Category Archives: crime news

crime news, national news

What has happened to GOP?

The Iowa caucus results are in and the 45th POTUS is the clear and convincing winner of 2024’s first contest of the presidential cycle.

I had hoped for a different outcome, but … well, it didn’t happen.

Thus I am left to wonder anew about the state of the Republican Party, whose caucus-goers would embrace a man who:

  • Calls a Vietnam War hero a “loser” because he was captured by the enemy.
  • Admits to cheating on all of his wives.
  • Says he might “date” his daughter were he not her father.
  • Mocks a reporter for a physical disability from which he suffers.
  • Says he can grab women by their genitals because he is “famous.”
  • Dismisses the intelligence findings of his spy network of experts in favor of some remarks by the murdering Russian dictator.
  • Boasts about a “love letter” he received from another tyrant, the guy who lets North Koreans suffer.
  • Tosses love at dictators around the world for the “strength” they show in subjugating their people.
  • Pledges to assert authoritarian power “on the first day” of a presidency were he elected at the end of this year.
  • Never once admits he lost the 2020 election and denies his successor the “peaceful transition of power” he deserves.
  • Chastises those who planned the mission to kill Osama bin Laden because they didn’t do it sooner.
  • Threatens to pardon the mobsters facing criminal prosecution for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on our government.
  • Has been impeached twice by the House and faces four indictments on 91 felony criminal counts.

This is the guy Republicans seem to prefer for the office of president of the United States of America?

God help them. And the rest of us, too.

crime news, national news

Whether to nominate a felon

So help me I keep tilting in all directions ruminating over whether a once-great political party should nominate an indicted former POTUS for the job he wants to reclaim.

At the moment, I am inclined to just shrug and say: go ahead and nominate this clown, who well might be a convicted felon by the time the GOP nominating convention sends the ex-POTUS off to be defeated — once again — by President Joe Biden.

The former Liar in Chief keeps insulting judges who are presiding over his pending trials. He keeps hurling epithets at Jack Smith, the special counsel hired by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate allegations of criminal activity.

The one-time BS Artist in Chief will not be elected. All that is left is for President Biden to send him packing once again and have the two-time election loser ponder how he intends his time while fending off the hounds of justice.

These quandaries are difficult to shake. I might wake up in the morning feeling differently … but I doubt it.

crime news

Why seek to delay?

I keep circling back to a strange notion as I watch Donald Trump’s legal team seek to delay all these pending court proceedings.

It is that if Trump is as innocent of wrong doing as he proclaims … why not proceed full throttle to prove the ex-POTUS’s case in court?

Trump’s “delay, delay, delay” strategy seemingly belies his contention that he has done nothing wrong. That the allegations of obstructing justice, of seeking to overturn a free, air and legal election, of coercing local election officials is all part of a government “witch hunt.” He is pure and clean, he says.

OK. If that’s the case, then show us in a court of law … dude.

business news, crime news

Truth about wealth is coming

Donald J. Trump’s actual wealth has been a discussion topic for as long as this clown has been in the public eye … which seems like forever.

Why? Because he brags about it constantly, bringing to my mind the notion that anyone who is truly wealthy doesn’t need to boast openly about it.

So now the former POTUS is on trial for financial fraud. He has been accused of inflating his assets to secure favorable business dealings. Does that surprise anyone, that this pathological liar would falsify his wealth to obtain loans at a favorable rate? Of course not. It doesn’t surprise me in the least, and I don’t even possess a fraction of the wealth that Trump actually has, which I am certain will be a lot less than what he has portrayed.

Against this backdrop we have the spectacle of Trump running for president for the third time. He is the prohibitive favorite for the Republican Party presidential nomination. How that can be is utterly beyond me. But he is.

Will the GOP cult that clings to this clown’s phoniness hang onto him if the trial for which he is being tried in New York end badly? Oh, probably. Because the MAGA morons who back him don’t know any better or refuse to realize they are backing someone who is a shadow of the titan he portrays himself to be.

However, what is unfolding in a New York courtroom is just another preliminary act leading up to the main events. Trials are pending on the pilfering of classified documents and on Trump’s role in the assault on the federal government on 1/6.

