Sunday, March 31, 2013

You're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's Easter time, too


'You can just imagine the double shock'

There was music in the cafes at night, and revolution in the air - Dylan

Forney, Kaufman County, Texas – Evan Ebel did his natural time on a 4-year bit for punching a Colorado prison guard in 2008. They turned him loose in January.

Cops say he killed a pizza delivery man, then rang the doorbell at the home of Tom Clements, the Colorado prisons chief, and shot the man down in a cold rush of hot blood.

That's what they are all saying, and now they're starting to quote one another, because ballistics tests show he used the same gun to fire at cops after a chase in which he wheeled a black Cadillac over Texas highways at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.

The Governor of Colorado broke down and cried real tears because the prisons chief and Ebel's daddy, Jack, are both his friends. That's what they all told each other.

Two months ago, a hit squad of masked men dressed in black shot veteran organized crime prosecutor Mark Hasse in the parking lot of the Kaufman County Courthouse in this farming community just south of Dallas, then fled in a silver-colored four-door sedan.

Mr. Hasse was for many years a key prosecutor in the Dallas DA's office, where he specialized in organized crime cases.

Deputies sat in parked cars in the driveway of Mike McClelland's home near the cotton gin town of Forney, guarding he and his wife against a similar attack, but called off their vigil after about a month.

Almost to the day two months after the January 31 attack on the prosecutor, authorities found Mr. McClelland and his wife shot to death in their home.

They aren't talking, now.

The matter is under investigation. They only say things like this.

It is a shock,” Chief Chris Aulbaugh told The Dallas News. “It was a shock with Mark Hasse, and now you can just imagine the double shock, and until we know what happened, I really can’t confirm that it’s related, but you always have to assume until it’s proven otherwise.”
But the newsmen go on quoting one another, saying there could be some connection between the killing of a prison boss in Colorado and two hardboiled prosecutors in a Texas cotton town.

Here is what Evan Ebel's dad had to say about his son when he testified before Colorado legislators about limiting the amounts of time convicts are held in solitary confinement – a condition which, it's agreed, drives men plumb crazy over any significant period, grinds them down, makes them pitiful, harmless, easy to manage.

What I've seen over six years is he has become increasingly...he has a high level of paranoia and (is) extremely anxious. So when he gets out to visit me, and gets out of his cell to talk to me, I mean he is so agitated that it will take an hour-and-half before we can actually talk.”

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Department of Ceramics in the dialect of high glaze

Obama's gun control proposals 'reflect the President's commitment to the Second Amendment'... - spokesman

Constitutionalist sheriffs nationwide - 381 of them - have come forward and boldly stated they will enforce no new gun control measures. According to the White House, there are no worries because - you see - the proposed gun controls reflect the President's commitment to the Second Amendment...

Thursday, March 28, 2013

YouTube privacy policy leads to warning for Legendary



Bulletin: As instructed by YouTube, The Legendary edited the title information in the Dashcam video furnished by the Texas Department of Public Safety to eliminate Mr. Gooden's name within the 48-hour time period specified.

Publishing a DPS dashcam video released under the provisions of the Texas Open Records Act is possibly a violation of an area school administrator's privacy, according to YouTube, an on-line video broadcasting service.

In the video, a State Trooper arrests Mart School District Superintendent Todd Gooden and his wife, Mr. Gooden for driving while intoxicated, Mrs. Gooden for public intoxication.


Legendary Reporter R.S. Gates obtained a copy of the dashcam video under the provisions of the Texas Open Records Act, Section 552 of the Local Government Code, as well as copies of the “first page” offense and arrest reports.

The Legendary published a news story about the matter as an item gleaned from the public record.

In the video, Mr. Gooden denies having done any drinking after the trooper confronts him about nearly hitting his car where it was parked by the side of the road on I-35 near Bellmead. He claims they have been to a movie.

He gave a blood alcohol content sample, which was many percentage points over the legal limit for driving under the influence.

When the trooper questioned Mrs. Gooden, he asked if Mr. Gooden had been drinking, and she said he had, but not anywhere near as much as she had.

Then she contradicted Mr. Gooden's earlier assertion that they had been to a movie. She said they had been drinking at a popular downtown night spot named Crickett's.

In an e-mail sent at 10:12 a.m. On Thursday, March 28, YouTube has ordered The Legendary to either remove all mention of the names of the people on the video within 48 hours, or remove it altogether from the account. We reproduce their letter of warning here.

Dear Jim Parks,

This is to notify you that we have received a privacy complaint from an  
individual regarding your content:

-------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------

We would like to give you an opportunity to review the content in question  
and remove any personal information that may be used to uniquely identify  
or contact the complainant.

