Archive for the ‘News/opinion’ Category

A Mystery for Elizabeth Spiers and the Times, but No One Else

Posted: August 5, 2021 by datechguy in crime, media, News/opinion, politics
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Elizabeth Spiers at the New York times has written a long essay on Cuomo. She uses 917 words to answer the question that she asks in title:

How Cuomo Got Away With It for So Long

This is a real poser to Ms. Spiers who opines on the subject thus:

Perversely, his abrasiveness may have given him a sort of immunity to consequences until now, at least when it comes to his public image. Any time he exhibits terrible interpersonal behavior, it can be regarded as an intrinsic part of his personality. He’s established a reputation as a jerk who treats people badly, so people shrug when he proves, yet again, that he is a jerk who treats people badly. His behavior is normalized because it seems normal for Andrew Cuomo.

If all of this verbiage sounds familiar it might not be a surprise because you’re read something like it before about

In her experience with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez met a justice system that rarely takes up complaints like the one she put forward in 2015 against Weinstein. Her experience in going to the police with a complaint that she was sexually assaulted and then having her case stall is more the rule than the exception.

With a title that sounds rather familar:

How Harvey Weinstein got away with it for so long

And of course the mystery continues with Matt Lauer:

“He’s angry about what he sees as the media’s unfair treatment of him, and hasn’t been taking things well,” said the source. “He had done a lot of work to repair his relationships with his kids and they’ve been sticking by him.”

“He went from being the biggest deal and being able to do whatever he wanted to being an outcast and it’s been a bitter pill to swallow,” the source continued.

Apparently none of these writers had a clue how they got away with it for so long but the clue to the answer is in the sentence below Ms. Spiers byline:

Ms. Spiers has worked in New York media since the early 2000s.

Now while this is a mystery to these New York Liberals it’s something that the rest of us already know.

He got away with for so long for the same reason that Weinstein, and Lauer, and Clinton and Epstein did because he is a Liberal Democrat who has supported the liberal democrat cause and those who knew what was going on, and I’m sure like Weinstein et all there were plenty in politics, in media, in entertainment and in government, considered him useful a source of money or power and influence and both

At best a lot of folks on the left are in denial at the moment worst they are covering themselves with phony displays of shock and disbelief.

Now I don’t know Ms. Spiers, it’s possible that she knew all about Cuomo and Weinstein, and Lauer and others it’s possible that she heard rumors and ignored them and it’s even possible that she knew absolutely nothing Cuomo and all the there. I have no idea one way or the other, but there is one thing I do know.

I know that sooner or later another prominent Democrat pol, or operative or donor who has spent years doing exactly what Cuomo was doing will suddenly no longer be useful to the party and when that time comes we will see another opinion piece by another New York Liberal titled: How did they get away with it for so long.

Unexpectedly of course.

Electronic monitoring for violent criminals in Chicago and Cook County is a failure

Posted: August 1, 2021 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

The far-left has taken over many elected prosecutor’s offices, including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles County, Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, where Chicago is the county seat.

As I sadly live in Crook County I’m going focus on Foxx, Cook County’s state’s attorney and Jussie Smollett’s protector, who among other things, refuses to prosecute shoplifters with a felony unless they are accused of stealing merchandise worth more than $1,000.

Foxx is also a huge supporter of electronic monitoring of criminal suspects.

Small-time crooks often move on to bigger crimes. The “broken-windows” practice of policing that Rudy Giuliani put into place during his eight years as mayor of New York–his cops aggressively cracked down on petty criminals–led to a major decrease in violent crime. In the years before Rudy’s election NYC averaged over 2,000 murders annually. His successor, Michael Bloomberg, largely kept Guiliani’s policies in place. When Bloomberg left office in 2013 there were just 333 murders in America’s largest city. The murder rate has gone up with Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York but that’s a post for another time. 

The soft-on-crime approach of Foxx has been a disaster for Cook County residents, particular minorities who Foxx claims to champion. According to Hey Jackass there have been 467 homicides after the first seven months of 2021. Of the victims 83 percent of them were black and 13 percent were Hispanic. 

