by Bob Walsh
The Brits have successfully tests a Land Speed Record car that they hope will hit 1,000 MPH in the deserts of South Africa next year.
The car, powered by a Rolls Royce jet engine, made several successful 200 MPH runs as a warm up recently. There are some very interesting engineering issues with a ground vehicle that travels that fast, not the least of which is getting tires that can spin that fast without coming apart. Also brakes that will stop a 5 ton vehicle from that speed are something that need thought, even with a parachute brake.
The current land speed record is slightly over 760 MPH, which is supersonic. In order for the record to count the car must complete two runs, in opposite directs on the same surface, within one hour. The Brits currently hold the record.
Friday, October 27, 2017
SICK OR NOT, THEY ARE STILL GOING TO SCRAG HIS ASS
by Bob Walsh
Alva Campbell, 69, is on death row in Ohio. He has appealed to the federal courts, asserting that he is too ill to execute. His lawyers claim his physical ailments are "equivalent" to mental incompetence, which would under current law bar his execution,. Campbell himself is asserting that recent changes in execution protocol allow him to raise "new" objections to his execution.
A 2-1 decision by the 6th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals told him to pound sand, kick rocks, eat shit and DIE. Especially die. Next month to be more precise.
Alva Campbell, 69, is on death row in Ohio. He has appealed to the federal courts, asserting that he is too ill to execute. His lawyers claim his physical ailments are "equivalent" to mental incompetence, which would under current law bar his execution,. Campbell himself is asserting that recent changes in execution protocol allow him to raise "new" objections to his execution.
A 2-1 decision by the 6th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals told him to pound sand, kick rocks, eat shit and DIE. Especially die. Next month to be more precise.
QUITE A FEAT
82-year-old becomes oldest person to hike entire Appalachian Trail in a year
By Tara Bahrampour
The Washington Post
October 26, 2017
HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. — There was a moment back in August when Dale “Grey Beard” Sanders considered giving up.
In the middle of the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine, far from help, he was bleeding internally and having heart palpitations — not surprising considering that he was 50 or 60 years older than most of the people he had met on the Appalachian Trail.
Sanders called his wife in Bartlett, Tennessee, and she urged him to keep going. With a go-ahead from his doctors, he did, and on Thursday, Sanders, 82, officially became the oldest person to hike the entire 2,190-mile trail in a year.
He walked much of it alone, but for the last mile, ending at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Sanders was joined by friends, family and hikers — including a pair of dogs — he had met along the trail.
At the end of it, he danced a jig.
“I feel euphoric!” he said. “I keep thinking, is someone going to come out of the woodwork and say, ‘Huh-uh, I hiked it last year … and I was 83’ — but no one has stepped up and said that.”
“Someone said to me, ‘You can’t do it, the only way an old person’s going to be able to hike the Appalachian Trail is if they’ve hiked it before.’ That challenged me.”
Sanders had completed other impressive feats. A couple of years ago, he paddled the length of the Mississippi River. He broke the record for underwater breath-holding in 1959 and was IUSA spearfishing athlete of the year in 1965. But he had never done a hike lasting more than two weeks. For this one, which he started in Georgia in January, he was on the trail for a total of seven months.
He is, incidentally, two years older than the Appalachian Trail, which was officially “connected” in 1937, meaning people could hike it in its entirety between Georgia and Maine. Sanders hiked it in a “flip-flop” sequence, meaning he did a northbound Georgia-to-Harpers Ferry leg, followed by a southbound Maine-to-Harpers Ferry leg.
A naturally gregarious person, Sanders had periods of depression while alone on the trail. He was helped by what he calls “trail angels,” people who recognized him from seeing him on the internet, who called out his trail name — “Grey Beard” — and hiked alongside him for a stretch. (Sanders’ long beard is white, but he named himself after a Cherokee Indian chief he admires.)
“The best comment from one of them was, ‘I want to be like you when I’m your age,’ ” he said. “That kept me going.”
The majority of his fellow hikers were in their 20s. They didn’t have to keep track of blood pressure medication or the two different kinds of eye drops that Sanders needs for glaucoma.
“As older people, we have a great deal more challenges,” he said. Injuries take longer to heal, including the hip he injured in a fall in Kinsman Mountain in New Hampshire that took two months to stop hurting.
During the hike, he wore a GPS tracker so people at home could locate his position. He fell “about 100 times” along the rocky, mountainous trail, but only the Kinsman Mountain fall was serious.
“A few times I played the age card, I admit, and it worked every time. I didn’t hitchhike, I flagged cars down, and I told them my story and they said, ‘Get in.’ ”
Sanders’ personal story includes a 50-year career as a parks and recreation program administrator. He spent his boyhood on a Kentucky tobacco farm, worked as a lifeguard and was a circus acrobat and cotton candy seller.
“He always did acrobatics,” said his sister, Elaine Bush of Nashville, one of several family members celebrating with him in Harpers Ferry; his wife, a daughter and son-in-law, and two grandchildren also came. “He was always in the limelight, because he was unusual and he did unusual things.”
Sanders takes 30-inch steps, so he figures he took 4,625,256 steps for the hike. Along the way, he passed tens of thousands of white rectangular blazes that mark the trail on trees, rocks and posts. When he passed the last one on Thursday, he stopped, took off his cap, and kissed it.
A few yards later, at the conservancy headquarters, he hugged his wife and accepted a glass of sparkling cider. And with all the honesty that 82 years affords a man, he announced his next move.
“I’m done, and I’m tired,” he said. “And I can go home.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: I can do that. Oops, I misspelled a word. That should be 'can't'.
By Tara Bahrampour
The Washington Post
October 26, 2017
HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. — There was a moment back in August when Dale “Grey Beard” Sanders considered giving up.
In the middle of the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine, far from help, he was bleeding internally and having heart palpitations — not surprising considering that he was 50 or 60 years older than most of the people he had met on the Appalachian Trail.
Sanders called his wife in Bartlett, Tennessee, and she urged him to keep going. With a go-ahead from his doctors, he did, and on Thursday, Sanders, 82, officially became the oldest person to hike the entire 2,190-mile trail in a year.
He walked much of it alone, but for the last mile, ending at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Sanders was joined by friends, family and hikers — including a pair of dogs — he had met along the trail.
At the end of it, he danced a jig.
“I feel euphoric!” he said. “I keep thinking, is someone going to come out of the woodwork and say, ‘Huh-uh, I hiked it last year … and I was 83’ — but no one has stepped up and said that.”
“Someone said to me, ‘You can’t do it, the only way an old person’s going to be able to hike the Appalachian Trail is if they’ve hiked it before.’ That challenged me.”
Sanders had completed other impressive feats. A couple of years ago, he paddled the length of the Mississippi River. He broke the record for underwater breath-holding in 1959 and was IUSA spearfishing athlete of the year in 1965. But he had never done a hike lasting more than two weeks. For this one, which he started in Georgia in January, he was on the trail for a total of seven months.
He is, incidentally, two years older than the Appalachian Trail, which was officially “connected” in 1937, meaning people could hike it in its entirety between Georgia and Maine. Sanders hiked it in a “flip-flop” sequence, meaning he did a northbound Georgia-to-Harpers Ferry leg, followed by a southbound Maine-to-Harpers Ferry leg.
A naturally gregarious person, Sanders had periods of depression while alone on the trail. He was helped by what he calls “trail angels,” people who recognized him from seeing him on the internet, who called out his trail name — “Grey Beard” — and hiked alongside him for a stretch. (Sanders’ long beard is white, but he named himself after a Cherokee Indian chief he admires.)
“The best comment from one of them was, ‘I want to be like you when I’m your age,’ ” he said. “That kept me going.”
The majority of his fellow hikers were in their 20s. They didn’t have to keep track of blood pressure medication or the two different kinds of eye drops that Sanders needs for glaucoma.
“As older people, we have a great deal more challenges,” he said. Injuries take longer to heal, including the hip he injured in a fall in Kinsman Mountain in New Hampshire that took two months to stop hurting.
During the hike, he wore a GPS tracker so people at home could locate his position. He fell “about 100 times” along the rocky, mountainous trail, but only the Kinsman Mountain fall was serious.
“A few times I played the age card, I admit, and it worked every time. I didn’t hitchhike, I flagged cars down, and I told them my story and they said, ‘Get in.’ ”
Sanders’ personal story includes a 50-year career as a parks and recreation program administrator. He spent his boyhood on a Kentucky tobacco farm, worked as a lifeguard and was a circus acrobat and cotton candy seller.
