The Year of the Gun & Christie's Christmas Gun Study

CPD victims Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier 

Looking back, 2015 was a pretty sobering year for the concept of justice in the United States. 

As Dylan Petrohilos' ThinkProgress.org article on Monday reported, estimates for 2015 reveal that between 975 and 1,186 people were killed by police across America over the course of the past 12 months - easily surpassing the totals for 2014.

Those grim statistics have been brought into focus once again after a Chicago police officer shot and killed two people after being called to a residence at about 4:25am last Saturday in response to 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier (who was mentally ill) threatening members of his family with a baseball bat.  

While Chicago PD called Jones' death "accidental", when officers arrived at the scene 55-year-old Bettie Jones, a grandmother and mother of five who lived in the apartment downstairs, opened the front door of the residence and was promptly shot three times; including once in the neck.

Like many of the names on that list above, Jones was innocent and unarmed; but accidentally shot.

There were 1,930 accidental shootings in America in 2015 according to data collected by the gun control organization GunViolenceArchive.org.

GVA statistics tracked 52,254 gun-related incidents in America in 2015, including 13,270 gun fatalities  and an astounding 329 different mass shootings - in case you were wondering 3,366 children between the ages of 0 to 17 were killed by guns over the past 12 months.

Considering numbers like that, 2015 could very well be considered the Year of the Gun in America.

Which makes New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's actions four days before Christmas a bit puzzling.

As Claude Brodesser-Akner reported on NJ.com last week, on Monday December 21st an entity known by the unwieldy moniker of the New Jersey Firearm Purchasing and Permitting Study Commission released a report through Governor Christie's office that was some five months in the making.

In short, the NJFPPS Commission report recommended that local municipalities around the state begin amending New Jersey's notoriously strict handgun laws to make it easier for people to carry concealed handguns.

As a fairly observant individual interested in politics who also works in the real estate industry in New Jersey, I deal with a lot of people from all walks of life on a daily basis in person and on the phone.

I also enjoy discussing politics and current events with the locals who hang out at my favorite local haunt, The Franklin Tavern in Lawrenceville; Jon Stewart used to be a bartender there when he went to Princeton.

So let me just say that I've yet to meet New Jerseyeans who feel that the most critical issue facing the state is the restrictive handgun laws that make it almost impossible for a private citizen in New Jersey to carry a concealed handgun.

The real kicker?

Not only was the NJFPPS Commission established the night before Christie's presidential campaign launched back in June, the commission that made these recommendations is made up of three people; all of whom are close personal associates of (wait for it...) Chris Christie.  

As Akner reported:
"The commission, whose members were not previously announced by Christie, is comprised of Adam Heck, a retired police officer from Morristown who until this year worked as as associate counsel to the governor and is currently in the General Counsel's Office of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority; Eric Jaso, a former assistant United States attorney under Christie 2003-2008, and Seton Hall Law School Vice Dean Erik Lillquist, who is married to the governor's chief ethics officer, Heather V. Taylor."

So in a year in which over 13,000 Americans were killed by guns, Christie decides that what New Jersey needs is more people walking around with concealed, loaded handguns. 

It's vintage Christie, throwing his political weight around the state to tailor laws (that keep us safe from gun violence) that will help him pander to the right-wing Republican political spenders who are aligned with the NRA in order to boost his national appeal with Republican voters.

It's absurd and he's rightfully taking a lot of heat for it. 

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the irony of Christie appointing the husband of his own chief ethics officer to a three-person commission that releases a report favorable to his own presidential campaign.

And yes, that's from the same New Jersey Governor who recently made headlines for telling voters in Iowa that his record low job approval rating as Governor in New Jersey is proof he "knows how to get things done."

On that note, I must conclude my last blog entry of 2015 and get ready to head over to my friend Will's house for good friends, good food and of course drinks to ring in the new year.

Have a safe and Happy New Years and I hope to see you back here in 2016!

Republican Psychosis & GOP Voter Suppression in Michigan

Professor Sean Wilentz

In a special report published in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz wrote what I consider to be one of the most concise, insightful and well-written analysis of the evolution of the Republican party I've ever read entitled, "The Turning Point".

Do yourself a favor and click the link above and check it out if you haven't read the piece, it's a must-read if politics gets your blood going or you just want to better understand the madness of today's GOP.

Wilentz looks back at the enormous philosophical changes that have taken place within the Republican party since the 1960's and on through the 70's, 80's 90's up to today in order to help make some sense of the fractured, divisive undiluted rage that defines today's GOP.

Based on the bizarre antics and statements of some of the Republican presidential front runners, or the reckless political obstructionism of members of the Congressional Freedom Caucus, one might think a psychologist would be better suited to such a task.

But Wilentz ably draws on the volumes of research he conducted for his well-received 564-page analysis of the rise and fall of the Reagan era published in 2008, 'The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 to craft one of the most insightful political pieces in Rolling Stone this year.

In doing so he makes the case that 2016 is going to be one of the most important political elections of our time; not only because of what's at stake, but because of how it will impact the three major branches of the American government - especially the Supreme Court.

White House material? Bush, Rubio, Walker, Cruz and Paul

Though you might not know it by the caliber and quality of the candidates seeking to become the GOP presidential candidate next year, the importance of the 2016 elections isn't lost on Republicans either.

