Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts

May 31, 2022

Yes, We Can Do Something (Part 2)

Continuing the conversation on things we could do about mass shootings, regardless of where they occur, based on years of discussion with friends and family, and information we've shared from our research on the topic. 

As a reminder, a couple of over-arching principles.

We need to change how we talk about the goal. It is not to prevent mass shootings from happening. The goal is to make it harder for someone to commit mass carnage, and to reduce the number of deaths should such an event occur. 
And, gun safety legislation must stand alone, with no unrelated amendments or attachments. Any attempts to attach anything that is not directly related to gun safety shall be considered a bribe. 

Part 1 addressed gun and ammunition purchases, background checks and data reporting. It also includes the definition of 'gun' we're using for this series.

Here are recommendations related to penalties for crimes involving guns and background checks. 

  • Ensure a speedy trial - and sentencing - for mass shooting defendants. The person who was convicted of the Colorado movie theater shooting was sentenced just over three years after killing twelve and injuring dozens more. This is an absurdly - and unacceptable - delay in justice being served.
  • Require mandatory prosecution for using a gun in the commission of a crime. Anyone convicted of using a gun in a crime will face a mandatory minimum sentence. 
  • Require mandatory prosecution for attempting to purchase a gun when a failed background check is certain. Anyone who knows they will fail a background check for a legal gun purchase, but attempts to do so anyway, will face a mandatory minimum sentence upon conviction. Credit is not given for trying to do the right thing.
  • Require mandatory prosecution for providing false or incomplete information during the background check process. A mandatory minimum sentence will be served upon conviction.
  • Require mandatory prosecution for holding or hiding a gun in order to protect another person from being charged with a gun crime. A mandatory minimum sentence will be served upon conviction.
  • Require mandatory prosecution when guns are found improperly secured or transported, such as during TSA checks, law enforcement stops, etc., with a mandatory minimum sentence to be served upon conviction.
  • Categorize all crimes in which a gun was used as 'non-bailable' federal offenses, and carve gun legislation out of the filibuster. These charges cannot be plea-bargained; and sentences upon conviction must be served consecutively with any other sentences, and must be served in full.
I can picture someone looking at these recommendations and wondering what's the tie-in to making it harder for someone to commit a mass shooting, and I get that - but remember, we are trying to pull together, in an 'all of the above' type of response, to get something accomplished.

One of the many arguments from the 'we don't need to do anything about guns' crowd is that we already have plenty of gun laws on the books, and they need to be enforced. They're right, at least about having them on the books; I don't know about the enforcement part, but I'll accept at face value that the folks who draw this line in the sand know what they're talking about.

Elevating gun crimes from a state-level felony to a federal-level felony will add some teeth (at least in theory) and (again, at least in theory) limit the possibility that some gang leader, organized crime guy, gun runner, a drug dealer or other criminal mastermind will be able to buy themselves some cops, prosecutors and/or judges who can make things disappear. 

It also put the onus on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to get more involved, and stay more involved, in helping trace, track and interdict illegal guns, gun runners and the like. 

And, using federal funds for this effort makes sense, as it's hard for states and municipalities to focus on this at the same time they're focusing on identifying and mitigating the social, economic, medical, psychological, cultural, and educational issues that play so heavily into gun crimes, whether we're talking about mass shootings or, as the politicians like to say, "just another weekend in Chicago."

And, the final benefit of pushing this all up to the federal level? US Senators and members of the House can no longer push responsibility to someone else. The policy-making, the regulations, the funding -- it all sits squarely in their laps.

And, in my eyes, that's the only way many of them will do anything other than offer up thoughts and prayers.

December 2, 2020

Wondering on Wednesday 12/2/2020

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

There's much to wonder about today, so let's dive in. 

We know that there are runoffs in Georgia in January, and that the two Republicans are being painted as unethical money-grubbing stock traders, trading on their knowledge and position as senators.  This article, for example, goes into detail on how the two - David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler - made money off the pandemic through what the headline calls their "naked corruption." Perdue is apparently an extremely busy trader; in fact, his nearly 2600 trades in his first term "roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate." He accounts for nearly a third of all transactions reported during the past six years.  Not only that, but

The data also shows the breadth of trades Mr. Perdue made in companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came not just before the Senate as a whole, but before the committees and subcommittees on which he served.

