Friday, June 5, 2015

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 5, 2015


T.G.I.F.

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13 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/upshot/when-its-a-crime-to-withdraw-money-from-your-bank.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

Dennis Hastert has not been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse, nor has he been indicted on a charge of paying money he was not legally allowed to pay. The indictment of Mr. Hastert, a former House speaker, released last week, lays out two counts: taking money out of the bank the wrong way, and then lying to the F.B.I. about what he did with the money.

* NOW... AFTER READING THAT FIRST PARAGRAPH... TELL ME WITH A STRAIGHT FACE THAT YOU BELIEVE IN "JUSTICE" U.S. STYLE?

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Does that make sense?

* NOPE. NONE.

(*SIGH*)

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, for example, is worried that the indictment constitutes government overreach, punishing Mr. Hastert for concealing payments whose disclosure he may have thought would be damaging to his reputation, but which were not illegal.

Federal prosecutors allege Mr. Hastert was paying hush money in exchange for wrongdoing that happened long ago.

* SHOULDN'T HE BE CHARGED WITH THOSE "WRONGDOINGS?"

But Mr. Hastert is charged with structuring: making repeated four-figure cash withdrawals from his bank in order to avoid the generation of cash transaction reports, which banks are required to send the government about every transaction over $10,000. These reports have been required since 1970, with the intention of helping the federal government identify organized criminals and tax evaders.

* THE THING IS... IN THE AGE OF ZERO INTEREST RATES... WHY EVEN BOTHER KEEPING ONE'S MONEY IN A BANK? (BUY A SAFE!)

To be clear: It’s not illegal simply to take $8,000 out of the bank repeatedly.

“The criminal provisions there do have strong mens rea (criminal intent) requirements: The government has the burden to prove that the defendant knew about the reporting requirement and intended to evade it,” said Jim Copland, who directs the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute, a right-of-center think tank. “So this is quite unlike many of the regulatory crimes that can ensnare the unsophisticated.”

“Whether a former House Speaker who presided over the Patriot Act’s enactment can show absence of mens rea here, of course, may be doubtful,” he added.

Prosecutions for structuring without any charge of an underlying offense with the money are not unusual, said Peter Djinis, a lawyer focusing on laws against money laundering, who until 2002 was executive assistant director for regulatory policy at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the arm of the Treasury Department that enforces these rules.

* AND THAT SEEMS TO ME TO BE A HUGE RED FLAG...

“In many cases, the most attractive route to take when you can’t prove the underlying crime is to go with the activity that’s in front of you,” Mr. Djinis said.

Money laundering is a serious problem and the law intends to address it.

* BUT... NO ONE IS SUGGESTING HASTERT WAS "MONEY LAUNDERING."

* AGAIN... FOLKS... DON'T GET ME WRONG! IF HASTERT DID ANYTHING ILLEGAL... THROW THE BOOK AT HIM! BUT DO IT THE RIGHT WAY!

June 5, 2015 at 10:10 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/05/marco-rubio-and-his-wife-cited-17-times-for-traffic-infractions-2/

* ALLOW ME TO PREFACE THIS NEWSBITE BY NOTING... I'M NOT THE BIGGEST RUBIO FAN.

(*SMIRK*)

* THAT SAID... YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!

* HERE'S A TYPICAL NTY "GOTCHYA" - ON MRS. RUBIO... NOT EVEN THE SENATOR HIMSELF - BUT HIS WIFE!

"...she was stopped for driving 23 m.p.h. in a school zone where the speed limit was 15 m.p.h."

* WOW... I'M HORRIFIED...

(*SNORT*)

* HERE'S ONE ON THE SENATOR...

"In 2012 he was caught failing to obey a stop sign, but the infraction was dismissed."

(*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... DON'T YOU THINK THE TIMES LOOKED INTO THIS DISMISSAL? OBVIOUSLY IF THEY COULD NAIL HIM WITH USING HIS INFLUENCE TO GET OUT OF IT THEY WOULD. SINCE THEY DON'T ATTEMPT TO MAKE THAT CASE... I BELIEVE THE DISMISSAL SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

* TOWARDS THE END OF THE ARTICLE THE TIMES REVEALS THIS:

Mr. Rubio’s last two citations were dismissed and seven of Ms. Rubio’s last eight were cleared.

(*SMIRK*)

* FOLKS... IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... THE ONLY "THERE" HERE IS THAT APPARENTLY RUBIO HAS NEVER TRIED TO USE HIS OFFICE TO GET HIMSELF OR HIS WIFE A BREAK. AGAIN... I'M NOT A HUGE RUBIO FAN... BUT THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES TO ME.