You have 48 hours to take action on the complaint. If you remove the  
alleged violation from the site within the 48 hours, the complaint filed  
will then be closed. If the potential privacy violation remains on the site  
after 48 hours, the complaint will be reviewed by the YouTube Team and may  
be removed pursuant to our Privacy Guidelines  

(http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_guidelines). For content to be considered  
for removal, an individual must be uniquely identifiable by image, voice,  
full name, Social Security number, bank account number or contact  
information (e.g., home address, email address). Examples that would not  
violate our privacy guidelines include gamer tags, avatar names, and  
address information in which the individual is not named. We also take  
public interest, newsworthiness, and consent into account when determining  
if content should be removed for a privacy violation.

If the alleged violation is located within the video itself, you may have  
to remove the video completely. If someone's full name or other personal  
information is listed within the title, description, or tags of your video,  
you can edit this by going to My Videos and clicking the Edit button on the  
reported video. Making a video private is not an appropriate method of  
editing, as the status can be changed from private to public at any time.  
Because they can be turned off at any time, annotations are also not  
considered an acceptable solution.

We're committed to protecting our users and hope you understand the  
importance of respecting others' privacy. When uploading videos in the  
future, please remember not to post someone else's image or personal  
information without their consent. For more information, please review our  

Vigilantes arrest cops, seize town to avenge killing


Tierra Colorado, Guerrero – Bullets ripped into a car carrying a load of tourists to an Acapulco beach when the driver refused to stop at a makeshift roadside checkpoint located on the highway between Mexico City and the cliffside tourist Mecca.

Slightly wounded, one of their number got medical aid only after he got further down the road from a scene of bloody insurrection that is sweeping this area after more than 1,500 vigilantes, who call themselves community police, seized the director of security and 12 police officers in raids on their homes.

They confiscated a number of assault weapons and high-powered sniper rifles in a search of the police chief's home and car.

The attack came in retaliation for the killing of  a citizen police leader named Guadalupe Quinones Carbajal, allegedly by police acting at the direction of organized crime groups.

In an earlier attack, vigilantes burst into a lounge in the Acapulco area and killed federal police during a raid that left a half dozen dead.

We have besieged the municipality, because here criminals operate with impunity in broad daylight, in view of municipal authorities,” said Bruno Placido Valerio, according to news reports.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Lawyers say Aurora theater shooter will plead guilty


DENVER  — Lawyers for Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes said Wednesday he would plead guilty and serve the rest of his life in prison to avoid the death penalty.
The offer comes just days before the prosecution was set to announce whether they would seek to have Holmes put to death for the attack that killed 12 people and injured 70.
Prosecutors wouldn't say Wednesday whether they'd go along with a plea deal, and likely will consult with victims and their families before deciding whether to accept the offer.

Dallas Legislator checks Sheriffs in gun vows

Rep. Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas), is proposing legislation that would remove any sheriff or law enforcement officer who refuses to enforce state or federal law. Keep in mind, sheriffs are elected by the people, not appointed by bureaucrats. In other words, the proposed bill would remove elected officials from office unless they enforce laws they feel violate the Constitution.

Rep. Yvonne Davis
If found “guilty,” a court shall remove the person from office and disqualify them from public office for a period of 10 years.


Sec. 66.004. FAILURE TO ENFORCE STATE OR FEDERAL LAW. (a) For purposes of Section 66.001, a person holding an elective or appointive office of this state or of a political subdivision of this state does an act that causes the forfeiture of the person’s office if the person:
(1) wilfully fails to enforce a state or federal law in the course of the person’s official duties;
(2) directs others subject to the person’s supervision or control as a public official not to enforce a state or federal law; or

(3) states orally or in writing that the person does not intend to enforce a state or federal law in the course of the person’s official duties.
(b) For purposes of this section, “law” includes any rule, regulation, executive order, court order, statute, or constitutional provision.
(c) This section does not apply to a law:
(1) that has been held to be invalid by a court with jurisdiction over the territory served by the officer; or
(2) the validity of which is currently being challenged in a court with jurisdiction over the territory served by the officer.
(d) The attorney general or appropriate county or district attorney shall file a petition under Section 66.002 against an officer to which Subsection (a) applies if presented with evidence, including evidence of a statement by the officer, establishing probable cause that the officer engaged in conduct described by Subsection (a). The court in which the petition is filed shall give precedence to proceedings relating to the petition in the same manner as provided for an election contest under Section 23.101, Government Code.
(e) If the person against whom an information is filed based on conduct described by Subsection (a) is found guilty as charged, the court shall enter judgment removing the person from office and disqualifying the person from public office for a period of 10 years.

