by drug cartels and other criminal groups.
The Mexican military estimates 1.6 million illicit firearms are circulating in Mexico, the Milenio news outlet reported in August. The estimate included 200,000 firearms smuggled into Mexico each year, most of which came from the U.S. but also from Spain, Italy and Austria.
A more solid number comes from weapons traced back to the U.S. after Mexican authorities recover them at crime scenes, find them abandoned, or under other circumstances. More than 67,000 firearms recovered in Mexico were traced to the U.S. from 2013 to 2018, according to ATF data.
The narratives included in court cases and search-warrant affidavits illustrate what Mexican commentators call an “operación hormiga,” or “ant operation,” of quietly buying firearms in Southern Arizona and smuggling them in small numbers across the border.
Even one such purchase can have “devastating repercussions” in Mexico, Angela Woolridge, a federal prosecutor who handles many of the firearm cases in Tucson’s federal court, wrote in sentencing memorandums.
“It is impossible to know how many people already have been or will be threatened, injured, or killed because of the single firearm the defendant purchased,” Woolridge wrote.
Last weekend, three people were fatally shot in San Luis Rio Colorado, the Mexican border town south of San Luis, Arizona. Mexican authorities recovered high-powered rifles, tactical gear and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Grenade launchers were at the heart of a 2018 case in which an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent set up two sting operations in Tucson and Chandler.
A man who was not named in court documents contacted the HSI agent online and asked about buying an M-16 automatic rifle and a grenade launcher. He and the undercover agent set a price of $3,650 and met in the parking lot of a big-box store in Tucson in September 2018. The man was arrested, as were two men the following month who met with the agent in Chandler to buy three machine guns with attached grenade launchers for $10,500.
Another highly destructive weapon that figures prominently in cartel violence is the .50-caliber rifle, which can pierce armor and bring down helicopters.
When Mexican soldiers in Sinaloa took into custody the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, on Oct. 17 they set off an hourslong gunbattle with cartel soldiers, some of whom used .50-caliber rifles.
The .50-caliber rifles are “what the cartels need to strengthen their particular ‘armies,’ if you will,” said Monique Villegas, special agent in charge of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. If a competing cartel gets .50-caliber rifles, “that’s what they’re going to start looking for in the U.S.”
Buying one is relatively easy in Arizona and elsewhere, Villegas said.
“My 86-year-old grandmother could walk into a store and buy a .50-caliber rifle if she wants to,” Villegas said.
Michael Huynh, 29, and Katie O’Brien, 28, both Tucsonans, did just that on several occasions, court records show.
They were sentenced in September to five years in prison after they bought three .50-caliber rifles on behalf of their heroin dealer, who would then arrange to have them smuggled into Mexico. One of the .50-caliber rifles, a belt-fed TNW HBM2, is so heavy-duty that it is mounted on a tripod.
Huynh later said he had bought about 50 firearms for his heroin dealer in the previous year.
A rifle that Huynh bought in October 2017, a Century Arms RAS47 assault rifle, was recovered in Mexico three months later after a shootout between Mexican law enforcement and a cartel in La Paz, Baja California Sur.
During their investigation, ATF agents learned that another man, who was not charged, bought a Colt M4 rifle for Huynh’s heroin dealer in March 2017. That rifle was recovered in Culiacan four months later.
Although port busts are relatively rare, when they do happen they can lead to complex investigations.
In November 2017, customs officers busted a vehicle containing six firearms at a port of entry in Nogales, Arizona. Investigators found that one of the firearms was sold online to Gardenia Rincon Avilez two days before the bust, court records show.
Five months later, police in El Mirage searched the home of Nicholas Brasseur, a licensed firearms dealer, and found paperwork showing he had sold 50 lower receivers for AR-15 type rifles to Rincon in March 2018 for $21,000 and another 53 receivers to an associate of Rincon.
Brasseur told agents that Rincon had said she planned to take the receivers to Tucson, where they would be converted to fully automatic rifles and then taken to Mexico.
Weeks later, customs officers in Nogales stopped Rincon as she drove into Arizona. She told agents that she bought the receivers and took them to her sister’s house in Scottsdale, where she stored them in a Tupperware box in the garage.
She eventually took them to Tucson and sold them to the man who had told her which weapons to buy. She sold them for $700 each, or a profit of about $400 per receiver, according to court records.
Rincon said she was given cash in Mexico and brought it to Arizona to buy weapons. On one occasion, she was asked to buy a FN M249 belt-fed rifle in Phoenix. She bought the rifle for $8,000 and sold it in Tucson for $12,500.
Two of the rifles she bought in March 2018 were later recovered in Mexico.
Young buyers
In June 2017, an otherwise law-abiding 18-year-old in Tucson was pressured by a family friend to buy a rifle. The friend gave him the money and told him to buy a Century Arms WASR-10 assault rifle from a gun store in Tucson.
In exchange for $100, the young man lied to the store employee and said the rifle was for his own use, making him one of a half-dozen “straw buyers” in a smuggling ring that moved rifles through Nogales into Mexico, including one recovered in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
In another case, a 23-year-old woman bought a Century Arms RAS47 pistol in Tucson at the request of her boyfriend in December 2017. Hours later, he smuggled it through Nogales into Mexico. The pistol was used in a crime in Sinaloa less than two months later.
Young buyers are common in Arizona and throughout the states bordering Mexico, said the ATF’s Villegas.
“They probably have no ties to the cartel,” Villegas said, and instead are just looking to make a “quick couple hundred dollars.”
“A lot of these people don’t know guns really,” Villegas said. “They are told which guns are needed at that time and told which ones to get.”
Straw buyers need to have clean criminal histories and “the chances of having a criminal record goes down if you’re young,” said Scott Brown, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Phoenix.
As is the case with various types of crime, “some young people don’t recognize the significance of their actions,” Brown said.
Young people acting as straw buyers are among the biggest challenges to shutting down cross-border firearms trafficking in Southern Arizona, he said.
He called it “troubling” that so many people would agree to be straw buyers without “recognizing that you are buying a gun that is intended to be used in a crime by people with a callous attitude towards life,” Brown said.
Repeat buys
Gun-trafficking rings buy the same type of weapon over and over, court records show.
“Cartels know they can go to multiple stores and buy one or two firearms and it won’t pop up as a trafficking scheme,” Villegas said.
In one of the most egregious cases the Star found, Alejandro Navarro Mendez pleaded guilty earlier this month to buying 108 firearms knowing they would be smuggled into Mexico. His most common purchases were Savage .22-caliber rifles, which accounted for 36 of the firearms he bought.
He started buying the firearms in October 2017 and by the following February he had found his rhythm.
On Feb. 3, 2018, he walked into a sporting goods store in Tucson and bought a Ruger SR22 .22-caliber pistol. Three days later he bought three Savage 62F .22-caliber rifles at a Walmart in Tucson. On Feb. 9, he bought an Umarex Beretta 92 .22-caliber rifle at the same sporting goods store that he went to before.
On Feb. 12, he bought a Savage 64F .22-caliber rifle at a second Walmart in Tucson. Five days later, he bought a Glock 42 .380-caliber pistol from a small gun store in Tucson. The next day, he went back to a Walmart and bought a Savage 64F .22-caliber rifle. On Feb. 24, he went back to the small Tucson gun store and bought a Kel-Tec PMR30 .22-caliber pistol.
Every few days until September 2018, he cycled through different stores in Tucson and Green Valley, including 45 visits to four Walmart stores.
The road ahead
After the shooting in La Mora, Brown expects more national-level enforcement initiatives will start appearing. Villegas pointed to recent announcements by the Department of Justice of a crackdown on gun violence in the U.S.
At the federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix, prosecutors still lack a law specific to cross-border smuggling of firearms.
Instead, they generally charge gun smugglers at ports of entry with trying to export goods without a license.
Those accused of making straw purchases are charged with making false statements on ATF forms. Individuals who sell numerous guns can be charged with operating a firearms business without a license.
The number of these prosecutions continues to lag behind cases related to other border-related crimes. While 32 cases of smuggling firearms into Mexico were brought in federal court in Tucson and Phoenix in 2018, prosecutors filed 750 drug-smuggling cases that year and thousands of border-crossing cases.
The billions of dollars that can be made by selling drugs in the U.S. “cartels are going to continue to fight to sell drugs and make money,” Villegas said.
“As long as the need for drugs is there, guns will be going south,” she said.
AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI INSISTED IRANIAN FORCES HAD TO AVOID HITTING ANY CIVILIANS OR AMERICANS
‘Time to take out our swords': Inside Iran’s plot to attack Saudi Arabia
Israel Hayom
November 26, 2019
Four months before a swarm of drones and missiles crippled the world’s biggest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, Iranian security officials gathered at a heavily fortified compound in Tehran.
The group included the top echelons of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite branch of the Iranian military whose portfolio includes missile development and covert operations.
The main topic that day in May: How to punish the United States for pulling out of a landmark nuclear treaty and reimposing economic sanctions on Iran, moves that have hit the Islamic republic hard.
With Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, looking on, a senior commander took the floor.
"It is time to take out our swords and teach them a lesson,” the commander said, according to four people familiar with the meeting.
Hard-liners in the meeting talked of attacking high-value targets, including American military bases.
Yet, what ultimately emerged was a plan that stopped short of direct confrontation that could trigger a devastating US response. Iran opted instead to target oil installations of America’s ally, Saudi Arabia, a proposal discussed by top Iranian military officials in that May meeting and at least four that followed.
This account, described to Reuters by three officials familiar with the meetings and a fourth close to Iran’s decision making, is the first to describe the role of Iran’s leaders in plotting the Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-controlled oil company.
These people said Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the operation, but with strict conditions: Iranian forces must avoid hitting any civilians or Americans.
Reuters was unable to confirm their version of events with Iran’s leadership. An IRGC spokesman declined to comment. Tehran has steadfastly denied involvement.
Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York, rejected the version of events the four people described to Reuters. He said Iran played no part in the strikes, that no meetings of senior security officials took place to discuss such an operation, and that Khamenei did not authorize any attack.
“No, no, no, no, no, and no,” Miryousefi said to detailed questions from Reuters on the alleged gatherings and Khamenei’s purported role.
The Saudi government communications office did not respond to a request for comment.
The US Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon declined to comment. A senior Trump administration official did not directly comment on Reuters’ findings but said Tehran’s “behavior and its decades-long history of destructive attacks and support for terrorism are why Iran’s economy is in shambles.”
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, at the center of a civil war against Saudi-backed forces, claimed responsibility for the assault on Saudi oil facilities. That declaration was rebuffed by US and Saudi officials, who said the sophistication of the offensive pointed to Iran.
Saudi Arabia was a strategic target.
The kingdom is Iran’s principal regional rival and a petroleum giant whose production is crucial to the world economy. It is an important US security partner. But its war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians, and the murder of Washington-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last year, have strained its relations with US lawmakers. There was no groundswell of support in Congress for military intervention to aid the Saudis after the attack.
The 17-minute strike on two Aramco installations by 18 drones and three low-flying missiles revealed the vulnerability of the Saudi oil company, despite billions spent by the kingdom on security. Fires erupted at the company’s Khurais oil installation and at the Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest.
The attack temporarily halved Saudi Arabia’s oil production and knocked out 5% of the world’s oil supply. Global crude prices spiked.
The assault prompted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to accuse Iran of an “act of war.” In the aftermath, Tehran was hit with additional US sanctions. The United States also launched cyberattacks against Iran, US officials told Reuters.
The Islamic republic has blamed “thugs” linked to the United States and other regional adversaries for orchestrating street demonstrations that have rocked Iran since mid-November when the government hiked fuel prices.
Speaking at a televised, pro-government rally in Tehran on Monday, Salami, the Revolutionary Guards chief commander, warned Washington against any further escalation of tensions: “We have shown patience towards the hostile moves of America, the Zionist regime (Israel) and Saudi Arabia against Iran ... but we will destroy them if they cross our red lines.”
Scouring targets
The plan by Iranian military leaders to strike Saudi oil installations developed over several months, according to the official close to Iran’s decision making.
“Details were discussed thoroughly in at least five meetings and the final go-ahead was given” by early September, the official said.
All of those meetings took place at a secure location inside the southern Tehran compound, three of the officials told Reuters. They said Khamenei, the supreme leader, attended one of the gatherings at his residence, which is also inside that complex.
Other attendees at some of those meetings included Khamenei’s top military advisor, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, and a deputy of Qassem Soleimani, who heads the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign military and clandestine operations arm, the Quds Force, the three officials said. Rahim-Safavi could not be reached for comment.
Among the possible targets initially discussed were a seaport in Saudi Arabia, an airport and US military bases, the official close to Iran’s decision making said. The person would not provide additional details.
Those ideas were ultimately dismissed over concerns about mass casualties that could provoke fierce retaliation by the United States and embolden Israel, potentially pushing the region into war, the four people said.
The official close to Iran’s decision making said the group settled on the plan to attack Saudi Arabia’s oil installations because it could grab big headlines, inflict economic pain on an adversary and still deliver a strong message to Washington.
“Agreement on Aramco was almost reached unanimously,” the official said. “The idea was to display Iran’s deep access and military capabilities.”
The attack was the worst on Middle East oil facilities since Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi strongman, torched Kuwait’s oil fields during the 1991 Gulf crisis.
US Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), an Air Force combat veteran and Republican lawmaker who was briefed by US and Saudi officials, and who visited Aramco’s Abqaiq facility days after the attack, said the perpetrators knew precisely where to strike to create as much damage as possible.
“It showed somebody who had a sophisticated understanding of facility operations like theirs, instead of just hitting things off of satellite photos,” she told Reuters. The drones and missiles, she added, “came from Iranian soil, from an Iranian base.”
A Middle East source, who was briefed by a country investigating the attack, said the launch site was the Ahvaz air base in southwest Iran. That account matched those of three US officials and two other people who spoke to Reuters: a Western intelligence official and a Western source based in the Middle East.
Rather than fly directly from Iran to Saudi Arabia over the Gulf, the missiles and drones took different, circuitous paths to the oil installations, part of Iran’s effort to mask its involvement, the people said.
Some of the craft flew over Iraq and Kuwait before landing in Saudi Arabia, according to the Western intelligence source, who said that trajectory provided Iran with plausible deniability.
“That wouldn’t have been the case if missiles and drones had been seen or heard flying into Saudi Arabia over the Gulf from a south flight path” from Iran, the person said.
Revolutionary Guards commanders briefed the supreme leader on the successful operation hours after the attack, according to the official close to the country’s decision making.
Images of fires raging at the Saudi facilities were broadcast worldwide. The country’s stock market swooned. Global oil prices initially surged by 20%. Officials at Saudi Aramco gathered in what was referred to internally as the “emergency management room” at the company’s headquarters.
One of the officials who spoke with Reuters said Tehran was delighted with the outcome of the operation: Iran had landed a painful blow on Saudi Arabia and thumbed its nose at the United States.
Sizing up Trump
The Revolutionary Guards and other branches of the Iranian military all ultimately report to Khamenei. The supreme leader has been defiant in response to Trump’s abandonment last year of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly called the Iran nuclear deal.
That 2015 accord with five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Russia, France, China, and the United Kingdom – as well as Germany, removed billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran’s curbing its nuclear program.
Trump’s demand for a better deal has seen Iran launch a two-pronged strategy to win relief from sweeping sanctions reimposed by the United States, penalties that have crippled its oil exports and all but shut it out of the international banking system.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has signaled a willingness to meet with American officials on the condition that all sanctions be lifted. Simultaneously, Iran is flaunting its military and technical prowess.
In recent months, Iran has shot down a US surveillance drone and seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which about a fifth of the world’s oil moves. And it has announced it has amassed stockpiles of enriched uranium in violation of the UN agreement, part of its vow to restart its nuclear program.
The Aramco attacks were an escalation that came as Trump had been pursuing his long-stated goal of extricating American forces from the Middle East. Just days after announcing an abrupt pullout of US troops in northern Syria, the Trump administration on Oct. 11 said it would send fighter jets, missile defense weaponry, and 2,800 more troops to Saudi Arabia to bolster the kingdom’s defenses.
"Do not strike another sovereign state, do not threaten American interests, American forces, or we will respond,” US Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned Tehran during a press briefing.
Still, Iran appears to have calculated that the Trump administration would not risk an all-out assault that could destabilize the region in the service of protecting Saudi oil, said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit working to end global conflict.
In Iran, “hard-liners have come to believe that Trump is a Twitter tiger,” Vaez said. “As such, there is little diplomatic or military cost associated with pushing back.”
The senior Trump administration official disputed the suggestion that Iran’s operation has strengthened its hand in working out a deal for sanctions relief from the United States.
“Iran knows exactly what it needs to do to see sanctions lifted,” the official said.
The administration has said Iran must end support for terrorist groups in the Middle East, such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and submit to tougher terms that would permanently snuff its nuclear ambitions. Iran has said it has no ties to terrorist groups.
Whether Tehran accedes to US demands remains to be seen.
In one of the final meetings held ahead of the Saudi oil attack, another Revolutionary Guards commander was already looking ahead, according to the official close to Iran’s decision making who was briefed on that gathering.
"Rest assured Allah almighty will be with us,” the commander told senior security officials. “Start planning for the next one.”
Israel Hayom
November 26, 2019
Four months before a swarm of drones and missiles crippled the world’s biggest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, Iranian security officials gathered at a heavily fortified compound in Tehran.
The group included the top echelons of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite branch of the Iranian military whose portfolio includes missile development and covert operations.
The main topic that day in May: How to punish the United States for pulling out of a landmark nuclear treaty and reimposing economic sanctions on Iran, moves that have hit the Islamic republic hard.
With Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, looking on, a senior commander took the floor.
"It is time to take out our swords and teach them a lesson,” the commander said, according to four people familiar with the meeting.
Hard-liners in the meeting talked of attacking high-value targets, including American military bases.
Yet, what ultimately emerged was a plan that stopped short of direct confrontation that could trigger a devastating US response. Iran opted instead to target oil installations of America’s ally, Saudi Arabia, a proposal discussed by top Iranian military officials in that May meeting and at least four that followed.
This account, described to Reuters by three officials familiar with the meetings and a fourth close to Iran’s decision making, is the first to describe the role of Iran’s leaders in plotting the Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-controlled oil company.
These people said Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the operation, but with strict conditions: Iranian forces must avoid hitting any civilians or Americans.
Reuters was unable to confirm their version of events with Iran’s leadership. An IRGC spokesman declined to comment. Tehran has steadfastly denied involvement.
Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York, rejected the version of events the four people described to Reuters. He said Iran played no part in the strikes, that no meetings of senior security officials took place to discuss such an operation, and that Khamenei did not authorize any attack.
“No, no, no, no, no, and no,” Miryousefi said to detailed questions from Reuters on the alleged gatherings and Khamenei’s purported role.
The Saudi government communications office did not respond to a request for comment.
The US Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon declined to comment. A senior Trump administration official did not directly comment on Reuters’ findings but said Tehran’s “behavior and its decades-long history of destructive attacks and support for terrorism are why Iran’s economy is in shambles.”
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, at the center of a civil war against Saudi-backed forces, claimed responsibility for the assault on Saudi oil facilities. That declaration was rebuffed by US and Saudi officials, who said the sophistication of the offensive pointed to Iran.
Saudi Arabia was a strategic target.
The kingdom is Iran’s principal regional rival and a petroleum giant whose production is crucial to the world economy. It is an important US security partner. But its war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians, and the murder of Washington-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last year, have strained its relations with US lawmakers. There was no groundswell of support in Congress for military intervention to aid the Saudis after the attack.