It's not just the conservative corporate oligarchs like the Koch brothers who've pledged to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money into the 2016 elections to tilt the political outcome in favor of their own self interests.

The Republican party has eagerly tapped into the divisive undercurrent of fear and anxiety that courses through the minds of millions of working-class white Americans who ironically feel disenfranchised and shut out of an economic system tilted in favor of the same wealthiest 1% who've bankrolled the conservative think tanks and activist groups that intentionally created the Tea Party.

Not as a viable political party as the talking heads of conservative media would have you believe, but as a mechanism to vent the anger these Americans feel onto immigrants, racial minorities, women's reproductive rights, same-sex couples and refugees fleeing the ravages of terrorism and conflict that was fueled in no small measure by wars started by the Republican presidential administration of George W. Bush - and paid for by American blood and trillions of dollars of taxpayer money.

As Wilentz observes in his article in Rolling Stone, Americans across the south and mid-west who once voted for Democrats in the 30,'s 40's, 50's and 60's now vote against their own self interest by aligning themselves with a political party that has vilified those they label as "other".
 

As a result, these days the term "voter suppression" has become synonymous with the Republican party in America.

As reported in a fascinating piece posted on the progressive Michigan Website eclectablog.com, Michigan voter repression law SB 571 (among other things) blocks public institutions like schools boards, library boards and local governments from "providing information about bond and millage proposals."

Like other similar voter suppression laws passed by Republican-majority state legislatures in states around the nation, Michigan's SB 571 would create longer lines at the ballot on election days, restrict the amount of time working folks have to vote and block the use of public funds to educate voters about the election process.

As the eclectablog article notes, Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press tore into Michigan Republican legislators for the political hoodwink they pulled on the people of Michigan in an op-ed in which he described how Republicans deceptively passed SB 571 in total secret. As Dickerson wrote:

"...when it emerged from a Republican caucus room Wednesday evening, SB 571 had metastasized into a 53-page behemoth that included GOP-friendly amendments to 10 different sections of Michigan’s Campaign Finance Act. It was adopted by both houses late Wednesday night without a single Democratic vote or amendment, and after the Republican majority voted to clear the Senate chamber of Democratic staffers and lock the senators themselves inside."

The actions of Michigan Republicans were as repugnant to the principles of Democracy as voter suppression is to American values enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

You really have to read Dickerson's op-ed piece in the Detroit Free Press to believe the kind of shit these guys pulled in an effort to put in place what he describes as a "permanent majority" in the state legislature; and eventually, in Congress as well.

It lays bare the determination of Republicans to alter the foundations of American Democracy so that a numerically shrinking demographic can run it, revealing a desire to put in place what is essentially a Democratic version of Apartheid here in America in order to counteract the demographic shift that will make Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians and non-white people the majority of the American populace within two decades - possibly sooner by some estimates.

The actions of the Michigan legislature also underscores the main thrust of Sean Wilentz's article, a point I think most Americans understand.

With the titanic shifts in the demographic makeup that define who we are as a nation, 2016 is truly going to be one of the most critical elections of our time - one the American people cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and watch unfold. 

But to me one of the most troubling aspects of the GOP's voter suppression tactics is the idea that rather than accept and understand the ways in the American populace is changing, Republicans have decided that gerrymandering legislative districts to create false majorities and actively working on ways to keep millions of eligible voters from taking part in the election process is actually a viable solution.

That in itself is an indicator of a much deeper psychosis - I'm not a psychiatrist but it's a clinical term I don't use lightly.

Just consider the tone of the 2016 Republican presidential race; you know the names, you've heard the statements about building walls and treating foreigners like some kind of menace; or blocking women from making their own choices about their personal health care decisions.

When is the last time you can recall attendees at a political rally physically attacking protesters who show up?

Or literally dragging a reporter of a different ethnicity out of the room for asking questions?

Does any of that sound rational?

If you look at even a basic definition of psychosis, it's not a stretch to say it sounds an awful lot like today's Republican party and the right-wing media spin doctors who control their message.

Consider this definition from the Healthline.com Website:

"Psychosis is a serious mental disorder characterized by thinking and emotions that are so impaired that they indicate that the person experiencing them has lost contact with reality. People who are psychotic have false thoughts (delusions) and/or see or hear things that are not there (hallucinations). These experiences can be frightening and may cause people who are suffering from psychosis to hurt themselves or others." 

Do those characteristics sound like any particular political party you know?

No Charges in a Child's Death

Is anyone responsible for Tamir Rice's death?

The announcement earlier today by Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty that the members of a Cleveland grand jury have declined to indict Cleveland police officer Tim Loehmann for the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice has left many people saddened, but few surprised.

With the news breaking this afternoon, the media will be devoting plenty of time and analysis as to the performance of the prosecutor's office in seeking justice for a child who couldn't testify on his own behalf.

I'll leave it to more learned men and women than I to determine what measure of responsibility CPD officer Loehmann bears for pulling the trigger of his gun less than six seconds after pulling up to the park pavilion in Cleveland where Rice was shot on a snowy day in Cleveland back on November 23, 2014.  

As a New York Times article about the grand jury decision reported earlier today, Cleveland Police chief Calvin Williams insists that the pending results of an as-yet incomplete "administrative review" of the actions of the officer Loehamann and the driver of the cruiser officer Frank Garmback in the incident will determine if any member of the CPD will face charges of any kind for Rice's death.

According to the Times article Chief Williams promised that "We'll look at the incident from start to finish."