- Submitted by Ricky Moore, McLennan County Militia

Tenth Amendment - nullification for lawyers - et. al.


A recent article(click here) by Cato Institute chairman Robert Levy published by Investor’s Business Daily provides a ray of sunlight for supporters of nullification.
Instead of taking the position of most folks in mainstream political organizations and denouncing nullification in all situations, the CATO head offers support for the principles, at least some of the time.
Levy acknowledges that the federal government cannot force states to enforce or enact federal law.
Are states required to enforce federal laws and enact regulatory programs that Congress mandates? The answer on both counts is “No.”
In the 1997 case, Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not command state law enforcement authorities to conduct background checks on prospective handgun purchasers.
In the 1992 case, New York v. United States, the Court ruled that Congress couldn’t require states to enact specified waste disposal regulations.
But Levy stops short of approving nullification efforts that would actively block implementation of unconstitutional federal acts. He contends that an act remains constitutional until a federal court declares otherwise. He makes a solid argument from a lawyer’s perspective, but understanding nullification requires a historical perspective that often gets buried in American jurisprudence. Perhaps a slight shift in the theoretical framework will move CATO all the way into the nullification camp.
Like most lawyers, Levy believes that the Supreme Court makes the final and definitive decision on the constitutionality of an act. This makes perfect sense from a legal perspective. Lawyers rely on court precedent to build arguments, and modern American jurisprudence holds that the Court determined early on that it was the ultimate judge of constitutionality.  But the argument falls apart when placed in the framework within which political power was delegated in the American system. In essence, the Court claimed power for itself that it never had the authority to claim in the first place. Furthermore, most legal scholars and attorneys badly misconstrue the case cited as the root of federal court supremacy.
We find the first fatal flaw in Levy’s argument early on when he confuses Jefferson and Madison’s reasoning in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. Levy writes:
But consider those resolutions in context: Jefferson and Madison had argued that the states must have the final word because the Constitution had not expressly established an ultimate authority on constitutional matters.
Jefferson and Madison did not base their principles of nullification on the fact that the Constitution had not established an ultimate authority. They based their principles on the fact that the people of the states ARE the ultimate authority – not the federal government they created. Jefferson makes this clear in the first few lines of the Kentucky Resolution of 1798.
The several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government…the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.
Madison makes the same point in his report of 1800.
The States then being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently that as the parties to it, they must themselves decide in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.
Nullification follows from the delegation of power in the American system. The sovereign people first created independent, sovereign political societies – States – and delegated powers to their state governments. Then, the people, through those preexisting political societies, delegated specific, enumerated powers to a general government in order to form a union. The ratifiers made it clear that their states were only giving up sovereignty over those objects delegated to the federal government, and that they retained ALL powers not delegated. And they insisted on amendments (The Ninth and Tenth) to make this explicit.
If the federal government gets to decide the extent of its own power, through its own judicial branch, and the people of the states possess no mechanism to hold its creature in check, the whole notion of a federal government with limited enumerated powers becomes a farce.
Jefferson understood this.
Madison understood this.
And both advanced the principles of nullification because they recognized the absolute necessity for a check on federal power.
But Levy insists that the federal government itself decides the extent of his own power. Like most lawyers, he bases this notion on court precedent starting with Marbury v. Madison.
Four years later (after the drafting of the resolutions) in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall resolved that oversight (of not establishing an ultimate authority). He wrote: ‘It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ Since then, instead of 50 individual states effecting their own views regarding constitutionality, we have one Supreme Court establishing a uniform rule for the entire nation.
Levy, along with most lawyers and legal experts, rip one sentence out of context from Marshall’s opinion and find in it authority for the Supreme Court to stand as the exclusive and final judge on the extent of federal power. But even if you accept the bizarre notion that a political body can vest power in itself on its own whim, this was not Marshall’s intent.
One cannot pull a statement out of a specific court case, addressing a specific issue, and generalize it to encompass the entire American political system. A court rules for the parties in a case, not the United States as a whole.  Marshall was answering a specific question: does the Court have the authority to consider the constitutionality of an act when ruling on a case. At issue was a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and whether the Court had original jurisdiction to decide if a writ of mandamus could be issued to force Madison to hand over Marbury’s commission. Some argued the court should just consider the law – the Judiciary Act itself – and not the Constitution.  Marshall defended his decision to rule based on the Constitution.
The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the Constitution.
Could it be the intention of those who gave this power to say that, in using it, the Constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the Constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?
This is too extravagant to be maintained.
Clearly, the courts possess the authority to judge the constitutionality of an act. Nobody disputes that. But notice an important point: nowhere does Marshall assert that the Court stands as the SOLE or FINAL judge of constitutionality. In fact, he maintains that the Constitution also binds the Court itself.
The particular phraseology of the Constitution…confirms and strengthens the principle…that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
So, what happens if the Court slips free of the bonds of that instrument? Does no remedy exist for the people of the states? Can those who delegated powers to the federal government in the first place muster no defense? Must the sovereign bow down in submission to its creation? No. As Madison asserted, the parties that created the federal government and delegated all of its power MUST determine the extent of that power in the last resort.
Furthermore: dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the judicial department also may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority, as well as by another; by the judiciary, as well as by the executive, or the legislature.
However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department, is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial as well as the other departments hold their delegated trusts.
Madison argued that we cannot raise judicial authority above the authority of the sovereign parties to the Constitution without also raising the other federal departments above it as well. This is basically the modern legal position: until the Supreme Court says otherwise ANY act of the federal government stands supreme. They rely totally on the Supreme Court to limit federal power. We find one of two assumptions implicit in this idea.
1. The  Court will always remain bound by the instrument.
Or…
2. The Court has the authority to expand federal power beyond what the ratifiers delegated.