* OH... BTW... IS THIS THE SAME NYT THAT BELIEVES POLICE INTENTIALLY TARGET MINORITIES... INCLUDING... er... HISPANICS?

(*GUFFAW*)

June 5, 2015 at 10:23 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/6652000-more-americans-working-part-time-not-choice

Another 72,000 workers were working part time last month because their hours were cut or they couldn’t find full-time work.

(*SIGH*)

The total number of involuntary part-time workers jumped to 6,652,000 in May, up from 6,580,000 in April, but well below the 7,268,000 in May 2014, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

* SO... IT COULD BE WORSE.

(*DARK CHUCKLE*)

According to BLS, involuntary part-time workers are “persons who indicated that they would like to work full time but were working part time (1 to 34 hours) because of an economic reason, such as their hours were cut back or they were unable to find full-time jobs.”

That number has shown little movement in recent months.

“In May, 1.9 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 268,000 from a year earlier,” BLS said in its unemployment snapshot.

These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

* THEY... WERE... NOT... COUNTED... AS... UNEMPLOYED...

(*SNORT*)

June 5, 2015 at 10:29 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/3/inside-the-ring-muslim-brotherhood-has-obamas-secr/

* FOLKS... THIS IS BILL GERTZ REPORTING IN THE WASHINGTON TIMES. YOU CAN TAKE THIS TO THE BANK!

President Obama and his administration continue to support the global Islamist militant group known the Muslim Brotherhood. A White House strategy document regards the group as a moderate alternative to more violent Islamist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The policy of backing the Muslim Brotherhood is outlined in a secret directive called Presidential Study Directive Eleven, or PSD-11. The directive was produced in 2011 and outlines administration support for political "reform" in the Middle East and North Africa, according to officials familiar with the classified study.

* OH, YES... AND HAVEN'T WE ALL SEEN THE RESULTS OF OBAMA'S "REFORM" EFFORTS!?

(*SNORT*)

Efforts to force the administration to release the directive or portions of it under the Freedom of Information Act have been unsuccessful.

* THE MOST OPEN AND TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY...

(*ANOTHER SNORT*)

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan declined to comment on PSD-11. “We have nothing for you on this,” she said.

The directive outlines why the administration has chosen the Muslim Brotherhood, which last year was labeled a terrorist organization by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates as a key vehicle of U.S. backing for so-called political reform in the Middle East.

The UAE government also has labeled two U.S. affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society, as terrorist support groups.

Critics of the administration’s strategy say the Brotherhood masks its goals and objectives despite advocating an extremist ideology similar to those espoused by al Qaeda and the Islamic State, but with less violence. The group’s motto includes the phrase “jihad is our way.”

Counterterrorism analyst Patrick Poole said the Brotherhood in recent weeks has stepped up its use of violent attacks in Egypt. “The failed Obama Doctrine that so-called ‘moderate Islamists’ were going to usher in a glorious era of peace and democracy in the Middle East was adopted by the administration because that’s what the foreign policy establishment going back to the George W. Bush administration proclaimed as gospel,” Mr. Poole said.

* AGAIN... OBAMA TENDS TO DOUBLE-DOWN ON EVERY STUPID THING BUSH DID...

“And now we see as a result Egypt fighting a terror campaign by the ‘moderate’ Muslim Brotherhood; we have a failed state in Libya; and we see NATO ally Turkey turning from secular democracy to religious totalitarianism under Obama’s pal [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan.

* YEP...

(*SHRUG*)

“This dangerous foreign policy was launched by PSD-11 and the administration’s open embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, and now we can see its catastrophic effect,” Mr. Poole added.

Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, extensively documented Muslim Brotherhood subversion efforts, both in the United States and abroad. Mr. Gaffney has said the Muslim Brotherhood is the most dangerous group promoting the totalitarian and Islamist supremacist doctrine of Shariah. Several Muslim Brotherhood supporters have been identified as key advisers to Mr. Obama, according to Mr. Gaffney.

* AND DON'T FORGET HILLARY'S GAL-PAY HUMA ABEDIN...

(*SHRUG*)

Egyptian press reports after the ouster of Mr. Morsi have revealed extensive cooperation between Obama's CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood during Mr. Morsi’s presidency.

(*SIGH*)

June 5, 2015 at 10:43 AM
William R. Barker said...