But frankly the Cleveland Police Department and the city have had more than a year to conduct internal investigations of its officer's professional conduct with regards to this case, my guess is that if departmental charges were going to be filed they would have already.  

If you were to walk out on the street of any city in America and ask a random person what kind of faith people would place in a police department's own "administrative review" my guess would be very little; if any at all.

It's not possible to get into the minds of the grand jury in this case, and they've obviously made their decision.

Timothy Loehmann

But one thing that I would be curious to know how is just much time the grand jury (who found no grounds for charges) spent reviewing the fact that Timothy Loehmann had been forced to resign from his previous position with the suburban Independence Police Department because of what his former chief Jim Polak called serious "deficiencies" in a report on November 29, 2012 in which he described Loehmann's handgun performance as "dismal".

The deficiencies in performance which Polak reported included "dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to manage this personal stress."

It's probably fair to say Loehmann's loss of composure issues were still a serious issue when he shot Tamir Rice two years after that report from the Independence PD was written.

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Chief Williams' administrative review to cover Loehmann's composure issues.

If this investigation has shown anything, it's that the city of Cleveland and the prosecutor Timothy McGinty are pretty much resigned to doing whatever they can to prove the remarkable legal determination that no one who was actually involved in the shooting of Tamir Rice bears any responsibility for his death.

In the meantime, officers Loehmann and Garmback will remain on "restricted duty" until the completion of the CPD's aforementioned "administrative review".

I hate to be such a cynic about this case, but restricted duty is about as much punishment as Timothy Loehmann is probably going to face for taking the life of a 12-year-old child.

That's just a sad commentary on the state of 21st century policing in America no matter how you look at it.
    

H.R. 1737 - Discrimination in Consumer Auto Lending? Or Just Redlining On Wheels?

Consumer advocate (D) Senator Elizabeth Warren

Over the weekend I got an interesting email from the global citizen advocacy group SumOfUs.org urging recipients to sign a petition to General Motors demanding that the auto production and lending behemoth oppose a new piece of legislation known as H.R. 1737.

It also goes by the name of the “Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act”. 

According to an advocacy letter drafted by the civil rights coalition The Leadership Council, H.R. 1737 would make it easier for companies that issue auto financing loans to consumers to engage in the discriminatory practice of charging minority car loan applicants much higher interest rates based solely on race and ethnicity by undermining the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be able to properly enforce laws designed to prevent racial discrimination in auto lending.

The editorial board of The New York Times drafted a detailed and informative op-ed piece back in June that summarized the dangerous economic impact of predatory auto loans - including the disturbing fact that since 2013, oversight of banks by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "has resulted in fines totaling $18 million and in payments totaling $136 million to 425,000 black, Hispanic and Asian borrowers who were charged higher auto-loan interest rates than comparable white borrowers."

As The Times op-ed details, last summer the CFPB also began oversight of non-bank providers of auto loans meaning the Bureau would now have oversight of 90% of auto loan providers in he U.S.

Good for consumers and a sense of fairness in the marketplace? Yes.

But Republicans and banks don't like it one bit - hence the aforementioned H.R. 1737.

But this legislation didn't just morph out of thin air, the GOP has been waiting for a chance to spring legislation like this since 2010.
   
Remember the fierce Republican opposition to consumer rights advocate and academic Elizabeth Warren's nomination to become the head of the (then) newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau  back in 2011?

44 GOP Senators signed a letter opposing Elizabeth Warren

As Jason Easley reported for PoliticusUSA back in 2013, 44 angry Republican Senators were so eager to do the bidding of the nation's largest banks and Wall Street firms that they engaged in an all-out campaign to block President Obama from appointing her to be the head of the CFPB.

In fact, as Easley observes, after being shut out of becoming the head of the CFPB by a GOP effort fueled by lobbyists and special interests, Warren turned around and ran for the U.S. Senate - and won.

Now she's not only the senior Senator from Massachusetts; she also sits on the powerful Senate Banking Committee. (Sorry Republicans.)

The CFPB is a federal agency created by Congress in 2010.

Its task is to serve as a federal watchdog for the nation's banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions to ensure that consumer rights don't get trampled through deceptive practices, manipulation of consumer protection laws, or the kinds of sketchy policies (i.e. inflated credit card interest rates, or excessive bank overdraft fees) that allow companies to unfairly bilk average Americans in the name of profit.

As the CFPB Website ConsumerFinance.gov states, "The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act) established the CFPB"

Remember, the CFPB was created in the wake of the devastating financial crisis sparked by too-big-to fail banks, Wall Street firms, insurance companies and ratings agencies colluding to bundle consumer mortgages into complex, high-risk financial products which they then traded and sold like poker chips until it crashed the economy.

Of course, it was the same American  tax payers who lost jobs, homes or saw their net worth plummet during the crisis who picked up the bill for the $700 billion in TARP stimulus those same companies received from the federal government to prevent a global financial implosion.

So it says a lot about today's Republican party that not only did they fight tooth and nail to prevent the CFPB from functioning as an independent watchdog agency for the benefit of average Americans - now they're trying to use their legislative power to make it easier for companies to intentionally discriminate against people of color who apply for car loans.

Sound sketchy? It is.

1950's protests against Redlining in Chicago

But sadly, the complex process of government legislation and policy colluding with private financial institutions to profit off of racial prejudice is nothing new in this nation.