Get the new book today!
Both assumptions are demonstrably false.
Federal supremacists would have us believe that the people of the states created a federal government with limited, enumerated powers, insisted on an amendment making the limited nature of that government explicit and then left it to that government to decide the extent of its own power. In other words, we have to accept that the founders actually believed a government could exist as a self-limiting institution.
That idea is absurd.
Nullification, in all of its forms, naturally flows from the system the Constitution created. Without some way to hold federal power in check, we end up not with a limited government, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.
Nullification stands as the rightful remedy -  a remedy we desperately need today.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center. He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of '98 - Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here. He also maintains the blog, Tenther Gleanings.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Sheriff McNamara to back DA 'any way we can...'



Packs strong second amendment message

Waco – In the coming courthouse war, players and pundits will push programs of doom and gloom, clamoring for a change in procedures, but one thing will remain constant, it's clear.

The law enforcement, crime-fighting partnership between the Sheriff's Office and the people's law firm, the Criminal District Attorney of McLennan County, will stand as one of the all-time hang-tough success stories of Jerusalem-on-the-Brazos.

Sheriff Parnell McNamara has seen them come and go, many a prosecutor and DA, because he has worked as a law man since before he got out of high school, when he helped his father, Deputy U.S. Marshal in Charge Thomas Parnell McNamara, Sr., transport prisoners to federal lockups all over North America as a youthful guard.

When he stood up before the Waco Tea Party at Sam's on the Square Tuesday evening, he pointed out the obvious:

  • An increased presence in felony investigations throughout the county, in all its cities;
  • A new drug task force that has made drug raids in Moody, Mart, McGregor, and assisted in Waco;
  • Nine new black Tahoe patrol cars emblazoned with the gold shield and the words, “Your safety comes first;”
  • More than 730 arrests since January 1, many of them for drugs. “The stats are just going up and up and up;”
  • A jail inspection in which the county lockup “passed with flying colors.”

As he predicted on the campaign trail, “Most of the crimes we investigate have something to do with drugs.”

He recalled with sadness a recent case in which his men responded to a call at a $450,000 house on Rock Creek Road where “a young woman of 28 had drowned in this much water in the bathtub because of a heroin OD and this goof ball sat in the living room playing the guitar while we waited for the crime scene investigators and medical examiner.”

He sounded even more appalled when he mentioned that happened on a Wednesday, and when the narcotics task force returned on Friday, they found kids of 18 shooting the deadly drug, only to serve an arrest warrant the next day and again finding more kids of that age using drugs at the same address.

On a daily basis, he mentioned, people ask “What in the world is the Sheriff's Department doing coming after us in the city?”
There's an answer to that question, too, he reminded his audience.

The Sheriff's Department is the only law enforcement outfit that is headed by an elected official. Cops, DPS, federal officials - and all the rest - are all appointed.

What's more, he has given the patrol division much more investigative authority. They no longer “just fill out a report and turn it over to the detectives.”

The big enchilada is this. Both he and the DA, Abel Reyna, are doing exactly what they told the voters they would be doing.

The first term DA is drawing heavy fire for his get-tough policies on prosecution and an aggressive posture of seeking indictments at a rate that doubles that of his predecessor.