I'm wondering how the heck it is that folks in Georgia might actually vote both of these two back in come the first week of January. And I also wonder how calls to boycott the vote, which are coming from the Republicans (go figure), and the president's saying he'll go there to campaign, will impact things. And I wonder how much more of this any of them can take. 

And, speaking of how much more of this anyone can take, I offer these items related to the president's ongoing battle to pretend he wants to stay in office. I say pretend he wants to, because we all know this is about the money he's making through the barrage of fundraising requests - nearly 500 of them since November 3rd - being sent for his (ahem), legal defense fund - $170M since the election.

The surge of contributions has come largely from small-dollar donors, campaign officials say, tapping into the president’s base of loyal and fervent financial supporters, who tend to contribute the most when they feel the president is under siege or facing unfair political attacks. 

Anyway, here's the #AlwaysTrumper, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, making news. He's demanding AG Snitty Snitty Bill Barr produce the evidence he didn't find to prove that there isn't any evidence of voter fraud that will overturn the results of the election.

And here's another #AlwaysTrumper lawyer-not lawyer Sidney Powell, the one who released the kraken and got herself released from official legal responsibilities, is now quoting a prominent QAnon guy in her Georgia election lawsuit. In another lawsuit, she used a person as a plaintiff without his permission. And, there's now apparently a Sidney Powell for President domain. 

As I see, every day on my one social media feed people repeating her baseless claims, I can only wonder when - if ever - they'll come to the realization that this is all a bunch of crap. Every last bit of it.

Powell might not be the stupidest Trump lawyer, though. That honor might go to this guy

Joe diGenova, the attorney for Trump's campaign, said during an appearance on "The Howie Carr Show": "Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot."

Which I guess is consistent with what the cultists think. I mean, Steve Bannon called for putting Dr. Fauci's head on a pike back in November.  

I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads on pikes. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone ― time to stop playing games. Blow it all up.

Don't you wonder how it is that the president of the United States managed to find himself surrounded by people like this? Seriously...these are the people the president has, or had, in his inner circle. He can't choose the outer ring of his circle the hangers on, the wannabe close to him people, the big donors; I understand that. But he surely picked these people, or people he picked picked them. If you don't wonder about that, I have to wonder about you.

I'll close with this rather interesting take on the White House Christmas decorations from Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post, in which Melania Trump appears before her, saying 

Follow me, and I will guide you among these ominous trees, through a place where you will hear desperate lamentations and see ancient, disconsolate spirits in torment. Would you like a tour of the White House Christmas decorations?

It's an interesting trip, for sure.  And if you haven't seen them yet, here's a video you should watch before you read Petri's piece. Otherwise you might wonder about what on earth she's talking about.

 What are you wondering about?

November 6, 2020

OrangeVerse LV: Whining for America

A man in a blue suit walked into the White House briefing room and stood behind the podium. And then he started talking.

If it were a movie or a play opening in New York City, the critics would have given it their usual "You'll laugh!" "You'll cry!" 'You'll wonder how you lived without this character in your life!"  

And I did laugh - actually I guffawed, I did, at the opening act.  

And then, the networks cut him off and went back to their regular programming: commercials for drugs that will cure whatever ails us.  Thanks to that little twist of fate, I was saved from the real-time experience of two-thirds of the remarks, which I'm referring to collectively as Whining for America

Whining for Integrity 

Good evening. 

I’d like to provide the 

American people with an update 

on our efforts to protect the integrity 

of our very important 2020 election. 

If you count the legal votes, 

I easily win.

 If you count the illegal votes, 

they can try to steal the election from us. 

If you count the votes that came in late, 

we’re looking to them very strongly, 

but a lot of votes came in late.

 

Whining for Interference

I’ve already decisively won many critical states, 

including massive victories in

Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, to name just a few. 

We won these and many other victories despite 

historic election interference 

from big media, big money, and big tech. 

As everybody saw, we won by historic numbers, 

and the pollsters got it knowingly wrong.

 They got it knowingly wrong. 

We had polls that were so ridiculous

 and everybody knew it at the time.

 

Whining for the Waves

There was no blue wave that they predicted. 

They thought there was going to be a big blue wave.

 That was false. That was done for suppression reasons. 

But instead there was a big red wave, 

and it’s been properly acknowledged actually 

by the media. 

They were, I think, 

very impressed, 

but that was after the fact. 

That doesn’t do us any good.

 

Whining for the Senate

We kept the Senate despite having twice as many 

seats to defend as Democrats, and in a really 

much more competitive states. 