* MORE FROM BILL GERTZ...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/3/inside-the-ring-muslim-brotherhood-has-obamas-secr/

Retired Chinese Col. Liu Mingfu, one of Beijing’s most significant military supremacists, this week confirmed that China is using information warfare against its enemies.

Col. Liu spoke Monday night at the Georgetown home of Michael Pillsbury, a longtime consultant to the Pentagon on China, in promoting the English-language version of the colonel’s 2010 book, “The China Dream.”

The book calls for China to replace the United States as global hegemon.

The book’s ideas were adopted by Beijing’s communist rulers and have become the main “thought” of current party boss and President Xi Jinping.

Asked about the contradiction between official claims that China seeks peace and the covert use of the so-called three warfares — psychological, media and legal information operations — against enemies, Col. Liu said: “I don’t deny it.

(*SNORT*)

“You Americans have the three warfares also,” he said. “Japan has it. All the great powers in the world use these techniques. If China doesn’t have it, then we definitely should have it.”

The Georgetown reception brought together a number of former government officials and journalists, including former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Joseph DeTrani, former CIA official and former director of the DNI Counter Proliferation Center. New York Times reporter David Sanger and Fox News correspondent James Rosen also were present.

June 5, 2015 at 10:47 AM
William R. Barker said...

* MORE FROM GERTZ...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/3/inside-the-ring-muslim-brotherhood-has-obamas-secr/

Best-selling author and former Navy judge advocate...

* FORMER NAVY JUDGE ADVOCATE...

...Don Brown is out with a new book that investigates the shoot-down of Extortion 17, the worst wartime loss of life in the history of Navy special operations warfare.

The book, “Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six,” is an exhaustive look at a tragedy for which the military’s official version defies logic for some of the sailors’ survivors.

The No. 1 gnawing question: How did an Afghan Taliban fighter, armed with a grenade launcher, just happen to be stationed near the Chinook helicopter’s landing zone — a spot never before used to insert troops. (His rocket-propelled grenade shot clipped a rotor blade, sending the non-special-operations helicopter into a violent spin and deadly crash.)

The sequence of events led some family members of those killed to believe that the ambush was an inside job — that someone in the Afghan chain of command sent word to Taliban fighters that a reinforcement of SEALS was on the way to aid Army Rangers and that the aircraft was planning to land at that specified spot.

Then there is the mystery of the Afghan soldiers on board the helicopter with the 30 Americans who perished — a U.S. Army crew, the SEALs and special warfare technicians, including a military dog handler. The seven Afghans listed on the manifest turned out not to be the ones who died on the chopper. Their identities were not disclosed in the official censored military report.

(*SILENCE*)

“Were they trying to hide the politically embarrassing fact that this flight was, or could have been, compromised by Taliban infiltrators determined to help sabotage it from the inside, or to communicate with Taliban forces on the ground about the chopper’s approach to coordinate the timing of a point-blank shot?” Mr. Brown questions.

“Something went terribly wrong inside that helicopter, and whatever went wrong was most likely beyond the pilots’ control,” he says. “It’s as if the unidentified Afghan infiltrators were the big pink elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.”

* JUST AS WITH THE SAUDIS AND 9/11...

(*PURSED LIPS*)

For his new book, the Brown turns mathematician. Using official investigative documents, he concludes that the shooter was just, at most, 178 feet from the chopper when he fired, not the 720 feet as cited by the chief investigator.

“What would be the chances that Extortion 17 would just happen to fly within 75 yards of a Taliban insurgent waiting with an RPG, unless the Taliban insurgent knew in advance exactly where Extortion 17 was going to land?” Mr. Brown asks.

Then, answering his own question, he writes... “About as likely as finding a needle in a haystack.”

(*SILENCE*)

There is more than math in “Call Sign Extortion 17.” A full reading may well convince readers that those men were betrayed on the night of Aug. 6.

June 5, 2015 at 10:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419354/corn-ethanol-boondoggle-continues-see-epas-latest-rule-robert-bryce

Last Friday, the EPA decreed the amount of ethanol that retailers must blend into their gasoline. For 2015, it will be about 14 billion gallons.

(*SIGH*)

* IT SHOULD BE ZERO.

That decree provides an opportunity to ask a simple question: How have ethanol producers been able to garner a federal mandate that requires motorists to buy their low-heat-content, hydrophilic, motor-fuel moonshine?

* BRIBERY. (I MEAN... er... "LOBBYING.") THAT AND NAKED PERCEIVED STATE INTEREST.