Said Sheriff McNamara, “I want to compliment you, Abel, on the job you're doing, and we're going to back you up any way we can.”

But there is something else he promised, and he intends to make good on that promise.

Second Amendment issues are “so clear,” he emphasized. It states, quite simply, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.”

He recalled his original oath, the one he took so long ago as Deputy U.S. Marshal, to uphold and defend the Constitution.

“I'm going to stand my ground on it...to uphold the Constitution of the U.S. and this state.”

There is one thing the people of McLennan County will never see.

“Every human being has the right to defend themselves...You will never look up at your front door and see the Sheriff's Department come to disarm you and take away your guns.”

Sheriff's influence still felt in courthouse war

Back in the saddle with a Constable's office
Sheriff Larry Lynch faces music over high private jail costs

Six Shooter Junction – Bob Townsend of  Avis rent-a-car fame - “We try harder” - put it best in his 1970 business best seller, “Up The Organization.”

When you take over a corporation, the bottom line is the bottom line; that's where, it says here, the bottom line is to maximize profits.

What to do?

Along with sell the company plane, fire the lawyers, fire the executive secretary, and eliminate designated parking, Mr. Townsend counseled other lean, mean managers to fire the personnel department, move all their records into a filing system, then remodel the building so they can't even find their former fiefdoms, should they decide to pay a visit to their old digs on a trip down memory lane.

The bottom line at Avis proved Mr. Townsend was right when he said people don't mind working – as long as the rewards for doing so match their ego drives, and they get what they need out of the transaction.

They haven't gotten the memo in Austin, where TCLEOSE, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officers' Standards and Education, keeps close tabs on a law man's certification status.

It says here: Sheriff Larry Lynch has a new job working in the office of Precinct 5 Constable Stan D. Hickey. Mr. Hickey forwarded the information to the Commissioners Court, along with the laconic notation, “The commission's records have been updated to note the licensee's current employment...”

The item, which is on today's Commissioners Court agenda, has set certain court watchers – business owners one and all with a payroll and a health care budget plan to meet – clucking, hooting, and talking from behind their hands. They are smarting from the bad news that the bottom line, and its attendant goal posts, made a drastic move in the health care industry when legislators cut spending for the care of mentally infirm persons, and the system began dumping them in the county jails. In the one-for-all and all-for-one atmosphere of health care today, that affects the bottom line, both tax-wise, and as a payroll item.

Due to certain arrangements with a New Jersey corporation named CEC, Inc., McLennan County sometimes moves Mental Health-Mental Retardation (MHMR) patients to the privately operated Jack Harwell Detention Center to meet overflow requirements on busy weekends. The cost overrun is predicted to reach a typical 300 percent level again this fiscal year, swelling the expense to nearly $6 million at the rate of $45.50 per inmate per day.

“...All we're really doing is baby sitting,” according to Dr. John Wells, the jail doctor for McLennan County. He noted that it costs about 8 times more to lock up mentally ill persons.

Said Dr. Wells at the time, “We are about 200 yards away and there's something in the air between our jail and their jail (Jack Harwell Detention Center); and on the way over there, they (inmates, mental patients) get sick, blind, deaf, and dumb.”

During the Sheriff's tenure, while he was paid $1,000 per month to write reports on CEC's operations, reports which he never filed, they are reminding one another, the Sheriff directed the doctor to forward medication for psychiatric patients to the private corporation, and CEC never returned the meds when they sent the prisoners back across the 200 yard dividing line between the two jails.

The budgetary drain, according to Dr. Wells: $50,000 per month in increased costs for medication because the terms of the contract calls for McLennan County to bear the expense of medicating psychiatric patients held in lockups, both privately and publicly operated.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Blue v. Red states in opinion wars over gun sales

Big city mayors in total opposition

A plural majority of citizens surveyed in 41 congressional districts and 21 mostly blue states advocate background checks for all gun sales, new surveys show.



The effort comes amid an effort to educate the public that gun violence has reached epidemic levels, with murder-suicide by attacks with firearms in cases of mass violence occupying a prominent place in the figures, according to studies printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Their chief conclusion is that “...there are no standardized operational definitions, validated taxonomic systems, or national surveillance networks for these events, all of which are needed to develop prevention stategies...”