We did a fantastic job with the Senate.

 I think we’re very proud of what’s happened there. 

We had many more seats to defend. 

They spent almost $200 million on Senate races in 

South Carolina and Kentucky alone, 

two races, and hundreds of millions of dollars overall 

against us.


Whining for the Donors and the House

At the national level, our opponent's major donors were 

Wall Street bankers and special interests. 

Our major donors were police officers, farmers, everyday citizens. 

Yet for the first time ever, we lost zero races in the House. 

I was talking to Kevin McCarthy today. 

He said he couldn’t believe it. 

Zero races, very unusual thing, zero, 

and actually, won many new seats with, 

I think, many more on the way.


Whining for the People Who Voted for Me
This was also the year of the Republican woman. 
More Republican women were elected to 
Congress than ever before.
 That’s a great achievement. 
I won the largest share of non-white voters 
of any Republican in 60 years, 
including historic numbers of Latino, African American,
 Asian American, and Native American voters. 
The largest ever in our history. 
We grew our party by 4 million voters. 
The greatest turnout in Republican Party history.

Whining for the Donors Again
Democrats are the party of the big donors. 
The big media, the big tech, it seems, 
and Republicans have become the party 
of the American worker, 
and that’s what’s happened. 
And we’re also, I believe the party of inclusion. 
As everyone now recognizes,
 media polling was election interference 
in the truest sense of that word, by powerful special interests.

Whining for the Polls

These really phony polls, 
I have to call them phony polls, 
fake polls, 
were designed 
to keep our voters at home, 
create the illusion of momentum 
for Mr. Biden and diminish 
Republican’s ability to raise funds. 
They were what’s called suppression polls, 
everyone knows that now, 
and it’s never been used to the extent 
that it’s been used on this last election.

Whining for Florida

To highlight just a few examples, 
the day before election, Quinnipiac, 
which was wrong on every occasion 
that I know of, had Joe Biden up 
by five points in Florida, 
and they were off by 8.4 points 
and I won Florida easily, 
easily. 
So they had me losing Florida 
by a lot and I ended up 
winning Florida by a lot. 
Other than that, 
they were very accurate.

Whining for Buckeyes and Badgers

They had him up four points in Ohio 
and they were off by 12.2 points, 
and I also won Ohio, 
great state of Ohio very easily. 
And the Washington Post said, 
“Biden up 17 points in Wisconsin,” 
and it was basically even. 
They were off by about 17 points,
and they knew that, 
they’re not stupid people. 
They knew that. 
Suppression.

Whining for Whittling

There are now only a few states 
yet to be decided in the presidential race. 
The voting apparatus of those states are 
run in all cases by Democrats. 
We were winning in all the key locations 
by a lot, actually, and then our numbers 
started miraculously getting whittled 
away in secret and they 
wouldn’t allow legally 
permissible observers.

Whining for the Farsighted

We went to court in a couple of instances 
and we were able to get the observers 
put in. And when the observers got there, 
they wanted them 60, 70 feet away, 
80 feet, 100 feet away or outside the building 
to observe people inside the building. 
And we won a case, a big case, 
and we have others happening.

Whining for the Litigation and Corruption
There are lots of litigation, 
even beyond our litigation. 
There’s a tremendous amount of litigation 
generally, because of how unfair 
this process was, and I predicted that. 
I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. 
It’s really destroyed our system. 
It’s a corrupt system 
and it makes people corrupt, 
even if they aren’t by nature, 
but they become corrupt. 
It’s too easy. They want to find out 
how many votes they need, 
and then they seem to 
be able to find them. 
They wait and wait, and 
then they find them,
and you see that on Election Night.

Whining for the Tarheels

We were ahead in vote in North Carolina 
by a lot, a tremendous number of votes, 
and we’re still ahead by a lot, 
but not as many because they’re 
finding ballots all of a sudden. 
“Oh, we have some mail-in ballots.” 
It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots 
are so one-sided too. I know that it’s 
supposed to be to the 
advantage of the Democrats,
 but in all cases, they’re so one-sided.

Whining for the Keystoners

We were up by nearly 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. 
I won Pennsylvania by a lot. 
And that gets whittled down to, 
I think they said now we’re up by 90,000 votes 
and they’ll keep coming and coming and coming. 
They find them all over and 
they don’t want us to have any observers. 
Although we won a court case, 
the judge said, “You have to have observers.”
 Likewise in Georgia…
 And they’re appealing, 
actually they’re appealing. 
We won a case that we want people to watch 
and we want to observers and they’re 
actually appealing, which is sort of interesting. 
I wonder why they’d appeal? 
All we want to do is have people watch
 as they do the vote tabulations.