The 17-minute strike on two Aramco installations by 18 drones and three low-flying missiles revealed the vulnerability of the Saudi oil company, despite billions spent by the kingdom on security. Fires erupted at the company’s Khurais oil installation and at the Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest.
The attack temporarily halved Saudi Arabia’s oil production and knocked out 5% of the world’s oil supply. Global crude prices spiked.
The assault prompted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to accuse Iran of an “act of war.” In the aftermath, Tehran was hit with additional US sanctions. The United States also launched cyberattacks against Iran, US officials told Reuters.
The Islamic republic has blamed “thugs” linked to the United States and other regional adversaries for orchestrating street demonstrations that have rocked Iran since mid-November when the government hiked fuel prices.
Speaking at a televised, pro-government rally in Tehran on Monday, Salami, the Revolutionary Guards chief commander, warned Washington against any further escalation of tensions: “We have shown patience towards the hostile moves of America, the Zionist regime (Israel) and Saudi Arabia against Iran ... but we will destroy them if they cross our red lines.”
Scouring targets
The plan by Iranian military leaders to strike Saudi oil installations developed over several months, according to the official close to Iran’s decision making.
“Details were discussed thoroughly in at least five meetings and the final go-ahead was given” by early September, the official said.
All of those meetings took place at a secure location inside the southern Tehran compound, three of the officials told Reuters. They said Khamenei, the supreme leader, attended one of the gatherings at his residence, which is also inside that complex.
Other attendees at some of those meetings included Khamenei’s top military advisor, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, and a deputy of Qassem Soleimani, who heads the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign military and clandestine operations arm, the Quds Force, the three officials said. Rahim-Safavi could not be reached for comment.
Among the possible targets initially discussed were a seaport in Saudi Arabia, an airport and US military bases, the official close to Iran’s decision making said. The person would not provide additional details.
Those ideas were ultimately dismissed over concerns about mass casualties that could provoke fierce retaliation by the United States and embolden Israel, potentially pushing the region into war, the four people said.
The official close to Iran’s decision making said the group settled on the plan to attack Saudi Arabia’s oil installations because it could grab big headlines, inflict economic pain on an adversary and still deliver a strong message to Washington.
“Agreement on Aramco was almost reached unanimously,” the official said. “The idea was to display Iran’s deep access and military capabilities.”
The attack was the worst on Middle East oil facilities since Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi strongman, torched Kuwait’s oil fields during the 1991 Gulf crisis.
US Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), an Air Force combat veteran and Republican lawmaker who was briefed by US and Saudi officials, and who visited Aramco’s Abqaiq facility days after the attack, said the perpetrators knew precisely where to strike to create as much damage as possible.
“It showed somebody who had a sophisticated understanding of facility operations like theirs, instead of just hitting things off of satellite photos,” she told Reuters. The drones and missiles, she added, “came from Iranian soil, from an Iranian base.”
A Middle East source, who was briefed by a country investigating the attack, said the launch site was the Ahvaz air base in southwest Iran. That account matched those of three US officials and two other people who spoke to Reuters: a Western intelligence official and a Western source based in the Middle East.
Rather than fly directly from Iran to Saudi Arabia over the Gulf, the missiles and drones took different, circuitous paths to the oil installations, part of Iran’s effort to mask its involvement, the people said.
Some of the craft flew over Iraq and Kuwait before landing in Saudi Arabia, according to the Western intelligence source, who said that trajectory provided Iran with plausible deniability.
“That wouldn’t have been the case if missiles and drones had been seen or heard flying into Saudi Arabia over the Gulf from a south flight path” from Iran, the person said.
Revolutionary Guards commanders briefed the supreme leader on the successful operation hours after the attack, according to the official close to the country’s decision making.
Images of fires raging at the Saudi facilities were broadcast worldwide. The country’s stock market swooned. Global oil prices initially surged by 20%. Officials at Saudi Aramco gathered in what was referred to internally as the “emergency management room” at the company’s headquarters.
One of the officials who spoke with Reuters said Tehran was delighted with the outcome of the operation: Iran had landed a painful blow on Saudi Arabia and thumbed its nose at the United States.
Sizing up Trump
The Revolutionary Guards and other branches of the Iranian military all ultimately report to Khamenei. The supreme leader has been defiant in response to Trump’s abandonment last year of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly called the Iran nuclear deal.
That 2015 accord with five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Russia, France, China, and the United Kingdom – as well as Germany, removed billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran’s curbing its nuclear program.
Trump’s demand for a better deal has seen Iran launch a two-pronged strategy to win relief from sweeping sanctions reimposed by the United States, penalties that have crippled its oil exports and all but shut it out of the international banking system.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has signaled a willingness to meet with American officials on the condition that all sanctions be lifted. Simultaneously, Iran is flaunting its military and technical prowess.
In recent months, Iran has shot down a US surveillance drone and seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which about a fifth of the world’s oil moves. And it has announced it has amassed stockpiles of enriched uranium in violation of the UN agreement, part of its vow to restart its nuclear program.
The Aramco attacks were an escalation that came as Trump had been pursuing his long-stated goal of extricating American forces from the Middle East. Just days after announcing an abrupt pullout of US troops in northern Syria, the Trump administration on Oct. 11 said it would send fighter jets, missile defense weaponry, and 2,800 more troops to Saudi Arabia to bolster the kingdom’s defenses.
"Do not strike another sovereign state, do not threaten American interests, American forces, or we will respond,” US Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned Tehran during a press briefing.
Still, Iran appears to have calculated that the Trump administration would not risk an all-out assault that could destabilize the region in the service of protecting Saudi oil, said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit working to end global conflict.
In Iran, “hard-liners have come to believe that Trump is a Twitter tiger,” Vaez said. “As such, there is little diplomatic or military cost associated with pushing back.”
The senior Trump administration official disputed the suggestion that Iran’s operation has strengthened its hand in working out a deal for sanctions relief from the United States.
“Iran knows exactly what it needs to do to see sanctions lifted,” the official said.
The administration has said Iran must end support for terrorist groups in the Middle East, such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and submit to tougher terms that would permanently snuff its nuclear ambitions. Iran has said it has no ties to terrorist groups.
Whether Tehran accedes to US demands remains to be seen.
In one of the final meetings held ahead of the Saudi oil attack, another Revolutionary Guards commander was already looking ahead, according to the official close to Iran’s decision making who was briefed on that gathering.
"Rest assured Allah almighty will be with us,” the commander told senior security officials. “Start planning for the next one.”
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
THE SKY WILL FALL IN IF KIDS SEE NFL PLAYERS FIGHTING
The NFL should kick out of the league any players who refuse to stand for the national anthem instead of suspending and fining players for fighting
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
November 25, 2019
By now, unless you are deaf dumb and blind, you’ve seen or heard about the brawl that broke out last week between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns. It all started when Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph took offense to what he thought was a late hit by Browns defensive end Myles Garrett.
Mason tried unsuccessfully to rip off Garrett’s helmet, but Myles not only succeeded in ripping off Mason’s helmet, but he then used it to konk the quarterback over the head with all his might. That’s when the other players chimed in. What sports writers called a brawl looked like mostly pushing and shoving with an added kick or two.
Garrett was suspended indefinitely and Rudolph was fined $50,000. A total of $732,422 in fines were meted out to 33 players. Each team was fined $250,000.
The NFL thinks the sky will fall in if kids see players fighting. The fines and suspensions are designed to prevent fighting among players because such fights would make kids believe that violence is the way to go. But watching fight-less violence for three hours will make kids believe that violence is not OK … yeah, right.
Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association also do not want kids to see players fighting.
Actually, the National Hockey League has it right. The NHL allows fighting between players. When two players drop their gloves and engage in some good old fisticuffs, officials will not break up the fight until the fighters go down on the ice. Each of the combatants is then sent to the penalty box for five minutes. If two players start slugging each other with their gloves still on, they are sent to the penalty box for two minutes for ‘roughing.’
The NHL does meet out fines and suspensions to players for any aggravated commission of penalties designed to keep players from being injured.
Talk about brawls, there have been some really good ones with even the goalies dropping their gloves and coming to center ice to exchange blows. The 5-minute fighting penalties and the 2-minute roughing penalties are designed to discourage fighting and there are actually few fights. But the NHL does not believe, and rightfully so, that the fights will have an adverse impact on kids.
Back to the Steelers-Browns brawl, the indefinite suspension of Garrett is correct. He could have caused Rudolph a serious injury by konking him in the head with his helmet. However, Rudolph’s fine seems ridiculous. As for the rest of the players, most of those involved in the brawl should have been kicked out of the game at most. The player trying to kick Garrett should have also been fined. That’s it, period.
The NFL has a much, much bigger problem than players fighting, and that’s the disrespect for flag and country by players that was started by a disgraceful Colin Kaepernick. Instead of fining players for fighting, the NFL should kick out any player who refuses to stand for the national anthem. President Trump would love for people to hear NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell shout: “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!”
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
November 25, 2019
By now, unless you are deaf dumb and blind, you’ve seen or heard about the brawl that broke out last week between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns. It all started when Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph took offense to what he thought was a late hit by Browns defensive end Myles Garrett.
Mason tried unsuccessfully to rip off Garrett’s helmet, but Myles not only succeeded in ripping off Mason’s helmet, but he then used it to konk the quarterback over the head with all his might. That’s when the other players chimed in. What sports writers called a brawl looked like mostly pushing and shoving with an added kick or two.
Garrett was suspended indefinitely and Rudolph was fined $50,000. A total of $732,422 in fines were meted out to 33 players. Each team was fined $250,000.
The NFL thinks the sky will fall in if kids see players fighting. The fines and suspensions are designed to prevent fighting among players because such fights would make kids believe that violence is the way to go. But watching fight-less violence for three hours will make kids believe that violence is not OK … yeah, right.
Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association also do not want kids to see players fighting.