It's still happening here in the 21st century.

In fact, as Emily Badger reported in The Washington Post back in May, profiteering from discriminatory auto lending is not really all that much different than the government sanctioned practice of Redlining used to help banks purposefully block racial minorities from home ownership and intentionally manipulate property values by segregating neighborhoods. 

So in the coming months when you hear Republican presidential candidates pontificating about the merits of "a level playing field", or a Supreme Court justice loftily justiying the elimination of key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act based on their arcane legal determination that racial discrimination no longer exists - just remember H.R. 1737.

Just in case Donald Trump's insufferable pandering to bigotry, intolerance, sexism and anti-immigrant hysteria isn't enough, H.R. 1737 will remind you of what today's Republican party really stands for.

This legislation symbolizes just how far we've come as a nation - and how long we have to go.

Stealth Democratic Debates - Pathway To Clinton-Sanders 2016 Ticket?

The Saturday December 19th Democratic debate

Even though I consider myself an avid political junkie, after a long work week about the last thing I want to do is sit down and spend two hours (or more) watching a political debate on television on a weekend night.

Now much has been written about the fact that the past two televised Democratic presidential debates have taken place on Saturday nights, which is generally considered the low-rent neighborhood of the weekday broadcast spectrum in terms of viewing audience and ratings.

Confession: on Saturday night I watched the Jets - Cowboys game then tuned in for Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler co-hosting and Bruce Springsteen as the musical guest.

As far back as last August The Guardian was one of many media outlets making the observation that stashing the Democratic debates away on Saturday nights was essentially having the effect of a slow "coronation" of Hillary Clinton because candidates like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee (remember him?) all get far less free media exposure than Clinton does.

Granted no small measure of Hillary's media exposure in the past couple months has resulted from the Republican Congressional frenzy over Benghazi and her emails, but the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State is a shrewd political operator who understands there is no such thing as bad publicity in the 24-hour news cycle - only the ability or failure to take advantage of it.

After her sometimes-tumultuous presidential campaigns with Explainer-in-Chief Bill Clinton in the 90's, Hillary knows how to surf controversy like Patrick Swayze's "Bodhi" handled waves in the original Point Break.

Hillary silently mocks hysterical Republicans during the Benghazi hearings 

Her ability to deflect scandal would make deceased "Teflon Don" John Gotti envious.

Benghazi? Ping! Email server controversy? Ping!

Even though Hillary herself cautioned supporters that she did not want to make the mistake of assuming what many power brokers in the DNC have already assumed (that she will be the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2016), the scheduling of the past two debates has helped to limit the amount of media exposure for Bernie Sanders to get his message out.

Despite reports that Sanders recently broke President Obama's campaign fundraising records, he still lags behind Hillary in terms of overall media coverage.

I read the recent interview with Bernie Sanders in Rolling Stone and came away genuinely impressed with the thrust of his overall campaign message and political objectives; definitely check it out if you haven't already read it.

After reading the RS article, to me it seems like he has a much more coherent and populist message than she does with his emphasis on correcting the massive imbalances and inequities within the American economy in terms of wage growth, the erosion of the middle class, fair taxation of corporations and the ultra rich and holding the Wall Street kingpins and uber-bankers responsible for crashing the economy in 2008.

But in terms of mainstream media coverage, the core of his message seems to stay buried under the weight of Hillary's larger national exposure and better name familiarity.

By all accounts she has the support of far more party delegates than he does as well as the power Democratic rainmakers.

Given the outsize influence of lobbyists and money on our political system these days, I'm not naive about the sharp right turn America's representative Democracy has taken towards becoming an oligarchy with the help of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United and their willingness to undermine key provisions of the historic Voting Rights Act.

But I'm feeling a sense of disappointment with the way the DNC has handled the scheduling of the limited slate of public debates between the three leading Democratic candidates - especially during the 7th year of a two-term Democratic President.

Even though the importance of the 2016 presidential elections is critical to the direction of this country in so many ways, I've got mixed feelings about the conduct of the Democratic National Committee as of late - it just feels rigged in Hillary's favor.

As an active party supporter, I don't just vote in all national, state and local elections, I support Congressional and Senate candidates from other states with modest contributions and try do my thing on social media.

So in my humble view, the very name "Democrat" implies more than just a casual connection to the basic principles of Democracy and the Democratic process - shouldn't Democrats get the chance to hear  the candidates debate the merits of the issues and form their own opinions?

Thus far that doesn't quite seem to be playing out with the way the past two debates have gone.

The next Democratic debate is supposedly scheduled for Thursday January 7th as the primary season starts to heat up and the rubber starts to meet the road - but my sense is Hillary's lead will already be cemented by then.

It's not that I think the DNC is being insidious or anything. On the contrary.

Like millions of Americans, I think the Democratic party power brokers realize this current crop of Republican candidates would be a disaster for the country and so their sights are firmly set on the White House and the path that leads there must be blazed by a candidate who can win the popular vote.

I like Bernie's message but the bottom line is Hillary will be hard to beat in 2016 with Bill hitting the campaign trail with her; like many I confess to being secretly intrigued by the idea of Bill back in the White House.

Frankly, if she brings Bernie on as her VP candidate the Republican party has nothing to even touch that ticket in a popular election - not with an abusive racist clown like Donald Trump leading GOP polls by double digits.

