The towns of Greece and Gates are next door neighbors in Monroe County New York and homes of the blog’s founding blogger and yours truly, respectively. So take this as what it is, a cheap shot.
In Gates, our Chief of Police makes arrests from Rebecca Fath, WHEC:
The men and women of the Gates Police Department have been very busy this week. Around New Year’s Eve especially, they dealt with a large fight, a police vehicle being damaged and a stabbing. But story behind another crime that night led to the chief himself getting out his handcuffs.
Chief James Van Brederode says, “When you give them that calming effect, that things will go smooth if you just cooperate, that I think has a lot to do with how people react to you.”
That’s how Chief Van Brederode arrested convicted felon Rufino Lopez at the scene of a crime police say he committed two hours earlier. Police say Lopez met a woman at a bar on New Year’s Eve. The two went back to an apartment where he’s accused of assaulting and raping her.
Whereas in Greece, Eric’s Chief of Police got arrested, convicted and served time, from Cop Blog:
For years he ran the Greece, NY Police department the “Good ol’ boys club” way.
Former Greece, NY Police Chief Merritt Rahn, now a convicted criminal who has served about 2 1/2 years in State prison for four felonies and three misdemeanors related to his cover-up of serious crimes committed by two of his former officers, has been granted parole.
Greece is a nice place to live, but they sure did hire one stupid chief of police.
Congress has gotten a wee bit smarter. The dumbest woman in Congress, one Carolyn McCarthy has retired, from Useless Toady:
MINEOLA, N.Y. – Early in her congressional career, Carolyn McCarthy’s plea – rare in politics – was, “Let me go home!” That is, pass gun control laws and let me retire, having done what I came to Washington to do.
Now, after 18 years, she finally is going home, back to the gray clapboard house where she grew up, settled after marriage, raised a child and received condolences after her husband was shot down in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre.
This is simple. The Widow McCarthy was widowed because of gun control. Her husband’s murder, Colin Ferguson, picked a murder venue where he felt confident that he would be the only person with a gun and with plenty of white targets. Yet despite beginning widowed by gun control, the Widow McCarthy made gun control her political cause.
Background, from Wikipedia:
On December 7, 1993, [Colin] Ferguson purchased a ticket for the 5:33 p.m. east-bound train at the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. This train stopped at the Jamaica Station in Queens. Ferguson boarded the third car of the east-bound Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) commuter train from Penn Station to Mineola, along with more than 80 other passengers. Ferguson, who sat on the southwestern end of the car,[13] was carrying his handgun and a canvas bag filled with 160 rounds of ammunition.[6][14] As the train approached the Merillon Avenue Station, Ferguson drew the gun, dropped several cartridges on the ground, stood up, and opened fire at random. During the next three minutes, Ferguson killed six people and injured another 19. Some passengers mistook the gunshots for caps or fireworks until a woman shouted, “He’s got a gun! He’s shooting people!”[13] Ferguson walked east on the train, pulling the trigger steadily about every half second. Several passengers tried to hide beneath their seats, while others fled to the eastern end of the train and tried to go into the next car. Ferguson walked down the aisle of the train and shot people to his right and left as he passed each seat, briefly facing each victim before firing. The New York Times later wrote the motions were “as methodical as if he were taking tickets”.[13] Ferguson said, “I’m going to get you”, over and over as he walked down the aisle.[14]
New York’s gun control did not make Dennis McCarthy’s Long Island Railroad coach safe for me, nor would his widow’s gun control made life safer for any law abiding citizen.
Two political campaigns, albeit both losing, two political icons, one national and one partisan. and two speeches. Up first Mario Cuomo at age 52 in 1984, video:
Next, Ronald Reagan at age 53 in 1964, video:
Compare and contrast, funny Cuomo’s speech is the singular speech for which is noted In contrast, Reagan’s speech was neither his best, nor most remembered. Cuomo’s speech marked his political peak. Reagan’s his national political debut. Cuomo spent his speech attacking straw men and attributing evil thoughts to those dastardly republicans. Reagan was simply Reagan. Well done Mr. President.