Actually, the National Hockey League has it right. The NHL allows fighting between players. When two players drop their gloves and engage in some good old fisticuffs, officials will not break up the fight until the fighters go down on the ice. Each of the combatants is then sent to the penalty box for five minutes. If two players start slugging each other with their gloves still on, they are sent to the penalty box for two minutes for ‘roughing.’
The NHL does meet out fines and suspensions to players for any aggravated commission of penalties designed to keep players from being injured.
Talk about brawls, there have been some really good ones with even the goalies dropping their gloves and coming to center ice to exchange blows. The 5-minute fighting penalties and the 2-minute roughing penalties are designed to discourage fighting and there are actually few fights. But the NHL does not believe, and rightfully so, that the fights will have an adverse impact on kids.
Back to the Steelers-Browns brawl, the indefinite suspension of Garrett is correct. He could have caused Rudolph a serious injury by konking him in the head with his helmet. However, Rudolph’s fine seems ridiculous. As for the rest of the players, most of those involved in the brawl should have been kicked out of the game at most. The player trying to kick Garrett should have also been fined. That’s it, period.
The NFL has a much, much bigger problem than players fighting, and that’s the disrespect for flag and country by players that was started by a disgraceful Colin Kaepernick. Instead of fining players for fighting, the NFL should kick out any player who refuses to stand for the national anthem. President Trump would love for people to hear NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell shout: “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!”
ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE
Almost, But Not Quite
by Bob Walsh
Congressman Devin Nunes is a good solid conservative. He announced yesterday that he is suing CNN and The Daily Beast for defamation. It seems they printed a load of bullshit stating he had a bunch of inappropriate meetings with Ukrainians.
As a public figure it is difficult for an elected official to sue for defamation successfully. But not impossible. He has to demonstrate that the material was wrong, that they KNEW it was wrong and went ahead and published it anyway with malicious intent to damage him.
It is a very high bar. You need time, resources and a thick skin to prevail. You also need to be right.
The bad guys do this sort of thing fairly often. Remember Harry Reid and his assertion that "somebody told him" that Mitt Romney had paid no income taxes for years. It was complete bullshit and Reid apparently KNEW it was complete bullshit but he put it out there anyway and it did to some extent throw Romney off his game. He finally came up with his tax returns to show it was false. By then it didn't matter much.
Assuming Nunes' assertions are correct and he is willing to put up with the crap he may very well prevail. I hope he takes it to the wall. There should be some standards. There mostly aren't any more. Maybe we can get a little of that back.
by Bob Walsh
Congressman Devin Nunes is a good solid conservative. He announced yesterday that he is suing CNN and The Daily Beast for defamation. It seems they printed a load of bullshit stating he had a bunch of inappropriate meetings with Ukrainians.
As a public figure it is difficult for an elected official to sue for defamation successfully. But not impossible. He has to demonstrate that the material was wrong, that they KNEW it was wrong and went ahead and published it anyway with malicious intent to damage him.
It is a very high bar. You need time, resources and a thick skin to prevail. You also need to be right.
The bad guys do this sort of thing fairly often. Remember Harry Reid and his assertion that "somebody told him" that Mitt Romney had paid no income taxes for years. It was complete bullshit and Reid apparently KNEW it was complete bullshit but he put it out there anyway and it did to some extent throw Romney off his game. He finally came up with his tax returns to show it was false. By then it didn't matter much.
Assuming Nunes' assertions are correct and he is willing to put up with the crap he may very well prevail. I hope he takes it to the wall. There should be some standards. There mostly aren't any more. Maybe we can get a little of that back.
THAT IS AN INTERESTING WAY TO DEAL WITH ILLEGAL ALIEN PRISONERS
by Bob Walsh
The state of Florida is set to have the feds deputize a number of it's state correctional officers as ICE agents. This status, along with the accompanying special training, will allow them to process illegal alien guests of the state prison system.
Except for the final memorandum the program, known as 287 (g), is all set to go.
The Governor and the Secretary of Corrections both think this is a great idea. Many in the legislature do not.
Three other states have gone thru this procedure. The training is a live-in four week operation, undertaken at state expense. A total of 14 Florida jails already participate in the program.
The state of Florida is set to have the feds deputize a number of it's state correctional officers as ICE agents. This status, along with the accompanying special training, will allow them to process illegal alien guests of the state prison system.
Except for the final memorandum the program, known as 287 (g), is all set to go.
The Governor and the Secretary of Corrections both think this is a great idea. Many in the legislature do not.
Three other states have gone thru this procedure. The training is a live-in four week operation, undertaken at state expense. A total of 14 Florida jails already participate in the program.
WELL, IT'S A STORY ANYWAY
by Bob Walsh
Elon Musk has given an explanation of sorts for the spectacular failure of the "armored glass" in his new funny-looking pickup truck. He believes that the sledge hammer tested on the body panels prior to the glass demonstration disrupted the glass just enough so the steel ball did it's thing rather spectacularly when used against the glass.
Also, in case you are interested, the odd body shape is necessary because the alloy used in the body is the same stuff they make the SpaceX rocket bodies out of. It can not be shaped in a stamping press, the existing presses are not strong enough to do it. To fold the panels they have to score the back side of the panel and fold along that line or the material will not fold over properly.
That's his story and he is sticking by it, so far at least. Hell, it might even be true.
Elon Musk has given an explanation of sorts for the spectacular failure of the "armored glass" in his new funny-looking pickup truck. He believes that the sledge hammer tested on the body panels prior to the glass demonstration disrupted the glass just enough so the steel ball did it's thing rather spectacularly when used against the glass.
Also, in case you are interested, the odd body shape is necessary because the alloy used in the body is the same stuff they make the SpaceX rocket bodies out of. It can not be shaped in a stamping press, the existing presses are not strong enough to do it. To fold the panels they have to score the back side of the panel and fold along that line or the material will not fold over properly.
That's his story and he is sticking by it, so far at least. Hell, it might even be true.
PIERS BLASTS THE BLOOM OUT OF BLOOMBERG
Michael Bloomberg’s sickening suppression of his own journalists would shame even Putin, proves Trump is right about fake news, and makes him unfit to be President
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
November 25, 2019
Thirty years ago this month, New York financial data tycoon Michael Bloomberg telephoned Wall Street Journal writer Matthew Winkler and asked: ‘What would it take to get into the news business?’
Knowing that Bloomberg had no experience in journalism, Winkler presented him with a hypothetical ethical dilemma:
‘You have just published a story that says the chairman of your biggest customer has taken $5 million from the corporate till,’ he said. ‘He is with his secretary at a Rio de Janeiro resort, and the secretary’s spurned boyfriend calls to tip you off. You get an independent verification that the story is true. Then the phone rings. The customer’s public-relations person says, “Kill the story or we will return all the terminals we currently rent from you.’”
Winkler then asked Bloomberg a simple question: ‘What would you do?”
Bloomberg didn’t hesitate.
‘Go with the story!’ he replied.
Winkler later cited this as the ‘deciding moment’ he chose to help Bloomberg build a news organization.
It was an inspired decision.
Bloomberg News is now one of the biggest and most powerful news agencies on the planet.
It boasts 2,300 journalists in 72 countries and 146 bureaus worldwide and has developed a reputation for important impartial journalism.
In the past four years, it has intensively reported on, and aggressively investigated, first Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and now his presidency – the vast majority of its Trump coverage being negative.
Like many US mainstream media organizations, Bloomberg News quickly realized that relentless Trump-bashing is a big money-spinner.
But behind this clear editorial strategy lies an intriguing personal back-story.
Until Trump ran for president in 2015, he and Michael Bloomberg were good friends.
The two most famous billionaires in New York played golf together, frequently rubbed shoulders on the same elite Manhattan social scene, and worked professionally on common projects – most notably when Trump delivered a luxury golf course on a discarded municipal waste site in the Bronx, enabling Bloomberg to take credit for it just before he left office as New York mayor.
‘If there is anybody who has changed this city, it is Donald Trump,’ said Mayor Bloomberg, delightedly. ‘He has done an amazing thing and this is another part of it!’
Then Trump announced he was running for the White House, and Bloomberg very quickly turned against his friend – enraged by his views on everything from guns to climate change, and what he saw as Trump’s ‘offensive’ lack of civility.
He later described Trump’s run as ‘the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears.’
Trump, predictably, responded in kind, tweeting: ‘Little Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!’
At the heart of their relationship lies billionaire ego.
As their mutual friend, Republican congressman Peter King, told the New York Times: ‘One New York billionaire thinks he is better than another New York billionaire. I can see Mike resenting the fact he is not getting the recognition Donald Trump gets. Each guy thinks he is smarter than the other.’
I met them both together when I was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 and Bloomberg turned up with Trump in midtown Manhattan to assess my hotdog selling skills.
The swaggering rivalry between them, albeit cordial at the time, was palpable. In a city of big dogs, pun intended, these were arguably the two biggest, though Bloomberg is substantially richer than Trump.
Now, if Bloomberg wins the Democrat nomination – and it’s a very big ‘if’ - they may be pitted against each other in the 2020 Election.
In announcing his decision to enter the race, Bloomberg said: ‘I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term, we may never recover from the damage.’
Bloomberg is thus positioning himself as the ‘good billionaire’ on a mission to save America from the bad billionaire.
Yet, just how good IS he?
For example, Bloomberg has a history of making unsavory comments denigrating women.
A 1990 booklet of quotations attributed to him included this observation: ‘If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of Bloomingdale’s.’
And a suggestion, during a pitch to sell Bloomberg terminals, that his computers could ‘do anything’ including the ability to perform oral sex on the user, which, he said, would ‘put…a lot of you girls out of business.’
At a Christmas party in 2012, he pointed to a woman in a tight dress and said, ‘look at the ass on her.’
He was also reported to have said in a 1998 deposition, taken during a case where a saleswoman accused a Bloomberg manager of raping her, that he would only believe a rape claim if there was an ‘unimpeachable third-party witness.’