Bail is often light under Foxx and her prosecutors. Bad people who yes, have not yet been convicted of the crimes they are accused of, are being released with low bail or under electronic monitoring. 

Even Cook County’s sheriff, Democrat Tom Dart, doesn’t think electronic monitoring should be utilized the way Foxx is using it. “We were handed this thing—we didn’t ask for it,” Dart told NBC Chicago last week. “This is not what it was designed for The program was never designed for violent people.” And yet that is what is being done. 

More from NBC Chicago:

Nevertheless, numbers provided by the sheriff’s office show that on a recent day this month,100 murder suspects were free on electronic monitoring. Another 106 suspects were out in the community charged with criminal sexual assault, 547 charged as felons in possession of a weapon, and 263 as armed habitual criminals.

Let me repeat the first two: There are 100 people accused of murder who are free on electronic surveillance in Cook County. And what happened to the #MeToo movement? There are 106 people charged with criminal sexual assault on home arrest right in the county where I live.

Some of those on electronic monitoring in Cook County have eluded surveillance, including a man who escaped from electronic monitoring a few days after agreeing to it; he has since been charged with shooting a man in the face. Then there is the man accused of attempting to murder a cop who escaped from house arrest who was later found with an auto-fire gun. It gets worse. A man on electronic monitoring for a gun charge was charged with a murder during a home invasion.

Then there is this bizarre twist on electronic monitoring. Last month just a few minutes after being fitted with an electronic surveillance device rapper KTS Dre was shot–Sonny Corleone-style–64 times outside Cook County Jail. Clearly the rapper was better off being locked up. But Dre wasn’t the only person shot, two women were wounded in that attack. 

Can crimes be committed by people who stay home during their electronic home confinement? Of course! A woman selling cars on Facebook was lured to the home of a man on electronic monitoring. “Give me everything. You don’t f*cking move,” the accused allegedly warned. He also told the man who accompanied the salesperson, “Tell your b*tch not to move or I’ll shoot her too.”

As bad as Kim Foxx is–and she is indeed horrible–the ultimate responsibility for this public safety debacle belongs to Cook County voters–not me of course–who blindly voted Democrat party-line and returned Foxx to office last autumn. 

The warning signs on Foxx were there.

Chicago mayor’s Lori Lightfoot weak-on-crime policies deserve condemnation too. The man she chose to run the Chicago Police, David Brown, who for the most part has done a rotten job, did express some wisdom last week when he asked, “How many people think it’s OK to have over 90 people on electronic monitoring that we’ve charged with murder released back into our communities?”

The local mainstream media, NBC Chicago being an exception, is either ignoring or minimizing the crimes in Cook County being committed by accused criminals under house arrest. Many thanks to CWB Chicago for regularly reporting on this issue. After all, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Mind of Russia & China

Posted: July 31, 2021 by datechguy in News/opinion
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Once Senator Milton Young of North Dakoda said to him: “You people of the South are much more militarily minded than in the North.” “Milt”, Russell replied, “you’d be militarily minded too if Sherman had crossed North Dakoda

Robert A Caro: The Years of Lyndon Johnson , Master of the Senate 2003 page 180

There is no denying that both China and Russia (but especially China) has been our primary enemy for decades. I had military men during the height of the Cold War tell me that China was in fact our primary problem, but as we deal with what they are doing and why we have to keep two things in mind.

We look at all of these things through an American lens, but for a moment consider this lens that the Russians and Chinese use.

In each of the last two centuries Russia has been invaded by the premier military power of the age, Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1941, and these invaders pushed deep into the country Napoleon even taking Moscow.

Driving them out took millions of lives and tons of treasure. While most ordinary Russians didn’t have a lot of use for the communists they knew what is was to be invaded and what it meant. This trauma was the single most unifying force within a country for a government that was oppressing its own people and was used to the hilt and I’m not even dealing with the trauma of losing wars to Poland and Japan AND Germany (remember before the Communist revolution Russia had surrendered to Germany) early in the last century.