“He always did acrobatics,” said his sister, Elaine Bush of Nashville, one of several family members celebrating with him in Harpers Ferry; his wife, a daughter and son-in-law, and two grandchildren also came. “He was always in the limelight, because he was unusual and he did unusual things.”
Sanders takes 30-inch steps, so he figures he took 4,625,256 steps for the hike. Along the way, he passed tens of thousands of white rectangular blazes that mark the trail on trees, rocks and posts. When he passed the last one on Thursday, he stopped, took off his cap, and kissed it.
A few yards later, at the conservancy headquarters, he hugged his wife and accepted a glass of sparkling cider. And with all the honesty that 82 years affords a man, he announced his next move.
“I’m done, and I’m tired,” he said. “And I can go home.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: I can do that. Oops, I misspelled a word. That should be 'can't'.
THE STRANGE SHERRI PAPINI DISAPPEARANCE CASE
Keith Papini issues statement on latest details of wife’s case
By Alayna Shulman
Record Searchlight
October 25, 2017
Detectives still can't piece together who abducted Sherri Papini or why, but texts with a man in Detroit, male DNA that didn't come from her husband and a brawl Papini described between her and one of her captors have all been part of the investigation, officials said Wednesday.
Papini, then 34, was found alive on Thanksgiving 2016 after being reported missing by her husband Nov. 2. Sgt. Brian Jackson said Papini told investigators two women abducted her and are the only people she had contact with during the 22 days she was missing.
Jackson said one of the angles detectives have pursued is Papini's alleged relationship with a "male acquaintance from Michigan." Jackson said Papini planned to meet the man days before she disappeared because he was coming to California for business, but investigators later determined he wasn't involved in her disappearance.
Jackson also shed more light on the condition Papini was in when she was found on the side of the road in Yolo County, and what happened while she was gone — including a fight Papini said she had with one of the captors.
Papini told a forensic interviewer that she slammed her younger captor's head into a toilet when she was allowed to leave her captivity room for a shower, Jackson said. He said Papini told the interviewer that she got a cut on the side of her right foot in the fight, but "when she was being processed at the hospital ... no evidence of a cut was seen in the photographs."
Papini told investigators that she otherwise avoided looking the women in the face so that they wouldn't beat her, Jackson said.
Papini also told investigators that right before she was released, the two captors were arguing and then she heard a gunshot, Jackson said. The younger of the women then escorted Papini out of a room, put her in a vehicle and drove along a winding road, eventually dropping her on the side of the road, Jackson said Papini told investigators.
Jackson detailed more of Papini's physical condition when she was found, too.
He said officials found DNA from two people on Papini — that of a man and a woman. Jackson said authorities collected the woman's DNA from Papini's body, while the man's was found on the clothes she wore when found.
He said the male DNA was not that of her husband, Keith Papini.
The DNA also didn't match any known offenders who came up in the FBI's database, Jackson said.
The FBI sketches of the suspects Sherri Papini described also didn't ring any bells for investigators, Jackson said.
"Once the sketches were finalized, detectives and investigators reviewed the sketches and compared the sketches with known witnesses or contacts identified during the investigation to see if the sketches matched any known parties. No matches were made with case file information," Jackson said.
Sherri Papini was found branded on the back of her right shoulder and "appeared battered and bruised," but Jackson said there is no evidence she was sexually assaulted, and she said she wasn't. But the bruises indicated Sherri Papini "had been physically assaulted multiple times over a period of time," Jackson said.
As for the brand, Jackson said the message is still unclear because of "obscure letters."
"The quality of the brand is poor," Jackson said.
Either way, Jackson said investigators won't reveal what they do know about the brand "for the integrity of the investigation."
Jackson also said Sherri Papini's hair was cut to shoulder-length. Officials initially said her hair was cut but did not reveal how much.
He said when she was found, Sherri Papini was wearing a dark gray sweatshirt, light gray sweatpants and had a chain around her waist with her left wrist tethered to it by a zip-tie. Jackson said Sherri Papini also had hose clamps around her ankles, apparently a form of "pain compliance restraints."
Surveillance footage from a church shows Sherri Papini running up to an onramp of Interstate 5 after being dropped off, per a sheriff's press release, but the video was not immediately available.
In a statement released Wednesday evening, Keith Papini said: "We want to express our immense gratitude to all of the many people who have publicly and privately supported us over the last year. Your well-wishes have helped beyond measure. We are hopeful that the release of additional information by law enforcement will expedite the capture of Sherri’s abductors. This has been an extraordinarily difficult time for our entire family. We ask that the media please respect our need for privacy as Sherri continues to heal and we work towards putting our lives back together."
The Papinis have been in "constant contact" with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office and FBI, Jackson said, but Sherri Papini "has not been able to provide a complete detailed statement due to poor recollection."
Jackson also noted the unprecedented nature of Sherri Papini's case.
While detectives have checked up on cases involving abductions and human-trafficking that some news outlets have likened to Sherri Papini's disappearance, Jackson said, "There have been no cases discovered that are similar in nature to this investigation concerning the pattern of operations by the suspect(s), treatment of the captured victim and release of the captured victim."
And despite over 600 tips, "none of the received tips have been able to generate a viable lead or information as to who is responsible for Sherri's abduction," Jackson said.
"At this time, there has not been any link connecting information discovered that would allow detectives and investigators to identify suspect(s)," Jackson said.
Sherri Papini's case spawned international attention, yet officials hadn't released any details since a news conference in late November where Sheriff Tom Bosenko described the alleged captors: two Hispanic women, one younger with dark, curly hair, pierced ears and thin eyebrows; and one older with thick eyebrows and straight black and gray hair.
Officials have said Keith Papini passed a lie-detector test they gave to see whether he had anything to do with her disappearance. They say he told them Sherri Papini had gone jogging near her Mountain Gate home before she disappeared, and she later told investigators the women abducted her in a dark SUV.
Investigators showed Sherri Papini pictures of SUVs that were in her neighborhood around the time of her disappearance, but they said she didn't recognize any of them.
The case is still under investigation, and anyone with information is asked to call the Sacramento FBI office at 916-746-7000, or by going to tips.fbi.gov.
By Alayna Shulman
Record Searchlight
October 25, 2017
Detectives still can't piece together who abducted Sherri Papini or why, but texts with a man in Detroit, male DNA that didn't come from her husband and a brawl Papini described between her and one of her captors have all been part of the investigation, officials said Wednesday.
Papini, then 34, was found alive on Thanksgiving 2016 after being reported missing by her husband Nov. 2. Sgt. Brian Jackson said Papini told investigators two women abducted her and are the only people she had contact with during the 22 days she was missing.
Jackson said one of the angles detectives have pursued is Papini's alleged relationship with a "male acquaintance from Michigan." Jackson said Papini planned to meet the man days before she disappeared because he was coming to California for business, but investigators later determined he wasn't involved in her disappearance.
Jackson also shed more light on the condition Papini was in when she was found on the side of the road in Yolo County, and what happened while she was gone — including a fight Papini said she had with one of the captors.
Papini told a forensic interviewer that she slammed her younger captor's head into a toilet when she was allowed to leave her captivity room for a shower, Jackson said. He said Papini told the interviewer that she got a cut on the side of her right foot in the fight, but "when she was being processed at the hospital ... no evidence of a cut was seen in the photographs."
Papini told investigators that she otherwise avoided looking the women in the face so that they wouldn't beat her, Jackson said.
Papini also told investigators that right before she was released, the two captors were arguing and then she heard a gunshot, Jackson said. The younger of the women then escorted Papini out of a room, put her in a vehicle and drove along a winding road, eventually dropping her on the side of the road, Jackson said Papini told investigators.
Jackson detailed more of Papini's physical condition when she was found, too.
He said officials found DNA from two people on Papini — that of a man and a woman. Jackson said authorities collected the woman's DNA from Papini's body, while the man's was found on the clothes she wore when found.
He said the male DNA was not that of her husband, Keith Papini.
The DNA also didn't match any known offenders who came up in the FBI's database, Jackson said.
The FBI sketches of the suspects Sherri Papini described also didn't ring any bells for investigators, Jackson said.
"Once the sketches were finalized, detectives and investigators reviewed the sketches and compared the sketches with known witnesses or contacts identified during the investigation to see if the sketches matched any known parties. No matches were made with case file information," Jackson said.
Sherri Papini was found branded on the back of her right shoulder and "appeared battered and bruised," but Jackson said there is no evidence she was sexually assaulted, and she said she wasn't. But the bruises indicated Sherri Papini "had been physically assaulted multiple times over a period of time," Jackson said.
As for the brand, Jackson said the message is still unclear because of "obscure letters."
"The quality of the brand is poor," Jackson said.