Who knows, maybe that's exactly what the DNC has in mind.

After all by keeping the debates low-key they minimize the damage Hillary and Bernie can do to each other during the primary season to make it that much easier for them to combine forces like the Wonder Twins and bring this thing home in 2016.

I'm no Nate Silver-like political prognosticator but Clinton-Sanders 2016; that's where my money is.

How Green Was My Valley

Samuel L Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh & Kurt Russell in The Hateful Eight 

If you love movies as I do, the December holiday season is one of the best times of year for both new releases as well as the classic films that must be seen time again and again.

With both schools and places of work closed during long stretches of December and January, it's the ideal time for families, kids (college and otherwise), visiting relatives and roving singles like myself to take time out to catch up on films either at the theater, or at home. 

For Hollywood studios looking to premiere popular franchise films that appeal to all age groups, or the kinds of prestige, art-house, or highbrow fare looking to contend for an Oscar - a December release date is highly coveted.

My feelings on the biggest release of the year (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) were made quite clear in my previous blog post Thursday night, and aside from some very minor story structure issues which only die-hard Star Wars and Sci-Fi fans will obsess over, I think everyone is going to dig the movie; no spoilers here, but I strongly advise you to see the film before said spoilers start to leak out.

But I'm also looking forward to seeing Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight which will get a limited theatrical release on Christmas eve before going wide on December 25th.

Personally, I've been a Tarantino fan since Resevoir Dogs and I admire him for using the power of his professional status as a director to speak up publicly on the issue of the excessive use of police force against people of color in this country.

Quentin Tarantino marches against police brutality 

So in some small way I also hope to help counterbalance calls by some police officers to boycott The Hateful Eight in protest over Tarantino's comments about police officers who shoot and kill unarmed African-Americans.

In light of this, it's even more appropriate that the film's subject matter explores the complexities of race in this nation in a way that only Tarantino can.

As far as new releases, I'm also looking forward to seeing another big Oscar contender set in the past, The Revenant directed by Alejandro Gonzales Inarittu which stars Leo Dicaprio and Tom Hardy.

But December is also time for catching up on classic films too.

To me, a classic film does not have to be centered on Christmas or any other holiday to be a great holiday film; The Sound of Music, Fiddler On the Roof, Lilies of the Field, The Philadelphia Story, or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are just a few examples of my favorites that make great holiday films.

In my view, a "holiday" film is any film with a meaningful story and good characters that that the whole family can get together and watch without worrying about a plot that depends on excessive on-screen vulgarity, nudity, sex or violence.

Villagers watch a coal mine accident in How Green Was My Valley

How Green Was My Valley, the 1941 black and white classic directed by John Ford is one of my all-time favorite films.

The story revolves around the fictional Morgan family, whose lives at the turn of the century are centered on the coal mine in their village in Wales (North England) where the father Gwilym Morgan works with five of his sons.

The film centers on the youngest son Huw, played brilliantly by a young Roddy McDowell, and chronicles the gradual decline of idyllic village life as strikes, layoffs and union conflict begins to divide the members of the close-knit community.

It's a film that evokes a nostalgic longing for family and simpler times that's not afraid to explore controversial topics like religious hypocrisy, infidelity, labor strife and class conflict even as the plot is punctuated by wonderful traditional Welsh choral music sung with a haunting beauty.

The film won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1942 over contender Citizen Kane - a decision which still divides and angers some film critics and fans to this day.

I was reminded of How Green Was My Valley on Friday morning as I was making breakfast when I heard an interesting story on BBC radio reporting that the last active deep coal mine in England (the Kellingley Colliery)  has ended operations, ending centuries of an industry that changed not only Great Britain but the world as well.

How Green Was My Valley was made in 1940-41 on the cusp of the second world war, but the issues it explores are still relevant today, whether it's the decline of the coal industry, wages or the family.

My feelings are mixed about this story.

On the one hand I think the need to transition to renewable energy sources like solar, wind and nuclear is paramount to save our environment.

But at the same time coal was essential to the transition of the global economy into the modern age - it's helped to heat our homes and provide electricity for generations.

But the mining of coal has also represented the exploitation of labor, horrific accidents that claim lives and the poisoning of our environment - even though it's provided jobs for generations of workers around the world.

Coal has been a significant part of human society and evolution and millions of people around the world still depend on it's production.

So the news that the last mine in England will close evokes a feeling of melancholy (and for some in England, anger) even though it's an inevitable part of the future - coal is a finite resource that will be gone one day.

In many ways coal is symbolic of the complexity of human evolution; nothing comes without a price.

In the same way the film How Green Was My Valley looks back with nostalgia on simpler times and compels us to reevaluate the blessings we had in times past, the decline of the coal industry forces humanity to face the reality which climate change data and science have told us for years.

Nothing lasts forever.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Delivers

Let me start off this post by saying that I'm a huge cinema fan and I don't believe in spoilers, so you won't find any here.

That said, I just got back from seeing a 7pm premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey theater in New York and I have to say the wait was worth it.

Director J.J. Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy have created a genuine theatrical spectacle that's truly worthy of one of the most beloved film franchises in history.

When the original Star Wars first came out in 1977 I was nine years old and I went to see it in various theaters eleven times.

It was one of those film experiences that changed me and I remember it was THE entertainment experience of the year. Pretty much every kid's birthday party that I went to that year revolved around going to see Star Wars and I recall it as the first film I ever went to where people literally stood up and cheered.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens generates that kind of excitement and I can tell you there were several scenes where the entire theater was clapping and cheering.