Ethanol is more expensive than gasoline. In fact, on an energy-equivalent basis — which is the essential factor in comparing motor fuels — it has been more expensive than gasoline for more than three decades.

As I showed in a recent report for the Manhattan Institute, the Renewable Fuel Standard now imposes about $10 billion annually in additional fuel costs on motorists over and above what they would have paid for gasoline alone.

Since 1982, when measured on an energy-equivalent basis (ethanol contains two-thirds as much heat energy as gasoline does), ethanol has always been more expensive than gasoline. Between 2007 and 2014, about 92.5 billion gallons of ethanol were mixed into domestic gasoline supplies. Over that eight-year period, the energy-equivalent cost of ethanol averaged about 90 cents per gallon more than gasoline. Motorists thus incurred about $83 billion — roughly $10 billion annually — in additional fuel costs over and above what they would have paid for gasoline alone.

Ethanol has done effectively nothing to reduce oil imports. The Renewable Fuel Association (2013 budget: $8 million) says it wants to help America become “more energy independent.” The reality: Ethanol has done effectively nothing to reduce oil imports.

Over the past ten years, oil imports have fallen by more than half. But that decrease is due almost solely to the dramatic increase in domestic oil production over that time frame. How dramatic? Since 2005, just the increase — repeat, just the increase — in U.S. oil output, nearly all of it from shale deposits, equals more than five times the output of every ethanol distillery in the country.

Ethanol boosters claim their fuel improves “overall environmental quality.” A bigger fiction is difficult to conjure up.

(*NOD*)

In December, a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers from the University of Minnesota found that while corn-ethanol-fueled vehicles emit marginally less greenhouse gases than those fueled by gasoline, “the combined climate and air quality impacts are greater than those from gasoline vehicles.”

* GREATER...!!!

In short, Congress has imposed a law that costs you more at the pump, has scant geopolitical value, and is worse for air quality and carbon-dioxide emissions than gasoline.

And that’s the truth.

June 5, 2015 at 1:46 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419391/bee-pocalypse-now-nope-shawn-regan

You’ve probably heard by now that bees are mysteriously dying.

But here’s something you probably haven’t heard: There are more honeybee colonies in the United States today than there were when colony collapse disorder began in 2006.

* A BIT OF BACKGROUND:

In 2006, commercial beekeepers began to witness unusually high rates of honeybee die-offs over the winter — increasing from an average of 15% to more than 30%.

Everything from genetically modified crops to pesticides (even cell phones) has been blamed. The phenomenon was soon given a name: colony collapse disorder. Ever since, the media has warned us of a “beemaggedon” or “beepocalypse” posing a “threat to our food supply.”

By 2013, NPR declared that bee declines may cause “a crisis point for crops,” and the cover of Time magazine foretold of a “world without bees.”

This spring, there was more bad news. Beekeepers reported losing 42.1% of their colonies over the last year, prompting more worrisome headlines.

Based on such reports, you might believe that honeybees are nearly gone by now...

And because honeybees are such an important pollinator (they reportedly add $15 billion in value to crops and are responsible for pollinating a third of what we eat) the economic consequences must be significant.

Last year, riding the buzz over dying bees, the Obama administration announced the creation of a pollinator-health task force to develop a “federal strategy” to promote honeybees and other pollinators.

Last month the task force unveiled its long-awaited plan, the National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators.

The plan aims to reduce honeybee-colony losses to “sustainable” levels and create 7 million acres of pollinator-friendly habitat. It also calls for more than $82 million in federal funding to address pollinator health. But here’s something you probably haven’t heard: There are more honeybee colonies in the United States today than there were when colony collapse disorder began in 2006.

(*LOPSIDED SMILE*)

In fact, according to data released in March by the Department of Agriculture, U.S. honeybee-colony numbers are now at a 20-year high.

(*TAPPING MY FOOT*)

U.S. honey production is also at a 10-year high.

(*SILENCE*)

Almost no one has reported this, but it’s true. You can browse the USDA reports yourself. Since colony collapse disorder began in 2006, there has been virtually no detectable effect on the total number of honeybee colonies in the United States.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

June 5, 2015 at 1:57 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Commercial beekeepers have adapted to higher winter honeybee losses by actively rebuilding their colonies. This is often done by splitting healthy colonies into multiple hives and purchasing new queen bees to rebuild the lost hives. Beekeepers purchase queen bees through the mail from commercial breeders for as little as $15 to $25 and can produce new broods rather quickly. Other approaches include buying packaged bees (about $55 for 12,000 worker bees and a fertilized queen) or replacing the queen to improve the health of the hive. By doing so, beekeepers are maintaining healthy and productive colonies — all part of a robust and extensive market for pollination services.