Either way, Jackson said investigators won't reveal what they do know about the brand "for the integrity of the investigation."
Jackson also said Sherri Papini's hair was cut to shoulder-length. Officials initially said her hair was cut but did not reveal how much.
He said when she was found, Sherri Papini was wearing a dark gray sweatshirt, light gray sweatpants and had a chain around her waist with her left wrist tethered to it by a zip-tie. Jackson said Sherri Papini also had hose clamps around her ankles, apparently a form of "pain compliance restraints."
Surveillance footage from a church shows Sherri Papini running up to an onramp of Interstate 5 after being dropped off, per a sheriff's press release, but the video was not immediately available.
In a statement released Wednesday evening, Keith Papini said: "We want to express our immense gratitude to all of the many people who have publicly and privately supported us over the last year. Your well-wishes have helped beyond measure. We are hopeful that the release of additional information by law enforcement will expedite the capture of Sherri’s abductors. This has been an extraordinarily difficult time for our entire family. We ask that the media please respect our need for privacy as Sherri continues to heal and we work towards putting our lives back together."
The Papinis have been in "constant contact" with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office and FBI, Jackson said, but Sherri Papini "has not been able to provide a complete detailed statement due to poor recollection."
Jackson also noted the unprecedented nature of Sherri Papini's case.
While detectives have checked up on cases involving abductions and human-trafficking that some news outlets have likened to Sherri Papini's disappearance, Jackson said, "There have been no cases discovered that are similar in nature to this investigation concerning the pattern of operations by the suspect(s), treatment of the captured victim and release of the captured victim."
And despite over 600 tips, "none of the received tips have been able to generate a viable lead or information as to who is responsible for Sherri's abduction," Jackson said.
"At this time, there has not been any link connecting information discovered that would allow detectives and investigators to identify suspect(s)," Jackson said.
Sherri Papini's case spawned international attention, yet officials hadn't released any details since a news conference in late November where Sheriff Tom Bosenko described the alleged captors: two Hispanic women, one younger with dark, curly hair, pierced ears and thin eyebrows; and one older with thick eyebrows and straight black and gray hair.
Officials have said Keith Papini passed a lie-detector test they gave to see whether he had anything to do with her disappearance. They say he told them Sherri Papini had gone jogging near her Mountain Gate home before she disappeared, and she later told investigators the women abducted her in a dark SUV.
Investigators showed Sherri Papini pictures of SUVs that were in her neighborhood around the time of her disappearance, but they said she didn't recognize any of them.
The case is still under investigation, and anyone with information is asked to call the Sacramento FBI office at 916-746-7000, or by going to tips.fbi.gov.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
HYSTERICAL TRUMP -HATING LIBERAL SNOWFLAKES SHOULD SAVE SOME OF THEIR SCREAMING FOR NOVEMBER 4, 2020
Piers Morgan says, “Scream all you like, snowflakes, but if you don’t get your shit together soon, Trump’s going to be your President for another seven years”
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
October 25, 2017
In two weeks it is the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s astonishing US election victory.
To ‘celebrate’, thousands of Trump-hating liberals in cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia are planning a day of protest in which they will go outside, stare upwards and shout their little heads off in rage.
I’m not joking.
The planned event is actually titled on Facebook: ‘Scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election’.
Organizer Johanna Schulman told Newsweek: ‘This administration has attacked everything about what it means to be an American. Who wouldn’t feel helpless every day?’
Hmmm.
Well, let me try to explain, Johanna, if you haven’t already started preemptively screaming.
There are tens of millions of Americans right now who don’t feel helpless at all. In fact, they’ve never felt happier that they’ve finally got a guy in the White House who THEY believe stands up for THEM.
They don’t share YOUR view of what it means to be an American.
They share Trump’s view, because it’s THEIR view.
That’s why he was elected President, and that’s why I am beginning to think he will be comfortably re-elected in 2020.
For those who think I’ve gone completely mad, here is what I told British GQ magazine in September, 2015, when they asked me: Who will win the US election?
‘I think Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination,’ I answered. ‘The Democrats will only stand a chance of beating him if they ditch Hillary Clinton, who is now a busted flush, and go with Joe Biden, possibly with Elizabeth Warren as his running mate.’
So, putting my Nostradamus hat on again, here are 10 reasons why I think Trump can pull it off again:
1) He’s the most resilient, uncompromising man in America. Love him or loathe him, Trump hasn’t changed or pivoted one iota from the candidate who ran for office. He is both absurdly thin-skinned AND absurdly thick-skinned – incapable of ignoring any slight, however small, but also showing quite extraordinary strength of character in repelling what even Jimmy Carter just called the most frenzied media attack on a serving president in US history. Yes, Trump’s an inveterate bulls**tter, the by-product of life as a shameless salesman, but to date he hasn’t lied us into an illegal war like one of his most recent critics George W. Bush did in Iraq – so political fibbing is all relative.
2) Trump’s enemies are bailing out from the fight like conscientious objectors in the war. Yesterday, two Senators, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake made grandiose media-grabbing attacks on the President, effectively branding him a lying useless goon. Both are standing down, and in (Snow) Flake’s case, he’s only doing so because he knows he’s going to get an absolute drubbing in the next election. This, remember, is a guy so principled that he wrote to a Sandy Hook relative saying he agreed with her about introducing background checks on gun sales, then voted AGAINST it just months later. That was a major reason why his poll numbers collapsed. So spare me the sanctimony now, Senator. You’re a fraud.
3) Hollywood’s liberal elite, Trump’s most vociferous, influential and vicious opponents, have exposed themselves to be a bunch of shocking hypocrites whose high moral and ethical plinth now lies in a pile of ruins.
The Weinstein scandal was just the tip of the unedifying iceberg. Today we learned that Woody Allen, a man who ran off and married one adoptive daughter and was accused of sexually abusing another adoptive daughter when she was just seven, is currently making a movie about a pedophile who preys on a 15-year-old girl. Meanwhile, Trump’s most indignant Hollywood opponents like Meryl Streep continue to celebrate convicted fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski. Middle America is watching all this and thinking: ‘Don’t you lot DARE lecture us about anything ever again.’
4) The Democrats don’t have anyone yet who can run against Trump and actually beat him. Say what you like about the man but he’s proven himself to be a formidably fierce political campaigner who wipes away opponents with the flick of a mocking ‘Low Energy Jeb’ nickname switch. My preferred choice last time, Joe Biden, will be 78 by 2020 – surely, sadly, too old by then to mount a winning challenge? If not Joe, then who? The clock is ticking.
5) Hillary Clinton’s still hanging around like a malodorous failure to remind everyone on a daily basis of the world’s biggest and most shocking political defeat. Her global loser tour, in which she continues to blame everyone but herself, is a vote-destroying disaster for the Democrats. She needs to be pushed out into the political long grass, but who will tell her? Every day Hillary stays in the limelight is another win for Trump. Today, it was shockingly revealed that after all her pontificating about Russia, it was ‘Halo’ Hillary who secretly paid for the dirty Russian dossier on Trump to try to smear him. She’ll collude with the worst of them when it suits her, and voters know it.
6) Trump’s doing very well with the crucial election-deciding issue: the economy. The stock markets keep roaring to record highs (Lest we forget, top liberal economist Paul Krugman told us on election night, when the markets tanked, that they would never recover under Trump!), growth continues around a steady 3%, and unemployment numbers have fallen consistently in the past year. If Trump gets his game-changing tax plan through, and I think eventually he will, then the US economy will likely surge forward just in time for his 2020 campaign. As Reagan and Clinton proved, when an incumbent president runs with a strengthening economy behind him, he’s pretty much unbeatable.
7) His base is rock solid. The polls suggest everyone who voted for Trump last time would do so again. I’ve spent time down in states like Florida and Texas recently and they’re revelling in Trump’s presidency. Everything the screaming liberals loathe about him, from The Wall and travel ban to his ‘Fake News!’ mantra and attack on kneeling NFL players, they love.
8) On the foreign stage, far from being the disaster that Corker and Flake claim, I’d argue that Trump’s proven himself to be rather effective in re-establishing America’s status as the world’s No1 superpower. He slapped Syria dictator Bashar al-Assad round the chops when he tested him with a chemical weapons attack, he’s got ISIS on the run from places like Raqqa exactly as he promised, and he’s stood up to North Korean lunatic Kim Jong-un and told him if he messes with America, he and his country will be vaporized. I very much doubt bellicose self-preservationist Kim will now test that theory. Trump’s visits to places like Saudi Arabia, Poland and France were all huge successes, and I confidently predict now that his trip next week to Japan and China will be too. For all his faults, Trump’s a world-class schmoozer when he needs to be, and a savvy negotiator. By all accounts, most foreign leaders have enjoyed their interactions with him.