Mayor Bill, b/k/a New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio thinks the New York City Police Department is the problem, from Heather Mac Donald, New York Daily News:
Following the nonindictment of Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the lethal arrest of Eric Garner last July, de Blasio said that Garner’s death and the grand jury’s failure to indict sprung from “not years of racism . . . , or decades of racism, but centuries of racism.” The mayor worries “every night,” he said, about the “dangers” his biracial son, Dante, may face from “officers who are paid to protect him.”
In other words, de Blasio thinks that his son is at risk of injury or death from an NYPD officer every time he steps outside at night. And he sees the officers who tried to arrest a resisting Garner as the culmination of centuries of racism, even though the shopkeepers in the area who had been urging the police to clear up lawlessness were mostly minorities themselves.
In turn , Mayor Bill’s paid lacky and police commissioner, William Bratton, thinks the NYPD also the problem, Useless Toady:
Ahead of Sunday’s funeral for slain NYPD officer Wenjian Liu, New York Police Commissioner William Bratton has asked officers to show respect when Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks at the event.
“I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that go with it,” Bratton wrote Friday in a memo sent to officers. Saturday’s wake and Sunday’s funeral for Liu are expected to draw thousands of mourners and police officers from around the country.
Bratton must think loyalty is a one way street. Whereas Mayor Bill living behind the fence of Gracie Mansion, owe no respect to the thirty five thousand NYPD officers who put their lives on the line to protect both Mayor Bills and the citizens of Gotham.
Snark of the Day from Ralph Peters:
“[Barack Obama] tried to romance [Vladamir] Putin and he got date-raped.”
Source and video: Mediaite
There are three sixty-four days left this year, but the colonel is in good shape for take the Snark of the Year.
New York City’s finest, the New York Police Department are engaged in a work slow down and all the Mayor Bill de Blasio seems to care about whether he getting his full ration of respect, from Murray Weiss, DNAinfo:
NEW YORK CITY — While Mayor Bill de Blasio was personally coaxing the city’s police union presidents to meet with him, his top aides were on the phones with lawmakers urging them to blast PBA President Patrick Lynch and other officers for turning their backs on the mayor following the assassinations of two of New York’s Finest, DNAinfo New York has learned.
As late as Monday afternoon — the same time de Blasio was speaking with police union leaders to set up Tuesday’s détente to possibly mend their fractured relationship — the mayor’s government affairs honchos were privately cold-calling the city’s Democratic delegation of city and state elected officials, asking them to publicly criticize Lynch and those officers who dissed the mayor.
From the New York Post, via Moe Lane:
It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.
NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.
The dramatic drop comes as Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio plan to hold anemergency summit on Tuesday with the heads of the five police unions to try to close the widening rift between cops and the administration.
Moe’s reactiopn:
I’m not really fond of this kind of strategy, mind you. ‘Course, ‘traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses’ have remarkably fewer connotations of ‘inchoate dread and low-grade apprehension’ for me than they do for the average cop; as I understand it, the sheer randomness of a violent encounter springing from a traffic stop is particularly disquieting to law enforcement personnel. Whether or not the first sentence is more important than the second is something that I’ll leave to my readers. Certainly everybody has an opinion about the cops these days
I believe much, too much, law enforcement is not done to protect public safety but rather as a revenue stream for government. In Gotham’s blue flue is not impairing public safety, New York City may well be over policed.
The envelope please, and now for the coveted Bitsblog Snark of the Year from Howard Dean:
“The core problem under the damn law[Obama Care] is it was put together by a bunch of elitists who don’t fundamentally understand the American people. That’s what the problem is.”
Hat tip: Washington Free Beacon
What constitutes the proper civilized response to a barbarian act? Lord if I know. Looks like the Los Angeles Police Department tried to thread that needle. from Doug Powers @ Michelle Malkin:
Anti-police protesters call the police after road blockade goes bad
All you need for vigilant style justice to appear to the absence, apparent or real, of a functioning criminal justice system. Breaking the laws, as in blocking a public thoroughfare and then calling for police assistance, puts the police in no win situation. Any actions the police take, or do not take, will require take one side over the other.
Addendum: Commentary by John Hawkins, Right Wing News:
It’s not right to treat the police like they’re the bad guys AND expect them to protect you from the bad guys while people you’ve whipped up are trying to assassinate them.
So even if you wouldn’t normally support this kind of thing, this is a much needed reality check and I won’t criticize it.