Economists Randal Rucker and Walter Thurman have carefully documented how these pollination markets work and how they respond to problems like bee disease. As it turns out, they work pretty well. A 2012 analysis by Rucker and Thurman found almost no economic impact from colony collapse disorder. (If anything, you might be paying 2.8 cents more for a can of Smokehouse Almonds.) They conclude that beekeepers are “savvy entrepreneurs” who have proven able to “adapt quickly to changing market conditions” with almost no impact on consumers. Rebuilding lost colonies takes extra work, but so far most beekeepers seem adept at doing so.

Beekeeping does face challenges. Today, most experts believe there is no one single culprit for honeybee losses, but rather a multitude of factors. Modern agricultural practices can create stress for honeybees. Commercial beekeepers transport their colonies across the country each year to pollinate a variety of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. This can weaken honeybees and increase their susceptibility to diseases and parasites. But this is not the first time beekeepers have dealt with bee disease, and they do not stand idly by in the face of such challenges. The Varroa mite, a blood-sucking bee parasite introduced in 1987, has been especially troublesome. Yet beekeepers have proven resilient. Somehow, without a national strategy to help them, beekeepers have maintained their colonies and continued to provide the pollination services our modern agricultural system demands.

“What are we doing on bees?” the president reportedly asked his advisers in 2013. “Are we doing enough?”

With U.S. honeybee colonies now at a 20-year high, you have to wonder: Is our national pollination strategy a solution in search of a crisis?

June 5, 2015 at 1:57 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419337/after-riots-more-crime-michael-barone

Are we seeing a reversal of the 20-year decline in violent crime in America?

* YES...

A new nationwide crime wave?

* YEP...

Heather Mac Donald fears we are, and as a premier advocate and analyst of the policing strategy pioneered by Rudy Giuliani in New York City and copied and adapted throughout the country, she is to be taken seriously.

The statistics she presented in an article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal are truly alarming. Gun violence is up 60% in Baltimore so far this year compared to 2014.

Homicides are up 180% in Milwaukee, 25% in St. Louis, 32% in Atlanta and 13% in New York in the same period.

Why is this happening? Mac Donald explains, “The most plausible explanation of the current surge in lawlessness is the intense agitation against American police departments over the past nine months.” (That’s a reference to the reactions to the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., last summer, and to the death this spring of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.)

The narrative propagated by mainstream media, the Eric Holder Justice Department, and the Barack Obama White House was that unarmed innocent blacks were being slaughtered by racist police. “Black lives matter,” read the hashtag, as if most cops believed the opposite. The facts of these cases, as revealed through competent investigations, did not support the meme.

(In one case in which video evidence did, in South Carolina, the policeman was quickly charged with murder by local authorities.)

But the propagation of the racist-cops narrative was followed by days of rioting in Ferguson last year and Baltimore last month. The (perhaps misspoken)...

* MY ASS!

...response of Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake: “We also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.”

Across the country, Mac Donald notes, “offices scale back on proactive policing under the onslaught of anti-cop rhetoric.”

Proactive “broken windows” policing is being replaced by non-benign neglect.

* EVEN THOUGH...

The victims of the increased numbers of homicides are almost all black.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

The idea that blacks are systematically and massively oppressed by hostile police, plausible 50 years ago, is risible today. Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of black homicides are perpetrated by other blacks. And anyone who knows what has happened to Detroit since 1967 understands that delegitimation of policing and elite apologies for violent crime can have terrible consequences, especially for law-abiding black Americans.

Violent crime roughly tripled from 1965 to 1975 and plateaued until the middle 1990s, when Giuliani and others adopted effective police tactics. So when the president and the recently retired attorney general insist that police misconduct is a major problem, in a tone that seems to excuse rioting, they are playing with fire.

* LITERALLY!

The statistics that Mac Donald cites suggest that many cities and suburbs are starting to burn. We must hope that the fire does not spread, but dies down. Perhaps it will if police resume the tactics that have proved so successful. The alternative, for those of us who have witnessed the past half-century, is terrifying.

June 5, 2015 at 2:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/419339/freddie-gray-prosecutor-wants-block-release-autopsy-report-and-other-sensitive

From the self-proclaimed paragon of accountability:

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby plans to seek a "protective order" that would block the release of Freddie Gray’s autopsy report and other “sensitive” documents as she prosecutes the six police officers involved in his arrest.