And he was accused by a Bloomberg female employee of saying ‘kill it’ when she told him she was pregnant, a claim he denied.
Bloomberg has also been accused of racism.
He recently issued a grovelling apology for his controversial ‘stop-and-search’ policy as New York Mayor that a federal judge determined in 2013 violated the constitutional rights of racial minorities.
He operated a very contentious policy of surveillance of Muslim Americans, a dictatorial crackdown of Occupy Wall Street protestors, and he presided over a huge spike in homelessness, sparked by massively increased income inequality and lack of affordable housing. So Bloomberg’s critics, led by Trump, will have plenty of ammunition against the self-styled savior.
And that’s before we get to the fact that he’s changed his party allegiance when it’s suited him, switching from Democrat to Republican to Independent.
But it’s what Bloomberg did yesterday that should give most serious cause for concern.
In this era of ‘FAKE NEWS!’, and hyper-partisan media coverage, many were curious to see how Bloomberg News would handle the confirmation that their owner was running for president.
The answer is absolutely atrociously.
In an astonishing email to staff, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Mickelthwait, revealed the news agency won’t ‘investigate’ Bloomberg, or any of his Democratic rivals.
But it WILL continue to obsessively investigate President Trump.
‘We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation),’ said Mickelthwait, ‘and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries. We cannot treat Mike’s democratic competitors differently to him.’
Yet they will treat President Trump differently.
He alone will be exposed to the full investigative scrutiny of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists.
I had to read this memo several times to ensure I hadn’t misunderstood it.
I hadn’t.
Bloomberg News is also suspending its opinion section’s editorial board, because most of them are joining his campaign!
It’s hard to imagine a more egregious abuse of a major news organization owner’s power than for the owner to ban his own journalists from investigating him as he runs for president but continues to dig dirt on his opponent.
As former Bloomberg Businessweek editor and Washington bureau chief Megan Murphy said on Twitter: ‘It is truly staggering that *any* editor would put their name on a memo that bars an army of unbelievably talented reporters and editors from covering massive, crucial aspects of one of the defining aspects of our time.’
She added: ‘I was presented with a near identical “memo” during his 2016 flirtation and I was very clear that I would quit the second it ever saw the light of day.’
Murphy also cited comparisons to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos who owns the Washington Post.
‘Can you imagine if Bezos decided to run, the Washington Post telling reporters it a) wouldn’t do hard reporting on Bezos and b) wouldn’t do hard reporting on any other candidates either. It’s absolutely unimaginable (thank god).'
Exactly.
It’s an absolute disgrace that Michael Bloomberg’s very first act as presidential candidate is to order a blanket ban on ANY investigative reporting on him or any Democrat candidate.
It’s even more of a disgrace that he’s ordered his journalists to ONLY carry on digging for dirt on President Trump.
Ironically, this is just the kind of extreme media bias that Trump has persistently ranted about since winning the White House, and will creature a ‘fake’ picture of news in this 2020 campaign.
Bloomberg’s shameful self-protective censorship is also the exact opposite of the pledge he made to Matthew Winkler when he persuaded him to launch Bloomberg News.
It means that if Bloomberg journalists discover their boss has taken $5m from the corporate till and is with his secretary at a Rio de Janeiro resort, the response from Bloomberg to their request to publish it will be: ‘DON’T go with the story!’
Michael Bloomberg’s been very vocal about the need to stop Vladimir Putin interfering with US elections, yet here is the same Michael Bloomberg pulling a disgustingly cynical stunt to suppress journalism that even Putin might hesitate to pull, and that frankly should disqualify him from becoming President.
Bloomberg News just ceased to be a news organization and became a dictator’s puppet. Shame on him for doing this, and shame on any of his journalists who accept it.
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
November 25, 2019
Thirty years ago this month, New York financial data tycoon Michael Bloomberg telephoned Wall Street Journal writer Matthew Winkler and asked: ‘What would it take to get into the news business?’
Knowing that Bloomberg had no experience in journalism, Winkler presented him with a hypothetical ethical dilemma:
‘You have just published a story that says the chairman of your biggest customer has taken $5 million from the corporate till,’ he said. ‘He is with his secretary at a Rio de Janeiro resort, and the secretary’s spurned boyfriend calls to tip you off. You get an independent verification that the story is true. Then the phone rings. The customer’s public-relations person says, “Kill the story or we will return all the terminals we currently rent from you.’”
Winkler then asked Bloomberg a simple question: ‘What would you do?”
Bloomberg didn’t hesitate.
‘Go with the story!’ he replied.
Winkler later cited this as the ‘deciding moment’ he chose to help Bloomberg build a news organization.
It was an inspired decision.
Bloomberg News is now one of the biggest and most powerful news agencies on the planet.
It boasts 2,300 journalists in 72 countries and 146 bureaus worldwide and has developed a reputation for important impartial journalism.
In the past four years, it has intensively reported on, and aggressively investigated, first Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and now his presidency – the vast majority of its Trump coverage being negative.
Like many US mainstream media organizations, Bloomberg News quickly realized that relentless Trump-bashing is a big money-spinner.
But behind this clear editorial strategy lies an intriguing personal back-story.
Until Trump ran for president in 2015, he and Michael Bloomberg were good friends.
The two most famous billionaires in New York played golf together, frequently rubbed shoulders on the same elite Manhattan social scene, and worked professionally on common projects – most notably when Trump delivered a luxury golf course on a discarded municipal waste site in the Bronx, enabling Bloomberg to take credit for it just before he left office as New York mayor.
‘If there is anybody who has changed this city, it is Donald Trump,’ said Mayor Bloomberg, delightedly. ‘He has done an amazing thing and this is another part of it!’
Then Trump announced he was running for the White House, and Bloomberg very quickly turned against his friend – enraged by his views on everything from guns to climate change, and what he saw as Trump’s ‘offensive’ lack of civility.
He later described Trump’s run as ‘the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears.’
Trump, predictably, responded in kind, tweeting: ‘Little Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!’
At the heart of their relationship lies billionaire ego.
As their mutual friend, Republican congressman Peter King, told the New York Times: ‘One New York billionaire thinks he is better than another New York billionaire. I can see Mike resenting the fact he is not getting the recognition Donald Trump gets. Each guy thinks he is smarter than the other.’
I met them both together when I was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 and Bloomberg turned up with Trump in midtown Manhattan to assess my hotdog selling skills.
The swaggering rivalry between them, albeit cordial at the time, was palpable. In a city of big dogs, pun intended, these were arguably the two biggest, though Bloomberg is substantially richer than Trump.
Now, if Bloomberg wins the Democrat nomination – and it’s a very big ‘if’ - they may be pitted against each other in the 2020 Election.
In announcing his decision to enter the race, Bloomberg said: ‘I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term, we may never recover from the damage.’
Bloomberg is thus positioning himself as the ‘good billionaire’ on a mission to save America from the bad billionaire.
Yet, just how good IS he?
For example, Bloomberg has a history of making unsavory comments denigrating women.
A 1990 booklet of quotations attributed to him included this observation: ‘If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of Bloomingdale’s.’
And a suggestion, during a pitch to sell Bloomberg terminals, that his computers could ‘do anything’ including the ability to perform oral sex on the user, which, he said, would ‘put…a lot of you girls out of business.’
At a Christmas party in 2012, he pointed to a woman in a tight dress and said, ‘look at the ass on her.’
He was also reported to have said in a 1998 deposition, taken during a case where a saleswoman accused a Bloomberg manager of raping her, that he would only believe a rape claim if there was an ‘unimpeachable third-party witness.’
And he was accused by a Bloomberg female employee of saying ‘kill it’ when she told him she was pregnant, a claim he denied.
Bloomberg has also been accused of racism.
He recently issued a grovelling apology for his controversial ‘stop-and-search’ policy as New York Mayor that a federal judge determined in 2013 violated the constitutional rights of racial minorities.
He operated a very contentious policy of surveillance of Muslim Americans, a dictatorial crackdown of Occupy Wall Street protestors, and he presided over a huge spike in homelessness, sparked by massively increased income inequality and lack of affordable housing. So Bloomberg’s critics, led by Trump, will have plenty of ammunition against the self-styled savior.
And that’s before we get to the fact that he’s changed his party allegiance when it’s suited him, switching from Democrat to Republican to Independent.
But it’s what Bloomberg did yesterday that should give most serious cause for concern.
In this era of ‘FAKE NEWS!’, and hyper-partisan media coverage, many were curious to see how Bloomberg News would handle the confirmation that their owner was running for president.
The answer is absolutely atrociously.
In an astonishing email to staff, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Mickelthwait, revealed the news agency won’t ‘investigate’ Bloomberg, or any of his Democratic rivals.
But it WILL continue to obsessively investigate President Trump.
‘We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation),’ said Mickelthwait, ‘and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries. We cannot treat Mike’s democratic competitors differently to him.’
Yet they will treat President Trump differently.
He alone will be exposed to the full investigative scrutiny of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists.
I had to read this memo several times to ensure I hadn’t misunderstood it.
I hadn’t.
Bloomberg News is also suspending its opinion section’s editorial board, because most of them are joining his campaign!
It’s hard to imagine a more egregious abuse of a major news organization owner’s power than for the owner to ban his own journalists from investigating him as he runs for president but continues to dig dirt on his opponent.
As former Bloomberg Businessweek editor and Washington bureau chief Megan Murphy said on Twitter: ‘It is truly staggering that *any* editor would put their name on a memo that bars an army of unbelievably talented reporters and editors from covering massive, crucial aspects of one of the defining aspects of our time.’
She added: ‘I was presented with a near identical “memo” during his 2016 flirtation and I was very clear that I would quit the second it ever saw the light of day.’
Murphy also cited comparisons to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos who owns the Washington Post.