9) Trump’s Twitter feed continues to dominate the world’s news agenda.
It remains astonishing that a 70-year-old man is the best social media practitioner on the planet, but he is. Trump uses his tweets to refute damaging stories, promote positive ones, take down enemies and talk up friends. More importantly, he’s been able to by-pass mainstream media to get HIS message out to millions of people, exactly how HE wants to, and in an often brutally frank manner that his supporters thoroughly enjoy. That is Utopia for any politician. By 2020, Trump will have trebled or quadrupled his current social media follower counts, giving him an unprecedented and incredibly powerful platform to fight the next election.
10) Trump’s the incumbent president and historically, 70% of those who run again get re-elected. The stats are on his side.
So scream all your like next week, hysterical Trump-hating liberal snowflakes, but I’d save some of your voice for Wednesday, November 4, 2020.
Because that’s when, as things stand, I predict Donald J. Trump will be re-elected President of the United States.
Altogether now: AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
October 25, 2017
In two weeks it is the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s astonishing US election victory.
To ‘celebrate’, thousands of Trump-hating liberals in cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia are planning a day of protest in which they will go outside, stare upwards and shout their little heads off in rage.
I’m not joking.
The planned event is actually titled on Facebook: ‘Scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election’.
Organizer Johanna Schulman told Newsweek: ‘This administration has attacked everything about what it means to be an American. Who wouldn’t feel helpless every day?’
Hmmm.
Well, let me try to explain, Johanna, if you haven’t already started preemptively screaming.
There are tens of millions of Americans right now who don’t feel helpless at all. In fact, they’ve never felt happier that they’ve finally got a guy in the White House who THEY believe stands up for THEM.
They don’t share YOUR view of what it means to be an American.
They share Trump’s view, because it’s THEIR view.
That’s why he was elected President, and that’s why I am beginning to think he will be comfortably re-elected in 2020.
For those who think I’ve gone completely mad, here is what I told British GQ magazine in September, 2015, when they asked me: Who will win the US election?
‘I think Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination,’ I answered. ‘The Democrats will only stand a chance of beating him if they ditch Hillary Clinton, who is now a busted flush, and go with Joe Biden, possibly with Elizabeth Warren as his running mate.’
So, putting my Nostradamus hat on again, here are 10 reasons why I think Trump can pull it off again:
1) He’s the most resilient, uncompromising man in America. Love him or loathe him, Trump hasn’t changed or pivoted one iota from the candidate who ran for office. He is both absurdly thin-skinned AND absurdly thick-skinned – incapable of ignoring any slight, however small, but also showing quite extraordinary strength of character in repelling what even Jimmy Carter just called the most frenzied media attack on a serving president in US history. Yes, Trump’s an inveterate bulls**tter, the by-product of life as a shameless salesman, but to date he hasn’t lied us into an illegal war like one of his most recent critics George W. Bush did in Iraq – so political fibbing is all relative.
2) Trump’s enemies are bailing out from the fight like conscientious objectors in the war. Yesterday, two Senators, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake made grandiose media-grabbing attacks on the President, effectively branding him a lying useless goon. Both are standing down, and in (Snow) Flake’s case, he’s only doing so because he knows he’s going to get an absolute drubbing in the next election. This, remember, is a guy so principled that he wrote to a Sandy Hook relative saying he agreed with her about introducing background checks on gun sales, then voted AGAINST it just months later. That was a major reason why his poll numbers collapsed. So spare me the sanctimony now, Senator. You’re a fraud.
3) Hollywood’s liberal elite, Trump’s most vociferous, influential and vicious opponents, have exposed themselves to be a bunch of shocking hypocrites whose high moral and ethical plinth now lies in a pile of ruins.
The Weinstein scandal was just the tip of the unedifying iceberg. Today we learned that Woody Allen, a man who ran off and married one adoptive daughter and was accused of sexually abusing another adoptive daughter when she was just seven, is currently making a movie about a pedophile who preys on a 15-year-old girl. Meanwhile, Trump’s most indignant Hollywood opponents like Meryl Streep continue to celebrate convicted fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski. Middle America is watching all this and thinking: ‘Don’t you lot DARE lecture us about anything ever again.’
4) The Democrats don’t have anyone yet who can run against Trump and actually beat him. Say what you like about the man but he’s proven himself to be a formidably fierce political campaigner who wipes away opponents with the flick of a mocking ‘Low Energy Jeb’ nickname switch. My preferred choice last time, Joe Biden, will be 78 by 2020 – surely, sadly, too old by then to mount a winning challenge? If not Joe, then who? The clock is ticking.
5) Hillary Clinton’s still hanging around like a malodorous failure to remind everyone on a daily basis of the world’s biggest and most shocking political defeat. Her global loser tour, in which she continues to blame everyone but herself, is a vote-destroying disaster for the Democrats. She needs to be pushed out into the political long grass, but who will tell her? Every day Hillary stays in the limelight is another win for Trump. Today, it was shockingly revealed that after all her pontificating about Russia, it was ‘Halo’ Hillary who secretly paid for the dirty Russian dossier on Trump to try to smear him. She’ll collude with the worst of them when it suits her, and voters know it.
6) Trump’s doing very well with the crucial election-deciding issue: the economy. The stock markets keep roaring to record highs (Lest we forget, top liberal economist Paul Krugman told us on election night, when the markets tanked, that they would never recover under Trump!), growth continues around a steady 3%, and unemployment numbers have fallen consistently in the past year. If Trump gets his game-changing tax plan through, and I think eventually he will, then the US economy will likely surge forward just in time for his 2020 campaign. As Reagan and Clinton proved, when an incumbent president runs with a strengthening economy behind him, he’s pretty much unbeatable.
7) His base is rock solid. The polls suggest everyone who voted for Trump last time would do so again. I’ve spent time down in states like Florida and Texas recently and they’re revelling in Trump’s presidency. Everything the screaming liberals loathe about him, from The Wall and travel ban to his ‘Fake News!’ mantra and attack on kneeling NFL players, they love.
8) On the foreign stage, far from being the disaster that Corker and Flake claim, I’d argue that Trump’s proven himself to be rather effective in re-establishing America’s status as the world’s No1 superpower. He slapped Syria dictator Bashar al-Assad round the chops when he tested him with a chemical weapons attack, he’s got ISIS on the run from places like Raqqa exactly as he promised, and he’s stood up to North Korean lunatic Kim Jong-un and told him if he messes with America, he and his country will be vaporized. I very much doubt bellicose self-preservationist Kim will now test that theory. Trump’s visits to places like Saudi Arabia, Poland and France were all huge successes, and I confidently predict now that his trip next week to Japan and China will be too. For all his faults, Trump’s a world-class schmoozer when he needs to be, and a savvy negotiator. By all accounts, most foreign leaders have enjoyed their interactions with him.
9) Trump’s Twitter feed continues to dominate the world’s news agenda.
It remains astonishing that a 70-year-old man is the best social media practitioner on the planet, but he is. Trump uses his tweets to refute damaging stories, promote positive ones, take down enemies and talk up friends. More importantly, he’s been able to by-pass mainstream media to get HIS message out to millions of people, exactly how HE wants to, and in an often brutally frank manner that his supporters thoroughly enjoy. That is Utopia for any politician. By 2020, Trump will have trebled or quadrupled his current social media follower counts, giving him an unprecedented and incredibly powerful platform to fight the next election.
10) Trump’s the incumbent president and historically, 70% of those who run again get re-elected. The stats are on his side.
So scream all your like next week, hysterical Trump-hating liberal snowflakes, but I’d save some of your voice for Wednesday, November 4, 2020.
Because that’s when, as things stand, I predict Donald J. Trump will be re-elected President of the United States.
Altogether now: AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IF THERE ARE ANY BOMBS LEFT AFTER TRUMP PULVERIZES NORTH KOREA, HAVE OUR B-52S DROP THEM ON TIJUANA
'Sex brokers' in Tijuana connect men looking to exploit very young children, FBI says
By Kristina Davis
Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2017
“It’s William from tonight. Precious was weird and fun. I’m already thinking about coming down next Thursday. Please send me pics of 3 or four of the youngest ones so I can choose.”
FBI investigators say William Dixon Adelman, a 51-year-old Studio City man, sent the request to a Tijuana sex broker on July 3, 2015 — the same day border crossing records show he was returning to the U.S. from Mexico.
“Thin, pretty … Like a precious but smaller,” the request continued. “You have a safe apartment? Hotel people would freak out no?”