Still, the prelims appear to be pretty damn tantalizing in that they likely will reveal the whole truth about the wealth that Trump used to dupe enough voters to elect him POTUS in the first place.

crime news

Resign, Sen. Menendez!

An editor of mine once said that “if someone calls you an ass, blow it off as one person’s opinion. But if everyone around you does, then you’d better start shopping for a saddle.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., has been indicted on bribery charges; so has his wife, Nadine. The ranks of fellow Senate Democrats calling for him to resign has swelled to more than 30.

You know, he ought to just quit. Go home and get ready for a trial that likely is going to send this guy to prison.

It’s instructive to note two other points about Menendez’s current plight. One is that the Republican caucus in Congress has been silent. Hmm. Why is that? Oh, wait! The longer Menendez sits in the Senate, the less time the media will spend looking at assorted scandals and criminal indictments leveled against the former POTUS … who happens to be a Republican.

The other is Menendez was tried once before on corruption charges. His trial ended with a hung jury, meaning that prosecutors couldn’t get all jurors to convict him. So, the case was dismissed. It could have been re-tried. However, a hung jury doesn’t imply innocence in that earlier corruption scandal.

Had the Senate Democratic caucus shown any guts, it would have expelled Menendez from the Senate after the first criminal trial. But they are gutless wonders. They brought him back to the fold and allowed him to function as if nothing had happened.

Now comes the latest criminal indictment alleging that the Menendezes had gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed away along with envelopes stuffed with cash.

This indictment looks serious enough for Menendez to just walk away now and defend himself in court. Yes, he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. However, Menendez is not entitled to remain in the U.S. Senate.

crime news

Trump talking his way to hoosegow?

What I am about to declare is hardly an original thought, but it surely is one that I share … which is that the judge presiding over one of Donald Trump’s four pending trials should consider revoking Trump’s bail and ordering him locked up until he stands trial.

The ex-POTUS recently suggested — and this simply is beyond anything that is remotely reasonable — that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley should be “executed.”

It is as crystal clear as it can possibly be that fines and warnings are not shutting the former POTUS up. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case involving the 1/6 assault on our government, has told Trump to keep his trap shut or else face the prospect of going to trial immediately.

That has had zero impact on Trump’s use of social media to level preposterous allegations against Judge Chutkan, special counsel Jack Smith, the grand jurors who indicted Trump and now Gen. Milley, who is set to retire in a few days from his post as the nation’s leading military officer.

All of this does lead to wonder whether Trump is in command of his faculties. All this blather about President Biden’s age and his alleged loss of mental acuity ignores what appears to be taking shape in the muddled noggin of the nimrod Biden defeated for president in 2020.

Donald Trump’s competence well might become a topic of serious debate. Which means to me that Judge Chutkan, who is known to be a tough jurist who doesn’t suffer fools at all should consider Trump to be such an imminent threat that he needs to be silenced … as in locked up behind bars.

Do I want to see it happen? No. However, I want even less for a criminal defendant with the base of political support that Donald Trump continues to enjoy being able to whip them into a frenzy and, therefore, presenting the opportunity for one of them to act on his crazed rants.

crime news, legal news

Indictments put lie to the obvious

Let us now quash, squash and put the kibosh on any notion that the Justice Department is a tool of the Democratic Party and that it is “weaponized” to target only conservative Republicans.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and his wife, Nadine, have just been indicted on allegations that they took bribes. The DOJ evidence? Agents found gold bars and cash totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in a search of the couple’s home in New Jersey.

This is a big deal, man. Democrats are calling for Menendez to resign. The flames of the political wildfire are accelerating rapidly.

Back to the original point …

Republicans have been pillorying the DOJ because of its investigations into Republicans, namely Donald Trump. GOP and MAGA morons in particular have accused the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland of having it in for the GOP. Garland has said all along that “no one is above the law.” That means Democrats, too.

The indictment of the Menendezes won’t silence the MAGA chorus. I wish it would.