‘Can you imagine if Bezos decided to run, the Washington Post telling reporters it a) wouldn’t do hard reporting on Bezos and b) wouldn’t do hard reporting on any other candidates either. It’s absolutely unimaginable (thank god).'
Exactly.
It’s an absolute disgrace that Michael Bloomberg’s very first act as presidential candidate is to order a blanket ban on ANY investigative reporting on him or any Democrat candidate.
It’s even more of a disgrace that he’s ordered his journalists to ONLY carry on digging for dirt on President Trump.
Ironically, this is just the kind of extreme media bias that Trump has persistently ranted about since winning the White House, and will creature a ‘fake’ picture of news in this 2020 campaign.
Bloomberg’s shameful self-protective censorship is also the exact opposite of the pledge he made to Matthew Winkler when he persuaded him to launch Bloomberg News.
It means that if Bloomberg journalists discover their boss has taken $5m from the corporate till and is with his secretary at a Rio de Janeiro resort, the response from Bloomberg to their request to publish it will be: ‘DON’T go with the story!’
Michael Bloomberg’s been very vocal about the need to stop Vladimir Putin interfering with US elections, yet here is the same Michael Bloomberg pulling a disgustingly cynical stunt to suppress journalism that even Putin might hesitate to pull, and that frankly should disqualify him from becoming President.
Bloomberg News just ceased to be a news organization and became a dictator’s puppet. Shame on him for doing this, and shame on any of his journalists who accept it.
THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT NO NFL TEAM HAS SHOWN ANY INTEREST IN UNPATRIOTIC ASSHOLE
Colin Kaepernick has received NO interest from any teams after backing out of NFL's 'PR stunt tryout' in favor of his self-organized workout for scouts amid growing animosity with league
Daily Mail
November 24, 2019
A week after Colin Kaepernick's NFL workout fell apart, disagreements and distrust about it remain as the controversial quarterback has failed to draw any interest from the league.
A total of 25 teams were supposed to attend the league's workout run by two former head coaches at the Atlanta Falcons' practice facility on November 16. Instead, Kaepernick ditched that workout and ended up throwing passes in front of representatives from eight NFL teams at his own event at a site 60 miles away.
Sources previously told NFL.com that the former San Francisco 49ers star showed good arm strength, but only average accuracy during the tryout. According to ESPN, Kaepernick has still yet to receive any interest following his self-organized workout.
It's not clear if Kaepernick would have gotten calls from teams had he participated in the NFL tryout, but disagreements on several fronts doomed that arrangement before it began.
In conversations with The Associated Press, representatives from both sides blamed each other for what went wrong. Kaepernick's side said the NFL orchestrated a workout as a public relations stunt destined to fail, while the league said it gave him a real chance to show off his skills - and he didn't show up.
Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl seven years ago, hasn't played since 2016 when he sparked a wave of protests and divisive debate by kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice. The league in February settled a collusion grievance filed by Kaepernick and Eric Reid.
The AP reviewed both waivers from the event and talked to a person who was involved in the negotiations from Kaepernick's side and two NFL officials with knowledge of the process, all speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions between the two sides were private.
A look at the issues raised by both sides regarding the botched workout:
DEADLINE TO ACCEPT
Kaepernick's camp said the NFL gave him only two hours to accept an invitation four days ahead of the workout. His side questioned the timing, purpose and motivation behind a take-it-or-leave-it offer presented in Week 11. They believe the NFL cared more about creating the impression it wanted to give Kaepernick a chance for a new job than actually giving him a legitimate opportunity.
The NFL said it was Commissioner Roger Goodell's idea to give Kaepernick a platform for an unprecedented workout. The league, which hasn't arranged tryouts for other free agents, said Goodell felt it was right to give the exiled QB the chance to showcase his skills. Teams were expressing interest in knowing whether Kaepernick was serious about playing. Kaepernick posted on social media that he was working out five days a week and ready to play again. Goodell spoke to other league officials and people outside the organization and decided an open tryout would give teams an opportunity to see for themselves. Jay-Z, who is in a partnership with the NFL, was involved in the conversations. Goodell also spoke to Dr. Harry Edwards, a civil rights activist.
SATURDAY INSTEAD OF TUESDAY
Kaepernick's side requested to move the workout to a Tuesday when most teams bring free agents in for tryouts. It was concerned that team 'decision-makers' wouldn't be present on a weekend.
According to author, sports journalist, and ESPN radio personality Howard Bryant, one team sent a scouting intern to Kaepernick's tryout on November 16 rather than an actual scout.
The NFL said coaches wouldn't travel on a Tuesday or any other day during game week to see a free agent. It also said general managers rely on their scouts to evaluate free agents. The league says it didn't want to push the date back because it 'did not want a circus.' The league pointed out that free agents are usually given a call one day before a workout, 'don´t bring in their own receivers, dictate the order of the workout, bring in their own media crew or have media onsite.'
CLOSED TO MEDIA
Kaepernick's side wanted to open the workout to the media to ensure transparency.
The NFL said it made clear from the start the workout would be closed to media. The league wasn't comfortable opening Atlanta's practice facility to media and says it wanted to give Kaepernick 'the best platform from which to perform,' and having camera crews present would't help him concentrate on the workout. It said the issue of media presence didn't come up until the day of the scheduled workout.
ATTENDEES
Kaepernick's camp said the NFL agreed to provide a list of team representatives who committed to coming. The league later shifted and did not share that list.
The league said it never made that promise because it didn't want individual team personnel to face media questions leading up to the workout.
UNCERTAIN DETAILS
Kaepernick's team said he didn't know which receivers he'd be throwing to and what routes they would run, so he brought in his own guys. He also wasn't immediately informed that former Browns coach Hue Jackson would run the workout along with former Dolphins coach Joe Philbin.
The NFL said it understood those concerns and addressed them to Kaepernick´s satisfaction. It said it even complied with Kaepernick's request on the morning of the workout to change the order of events and begin with a throwing session instead of Jackson's original plan to start with the interview portion.
NIKE’S ROLE
The NFL said it agreed to Nike's request to shoot an ad featuring Kaepernick and mentioning all the teams present at the workout. The league said the ad was supposed to be a social post featuring handwritten notes by a young Kaepernick that said he wanted to be a football player when he grew up.
A spokesman for Nike said the company did not have a film crew at the workout and declined further comment.
THE FILM CREW
Kaepernick's side wanted to bring their own film crew because they didn't trust that the NFL would provide accurate video and were concerned the league would edit it to make him look bad.
The NFL said it invited Kaepernick's representatives to sit in with the Falcons' video director at the facility to ensure the crew was capturing all the footage. The league said it planned to send the raw video to all 32 teams.
THE WAIVERS
Kaepernick's representatives said the NFL 'demanded' as a precondition for the workout that he sign an 'unusual liability waiver' that addressed employment-related issues. They countered with a waiver from physical injury that the league rejected.
The NFL said it sent Kaepernick a standard liability waiver based on the one used by National Invitational Camp at all NFL Combines and by teams when trying out free agents. Kaepernick signed a waiver with similar language before attending the combine in 2011.
The NFL said it became concerned when Kaepernick's side wanted to know who would own commercial rights to the video, adding that such an issue is not part of a typical workout.
Kaepernick's side says it was concerned that not only did the NFL document seek to waive employment rights, but it contained a clause that would give the NFL and its teams commercials rights to the workout footage that could be used for what it called 'phony' public service announcements and other 'NFL marketing gimmicks.' The waiver provided by Kaepernick's camp did not grant the commercial rights to anyone.
The NFL disputes the interpretation of the clause, saying it was intended to enable the video to be sent to the clubs for evaluation with no marketing or commercial use. The league says it provided the waiver on Wednesday, didn't hear back on it until Friday night, and didn't receive a revised waiver until 12:03 p.m. on the day of the workout.
FINAL WORDS
Kaepernick's side believes the NFL was using the workout as a PR stunt and wanted to avoid the NFL using the footage 'for its marketing and propaganda since the NFL waiver included a clause granting it these rights.'
The NFL said it accommodated all of Kaepernick's football requests, but non-football issues derailed it. The league said it would have invited the NFL Network to broadcast the workout if it wanted publicity.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Roger Goodell and the NFL should never have given this ungrateful and unpatriotic asshole the time of day. And lest we forget, the league defended the right of players to protest against what Kaepernick called police brutality against blacks.
Also, boycott Nike! Do not buy any Nike products! Let's not forget that Nike has given Kaepernick a lucrative platform.
Daily Mail
November 24, 2019
A week after Colin Kaepernick's NFL workout fell apart, disagreements and distrust about it remain as the controversial quarterback has failed to draw any interest from the league.
A total of 25 teams were supposed to attend the league's workout run by two former head coaches at the Atlanta Falcons' practice facility on November 16. Instead, Kaepernick ditched that workout and ended up throwing passes in front of representatives from eight NFL teams at his own event at a site 60 miles away.
Sources previously told NFL.com that the former San Francisco 49ers star showed good arm strength, but only average accuracy during the tryout. According to ESPN, Kaepernick has still yet to receive any interest following his self-organized workout.
It's not clear if Kaepernick would have gotten calls from teams had he participated in the NFL tryout, but disagreements on several fronts doomed that arrangement before it began.
In conversations with The Associated Press, representatives from both sides blamed each other for what went wrong. Kaepernick's side said the NFL orchestrated a workout as a public relations stunt destined to fail, while the league said it gave him a real chance to show off his skills - and he didn't show up.
Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl seven years ago, hasn't played since 2016 when he sparked a wave of protests and divisive debate by kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice. The league in February settled a collusion grievance filed by Kaepernick and Eric Reid.
The AP reviewed both waivers from the event and talked to a person who was involved in the negotiations from Kaepernick's side and two NFL officials with knowledge of the process, all speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions between the two sides were private.