Without giving anything away, from the moment the theme music started and the gold letters of the opening story summary starts scrolling across the screen, you could barely hear the music over the cheering - it was a truly emotional moment for someone who grew up with George Lucas' visionary films as a backdrop of my life.

Without going into too much detail the story is excellent and well told. It seamlessly picks up where Return of the Jedi left off while at the same time introducing new characters who help propel the story forward in new and exciting directions - it sets up the next film perfectly.

The cast is excellent, the acting is first rate and one of the best things about this film are the special effects.

J.J. Abrams has created a film that doesn't overwhelm you with CGI, it's a perfect balance of live action scenes that are supplemented by special effects.

The action scenes are edge-of-your-seat stuff and well directed. This movie takes you to emotional highs and lows and it elicits genuine emotions that are touching and have an impact.

I was moved.

Now enough is going to be written about this film over the coming weeks so let me just conclude by saying that newcomers John Boyega as Finn and Daisy Ridley as Rey are outstanding and they deliver performances that have created truly three-dimensional characters of depth and complexity.

The veterans from the old film are first rate; seeing them on the big screen is like seeing old friends.

The Harvey theater where I saw it in 3-D is an older theater but it has the biggest screen in Brooklyn.

But I definitely plan on going back to see this film again on the larger IMAX screen format to experience it again.

Go see this film.

Mistrial for William Porter & Jayvis Benjamin's Wait For Justice

Mistrial for Baltimore PD officer William Porter

It was a rather sobering day for those interested in seeing at least some measure of justice meted out by the Baltimore court system for 25-year-old Freddie Gray's gruesome death while handcuffed in the back of a Baltimore PD prisoner transport van.

Earlier today judge Barry G. Williams declared a mistrial after the jury remained hung on whether or not Baltimore police officer William Porter could be found guilty for charges including misconduct, manslaughter and assault for failing to respond to Gray's request for medical assistance and neglecting to properly fasten Gray into a seat belt to secure him in the back of the police van.

As Robert Lang and Tyler Waldman reported for the WBAL radio News 1090 Website:

"Porter testified that he did not put Gray in a seat belt, for fear he might grab his gun, even though Porter said that when he discovered Gray on the floor of the police van, he was having "an adrenaline dump," and was unable to move. Porter and other officers who testified described Gray as having suffered from "jailitis" where suspects try to fake an injury, hoping to be taken to the hospital instead of jail."

While I'm not a police officer, I doubt I'm the only person skeptical of a cop claiming he was worried about his weapon being ripped from his holster by an unconscious injured man laying on the floor of a police van.

Christie trashes Black Lives Matter on Face the Nation

Don't hold your breath waiting for conservatives like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to offer thoughts on what a mistrial in the Gray case might mean for the larger issue of the lack of trust between large segments of the public and police departments caused by the lack of accountability for officers who take the lives of innocent and unarmed people in custody.

Opportunistic reactionaries like the Christies and Trumps of this nation delight in embellishing their conservative street cred by unfairly and wrongly characterizing all protesters aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement (or anyone who protests the rampant abuse and killing of American citizens by police officers) as "anti-police" agitators who advocate the murder of police officers.

As Christie did on CBS during an October 25th interview on Face the Nation when he also clumsily tried to link President Obama to ongoing nationwide protests against illegal police killings in one of his many awkward efforts to pander to the right and prove his conservative credentials by trashing the President over - well pretty much anything.

The six Baltimore PD officers charged in Gray's death

Given the extent of the protests that gripped the city of Baltimore in the wake of Gray's death it's understandable that police are erring on the side of caution to prepare for any possible public reaction to the news of the mistrial.

As I write these words, NPR reports that protesters are gathering in front of the courthouse in Baltimore and chanting "No justice, no peace."

Which of course is their right to do under the Constitution.

But it's my hope that protesters in Baltimore remain peaceful and remember that beginning in January five other officers (pictured above) will face charges in court in Gray's death.

So at least there's still a chance that at least someone will actually be held legally responsible for a man's death while in police custody - a man who hadn't actually committed a crime.

Viewed in a larger context, the fact that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby actually brought charges against the six Baltimore police officers within months of the incident has to be seen as a positive step.

It took well over a year for Illinois State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to file charges against Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke; which she finally did hours before the release of the video footage of Van Dyke emptying his pistol into 16-year-old Laquan McDonald as the teen was walking away from police officers.

Here in "the worlds leading Democracy", the wait for justice for African-American and Hispanic victims of excessive police violence can take even longer - if it happens at all.

Consider the case of Jayvis Benjamin, a 20-year-old college student who was shot and killed by Avondale Estates Police Department Sgt. Lynn Thomas back on January 18, 2013.

Jayvis Benjamin, killed by police in 2013

As an article in the New York Daily News by Shaun King reports, Benjamin (pictured left) was accused by police of having stolen a car when he allegedly ran through a red light and crashed into the yard of a home.

In what has become an all too familiar refrain in America, police officers claim Benjamin tried to attack an officer and Sgt. Thomas was forced to shoot Thomas in the chest, killing him.

But Benjamin was unarmed at the time.

His mother Montye Benjamin says the car he was accused of having stolen actually belonged to his grandfather and he had permission to drive it.