Now the Russian empire is gone, the Soviet Union is gone and historic parts of even the pre-soviet empire are gone but you better damn well believe that Russia has not forgotten these things and that when Putin acts to subdue and compromise Europe the Russian people have in the back of their minds the idea that everything that slows them down means that much less of a chance that they will have do deal with this cycle again.

China is a tad different, you had the great attempt to carve up China in the late 19th and early 20th century which subordinated China for the sake of trade to foreign powers is an annoyance but like other colonial enterprises brought both technology and as evidenced by Hong Kong advancement, but if you want to find something that unites ethnic Chinese, both Communist and anti-communist its the memory of World War 2 and their occupation by Japan.

American and British POW can testify to the cruelty of the Japanese toward them during World War 2 but that pales compared to what China suffered during that time. Japan moved without mercy against and who stood against them or were even just in the way. This cruelty is in living memory and the Communist Party having murdered tens of millions of their own people has every reason to highlight these acts by Japan to keep their mind off of what they have done and are doing themselves. (This incidentally is why China’s move to threaten Japan, while foolish, is good PR internally because while Japan fell and was occupied, China didn’t get the revenge they wanted and I suspect will not forgive us for rebuilding them into one of the greatest technological powers of all time. You only have to look at their reaction to Japanese victories at the Olympics to see that this hatred is alive and well.

The Best part for both Russia and China is that what they suffered was so horrible that they don’t have to exaggerate it to sell it to the people. They’ve heard the stories from parents and grandparents and don’t need to state to color it.

Does any of this excuse the actions of Putin or Xi? Nope, but if you’re going to check their ambitions to surpass and subordinate us it’s useful to know what makes them tick and one of the things that makes them do so is the determination that NOBODY is ever going to do what the French, Nazis and Japanese ever did to them again.

I think half the battle for us is to (correctly) assure the people of both of those nations that nothing is farther from our mind.

The COVID Vaccine Logic Pretzels

Posted: July 30, 2021 by datechguy in News/opinion

So let’s get this straight…

We are being told that if you get the vaccine for the Chinese Covid Virus you should wear a mask and avoid contact to keep from getting or spreading the disease you are being vaccinated for because you can still get and/or spread said virus despite the vaccine.

Yet we are being told at the same time that if you DON’T have the vaccine you not only risk getting the disease but are a danger to others. We are being told this is true even if you have had the disease and thus your body already has the antibodies for this disease whose generation is the purpose of getting said vaccine. Moreover we are being told this even though we are regularly getting reports of fully vaccinated people getting the disease and being made to quarantine in the sports world.

Now I have a degree in computer science but you don’t need such a degree to see the illogic of this.

That people are actually falling for this in an indictment of our educational system and/or our ability of self delusion, so lets cut to the chase and untangle this logic pretzel:

The reality is these vaccines are glorified flu shots.

Now there is nothing wrong with glorified flu shots, they are useful to have around and for people of particularly high risk of death from the Chinese COVID virus are a Godsend.

It should also be noted that given the emergency with the outbreak of COVID the fact that we even have glorified flu shots at this point is pretty impressive and said shots and both the safety and the effectiveness of these shots are bound to increase over time as the scientists who have worked and continue to work on them get more and better data through testing and experimentation. I’m betting that by 2024 or 25 the ratio of side effects vs effectiveness will be the same or better as an actual flu shot.

But given the increased risks over a standard flu shot and the fact that we are constantly hearing of fully vaccinated people not only testing positive but being told that they should be under restriction I can’t see a credible argument for getting this shot if you are:

Not at high risk

OR

Have already had COVID

Moreover given the financial and political incentives out there and the credibility of those involved I’d be careful of any pronouncements people give on the subject (feel free to apply that standard to this post).

So in conclusion:

If you’ve considered these facts and decided that currently the benefits for you outweigh the risks and decide to get one of the shots that’s fine, it’s up to you.

If you’ve decided that they currently don’t and choose not to get the shot or to defer until such a time as they do that’s fine and up to you.

Oh and If you base your decision on getting the shot on politics that’s up to you and who knows the decision you make might still be the correct one for you based on your own risk/reward standards….,but you’re an idiot.

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