Whining for the Peaches
Likewise in Georgia, I won by a lot, a lot, 
with a lead of over getting close to 300,000 votes 
on Election Night in Georgia. 
And by the way, 
got whittled down and
 now it’s getting to be to a point 
where I’ll go from winning by a lot 
to perhaps being even down a little bit.

Whining Even More for the Peaches AND for the Wolverines
In Georgia, a pipe burst in a far-away location, 
totally unrelated to the location of what was happening 
and they stopped counting for four hours. 
And a lot of things happened. 
The election apparatus in Georgia is run by Democrats. 
We also had margins of 300,000 in Michigan. 
We were way up in Michigan, 
won the state. And in Wisconsin, 
we did likewise fantastically well, 
and that got whittled down.
In every case, they got whittled down.

Whining for the Grand Canyoneers
Today, we’re on track to win Arizona. 
We only need to carry, I guess, 
55% of the remaining vote, 55% margins, 
and that’s a margin that we’ve significantly exceeded. 
So, we’ll see what happens with that, 
but we’re on track to do okay in Arizona. 
Our goal is to defend the integrity of the election.
 We’ll not allow the corruption
to steal such an important election, 
or any election for that manner. 
And we can’t allow silence, 
anybody to silence
 our voters and 
manufacture 
results.

Whining for MEEEEEEEE
I’ve never had, 
I’ve been doing a lot of public things 
for a long time, 
I’ve never had anything that’s been 
as inspirational by people calling,
talking, sending things to us. 
I’ve never seen such love and such affection
 and such spirit as I’ve seen for this.
 People know what’s happening
 and they see what’s happening 
and just before their eyes, 
and there are many instances 
which will be reported very shortly.

Whining for A Very Important Presidential Race
There’s tremendous litigation going on, 
and this is a case where they’re trying 
to steal an election.
 They’re trying to rig an election 
and we can’t let that happen. 
Detroit and Philadelphia, 
known as two of the most corrupt political places 
anywhere in our country easily, '
cannot be responsible for engineering 
the outcome of a presidential race, 
a very important presidential race.

Whining for the Keystoners Again
In Pennsylvania, Democrats have gone to the 
State Supreme Court to try and
ban our election observers and very strongly.
 Now we won the case,
 but they’re going forward. 
They don’t want anybody in there. 
They don’t want anybody watching them as they count 
the ballots, and I can’t imagine why. 
There’s absolutely no legitimate reason 
why they would not want to have people 
watching this process, because if it’s straight, 
they should be proud of it. 
Instead, they’re trying
 obviously to commit fraud. 
There’s no question about that.

Whining for Unhappy and Somewhat Violent People
In Philadelphia, observers have been kept far away, 
very far away. So far that people are 
using binoculars to try and see, 
and there’s been tremendous 
problems caused. They put a 
paper on all of the windows so
you can’t see in, and the people
 that are banned are very unhappy and 
become somewhat violent.

Whining for Circuitry
The Eleventh Circuit ruled that in Georgia, 
the votes have been in by Election Day, 
that they should be in by Election Day, 
and they weren’t. 
Votes are coming in after Election Day. 
And they had a ruling already 
that you have to have the votes 
in by Election Day. 
To the best of my knowledge, 
votes should be in by Election Day, 
and they didn’t do that. 
Democrat officials never 
believed they could win
 this election honestly, 
I really believe that. 
That’s why they did the mail-in ballots, 
where there’s tremendous 
corruption and fraud going on.

Whining for Solicitation
That’s why they mailed out 
tens of millions of unsolicited ballots 
without any verification measures 
whatsoever, and I’ve told everybody 
that these things would happen 
because I’ve seen it happen. 
I watched a lot of different elections 
before they decided to go with 
this big, massive election 
with tens of millions of ballots 
going out 
to everybody. 
In many cases, 
totally unsolicited.

Whining for A Whole Lotta Stuff
This was unprecedented 
in American history. 
This was by design.
 Despite years of claiming 
to care about the election security, 
they refuse to include any requirement 
to verify signatures, identities, or even 
determine whether they’re 
eligible or ineligible to vote. 
People are walking in there, 
they have no idea. 
They just take in the numbers. 
They’re writing down things, 
the workers, and doing a lot of bad things. 
And we have a lot of information coming and
litigation that you’ll see that will shake even 
you people up, and you’ve seen it all.