Murder-suicide occurs with an annual incidence of 0.2 to 0.3 per 100000 person-years and accounts for approximately 1000 to 1500 deaths yearly in the United States. The annual incidence of these events is relatively constant across industrialized nations and has not significantly changed over several decades. The principal perpetrators are young males with intense sexual jealousy, depressed mothers, or despairing elderly men with ailing spouses. The principal victims are female sexual partners or consanguineous relatives, usually young children. Clinical depression, specific motivations such as male sexual proprietariness or maternal salvation fantasies, and a history of previous suicide attempts are important in explaining underlying psychopathological mechanisms.
Previous epidemiological studies have concluded that perpetrators of murderous violence followed by suicide place little or no value on their own lives, either as a consequence of their actions, or by predisposition.

The mayoral coalition represents a membership made up of the largest cities in the nation. They have released two new YouTube videos designed to sway public opinion and steer the vote in the U.S. Senate to conform more to the view that increased gun controls – especially for those with mental difficulties – is desirable when it comes to sales and ownership of assault rifles and pistols with high capacity magazines.

It is a view held mainly by Democratic Party public officials rather than Republican, which makes up most of the membership of the U.S. House of Representatives.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking an activist stance against the gun lobby and manufacturers he claims use their influence to suppress crime information that would make it easier to research reasons for the epidemic in gun violence. He calls his study “Access Denied.”

Friday, March 22, 2013

'People it can happen that fast' – Shawn Moore




Someone showed New Jersey social workers a picture of this man's son posing with his .22 rifle, a birthday present. This is his account of what happened next:

The fight has officially been brought to my front door

Last night I was out with a buddy of mine. I got a text from my wife that the cops and dyfs (Department of Youth and Family Services) are at the house and they wanna check out my guns and needed me to open my safe.

I'm instantly on my way. I get in contact with evan Nappen ( the family lawyer) on the way. I explain the situation. I walk in my house and hand the phone to the first cop I see. Then direct all of em outside. Dyfs got a call because of a pic on my son holding a gun. They wanted to look around and check all my guns out, make sure they were all registered. Obviously that didn't go well because I refused. I had Nappen on speaker phone the entire time so they had to deal with both of us. They kept trying to pressure me to open my safe. They had no warrant, no charges, nothing. I didn't budge. I was told I was being "unreasonable" and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn't open my safe. Told me they were gonna get a search warrant. Told em go ahead. Nappen (my lawyer) asked me for the dyfs workers name. she wouldnt give it. i asked for credentials and she wouldnt show em. i tried to take a pic of her and she turned around real fast and walked away. After a while of them threatening to take my kids, get warrants and intimidation they left. Empty handed and seeing nothing.

People it can happen that fast. Most people wouldn't have stood up to them like I did. - Shawn Moore, New Jersey, Sunday, March 17, 2013

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Changing marketing the way the web changed publishing


Talk show hosts like Alex Jones are buzzing about Bitcoin.org, an international, inter-currency transfer operation its innovators claims is untraceable by government hounds.

Bitcoin.org logo

You feed a CAD drawing in one end, and the printer delivers a finished product machined from composites.

If BATFE agents try to trace the source of funds spent to obtain the goods illegaly produced thereby without a firearms manufacturing permit, it's going to be impossible to track them because the peer-to-peer electronic cash system operates under a crypto-currency transfer system between arbitrary nodes, as first described by Wei Dei in 1998 on the “cyberpunks mailing list,” reads a statement on the website of Bitcoin.org

According to techno-writer Timothy B. Lee, who penned a recent report on guidelines written by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in “Forbes,” it looks like “there's some genuine ambiguity about how U.S. Financial regulations apply to it...”

For now, money launderers may find some golden opportunity in using the Bitcoin system to hide their cash, mold it, fold it, transfer it, and bank it elsewhere before bringing it back safely to their own coffers stateside.

Bitcoins produced in June that were worth $15 at the time are now worth slightly more than $50, according to some knowledgeable observers. 

Sunday, March 17, 2013

U.S. judge rules secret records searches illegal


Stays order 90 days for appeal
The constitution was not written for 1776; it was written to withstand the test of time...

San Francisco – When federal agents sweep into a bank, phone company or internet service provider, they inform the management that if they reveal their searches and seizures, they will be charged with a crime.

“National Security Letters” place a severe limit on the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, according to a ruling by a U.S. District Court Judge.

The practice - and many others - began with the passage of the Patriot Act following the 9/11 attacks, designed to fight terrorism.(click here) Personal intelligence thus secretly gleaned is often used against persons in cases unrelated to national security, according to plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit. 

While customers go uninformed, those who have received the national security letter – and the accompanying threat – are prevented from informing their customers as to what happened. Government agents must reverse that policy, ordered Judge Susan Illston on Friday. She gave the Department of Justice 90 days to appeal the ruling. The prohibitive order takes effect in 90 days.