Benjamin also had no police record - so given these circumstances why no charges in the case?

Benjamin's mother says police have videotape of the incident, but they still refuse to release it.

DeKalb County DA Robert James

As King's article details, the prosecutor, DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James (pictured left), and police are coming under fire for dragging their feet in an investigation that's now stretching into almost three years.

For over a year James has been assuring Jayvis Benjamin's family and the media that a grand jury will review the case so what's up?

Is he hoping the case just goes away?

There's a hope that increased public interest in the case driven in part by the national media attention on the prosecutions in Chicago and Baltimore can function as leverage to motivate the DeKalb County DA to make a decision on bringing charges against Sgt. Thomas in the death of Jayvis Benjamin.

Time will tell but there's a sense that the longer they wait in DeKalb County, the more suspicious the absurd length of the investigation seems - two years and counting?

In the past, the refusal of police and the prosecutors they work with to release the video tape of Benjamin's death and the lack of charges of any kind being filed for his death may have once worked as a way to shield police from facing responsibility for the death of an unarmed civilian under murky circumstances.

But given the changes that have taken place in the wake of other high-profile police killings - the lack of action on the part of the DeKalb County DA comes off as the kind of bureaucratic foot-dragging that  blew up in the face of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuele and the heads of police departments in Chicago, Baltimore, Ferguson and elsewhere.

It's been an unreasonably long wait for the mother and family of Jayvis Benjamin to get some kind of closure, but in this age of the rapid evolution of social media the old adage that parents, grandparents and teachers have told generations of children rings more true than ever - the truth eventually comes to the surface.

In the interests of ethics, the public trust and the concept of justice, the DA Robert James and officials within the Avondale Estates Police Department don't want to be on the wrong side when the truth about Jayvis Benjamin's death finally surfaces in DeKalb County Georgia.  

Cmdr Glenn Evans & The "Fleeting Relevance" of Systematic Abuse By the Chicago PD

Rickey Williams (left) & Commander Glenn Evans (right)

The myriad complexities related to holding members of law enforcement accountable for excessive violence were made clear by the acquittal of Chicago Police Department Commander Glenn Evans earlier today on two counts of battery and seven counts of official misconduct.

As many of you reading this have probably heard, Commander Evans was facing charges related to his having allegedly stuck the barrel of his loaded handgun down the throat of suspect Rickey Williams in an abandoned building after a foot pursuit back in 2013.

Despite the fact that lab results found traces of Williams' DNA on Evans' handgun, Cook County judge Diane Cannon (a former long-time prosecutor...) decided that Williams' credibility called into question his testimony.

As reporter Steven Schmadeke noted in The Chicago Tribune earlier today, Judge Cannon also dismissed the presence of Williams' DNA on Evans' gun as being "of fleeting relevance or significance."

Interestingly she, the prosecutor and the defense all dismissed (and lambasted) the initial investigation of the misconduct charges by the Independent Police Review Authority. 

It's understandable that the story was a national headline throughout the day in light of recent 1st degree murder charges filed against Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke for his execution of 16-year-old Laquan McDonald.  

Judge Diane Cannon

Now I wasn't at the court hearing today, and I'm not an expert on Chicago policing.

But from what I read of Judge Cannon's comments to the court prior to acquitting Commander Evans, my sense is that she seemed to come off as less a judge evaluating evidence with an objective eye.

Rather, she seemed more like a former prosecutor with deep ties to the Chicago PD who was dead-set on making sure that a long-time, high-ranking CPD officer would face no legal repercussions for the kind of physical abuse of a suspect that a seven-year-old could tell you falls outside the boundaries of police conduct and procedure.

Now I could be wrong.

Maybe there's a chapter in the CPD code of conduct that outlines jamming the barrel of a loaded service weapon down a suspect's throat as an approved technique, but I'm doubting they teach that at the academy.

Now in all fairness to Commander Evans, it's not fair to judge his actions without knowing what it's like to deal with law enforcement in the neighborhoods on the west side of Chicago, and Rickey Williams was no angel, but he wasn't a murder suspect or anything.

As Schmadeke reported in his Tribune article, "Williams alleged that Evans chased him into an abandoned South Side house, shoved the gun down his throat, pressed a Taser to his groin and threatened to kill him in January 2013."

Was shoving a gun down someone's throat really necessary to"serve and protect"?

In making the decision to acquit today, I have to wonder if Judge Cannon considered Evans' past record and conduct as a CPD office to be of "fleeting relevance".

If Evans' acquittal strikes you as odd, then I suggest you take a few minutes to check out an article by Angela Caputo entitled "Abusing the Badge" which details two of the numerous cases of police misconduct leveled against Evans during his career with the Chicago PD. 

Rennie Simmons - victim of Glenn Evans' abuse

Published back in May of 2012 on TheChicagoReporter.com, Caputo's article shows that Commander Glenn Evans is no stranger to media publicity over the use of excessive violence, or to physically abusing citizens in custody in ways that call his professional judgment into question.

Like his filing false battery charges against Rennie Simmons (pictured left) a water department employee who is paralyzed on his right side who went to Evans Chicago home to post a water shutoff notice and ended up being physically attacked by Evans, thrown in the back of a squad car and arrested on concocted charges.

Simmons later filed a federal suit against Evans and was awarded $99,999 by the city of Chicago.