As for the indictment itself, it looks real bad for the 69-year-old senator.

Politico reports the feds well might have the goods on the senator and his wife. Politico reported: While defendants sometimes claim they were unaware of items found in their homes or cars, the indictment suggests that would be a tough sell for the senator. Cash-filled “envelopes were found inside jackets bearing Menendez’s name and hanging in his closet,” prosecutors say. Some of the envelopes contained DNA or fingerprints from one of the men alleged to have bribed Menendez or his driver, the indictment alleges.

Cash, gold and a luxury car: The eye-popping allegations against Bob Menendez – POLITICO

Menendez did step down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Good move, given that so many of the allegations deal with foreign governments.

Should he resign his Senate seat? It looks real bad.

crime news

It only takes one …

Texas senators have 16 chances to rid the state of an embarrassment and they need to agree only one of them to boot state Attorney General Ken Paxton out of the office that, in my view, he has disgraced.

Senators are deliberating today for the second day on the impeachment charges brought by the House of Representatives. It has been a sh** show, clown show and a riveting time as prosecutors and defense counsel have grilled witnesses on allegations that Paxton abused his office.

I believe he has done so … but it isn’t my call, as I am sitting out here in the Collin County peanut gallery awaiting what I hope is a verdict to send the guy packing.

Nine Senate Republicans need to join their Democratic colleagues to convict Paxton on any of the 16 charges, which center mainly on his relationship with Nate Paul, a big-time real estate mogul and campaign contributor.

I’m going to wait patiently for the Senate to do its job. More to come later … I am sure.

crime news

Hunter Biden indicted … so?

What do we make of the three indictments handed down against Hunter Biden, son of the president of the United States?

Do they affect the president’s job directly? No. Do they draw Daddy Biden into Hunter’s web? No.

The indictments come from a grand jury in Delaware operating under the advice of a federal prosecutor appointed by Donald J. Trump. The indictments concern Hunter Biden’s illegal possession of a firearm and the alleged lie he told to obtain the weapon.

Hunter Biden was in the throes of a drug addiction. Federal law prohibits a drug addict from owning a firearm. Hunter Biden filled out a questionnaire that asked him if he had a drug problem. He said “no.” That was the wrong answer.

Yes, this is an embarrassment for the president. I have zero doubt that the MAGA spin machine is going to crank out all sorts of circumstances juxtaposing the president with the illegal conduct of his grown son.  It’s unfair, to be sure … but certainly not unexpected.

Make no mistake about this likely outcome, which is the 2024 presidential campaign just got a good bit murkier.

crime news

Conspiracists are salivating

When in the world are the conspiracy theorists among us going to stop fishing for a quarry that they cannot ever catch?

Or … put another way: When will they stop looking for a second gunman who took part in President Kennedy’s murder nearly 60 years ago in downtown Dallas?

A new book by a former Secret Service agent now proclaims to have evidence of a “magic bullet” that he found in the president’s limousine. Sigh …

Paul Mathis was on duty that day in Dallas and has written an account of what happened.

As the Dallas Morning News said in an editorial published this morning: The investigation that led to the much-criticized Warren Report speculated that the bullet in question passed through Kennedy’s neck, then pierced Texas Gov. John Connally’s back, exited his chest, and also wounded his wrist and thigh. The theory was partly informed by the fact that the bullet was found on a stretcher that may have been the one holding Connally at Parkland Memorial Hospital later that day. The theory held that the bullet came to rest in Connally’s body or clothing after its miraculous journey, and fell out as he was being treated on the stretcher.

I do not believe in conspiracies. Especially not anything related to this dark and horrible incident. I have long believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was capable — given his military training — of firing three bullets from a rifle while sitting on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository building on Nov. 22, 1963. I also believe he was capable of hitting the president with a fatal rifle shot.

What’s more, I also know that bullets do strange and unexplainable things once they pass through human tissue.

Whatever. These conspiracy theories will live long past all of us who are alive today. As the Morning News noted in its editorial: But in 60 years, no tantalizing detail has managed to provide reliable evidence of a conspiracy or a second gunman. None likely ever will.