“This pervasive use of non-disclosure orders, coupled with the government's failure to demonstrate that a blanket prohibition on recipients' ability to disclose the mere fact of receipt of an NSL is necessary to serve the compelling need of national security, creates too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted,” Judge Illston said.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the internet rights group,Electronic Freedom Foundation.  (click here for more information about the foundation and its program of electronic surveillance self defense)

Indefinite detention - NDAA Nullification in Texas


Please take the following actions to help it pass!
Texas House Bill 149, The Liberty Preservation Act to nullify NDAA “indefinite detention,” is one of the strongest bills in the country in response to that unconstitutional federal act.
It states, in part: “Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 violate portions of federal law, the United States Constitution, and the Texas Constitution and, as such, are invalid and illegal in this state.”
The bill has been assigned to committee but will need a hearing and vote soon to move forward.  Please take the following steps to help push things along.
Action Items for HB 149:
1. Contact  the committee chair of Federalism and Fiscal Responsibility  Call and politely let Representative Creighton know that you’d like to see HB149 get a hearing and YES vote very soon.
Brandon Creighton (512) 463-0726
2. Contact the other members of the committee. Respectfully let each of them know that you expect a YES vote so the full house can consider HB149
Cindy Burkett (512) 463-0464
Eddie Lucio III (512) 463-0606
Scott Turner (512) 463-0484
Armando Walle (512) 463-0924

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Warrants, fines led to car theft, 7 indictments

1998 Ford Mustang 
How the DA fell out with Waco PD

Reporting by R.S. Gates
Story by The Legendary Jim Parks

Waco – By the time Myron Schanek, a heavily tattooed man whose body markings an anthropologist would identify as tribal, Aryan, got around to selling the 1998 Ford Mustang, it was kind of long in the tooth - for a pony.

Myron Schanek
In official documents and Facebook flame wars, cops and gossips spell his name variously, as Schanck, Schanek. Schank. His street name is "Shogun."

The year: 2012. The need: money to pay back child support to avoid a blue warrant and various court fines that would land him back in the penitentiary if he didn't take care of business, according to a detective's reports.

He sold it to South Waco Auto Traders, located in the 1700 block of LaSalle Avenue, an unlovely industrial neighborhood occupied by cut rate skid row motels, topless bars, auto and equipment dealers, and tombstones, row after row of them.

A salesman, Sergio Juarez, learned the car had been stolen; he reported it to Waco police on February 14.


The Legendary Reporter R.S. Gates obtained 54 pages of official police records compiled by Waco Neighborhood Services Detective Sherry Kingrey, Badge #101, through a Public Information Act request, an appeal that was referred to the Open Records Division of the Texas Attorney General's Office, and granted by the Waco City Attorney's Office.

It's the kind of plodding, methodical police work in which an investigator learns the value of two, adds two, comes up with the requisite square number, then makes a phone call and locates a suspect, compares that story with the known facts, and – in this case – obtained 7 indictments for engaging in organized criminal activity in a car theft carried out to trade the vehicle for 20 one-gram sacks - $2,000 worth of the illegal drug - at $100 per gram.

In 5 of the cases, Detective Kingrey obtained a confession.

The material thus obtained, which depicts a world of meth heads and the people who service their needs in a shadow land populated with persons who are fresh out of options, looking to score more crank, crystal, ice, wanting to “jick” the night away, then sleep all day in preparation for the next big score. The official record tells the story.

Phone calls, text messages, interviews, information received from unnamed confidential informants, aerial surveillance by helicopter, teletype messages, cell phone records – all reveal moments of high drama. Part of the intense narrative includes a peripheral reference in a Februray 13, 2012 text message to a woman named Ashley Dawn Rogers, a woman contacted by one of the suspects who asked if she knew of anyone who would like to buy the stolen 1998 Ford Mustang.


There are moments of comic relief in which the car thieves, having obtained a copy of the key during an unaccompanied test drive, first ran out of gas. Later, the car broke down on the way to a hiding spot down the highway in Bruceville-Eddy, where they towed it, then waited all night long in vain to get some drugs in exchange for the now inoperable hefty hunk of steaming junk -  the 1998 pony.

But the moment is short-lived when you learn from the detective's case files that during the errand to get the gasoline and tow the car, they had to stop off to see about a jicking customer. The girl in question had earlier in the evening been given a 'hot shot' – an injection of methamphetamine shot directly into a large blood vessel in her neck. Ouch.

She wasn't feeling all that well as a result. She needed some attention from some of the more knowledgeable jicksters in her neighborhood.