The broker responded that he had a “good” place in mind, but reservations were needed: “in this place you can take the girls realy (sic) young 9,10,11.”
The emails, being used to prosecute Adelman on charges of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sex following his arrest this month, offer a glimpse into a niche of Tijuana’s sex tourism industry — men seeking to exploit young children.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Rothrock in San Diego said the agency has investigated three to four cases in the last six months of Americans traveling with intent to have sex with minors. At least two of the recent cases, including Adelman’s, stem from a Tijuana man accused of setting up sexual encounters between U.S. citizens and young children. A third case involves the Philippines.
He said the cases are the beginning results of a renewed effort to tackle child trafficking in Mexico with help from Mexican law enforcement.
“All law enforcement partners are trying to get a handle on this information and assess how big an issue this is,” said Rothrock, who supervises the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force. He declined to discuss details of the cases, including if any child victims have been identified or rescued.
Prostitution has long been tolerated in Tijuana’s La Zona Norte, where customers — many of them Americans — easily find commercial sex on the street or in established brothels. Young children are offered more covertly, authorities say.
“It’s as easy as going on the internet and the dark web to get what you want,” said Marisa Ugarte, a former Tijuana social worker and founder of Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, a National City, Calif.-based service organization for victims of sex trafficking.
Many of the children are brought up from other areas of Mexico, Ugarte said. Some are orphans, unaccompanied minor immigrants or sold by their parents. Some are kidnapped, she said.
Child sex trafficking has long been known to be a problem in Tijuana, but there is no official data suggesting just how prolific it is.
The Tijuana investigations began in December, when a U.S. citizen reported the broker to the FBI. The FBI found the unnamed broker, interviewed him and was granted access to his email and Facebook communications with several clients.
(The broker denied actually providing access to children, but admitted to communicating with several people about setting up such transactions, according to court records. The man did admit to providing clients access to adults for sex.)
The communications indicate Adelman and another man, Kenneth Bigler, 52, of Walnut, separately traveled to Tijuana several times over the past few years, either engaging in sex with young children or intending to do so, according to complaints filed in San Diego federal court. U.S.-Mexico border crossing records correspond with their messages, investigators said.
Both have pleaded not guilty. Adelman’s lawyer declined to discuss his case and Bigler’s did not respond to a request for comment.
In responding to Adelman’s request for a “smaller” girl, on July 8, 2015, the broker responded he ad just returned from Sinaloa with two beautiful girls, “brand new,” according to the communications.
Later, the messages began to refer to girls as “cars” with “mileage,” according to investigators.
Sept. 15, 2015: “hey will when aree u gonna be here_i got new girl,” the broker said.
“Girl?” Adelman responded, according to the complaint. “I’m looking for a car. About 10-11 years, low miles.”
On Adelman’s Facebook account, investigators found numerous pictures of prepubescent girls in various states of undress, as well as communications with more than 10 girls reportedly between the ages of 11 and 17, the complaint states. Once he learned they were under 18, authorities said, he would ask to continue talking on the messaging app Whatsapp, which is encrypted and a popular way to avoid law enforcement scrutiny, the complaint states.
Adelman’s last trip to Mexico was in April. He was arrested Oct. 4, according to the criminal complaint.
Bigler’s alleged communications with the broker were especially demanding, according to messages that began in November 2013, separate court records show.
The messages state the broker took Bigler around to scope out children, although it is not clear if the kids were potential victims or used as examples of girls and boys he was interested in.
He asked the broker to “try to get an 8 or 9” and referred to “the one in blue that was in front of the ladies underwear place” and “the one by the video game machine,” according to the complaint.
Bigler also warned that if the broker couldn’t help him out, “I’ll find someone else that can,” the complaint says.
In October 2014, the complaint says, Bigler requested a smaller and younger girl than he’d had sex with the other night, hoping for a 10-year-old but “NO MORE” than 12.
Later, the broker sent pictures of prepubescent girls to choose from. One photo, of a girl in an orange tank top, had the caption “Soi una sexy Hermosa” — “Im a sexy beauty” — with a pink heart next to it. In another, three girls in school uniforms appear to be standing in a bathroom.
“On my way,” a message from Bigler said, according to court records. “I like the one picture that has the little pink heart on it. Need to see her whole body before I make a decision though.”
In other emails in March 2015, Bigler allegedly bragged about buying sex from 10- and 12-year-olds during a trip to Thailand for $30 to $40, the complaint says. Records show Bigler flew from Los Angeles to Taiwan on March 1, 2015, and returned 12 days later, according to investigators.
The complaint states he then began asking for a girl or boy who had never had sexual contact before.
“Steel the (girl) if you have to. (Boy) also. Want them both tomorrow night,” read a September 2015 message.
Broker replied: “cause I got a (girl) brand new recently stolen only (8 years old) and a (boy) (10 years old).”
Bigler last crossed into Mexico in April, according to the complaint. He was arrested Aug. 14.
The men are being charged under the PROTECT Act, signed by former President George W. Bush in 2003, which makes it illegal in the U.S. to travel across state or foreign lines with the intent to have sex with minors. The crime comes with a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
One of the first men convicted under the law in 2004, John W. Seljan of Garden Grove, was 85 when he was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport preparing to leave for the Philippines. In his suitcase was pornography featuring him with children and 100 pounds of chocolate.
Ugarte said the U.S. government should be prosecuting more travelers under the PROTECT Act.
“Until you start arresting the buyers, it’s going to continue,” she said.
The issue got national attention last year when a former Ohio seminary student was arrested after getting off a plane in San Diego to travel to Tijuana to rape infant and toddler girls.
Joel Alexander Wright, 23, studying to become a Roman Catholic priest, posted an online ad saying he wanted to adopt infants in Mexico, and then told the man who answered that he really wanted them for sex. The man eventually reported the conversations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agent went undercover to build a case against Wright with help of the informant.
Wright pleaded guilty to attempted enticement of a minor and was sentenced in San Diego federal court to 16 years in prison.
“That’s one of a million,” Ugarte said of Wright.
By Kristina Davis
Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2017
“It’s William from tonight. Precious was weird and fun. I’m already thinking about coming down next Thursday. Please send me pics of 3 or four of the youngest ones so I can choose.”
FBI investigators say William Dixon Adelman, a 51-year-old Studio City man, sent the request to a Tijuana sex broker on July 3, 2015 — the same day border crossing records show he was returning to the U.S. from Mexico.
“Thin, pretty … Like a precious but smaller,” the request continued. “You have a safe apartment? Hotel people would freak out no?”
The broker responded that he had a “good” place in mind, but reservations were needed: “in this place you can take the girls realy (sic) young 9,10,11.”
The emails, being used to prosecute Adelman on charges of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sex following his arrest this month, offer a glimpse into a niche of Tijuana’s sex tourism industry — men seeking to exploit young children.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Rothrock in San Diego said the agency has investigated three to four cases in the last six months of Americans traveling with intent to have sex with minors. At least two of the recent cases, including Adelman’s, stem from a Tijuana man accused of setting up sexual encounters between U.S. citizens and young children. A third case involves the Philippines.
He said the cases are the beginning results of a renewed effort to tackle child trafficking in Mexico with help from Mexican law enforcement.
“All law enforcement partners are trying to get a handle on this information and assess how big an issue this is,” said Rothrock, who supervises the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force. He declined to discuss details of the cases, including if any child victims have been identified or rescued.
Prostitution has long been tolerated in Tijuana’s La Zona Norte, where customers — many of them Americans — easily find commercial sex on the street or in established brothels. Young children are offered more covertly, authorities say.
“It’s as easy as going on the internet and the dark web to get what you want,” said Marisa Ugarte, a former Tijuana social worker and founder of Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, a National City, Calif.-based service organization for victims of sex trafficking.
Many of the children are brought up from other areas of Mexico, Ugarte said. Some are orphans, unaccompanied minor immigrants or sold by their parents. Some are kidnapped, she said.
Child sex trafficking has long been known to be a problem in Tijuana, but there is no official data suggesting just how prolific it is.
The Tijuana investigations began in December, when a U.S. citizen reported the broker to the FBI. The FBI found the unnamed broker, interviewed him and was granted access to his email and Facebook communications with several clients.
(The broker denied actually providing access to children, but admitted to communicating with several people about setting up such transactions, according to court records. The man did admit to providing clients access to adults for sex.)
The communications indicate Adelman and another man, Kenneth Bigler, 52, of Walnut, separately traveled to Tijuana several times over the past few years, either engaging in sex with young children or intending to do so, according to complaints filed in San Diego federal court. U.S.-Mexico border crossing records correspond with their messages, investigators said.