Even, if you assume that everything the communist rabble says about the police is true, we still need the police more than we do the rabble.
I don’t get to pick the next President. Rather all I can do it to support the best alternative. Such is life. I am not now, nor expect to be a Jeb Bush fan. That said, Bush’s emergence been encouraging
Washington (CNN) — Jeb Bush is the clear Republican presidential frontrunner, surging to the front of the potential GOP pack following his announcement that he’s “actively exploring” a bid, a new CNN/ORC poll found.
He takes nearly one-quarter — 23% — of Republicans surveyed in the new nationwide poll, putting him 10 points ahead of his closest competitor, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who tallied 13%.
RELATED: Read the entire CNN/ORC poll here
Physician Ben Carson comes in third, with 7% support, and Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are both tied for fourth with 6%.
I like that Bush stealing the wind from the RINO crowd, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, and the kook from Kentucky, Rand Paul.
Addendum, Eric
Any questions, class?
Hey let us ban DDT, and save the little birdies, from Associated Press:
Figures are always estimates in Guinea, where half the 12 million people have no access to health centers and die uncounted. Some 15,000 Guineans died from malaria last year, 14,000 of them children under five, according to Nets for Life Africa, a New York-based charity dedicated to providing insecticide-treated mosquito nets to put over beds. In comparison, about 1,600 people in Guinea have died from Ebola, according to statistics from the World Health Organization.
Malaria is the leading cause of death in children under five in Guinea and, after AIDS, the leading cause of adult deaths, according to Nets for Life.
Fourteen thousand children are a fair price to pay to save some bird eggs. Planned Parenthood would be proud.
Bernie Sander (socialist – Vermont) wants to run for President:
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’ll decide by March whether to launch a 2016 presidential campaign and, if so, whether he’ll seek the Democratic nomination. Either way, Sanders says he wouldn’t run just to nudge the debate to the left.
Run Bernie run. Make Mrs. Clinton defend her left flank.
Blondie, b/k/a Ann Coulter, tells us what she really thinks of Kwanzaa, from Daily Caller:
Ann Coulter
It’s as if David Duke invented a holiday called “Anglika,” which he based on the philosophy of “Mein Kampf” — and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.
From Wikipedia:
According to University of Minnesota Professor Keith Mayes, the author of Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition, the popularity within the US has “leveled off” as the black power movement there has declined, and now between half and two million people celebrate Kwanzaa in the US, or between one and five percent of African Americans. Mayes adds that white institutions now celebrate it.[7]
Maybe we should celebrate every July 13 as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day? After all, one racist holiday deserves another, and we don’t have any national holiday in honor a singular white man. Over due.
Roman Polanski confessed and convicted rapist and fugitive from justice thinks forty-two days is an ample sentence for statutory rape, from Reuters:
Polanski, 81, was charged in 1977 with raping a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles after plying her with champagne and drugs. He pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor.
But the director of such films as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown” fled to France before sentencing, fearing the judge would impose more prison time than the 42 days he had spent behind bars for a psychiatric evaluation.
Lawyers for the French-born director argued that he has served his sentence and that he need not be present in court for the case to close officially. There is a warrant for Polanski’s arrest in the United States.
I think Roman should best stay in France. They deserve the rapist.
A little warning from someone who used to be held as a hero….
There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
-Brooker T Washington
Faux Rape, first at Duke and now University of Virginia Time line: on 19 Nov. Rolling Stone published a fabricated story of a gang rape on the University of Virginia campus; in response, UVA president, Teresa Sullivan, suspended all fraternities and sororities on campus.
Now it appears that the Rolling Stone story was planted by UVA campus sexual assault awareness project coordinator Emily Renda from Chuck Ross, Daily Caller:
The initial idea for a bombshell — but now debunked — Rolling Stone article about a gang-rape at the University of Virginia departed drastically from its original intent, university emails show.
The emails, obtained by The Daily Caller through a Freedom of Information request, show UVA campus sexual assault awareness project coordinator Emily Renda informing the university’s PR department about her communications with Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the Rolling Stone reporter.
In other words, Sullivan wanted an excuse to shut down all fraternities and her campus sexual assault awareness project coordinator, all in time for Christmas.