* HUH...?!?!

Mosby told The Baltimore Sun that prosecutors “have a duty to ensure a fair and impartial process for all parties involved” and “will not be baited into litigating this case through the media.”

* SO... THE LESS ACTUAL FACTUAL INFORMATION THE BETTER...???

(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)

Just to recap:

Mosby leapt to announce a bundle of charges to appease the “No justice, no peace!” crowd — including an absurd “false imprisonment” charge that was rejected by the grand jury — in a much-feted midday press conference.

Then she appeared at a Baltimore concert with Prince, agreed to an interview with Vogue magazine, and, pausing from coordinating a media circus, was guest ringmaster of an actual circus.

But now she is... emphasizing the need for privacy?

* DOES SOUND A BIT TWO-FACED...

And apparently it’s not just the public she’s trying to keep in the dark: The move is the latest effort by Mosby’s office to restrict information in the high-profile case. Her office has also sought a gag order to prevent participants from discussing the case in public, and has broken with a long-standing practice by not giving a copy of the autopsy report to Baltimore police.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

In a response to Mosby’s latest filing, defense attorneys said Wednesday that they have been denied an outline of evidence and claims against the officers, and have not been allowed to inspect a knife that was taken from Gray during his arrest.

* WHAT...?!?!

When Michael Brown’s case was taken before a grand jury last fall, the Left condemned the “secrecy” of the grand jury. “Nobody trusts” the grand jury, said Brown family attorney Benjamin Crump on MSNBC. Crump called for a trial “where the evidence could be vetted and everybody could see what happened.” (The evidence was, of course, released — and seemed to confirm the grand jury’s decision not to issue an indictment.)

Not long after, when a Staten Island judge declined to release grand jury minutes from the Eric Garner case, Rolling Stone announced that the “decision to keep Garner grand jury minutes secret continues the crime.”

But now... when a prosecutor openly sympathetic to the more extreme elements of the “racial justice” movement wants to keep all of the evidence private... secrecy seems to be just fine.

(*SNORT*)

Marilyn Mosby and her backers care about “accountability” — until they are the ones called to account.

* OUTRAGEOUS!

June 5, 2015 at 2:22 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/100-days-state-dept-sets-record-violating-deadline-human-rights

The Obama State Department under John "I served in Vietnam" Kerry has set an all-time record this year in the duration of its failure to comply with the legal deadline for submitting its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress.

(*SNORT*)

Current law requires the department to submit the reports by Feb. 25.

Today, June 5, is the 100th day past that deadline, and the State Department still has not presented the reports.

Prior to this year, 89 days was the longest the department went past the legal deadline before releasing the reports.

(The 89-day delay took place in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.)

As the post-deadline delay in the release of the human rights reports hit its 100th day today, the State Department was finding time to celebrate an event it billed as "Pride at State." That event, scheduled for 2:00 p.m., will feature remarks by Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom and has been jointly organized by the department itself and GLIFAA, which State says is "the officially recognized employee affinity group representing LGBTI employees at the Department of State, USAID and foreign affairs agencies."

(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE DESK*)

June 5, 2015 at 2:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/05/politics/paul-ryan-trade-negotation-barack-obama/

If things had gone differently in the 2012 presidential election, Paul Ryan would be vice president right now.

Instead, he's allied with the President he tried to defeat.

* YEP...

As chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, he's muscling a controversial trade bill through the House...

* YEP...

(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

The bill Ryan and Obama are working on would make it easier for presidents to move big trade deals through Congress.

* AND TO HELL WITH THE CONSTITUTION... TO HELL WITH CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY...

The Republican controlled Senate approved the so-called fast track authority last month...

* FOLKS... THERE REALLY AREN'T TWO PARTIES. THE ESTABLISHMENT GOP REPRESENTS ITS OFFICEHOLDERS - NOT "WE THE PEOPLE."

Ryan insists the trade legislation will pass, but the reality is that also depends on how many Democrats the President can deliver. No one in the President's own Democratic leadership in the House is backing the bill publicly as of now.

* KEY WORDS: "AS OF NOW."

(*SHRUG*)

On the presidential campaign trail, Hillary Clinton hasn't committed to supporting this trade legislation.

* NOR HAS SHE OPPOSED IT. (FUNNY HOW CNN FAILS TO MENTION THIS FLIP SIDE...)

June 5, 2015 at 10:56 PM

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