Both have pleaded not guilty. Adelman’s lawyer declined to discuss his case and Bigler’s did not respond to a request for comment.
In responding to Adelman’s request for a “smaller” girl, on July 8, 2015, the broker responded he ad just returned from Sinaloa with two beautiful girls, “brand new,” according to the communications.
Later, the messages began to refer to girls as “cars” with “mileage,” according to investigators.
Sept. 15, 2015: “hey will when aree u gonna be here_i got new girl,” the broker said.
“Girl?” Adelman responded, according to the complaint. “I’m looking for a car. About 10-11 years, low miles.”
On Adelman’s Facebook account, investigators found numerous pictures of prepubescent girls in various states of undress, as well as communications with more than 10 girls reportedly between the ages of 11 and 17, the complaint states. Once he learned they were under 18, authorities said, he would ask to continue talking on the messaging app Whatsapp, which is encrypted and a popular way to avoid law enforcement scrutiny, the complaint states.
Adelman’s last trip to Mexico was in April. He was arrested Oct. 4, according to the criminal complaint.
Bigler’s alleged communications with the broker were especially demanding, according to messages that began in November 2013, separate court records show.
The messages state the broker took Bigler around to scope out children, although it is not clear if the kids were potential victims or used as examples of girls and boys he was interested in.
He asked the broker to “try to get an 8 or 9” and referred to “the one in blue that was in front of the ladies underwear place” and “the one by the video game machine,” according to the complaint.
Bigler also warned that if the broker couldn’t help him out, “I’ll find someone else that can,” the complaint says.
In October 2014, the complaint says, Bigler requested a smaller and younger girl than he’d had sex with the other night, hoping for a 10-year-old but “NO MORE” than 12.
Later, the broker sent pictures of prepubescent girls to choose from. One photo, of a girl in an orange tank top, had the caption “Soi una sexy Hermosa” — “Im a sexy beauty” — with a pink heart next to it. In another, three girls in school uniforms appear to be standing in a bathroom.
“On my way,” a message from Bigler said, according to court records. “I like the one picture that has the little pink heart on it. Need to see her whole body before I make a decision though.”
In other emails in March 2015, Bigler allegedly bragged about buying sex from 10- and 12-year-olds during a trip to Thailand for $30 to $40, the complaint says. Records show Bigler flew from Los Angeles to Taiwan on March 1, 2015, and returned 12 days later, according to investigators.
The complaint states he then began asking for a girl or boy who had never had sexual contact before.
“Steel the (girl) if you have to. (Boy) also. Want them both tomorrow night,” read a September 2015 message.
Broker replied: “cause I got a (girl) brand new recently stolen only (8 years old) and a (boy) (10 years old).”
Bigler last crossed into Mexico in April, according to the complaint. He was arrested Aug. 14.
The men are being charged under the PROTECT Act, signed by former President George W. Bush in 2003, which makes it illegal in the U.S. to travel across state or foreign lines with the intent to have sex with minors. The crime comes with a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
One of the first men convicted under the law in 2004, John W. Seljan of Garden Grove, was 85 when he was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport preparing to leave for the Philippines. In his suitcase was pornography featuring him with children and 100 pounds of chocolate.
Ugarte said the U.S. government should be prosecuting more travelers under the PROTECT Act.
“Until you start arresting the buyers, it’s going to continue,” she said.
The issue got national attention last year when a former Ohio seminary student was arrested after getting off a plane in San Diego to travel to Tijuana to rape infant and toddler girls.
Joel Alexander Wright, 23, studying to become a Roman Catholic priest, posted an online ad saying he wanted to adopt infants in Mexico, and then told the man who answered that he really wanted them for sex. The man eventually reported the conversations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agent went undercover to build a case against Wright with help of the informant.
Wright pleaded guilty to attempted enticement of a minor and was sentenced in San Diego federal court to 16 years in prison.
“That’s one of a million,” Ugarte said of Wright.
BLACK DAHLIA MURDER IN 1947 FINALLY SOLVED?
EXCLUSIVE: Notorious cold case of the Black Dahlia where aspiring starlet was cut in half, gruesomely mutilated and had 'Joker smile' carved into her face is finally solved as killer is 'revealed' despite 'cover-up by LAPD'
By Caroline Howe
Daily Mail
October 25, 2017
The notorious Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles in 1947 is arguably the most gruesome of America's cold cases ever.
The body of aspiring starlet Elizabeth Short was found beside a sidewalk in a vacant lot in a southern Los Angeles suburb and shocked even the most hardened newspaper crime reporters.
The woman had been strung up by the wrists, her face and head severely beaten and a satanic smile cut into her face with deep cuts extending out from the corners of her mouth.
The 22-year-old had been viciously mutilated, with the trunk of her body completely severed, the anal opening had abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object and her stomach was filled with feces, among many other horrors.
Short's murder has remained unsolved for decades, although there was a break through in late 1948 when the killer was seduced out of hiding and admitted to knowing the two things about the crime that were never revealed to the public.
But the case was never solved by the LAPD because of a cover-up by the Homicide Division and lingering fears for years of reprisal by the department.
Now, 70 years later, after an exhaustive investigation author and legal sleuth Piu Eatwell exposes why the truth never out in her new book,Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder.
Short's murder captivated the nation, as her injuries 'suggested necrophilia and a fetishism with knives'.
'They were the marks of a sadistic lust murderer ...and it was speculated that the killer either had medical training or experience with handling corpses in a mortuary --- and a manifest fascination with death', writes Eatwell, a historical researcher and legal sleuth.
The young woman's body had multiple deep lacerations to the face and blows to the head that suggested they were delivered while the victim was still alive and possibly what killed her.
The trunk of her body had been completely severed by an incision cutting through the intestine exposing the organs of the abdomen and lacerating the intestines and both kidneys.
There was a gaping cut extending down from the naval to just above the pubis, multiple lacerations in the skin of the hip and an irregular piece of flesh had been removed from in front of her left thigh.
A square of tissue had been cut out from the right breast. The anal opening had multiple abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object.
Her stomach was filled with feces and the corpse completely cleaned and drained of blood.
As the case rose in prominence and no legitimate suspect on hand, detectives dived into the depths of the victim's life in order to track down her illusive killer.
Elizabeth Short, called 'Beth', was the third of five girls. She was raised by her mother, Phoebe, in Medford, Massachusetts, a working class Boston suburb. Her father feigned suicide only to resurface years later.
'She wanted to be someone famous. She had stars in her eyes, dreams rather than plans. I think of her as a very beautiful but very private person, with a sadness about her. A void, something missing', her mother, Phoebe recalled.
Short suffered from an acute bronchial condition and she moved around between Florida, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Chicago – in search of a better climate for her health.
She once worked as a clerk at the U.S. Army's Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California, a small town north of Santa Barbara and won a 'Cutie of the Week' contest.
Her former boss said 'she was one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen – and the most shy'.
She suddenly left the camp after being assaulted by a sergeant at the Army base.
She had been arrested in September 1943 for underage drinking with soldiers in a Santa Barbara restaurant.
The fingerprints filed by the Santa Barbara police were what identified her body.
Her mug shot showed a girl with raven-black hair with 'a look that went straight through you. Nobody had expected her to be so sullenly beautiful', writes Eatwell.
While awaiting trial at the time, the local policewoman, Mary Unkefer, took her into her home.
'She had the blackest hair I ever saw. I noticed that she was a very nice girl and was most neat about her person and clothes'.
She had a rose tattooed on her upper left leg and Unkefer recalled that loved to sit with it showing.
Short was released on probation by juvenile court at the time and Unkefer put her on a bus back to Medford with $10 from the Santa Barbara Neighborhood House for food and cokes on the six-day ride home.
Short stayed in the East for two years and then headed down to Miami Beach where she worked as a waitress and hooked up with an Army Air Force officer. They were to be married but his plane crashed over India.
She dated other men and then headed back to Los Angeles. Although Short was no prostitute, she wasn't innocent.
'This victim knew at least 50 men at the time of her death and at least 25 men had been seen with her in the 60 days preceding her death', according to a police report.
Short teased men, got rides with them, places to sleep, clothes and money but then refused to have sexual intercourse, claiming she was either a virgin, engaged or married.
She connected with no less than four men a day.
'And so, the public image of the murder victim began to change from that of a violated beauty into a "man crazy delinquent, a temptress prowling the rain-soaked streets of an urban film noir"'.
The movie industry in Southern California promised the golden life and stimulated a wave of women to seek their fame and fortune in the movies and Tinseltown.
More revelations about the dead girl came from a pharmacist in Long Beach where she had drifted in the summer of 1946.