A look at the issues raised by both sides regarding the botched workout:
DEADLINE TO ACCEPT
Kaepernick's camp said the NFL gave him only two hours to accept an invitation four days ahead of the workout. His side questioned the timing, purpose and motivation behind a take-it-or-leave-it offer presented in Week 11. They believe the NFL cared more about creating the impression it wanted to give Kaepernick a chance for a new job than actually giving him a legitimate opportunity.
The NFL said it was Commissioner Roger Goodell's idea to give Kaepernick a platform for an unprecedented workout. The league, which hasn't arranged tryouts for other free agents, said Goodell felt it was right to give the exiled QB the chance to showcase his skills. Teams were expressing interest in knowing whether Kaepernick was serious about playing. Kaepernick posted on social media that he was working out five days a week and ready to play again. Goodell spoke to other league officials and people outside the organization and decided an open tryout would give teams an opportunity to see for themselves. Jay-Z, who is in a partnership with the NFL, was involved in the conversations. Goodell also spoke to Dr. Harry Edwards, a civil rights activist.
SATURDAY INSTEAD OF TUESDAY
Kaepernick's side requested to move the workout to a Tuesday when most teams bring free agents in for tryouts. It was concerned that team 'decision-makers' wouldn't be present on a weekend.
According to author, sports journalist, and ESPN radio personality Howard Bryant, one team sent a scouting intern to Kaepernick's tryout on November 16 rather than an actual scout.
The NFL said coaches wouldn't travel on a Tuesday or any other day during game week to see a free agent. It also said general managers rely on their scouts to evaluate free agents. The league says it didn't want to push the date back because it 'did not want a circus.' The league pointed out that free agents are usually given a call one day before a workout, 'don´t bring in their own receivers, dictate the order of the workout, bring in their own media crew or have media onsite.'
CLOSED TO MEDIA
Kaepernick's side wanted to open the workout to the media to ensure transparency.
The NFL said it made clear from the start the workout would be closed to media. The league wasn't comfortable opening Atlanta's practice facility to media and says it wanted to give Kaepernick 'the best platform from which to perform,' and having camera crews present would't help him concentrate on the workout. It said the issue of media presence didn't come up until the day of the scheduled workout.
ATTENDEES
Kaepernick's camp said the NFL agreed to provide a list of team representatives who committed to coming. The league later shifted and did not share that list.
The league said it never made that promise because it didn't want individual team personnel to face media questions leading up to the workout.
UNCERTAIN DETAILS
Kaepernick's team said he didn't know which receivers he'd be throwing to and what routes they would run, so he brought in his own guys. He also wasn't immediately informed that former Browns coach Hue Jackson would run the workout along with former Dolphins coach Joe Philbin.
The NFL said it understood those concerns and addressed them to Kaepernick´s satisfaction. It said it even complied with Kaepernick's request on the morning of the workout to change the order of events and begin with a throwing session instead of Jackson's original plan to start with the interview portion.
NIKE’S ROLE
The NFL said it agreed to Nike's request to shoot an ad featuring Kaepernick and mentioning all the teams present at the workout. The league said the ad was supposed to be a social post featuring handwritten notes by a young Kaepernick that said he wanted to be a football player when he grew up.
A spokesman for Nike said the company did not have a film crew at the workout and declined further comment.
THE FILM CREW
Kaepernick's side wanted to bring their own film crew because they didn't trust that the NFL would provide accurate video and were concerned the league would edit it to make him look bad.
The NFL said it invited Kaepernick's representatives to sit in with the Falcons' video director at the facility to ensure the crew was capturing all the footage. The league said it planned to send the raw video to all 32 teams.
THE WAIVERS
Kaepernick's representatives said the NFL 'demanded' as a precondition for the workout that he sign an 'unusual liability waiver' that addressed employment-related issues. They countered with a waiver from physical injury that the league rejected.
The NFL said it sent Kaepernick a standard liability waiver based on the one used by National Invitational Camp at all NFL Combines and by teams when trying out free agents. Kaepernick signed a waiver with similar language before attending the combine in 2011.
The NFL said it became concerned when Kaepernick's side wanted to know who would own commercial rights to the video, adding that such an issue is not part of a typical workout.
Kaepernick's side says it was concerned that not only did the NFL document seek to waive employment rights, but it contained a clause that would give the NFL and its teams commercials rights to the workout footage that could be used for what it called 'phony' public service announcements and other 'NFL marketing gimmicks.' The waiver provided by Kaepernick's camp did not grant the commercial rights to anyone.
The NFL disputes the interpretation of the clause, saying it was intended to enable the video to be sent to the clubs for evaluation with no marketing or commercial use. The league says it provided the waiver on Wednesday, didn't hear back on it until Friday night, and didn't receive a revised waiver until 12:03 p.m. on the day of the workout.
FINAL WORDS
Kaepernick's side believes the NFL was using the workout as a PR stunt and wanted to avoid the NFL using the footage 'for its marketing and propaganda since the NFL waiver included a clause granting it these rights.'
The NFL said it accommodated all of Kaepernick's football requests, but non-football issues derailed it. The league said it would have invited the NFL Network to broadcast the workout if it wanted publicity.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Roger Goodell and the NFL should never have given this ungrateful and unpatriotic asshole the time of day. And lest we forget, the league defended the right of players to protest against what Kaepernick called police brutality against blacks.
Also, boycott Nike! Do not buy any Nike products! Let's not forget that Nike has given Kaepernick a lucrative platform.
ATTEMPTED REVENGE BECAUSE SAME SEX ROMANCE WENT KAPUT
Chicago Police Officer’s Ex-Girlfriend Accused Of Trying To Hire Undercover Cop To Kidnap, Murder 62-Year-Old Woman
By Steven Graves
CBS Chicago
November 24, 2019
CHICAGO -- The former girlfriend of a Chicago police officer has been charged in a murder-for-hire plot, accused of trying to hire an undercover cop to kidnap and kill the woman she blamed for the end of the relationship.
Lissette Ortiz, 54, has been charged with one felony count of solicitation of murder for hire. She was ordered held without bail at her first court appearance on Sunday.
As CBS 2’s Steven Graves reported, Cook County prosecutors said Ortiz concocted a calculated plan, which came into focus last week.
Prosecutors said after breaking up with her police officer girlfriend this summer, Ortiz believed the officer started a romantic relationship with a 62-year-old woman, who Ortiz blamed for their breakup. Sources said Ortiz is the former girlfriend of a police officer assigned to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s security detail.
Seeking to have the 62-year-old woman kidnapped and killed, prosecutors said Ortiz first approached a man identified only as “witness 2” on Nov. 18, and said she wanted to hire him or someone he knew to abduct the woman and bring the victim to her so she could “take care of the rest.”
Prosecutors said Ortiz offered to pay that witness $5,000 for the kidnapping, or $500 and a large TV if he introduced her to someone else to carry out the kidnapping.
After that witness contacted Chicago police, he arranged for Ortiz to meet with an undercover officer posing as a kidnapper for hire.
The officer met Ortiz on Nov. 20 in the parking lot of a business near her home, and got in her car. She drove the officer around for about an hour, and said she wanted the officer to kidnap the victim, drive her to a remote location, and set the vehicle on fire. Ortiz also told the officer she wanted the victim to know she was responsible for the murder, and preferred she still be alive when the vehicle was set on fire.
Prosecutors said Ortiz told the officer she planned to be somewhere else at the time of the kidnapping and murder, because she knew police would suspect her of the killing, and she wanted to have an alibi.
Ortiz wanted to carry out the plot before Thanksgiving, so the victim couldn’t celebrate the holiday in the same home Ortiz had shared with her ex-girlfriend, according to prosecutors. She offered to pay the officer $5,000 for the kidnapping and murder.
Prosecutors said Ortiz planned to flee to Puerto Rico after the victim was killed.
After leaving the meeting with the undercover officer, she was arrested.
Ortiz’s defense claimed she was not a flight risk, and also claimed she has text message proof that the man she tried to hire extorted her.
Ortiz’s former girlfriend was acquitted of domestic battery charges this summer. Ortiz had accused her of pinning her against a wall and ripping her clothes while taking away her car keys. A judge found the officer not guilty.
Ortiz also has a prior record. She was convicted of theft and forgery, and she has a current retail theft case.
By Steven Graves
CBS Chicago
November 24, 2019
CHICAGO -- The former girlfriend of a Chicago police officer has been charged in a murder-for-hire plot, accused of trying to hire an undercover cop to kidnap and kill the woman she blamed for the end of the relationship.
Lissette Ortiz, 54, has been charged with one felony count of solicitation of murder for hire. She was ordered held without bail at her first court appearance on Sunday.
As CBS 2’s Steven Graves reported, Cook County prosecutors said Ortiz concocted a calculated plan, which came into focus last week.
Prosecutors said after breaking up with her police officer girlfriend this summer, Ortiz believed the officer started a romantic relationship with a 62-year-old woman, who Ortiz blamed for their breakup. Sources said Ortiz is the former girlfriend of a police officer assigned to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s security detail.
Seeking to have the 62-year-old woman kidnapped and killed, prosecutors said Ortiz first approached a man identified only as “witness 2” on Nov. 18, and said she wanted to hire him or someone he knew to abduct the woman and bring the victim to her so she could “take care of the rest.”
Prosecutors said Ortiz offered to pay that witness $5,000 for the kidnapping, or $500 and a large TV if he introduced her to someone else to carry out the kidnapping.
After that witness contacted Chicago police, he arranged for Ortiz to meet with an undercover officer posing as a kidnapper for hire.
The officer met Ortiz on Nov. 20 in the parking lot of a business near her home, and got in her car. She drove the officer around for about an hour, and said she wanted the officer to kidnap the victim, drive her to a remote location, and set the vehicle on fire. Ortiz also told the officer she wanted the victim to know she was responsible for the murder, and preferred she still be alive when the vehicle was set on fire.
Prosecutors said Ortiz told the officer she planned to be somewhere else at the time of the kidnapping and murder, because she knew police would suspect her of the killing, and she wanted to have an alibi.