Whining for the Corruption that Got Me into College
The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania 
and other key states are all part of a 
corrupt Democrat machine that you’ve 
written about. And for a long time, 
you’ve been writing about the 
corrupt 
Democrat 
machine. 
I went to school there 
and I know a lot about it. 
It hasn’t changed since a long time ago 
and hasn’t changed. It has gotten worse.

Whining for Postmarks
In Pennsylvania, partisan Democrats have
allowed ballots in the state 
to be received 
three days after the election, 
and we think much more 
than that, and they’re
counting those without 
even postmarks or any identification 
whatsoever. So 
you don’t have postmarks, 
you don’t have identification.

Whining for Jumping Poll Workers
There have been a number of 
disturbing irregularities 
across the nation. 
Our campaign has been denied access 
to observe any counting in Detroit. 
Detroit is another place, and 
I wouldn’t say 
has the best reputation 
for election integrity. 
Poll workers in Michigan were duplicating 
ballots. But when our observers 
attempted to challenge 
the activity, those poll workers 
jumped in front of the 
volunteers to block their views 
so that they couldn’t see what they were doing
 and it became a little bit dangerous.

Whining for Windows (Do Not Shut Down During Update)
One major hub for counting ballots in Detroit 
covered up the windows again with large 
pieces of cardboard, and 
so they wanted to protect and 
block the counting area. 
They didn’t want anybody
seeing the counting, 
even though these were observers 
who were legal observers 
that were supposed to be there.

Whining for the Changes I Made at the USPS
In Detroit, there were hours 
of unexplained delay 
in delivering many of the votes
 for counting. 
The final batch did not arrive until 
4:00 in the morning. 
And even though the polls 
closed at 8:00 o’clock, 
so they brought it in and 
the batches came in and 
nobody knew where they came from.

Whining for the Love of Biden
We’ve also been denied access 
to observe in critical places in Georgia. 
In multiple swing states, counting was halted for hours
and hours on Election Night. 
With results withheld from major 
Democrat run locations only to appear later,
 and they certainly appeared and they 
all had the name Biden on them, 
or just about all. I think almost all. 
They all had the name Biden on them, 
which is a little strange.

Whining for Challenging Times
I challenge Joe and every Democrat 
to clarify that they only want 
legal votes because they talk 
about votes and I think they 
should use the word 
legal, legal votes. 
We want every legal vote counted, 
and I want every legal vote counted. 
We want openness and transparency, 
no secret count rooms, 
no mystery ballots, 
no illegal votes 
being cast after Election Day. 
You have Election Day and 
the laws are very strong on that. 
You have an Election Day 
and they don’t want votes 
cast after Election Day 
and they want the process
to be an honest one. 
It’s so important.

Whining for Honesty Because Litigation and Stuff
We want an honest election and 
we want an honest count and 
we want honest people working back there 
because it’s a very important job. 
So that’s the way this country is going to win. 
That’s the way the United States will win, 
and we think we will win the election very easily. 
We think there’s going to be a lot of litigation 
because we have so much evidence, 
so much proof, and it’s going to end up 
perhaps at the highest court in the land, 
we’ll see. 
But we think there’ll be a lot of litigation 
because we can’t have an election stolen by like this.

Whining for Size Mattering
And I tell you, the small elections 
were a disaster. Small, very easy to handle 
elections were disastrous. 
This is a large-scale version, 
and it’s getting worse
 and worse every day. 
We’re hearing stories 
that are horror stories, 
absolute horror stories, 
and we can’t let that happen
 to the United States of America.

Whining for Shenanigans
It’s not a question of who wins, 
Republican, 
Democrat, 
Joe, 
myself. 
We can’t let that happen 
to our country. 
We can’t be disgraced 
by having something
 like this happen. 
So it will be hopefully cleared up. 
Maybe soon, I hope soon, 
but it’ll probably go through 
a process, 
a legal process. 
And as you know, 
I’ve claimed certain states and 
he’s claiming states and 
we can both claim the States, 
but ultimately, I have a feeling 
judges are going to have to rule. 
But there’s been a lot of shenanigans 
and we can’t stand for that in our country. 
Thank you very much.

Whining for America
Mr. President?
Why are you undercutting this process, sir?
Are you being a sore loser?