While county mounties searched from the air in a chopper, they hid the car under a camouflage tarp, Detective Kingrey learned; meanwhile, members of the gang - which the indictments called a 'combination - regrouped and schemed to get it fixed so they could trade it for drugs.

Their names:

Leroy Howell, Melissa Stanley, Bobby Christian, Brian Johnson, Donna Adcock, Delvin Maddison, Wendy Baskin.

When it came time to prosecute Ms. Baskin for her part in the scheme, more drama developed. It seems Detective Kingrey believed – and accused – two women on McLennan County Criminal District Attorney Abel Reyna's staff of turning over information she gathered from confidential informants.

She alleged a loss to third parties of the kind of information that can get a snitch killed in the violent world of methamphetamine dealers and addicts.

In an incident report, she noted, “Early in this investigation I learned that someone from the McLennan County District Attorney's Office was giving/handing out information from case files. Because of whom the 'suspects/defendants' that were getting this information and their relationship to or connection to this case it resulted in nothing being put in writing about this case initially. Upon getting this information, I put the word out and learned that there was at least one if not two employees doing this. Julie Olejarski with the District Attorney's Office Victim's services was giving out information to (Brian) Johnson about other related cases as well as to other suspects. She was not giving out information to or about Bobby Christian but it has been learned that his sister Regina McPherron is best friends with another service employee Delena Gordon. The likely suspect to that is Gordon but not yet proved.



In a subsequent report dated January 2, 2013, she noted, “I was informed by Sgt. Zboril that an e-mail had been sent to me by (First Assistant Prosecutor) Michael Jarrett along with an order demanding that I release all CI information in this case to Michael Jarrett...upon return to work, I found that Jarrett with the assistance of Thomas West went to Judge Strother to get an order #2012-1814-C1 for me to release all information to Jarrett. This is highly irregular and a presidence (sic) that affects not only me but other officers throughout the county.”

At the time, Mr. Jarrett sent the detective an e-mail in which he said, in part, “...The judge was shocked when I informed him that you refused to turn this information over to me. If this order is not complied with by the end of the week, I will have no choice but to dismiss the charges. I look forward to your response.”

In a later hearing, Judge Strother rescinded his order after Det. Kingrey contacted him in private to demand he reverse his ruling. He told the disputants in the police department and the DA's office to work out their differences in private.

The result: Mr. Jarrett refused to prosecute the indictments in the absence of any knowledge of exactly who alleged what – and when - because state law requires independent corroboration of confidential information obtained in a drug investigation.

Who knows? An informant may have been promised something or the other in return for a false accusation. If that comes to light in the future, a prosecutor could lose his license to practice law, said Mr. Jarrett. His boss, Abel Reyna, heartily agreed – in public appearances and a radio interview.

Phone records obtained through court order are more black and white.

Ashley Dawn Rogers
On a much sadder note, they reveal a text between Bobby Christian and Ashley Dawn Rogers on February 13:

2/13/12 22:46 CHRISTIAN to Ashley ROGERS (deceased) 'i need to sale a hot 98 mustang do you know anybody?' This is where the conversation begins. Several texts about the car, going to Temple and another Texas asking to buy it but was told it already sold. They break down but Get picked up by who is now identified as STANLEY who takes it to HOWELL who hides it. The payment is made in illegal narcotics. This also brings in violence committed or _________(redacted) threatened to be committed by known and documented gang members.”

On February 16, firemen were unable to rescue Ms. Rogers and two of her children from a fire that was first reported at 6:30 p.m. and later reported fully involved and totally out of control three minutes later.

A third child miraculously survived, rescued by a neighbor.

Carrie D. Woodlock
A Waco fire investigator has refused to sign off on the notion – accepted by elements of the Waco detectives' force – that the fire was accidental. The official fire department investigation report shows only a source of heat, but no real cause, a matter that is still under investigation.

Mr. Maddison has made numerous accusations - one of them on a videotaped YouTube presentation - regarding Myron “Shogun” Schank, the owner of the automobile, having set the fire, and a third party named Carrie D. Woodlock told The Legendary she believes he and another party were responsible. Delvin “Durty” Maddison has also made at least two videotapes in which he denies having set the fire, and has loudly proclaimed his innocence to area lawmen on numerous occasions.

One bright note on the horizon is that when indictments are dismissed and prosecutors drop charges, investigators are then freed to continue to look into other matters without the permission of defense attorneys who formerly defended suspects in other causes.

No doubt, the truth is out there – somewhere.

- The Legendary