Ortiz wanted to carry out the plot before Thanksgiving, so the victim couldn’t celebrate the holiday in the same home Ortiz had shared with her ex-girlfriend, according to prosecutors. She offered to pay the officer $5,000 for the kidnapping and murder.
Prosecutors said Ortiz planned to flee to Puerto Rico after the victim was killed.
After leaving the meeting with the undercover officer, she was arrested.
Ortiz’s defense claimed she was not a flight risk, and also claimed she has text message proof that the man she tried to hire extorted her.
Ortiz’s former girlfriend was acquitted of domestic battery charges this summer. Ortiz had accused her of pinning her against a wall and ripping her clothes while taking away her car keys. A judge found the officer not guilty.
Ortiz also has a prior record. She was convicted of theft and forgery, and she has a current retail theft case.
PRIVACY ADVOCATES GO APOPLECTIC OVER POLICE TRACKING TACTICS
An accused bank robber claims the police broke the law when they used Google location data to track him down. Privacy advocates agree
By Mack DeGeurin
Insider
November 23, 2019
When, if ever, should police be able to gather up Google location data to track down a criminal suspect? That's one of the questions being posed by the lawyers of an alleged Virginia bank robber, who claims local police overstepped their bounds and committed privacy violations when they requested data from Google on him and 18 others near the vicinity of the crime. Privacy advocates say the implications of this case reach far beyond the alleged burglar and could affect the rights of millions of Americans using Google products.
The robbery took place this May at a Call Federal Credit Union. Surveillance footage of the robbery obtained by CBS 6 shows the burglar, armed with a handgun, charging into the bank. The Department of Justice alleges that 24-old Okello Chatrie made off with more than $195,000 dollars.
Google provided police with anonymous data of 19 people near the bank
To try and crack the case, Chesterfield police requested the location data of everyone in the vicinity of the bank within an hour of the robbery. Google complied and provided the police with anonymized data on 19 individuals within a 150-meter radius, according to NBC News. Then law enforcement started digging deeper.
Investigators narrowed down their search to nine suspects and asked Google for slightly more specific information. The search was then whittled down even further to four individuals. At this level police requested additional specific data that reportedly included user names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
With all the necessary data, police moved forward with arresting Chatrie on August 13 on charges of forced accompaniment and brandishing a firearm. Chatrie could face life in prison if convicted.
Chatrie's lawyer and privacy advocates object to the police's decision to target a geographic region rather than a given individual. This method of data collection, which has grown in popularity among law enforcement in recent years, is referred to as a "geofence warrant."
In theory, the geofence warrant attempts to take the idea of a physical crime scene and reimagine it for an internet-connected world. But that can lead to situations where innocent bystanders may have their personal information sucked up by police in wholesale ways that wouldn't have happened before the ubiquity of internet-connected smartphones.
"Individuals may be caught up in this search by merely using an Android phone, conducting an Internet search using Google, running a Google application such as Google Maps or YouTube, or even receiving an automatic weather update from an Android service," Chatrie's attorney, Michael Price, wrote in an October motion viewed by the Washington Post.
"Police have access to a completely new capability."
Chatrie's lawyer isn't the only only one with concerns. In an interview with Insider, ACLU staff attorney Nathan Wessler expressed concern over what appears to be a lack of accountability associated with geofence warrants.
"The issue in these cases is that Google is sitting on an incredible volume of user location data," Wessler said. "That information can reveal extraordinarily private details of people's lives. There's a real risk that without proper constraints, these requests will start to resemble the types of things the framers of the Fourth Amendment were so concerned about."
Those constitution questions persist, Wessler said, regardless of whether or not Chatrie is found guilty of robbing the bank.
Wessler also disagreed with the notion that the geographic data collection is synonymous with a physical crime scene.
"When police are searching a physical crime scene, they are looking for physical evidence left behind like blood samples," Wessler said. "What we are talking about here is a digital record held by a company [Google] that millions of Americans trust to take care of their most sensitive data. Police have access to a completely new capability without comparison in the history of policing."
Google weighs the privacy of its users with the requests of law enforcement
Google defended the way it handles geofence warrant requests by police. In a statement provided to NBC News, Google explained their methods for striking a balance between protecting the privacy rights of its customers and complying with law enforcement requests.
"We vigorously protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement," Richard Salgado, Google's director of law enforcement and information security, the company said.
"We have created a new process for these specific requests designed to honor our legal obligations while narrowing the scope of data disclosed and only producing information that identifies specific users where legally required."
Issues surrounding personal data and law enforcement have increasingly gone to court. Last year, in what was viewed as a significant win for privacy advocates, the Supreme Court rule that police must first receive a warrant before requesting cell phone tower data on individuals from telecommunications companies. That ruling was limited to cell phone towers. Still, with an ever-increasing proportion of cell phones connected to major location service apps like Google Maps, many of those same principles may apply to tech companies as well.
Google's compliance with police demands marks a notable divergence from some of its top competitors. Apple, for example, has security features in places (like the blocking of access to an iPhone's Lightning port after an hour) that would make it more difficult for police to access the contents of a phone. In 2016, Apple made national headlines when it refused requests by the FBI to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
Wessler, the ACLU attorney, credited Google with trying to protect users, but said that there needed to be more official legislation written to ensure police don't overstep.
"At the end of the day Americans shouldn't have to be put in the position of having to trust negotiations between private companies and policies to protect our rights," Wessler said. "What we need is clear, strong rules from courts and lawmakers explaining what's appropriate and what's not appropriate for police to do."
By Mack DeGeurin
Insider
November 23, 2019
When, if ever, should police be able to gather up Google location data to track down a criminal suspect? That's one of the questions being posed by the lawyers of an alleged Virginia bank robber, who claims local police overstepped their bounds and committed privacy violations when they requested data from Google on him and 18 others near the vicinity of the crime. Privacy advocates say the implications of this case reach far beyond the alleged burglar and could affect the rights of millions of Americans using Google products.
The robbery took place this May at a Call Federal Credit Union. Surveillance footage of the robbery obtained by CBS 6 shows the burglar, armed with a handgun, charging into the bank. The Department of Justice alleges that 24-old Okello Chatrie made off with more than $195,000 dollars.
Google provided police with anonymous data of 19 people near the bank
To try and crack the case, Chesterfield police requested the location data of everyone in the vicinity of the bank within an hour of the robbery. Google complied and provided the police with anonymized data on 19 individuals within a 150-meter radius, according to NBC News. Then law enforcement started digging deeper.
Investigators narrowed down their search to nine suspects and asked Google for slightly more specific information. The search was then whittled down even further to four individuals. At this level police requested additional specific data that reportedly included user names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
With all the necessary data, police moved forward with arresting Chatrie on August 13 on charges of forced accompaniment and brandishing a firearm. Chatrie could face life in prison if convicted.
Chatrie's lawyer and privacy advocates object to the police's decision to target a geographic region rather than a given individual. This method of data collection, which has grown in popularity among law enforcement in recent years, is referred to as a "geofence warrant."
In theory, the geofence warrant attempts to take the idea of a physical crime scene and reimagine it for an internet-connected world. But that can lead to situations where innocent bystanders may have their personal information sucked up by police in wholesale ways that wouldn't have happened before the ubiquity of internet-connected smartphones.
"Individuals may be caught up in this search by merely using an Android phone, conducting an Internet search using Google, running a Google application such as Google Maps or YouTube, or even receiving an automatic weather update from an Android service," Chatrie's attorney, Michael Price, wrote in an October motion viewed by the Washington Post.
"Police have access to a completely new capability."
Chatrie's lawyer isn't the only only one with concerns. In an interview with Insider, ACLU staff attorney Nathan Wessler expressed concern over what appears to be a lack of accountability associated with geofence warrants.
"The issue in these cases is that Google is sitting on an incredible volume of user location data," Wessler said. "That information can reveal extraordinarily private details of people's lives. There's a real risk that without proper constraints, these requests will start to resemble the types of things the framers of the Fourth Amendment were so concerned about."
Those constitution questions persist, Wessler said, regardless of whether or not Chatrie is found guilty of robbing the bank.
Wessler also disagreed with the notion that the geographic data collection is synonymous with a physical crime scene.
"When police are searching a physical crime scene, they are looking for physical evidence left behind like blood samples," Wessler said. "What we are talking about here is a digital record held by a company [Google] that millions of Americans trust to take care of their most sensitive data. Police have access to a completely new capability without comparison in the history of policing."
Google weighs the privacy of its users with the requests of law enforcement
Google defended the way it handles geofence warrant requests by police. In a statement provided to NBC News, Google explained their methods for striking a balance between protecting the privacy rights of its customers and complying with law enforcement requests.
"We vigorously protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement," Richard Salgado, Google's director of law enforcement and information security, the company said.
"We have created a new process for these specific requests designed to honor our legal obligations while narrowing the scope of data disclosed and only producing information that identifies specific users where legally required."
Issues surrounding personal data and law enforcement have increasingly gone to court. Last year, in what was viewed as a significant win for privacy advocates, the Supreme Court rule that police must first receive a warrant before requesting cell phone tower data on individuals from telecommunications companies. That ruling was limited to cell phone towers. Still, with an ever-increasing proportion of cell phones connected to major location service apps like Google Maps, many of those same principles may apply to tech companies as well.
Google's compliance with police demands marks a notable divergence from some of its top competitors. Apple, for example, has security features in places (like the blocking of access to an iPhone's Lightning port after an hour) that would make it more difficult for police to access the contents of a phone. In 2016, Apple made national headlines when it refused requests by the FBI to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
Wessler, the ACLU attorney, credited Google with trying to protect users, but said that there needed to be more official legislation written to ensure police don't overstep.
"At the end of the day Americans shouldn't have to be put in the position of having to trust negotiations between private companies and policies to protect our rights," Wessler said. "What we need is clear, strong rules from courts and lawmakers explaining what's appropriate and what's not appropriate for police to do."
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