She came frequently and wore a two-piece outfit revealing her bare midriff – and 'black lacy things'.
'She was popular with the men who came in here and they got to calling her The Black Dahlia'.
The name was also perhaps the brainchild of a newspaper reporter at a time when homicides were given floral murder tags. Wherever the moniker came from, it sparked a national obsession.
The reality of the young girl's life was that she was in search of a husband, home and happiness.
She got involved with the wrong person when she met 55-year-old Mark Hansen from Denmark who became a wealthy and powerful Hollywood figure.
He owned more than a dozen movie theaters and was a part owner of the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard that put on a girly shows that even attracted the aging movie star, Errol Flynn.
A secret gambling casino was hidden within the Florentine Gardens.
'Hansen worked in a shadowy hinterland between legitimate business and the fringes of the LA underworld'.
He operated his own B-version of the casting couch and 'owned two rooming houses where would-be Hollywood hopefuls were groomed for semi-nude careers both on and off the dance floor'.
Back at his house behind the Gardens, he kept a harem of his favorite girls.
In October 1946, Short showed up on Hansen's doorstep with her friend Ann Toth who lived in Mark's home.
Hansen noticed her and came on to her but Short claimed she was a virgin. He finally had enough of her teasing after 10 days and ordered the two to move on.
He was also tired of Short's endless stream of boyfriends.
Hansen couldn't deny he knew the girl. His name was on the cover of Short's address book.
Short's body was discovered one morning in the wet morning grass in a vacant lot in a south LA neighborhood – and a room in the Aster Motel in downtown Los Angeles was found to be covered in blood and human feces. It was Short's death chamber.
Rumors circulated that Short was a female pervert and had indulged in 'unnatural intimacies' with other women. There were unsubstantiated sightings at gay bars.
Folksinger Woody Guthrie, once indicted by New York authorities for sending obscene letters in the mail, was considered a suspect in the ensuing hysteria and possibly capable of such a heinous crime a suspect in the ensuing hysteria until it was discovered he wasn't in LA at the time of the murder.
Over 500 crackpots came forward confessing to the murder in exchange for a free meal and a place to stay for the night.
The big break through in the case came in late 1948 when the chief police psychiatrist who was employed by the LAPD, Dr. Joseph Paul De River, seduced the killer out of hiding and he subtly revealed himself to the doctor.
The murderer came calling after Dr. De River planted a magazine article in a pulp crime magazine, True Detective, in an attempt to lure the killer out of hiding.
'It was his view that the pathology of the Dahlia killer included a deep-seated compulsion to publicize and claim recognition for his act'.
The confessors would continue to come and the police would talk to them but 'the type of mind that conceived the Elizabeth Short murder will some day have to boast about it', according to Dr. De River.
In October 1948, a letter arrived for Dr. De River with a return address of a post office box in Miami Beach.
The letter was signed 'Jack Sand' and stated he had associated with someone who fitted the 'pattern' of the 'infamous one'.
This 'Jack Sand' said he had associated with the killer for two months in San Francisco and the man had a motive for the killing and 'knew the characters involved'.
Jack Sand was also offering his help in tracking the suspect down.
Meetings were set up between Dr. De River and 'Jack Sand' in Vegas but the location was changed when they couldn't get rooms to a health resort in the San Jacinto Mountains far north of Banning, California, near Palm Springs.
Two other cops, members of the Gangster Squad, accompanied De River, one acting as the driver while Sand talked to De River.
'Jack Sand' was in fact Leslie Dillon, the true killer. He was connected to a prostitution network and a pimp and errand boy for Mark Hansen.
When Hansen got tired of Short's boyfriends and tired of her pestering him for money, he told his errand boy, Dillon to get rid of her – not realizing the man was a dangerous and murderous psychopath.
Dillon knew two things about the murder that had never been revealed to the public: a rose tattoo had been cut out of Short's thigh by the killer and inserted in her vagina. Her pubic hair had also been cut off and pushed up inside her rectum.
Dillon had worked briefly in a mortuary and knew how to make a cut in the leg of a corpse to bleed it out and how to insert a tube to drain the blood.
The man talked about this other individual 'Jeff Connors' he claimed to be the likely suspect for the murder.
Dillon suggested that Short's body had been cut in half so the killer could see how far his penis penetrated into the woman's body.
He inferred that this person named Jeff could have committed the crime in a hotel, a ground level motel, the doctor corrected him, so that he could get the body outside without carrying it downstairs.
De River asked Dillon to take off his shirt. He agreed and had a very muscular build.
The doctor then asked Dillon if he objected to dropping his trousers. Dillon hesitated briefly and then down they came, revealing a 'juvenile penis ... typical of an eight-year-old boy'.
In one of the letters to the doctor, Dillon had said that Short's killer 'had been mocked or threatened exposure by her to his friends'.
The author questions whether Short could have mocked Dillon and exposed him for having such a small penis. Dillon also stated he liked girls with 'big mouths'.
He didn't drink but he did do drugs – bennies or Benzedrine 'for pep'.
'He also told one of the gangster squad with the doctor about how he would grind up the phenobarbital and 'put it on ice cream or food' and give it to women 'as it knocks them out'.
De River knew he had his man.
'And yet, despite the compelling evidence the officers of the Gangster Squad were uncovering, they never seemed to make headway with their investigation. The path was always blocked', writes Eatwell.
Summer of 1949, 'the LAPD became embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal of its history: a scandal that was to change the police department, and the course of the Dahlia case, forever'.
It was a massive cover-up by the Homicide Division that had links to Hansen, according to Eatwell.
The LAPD was rotten to the core and 'let a dangerous psychopath on the loose'.
In an interview with homicide, Dillon told them he wouldn't say a word if they let him go. But if they arrest him, he would talk and 'he knew where the bodies were buried in terms of organized crime. And then he was gone'.
All the key protagonists of the Dahlia case are dead. Most of the documents are gone or locked away in the vaults of the LAPD.
In the aftermath of the 1949 grand jury investigation, there had clearly been a willful campaign to suppress the facts of the case and to discredit and harass key witness such as Dr. De River', writes the author.
And there was an unwillingness by more recent writers and researchers to let the facts tell the story.
'The facts – buried in newspapers reports and court documents are more compelling that any of the alternate facts'.
Dillon was the centerpiece of the Dahlia drama and evil personified in a native boy from the Southern plains. The legal sleuth and author rests her case.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To my generation, the Black Dahlia murder was a really big case.
By Caroline Howe
Daily Mail
October 25, 2017
The notorious Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles in 1947 is arguably the most gruesome of America's cold cases ever.
The body of aspiring starlet Elizabeth Short was found beside a sidewalk in a vacant lot in a southern Los Angeles suburb and shocked even the most hardened newspaper crime reporters.
The woman had been strung up by the wrists, her face and head severely beaten and a satanic smile cut into her face with deep cuts extending out from the corners of her mouth.
The 22-year-old had been viciously mutilated, with the trunk of her body completely severed, the anal opening had abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object and her stomach was filled with feces, among many other horrors.
Short's murder has remained unsolved for decades, although there was a break through in late 1948 when the killer was seduced out of hiding and admitted to knowing the two things about the crime that were never revealed to the public.
But the case was never solved by the LAPD because of a cover-up by the Homicide Division and lingering fears for years of reprisal by the department.
Now, 70 years later, after an exhaustive investigation author and legal sleuth Piu Eatwell exposes why the truth never out in her new book,Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder.
Short's murder captivated the nation, as her injuries 'suggested necrophilia and a fetishism with knives'.
'They were the marks of a sadistic lust murderer ...and it was speculated that the killer either had medical training or experience with handling corpses in a mortuary --- and a manifest fascination with death', writes Eatwell, a historical researcher and legal sleuth.
The young woman's body had multiple deep lacerations to the face and blows to the head that suggested they were delivered while the victim was still alive and possibly what killed her.
The trunk of her body had been completely severed by an incision cutting through the intestine exposing the organs of the abdomen and lacerating the intestines and both kidneys.
There was a gaping cut extending down from the naval to just above the pubis, multiple lacerations in the skin of the hip and an irregular piece of flesh had been removed from in front of her left thigh.
A square of tissue had been cut out from the right breast. The anal opening had multiple abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object.
Her stomach was filled with feces and the corpse completely cleaned and drained of blood.
As the case rose in prominence and no legitimate suspect on hand, detectives dived into the depths of the victim's life in order to track down her illusive killer.
Elizabeth Short, called 'Beth', was the third of five girls. She was raised by her mother, Phoebe, in Medford, Massachusetts, a working class Boston suburb. Her father feigned suicide only to resurface years later.
'She wanted to be someone famous. She had stars in her eyes, dreams rather than plans. I think of her as a very beautiful but very private person, with a sadness about her. A void, something missing', her mother, Phoebe recalled.
Short suffered from an acute bronchial condition and she moved around between Florida, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Chicago – in search of a better climate for her health.
She once worked as a clerk at the U.S. Army's Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California, a small town north of Santa Barbara and won a 'Cutie of the Week' contest.
Her former boss said 'she was one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen – and the most shy'.
She suddenly left the camp after being assaulted by a sergeant at the Army base.
She had been arrested in September 1943 for underage drinking with soldiers in a Santa Barbara restaurant.
The fingerprints filed by the Santa Barbara police were what identified her body.
Her mug shot showed a girl with raven-black hair with 'a look that went straight through you. Nobody had expected her to be so sullenly beautiful', writes Eatwell.
While awaiting trial at the time, the local policewoman, Mary Unkefer, took her into her home.
'She had the blackest hair I ever saw. I noticed that she was a very nice girl and was most neat about her person and clothes'.
She had a rose tattooed on her upper left leg and Unkefer recalled that loved to sit with it showing.
Short was released on probation by juvenile court at the time and Unkefer put her on a bus back to Medford with $10 from the Santa Barbara Neighborhood House for food and cokes on the six-day ride home.
Short stayed in the East for two years and then headed down to Miami Beach where she worked as a waitress and hooked up with an Army Air Force officer. They were to be married but his plane crashed over India.
She dated other men and then headed back to Los Angeles. Although Short was no prostitute, she wasn't innocent.
'This victim knew at least 50 men at the time of her death and at least 25 men had been seen with her in the 60 days preceding her death', according to a police report.
Short teased men, got rides with them, places to sleep, clothes and money but then refused to have sexual intercourse, claiming she was either a virgin, engaged or married.
She connected with no less than four men a day.
'And so, the public image of the murder victim began to change from that of a violated beauty into a "man crazy delinquent, a temptress prowling the rain-soaked streets of an urban film noir"'.
The movie industry in Southern California promised the golden life and stimulated a wave of women to seek their fame and fortune in the movies and Tinseltown.
More revelations about the dead girl came from a pharmacist in Long Beach where she had drifted in the summer of 1946.
She came frequently and wore a two-piece outfit revealing her bare midriff – and 'black lacy things'.
'She was popular with the men who came in here and they got to calling her The Black Dahlia'.
The name was also perhaps the brainchild of a newspaper reporter at a time when homicides were given floral murder tags. Wherever the moniker came from, it sparked a national obsession.
The reality of the young girl's life was that she was in search of a husband, home and happiness.
She got involved with the wrong person when she met 55-year-old Mark Hansen from Denmark who became a wealthy and powerful Hollywood figure.
He owned more than a dozen movie theaters and was a part owner of the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard that put on a girly shows that even attracted the aging movie star, Errol Flynn.
A secret gambling casino was hidden within the Florentine Gardens.
'Hansen worked in a shadowy hinterland between legitimate business and the fringes of the LA underworld'.
He operated his own B-version of the casting couch and 'owned two rooming houses where would-be Hollywood hopefuls were groomed for semi-nude careers both on and off the dance floor'.
Back at his house behind the Gardens, he kept a harem of his favorite girls.
In October 1946, Short showed up on Hansen's doorstep with her friend Ann Toth who lived in Mark's home.
Hansen noticed her and came on to her but Short claimed she was a virgin. He finally had enough of her teasing after 10 days and ordered the two to move on.
He was also tired of Short's endless stream of boyfriends.
Hansen couldn't deny he knew the girl. His name was on the cover of Short's address book.
Short's body was discovered one morning in the wet morning grass in a vacant lot in a south LA neighborhood – and a room in the Aster Motel in downtown Los Angeles was found to be covered in blood and human feces. It was Short's death chamber.
Rumors circulated that Short was a female pervert and had indulged in 'unnatural intimacies' with other women. There were unsubstantiated sightings at gay bars.
Folksinger Woody Guthrie, once indicted by New York authorities for sending obscene letters in the mail, was considered a suspect in the ensuing hysteria and possibly capable of such a heinous crime a suspect in the ensuing hysteria until it was discovered he wasn't in LA at the time of the murder.
Over 500 crackpots came forward confessing to the murder in exchange for a free meal and a place to stay for the night.
The big break through in the case came in late 1948 when the chief police psychiatrist who was employed by the LAPD, Dr. Joseph Paul De River, seduced the killer out of hiding and he subtly revealed himself to the doctor.
The murderer came calling after Dr. De River planted a magazine article in a pulp crime magazine, True Detective, in an attempt to lure the killer out of hiding.
'It was his view that the pathology of the Dahlia killer included a deep-seated compulsion to publicize and claim recognition for his act'.
The confessors would continue to come and the police would talk to them but 'the type of mind that conceived the Elizabeth Short murder will some day have to boast about it', according to Dr. De River.
In October 1948, a letter arrived for Dr. De River with a return address of a post office box in Miami Beach.
The letter was signed 'Jack Sand' and stated he had associated with someone who fitted the 'pattern' of the 'infamous one'.
This 'Jack Sand' said he had associated with the killer for two months in San Francisco and the man had a motive for the killing and 'knew the characters involved'.
Jack Sand was also offering his help in tracking the suspect down.
Meetings were set up between Dr. De River and 'Jack Sand' in Vegas but the location was changed when they couldn't get rooms to a health resort in the San Jacinto Mountains far north of Banning, California, near Palm Springs.
Two other cops, members of the Gangster Squad, accompanied De River, one acting as the driver while Sand talked to De River.
'Jack Sand' was in fact Leslie Dillon, the true killer. He was connected to a prostitution network and a pimp and errand boy for Mark Hansen.
When Hansen got tired of Short's boyfriends and tired of her pestering him for money, he told his errand boy, Dillon to get rid of her – not realizing the man was a dangerous and murderous psychopath.
Dillon knew two things about the murder that had never been revealed to the public: a rose tattoo had been cut out of Short's thigh by the killer and inserted in her vagina. Her pubic hair had also been cut off and pushed up inside her rectum.
Dillon had worked briefly in a mortuary and knew how to make a cut in the leg of a corpse to bleed it out and how to insert a tube to drain the blood.
The man talked about this other individual 'Jeff Connors' he claimed to be the likely suspect for the murder.
Dillon suggested that Short's body had been cut in half so the killer could see how far his penis penetrated into the woman's body.
He inferred that this person named Jeff could have committed the crime in a hotel, a ground level motel, the doctor corrected him, so that he could get the body outside without carrying it downstairs.
De River asked Dillon to take off his shirt. He agreed and had a very muscular build.
The doctor then asked Dillon if he objected to dropping his trousers. Dillon hesitated briefly and then down they came, revealing a 'juvenile penis ... typical of an eight-year-old boy'.
In one of the letters to the doctor, Dillon had said that Short's killer 'had been mocked or threatened exposure by her to his friends'.
The author questions whether Short could have mocked Dillon and exposed him for having such a small penis. Dillon also stated he liked girls with 'big mouths'.
He didn't drink but he did do drugs – bennies or Benzedrine 'for pep'.
'He also told one of the gangster squad with the doctor about how he would grind up the phenobarbital and 'put it on ice cream or food' and give it to women 'as it knocks them out'.
De River knew he had his man.
'And yet, despite the compelling evidence the officers of the Gangster Squad were uncovering, they never seemed to make headway with their investigation. The path was always blocked', writes Eatwell.
Summer of 1949, 'the LAPD became embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal of its history: a scandal that was to change the police department, and the course of the Dahlia case, forever'.
It was a massive cover-up by the Homicide Division that had links to Hansen, according to Eatwell.
The LAPD was rotten to the core and 'let a dangerous psychopath on the loose'.
In an interview with homicide, Dillon told them he wouldn't say a word if they let him go. But if they arrest him, he would talk and 'he knew where the bodies were buried in terms of organized crime. And then he was gone'.
All the key protagonists of the Dahlia case are dead. Most of the documents are gone or locked away in the vaults of the LAPD.
In the aftermath of the 1949 grand jury investigation, there had clearly been a willful campaign to suppress the facts of the case and to discredit and harass key witness such as Dr. De River', writes the author.
And there was an unwillingness by more recent writers and researchers to let the facts tell the story.
'The facts – buried in newspapers reports and court documents are more compelling that any of the alternate facts'.
Dillon was the centerpiece of the Dahlia drama and evil personified in a native boy from the Southern plains. The legal sleuth and author rests her case.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To my generation, the Black Dahlia murder was a really big case.
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