Or worse, there's the disturbing case of Cordell Simmons (no relation to Rennie), a community college student with a history of marijuana arrests who was picked up with $20 worth of weed on him and taken to a police station.

The two cops who picked him up suspected he was concealing more weed on him, so they removed his pants and then-lieutenant Evans came into the room with a Taser and proceeded to use it on Simmons' scrotum, anus and on his arm in an effort to find out if he was holding more weed.

Don't take my word for it. Check out this 2014 article by Randa Morris that details other truly disturbing incidents of excessive physical force by Commander Glenn Evans - you have to read them for yourself to understand what kind of police officer this guy is.

If you read about the multiple cases of physical abuse he's committed, Judge Diane Cannon's decision to acquit him today actually makes sense in a way.

It's actually the same twisted logic that led Mayor Rahm Emanuele's office, the Chicago PD and the prosecutor's office to wait 13 months to file charges against officer Jason Van Dyke for shooting a 16-year-old sixteen times - they were trying to avoid sticking the taxpayers of Chicago with yet another payout in court to cover up another blatant use of excessive force by members of the Chicago PD.

Judge Cannon knew all about Glenn Evans' lengthy and violent record of abusing suspects in custody, that's why she acquitted him - according to an investigation by WBEZ editor Derek John, there have been some 45 separate complaints of abuse filed against Evans and he's been named as the defendant in 10 separate trials.

Holding him accountable would've meant yet another payout of thousands of dollars by the city of Chicago and with Jason Van Dyke facing murder charges and the Department of Justice gearing up a federal investigation of the police department - in Judge Cannon's eyes the city of Chicago simply couldn't afford the justice due Rickey Williams.

Why else would a judge dismiss the presence of Williams DNA on the gun that he alleged Glenn Evans shoved down his throat to be of "fleeting relevance"?
 
The city of Chicago couldn't afford another guilty abusive cop and it seems like the only thing of "fleeting relevance" in this case were Rickey Williams' Constitutional rights. 

Ted Cruz 's Climate Change Chicanery

Texas Senator Ted Cruz: Nothing to see here folks!

Well I'm sitting here making a late Sunday brunch while listening to A Prairie Home Companion on NPR with all the windows in my apartment wide open enjoying some amazing weekend weather.

Which wouldn't be all that unusual except for the fact that it's December 12th and it's partly sunny and 70 degrees outside here in central New Jersey.

The weather has been like this the past few days and local meteorologists are saying temperatures are somewhere between 20 to 23 degrees above normal for this time of year, so Republican Senator Ted Cruz picked a rather peculiar time to hold a Senate hearing to call into question the fact that human activity has influenced climate change.

The Tea Party poster boy and presidential candidate, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, made headlines last Monday when he cherry-picked substantive climate change data to try and cast doubt on what the overwhelming majority of scientists agree on - that humans are changing the planets climate and contributing to global warming.

As Emily Atkin reported in an article on ThinkProgress.org, Cruz confused the Arctic with the Antarctic, quoted NASA climate research out of context and tried to poke holes in established scientific fact in an effort to prove that global warming is a myth.

The timing of Cruz's attack on science is part of a carefully planned Republican strategy to try and undermine the historic agreement on limiting climate change reached at the COP21 summit in Paris by almost 200 different countries including the world's biggest polluters, including the U.S., China and India.   

The deal calls for taking steps to keep global temperature rise to under 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, capping greenhouse gas emissions and providing $100 billion a year to small developing nations to help finance their efforts to transition their emerging economies to more climate-friendly energy sources like wind, solar and hydroelectric instead of relying on coal and oil.

Cruz's Senate hearings aren't surprising given that his largest campaign contributions by industry come from oil and gas companies and, or industries that represent them.

According to data compiled by OpenSecrets.org posted on the VoteSmart.org Website, the oil and gas industry has donated at least $952,380 to Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign.

It's rare to get almost 200 nations to agree on anything, and taking concrete steps to address climate change is in the long-term interests of humans, plants, animals, the oceans, rivers, lakes and the atmosphere - but the majority of Republican politicians in Congress view it exclusively from the one dimensional perspective of the financial interests of the oil, gas and coal industries.

While Republicans view entitlement programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare that benefit average Americans with contempt, they're like zealots when it comes to protecting billions of dollars in lavish taxpayer-funded subsidies for America's oil and gas producers in the form of sketchy tax loopholes and other financial chicanery.

As an article on PoliticusUSA.com last June reported, a report by the International Monetary Fund showed that collectively, the world's countries provide a mind-boggling $5.3 trillion a year in taxpayer funds to subsidize fossil fuel companies that make huge profits even as they contribute to the pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which are altering the climate.

So Cruz using a Senate hearing as a platform to try and debunk climate change science is more about money than it is ideology, even though his sketchy arguments against human influence on climate change are largely ideologically driven.

Smog blankets the city of Beijing, China

In the meantime the evidence of global warming is all around us.

My friend Jeff just got back from a 12-day business trip to China where he spent time in the city of Shanghai.

He told me the pollution levels were bad enough to create near-constant overcast skies which at times could make it difficult to see store fronts across the street from his hotel.

It wasn't uncommon for him to see people walking around the streets wearing filter masks or even gas masks. 

He said Shanghai isn't nearly as bad as Beijing though.

On the very same day that Ted Cruz was holding his Senate Subcommittee hearing last Monday to deny that humans are contributing to climate change, hazardous levels of smog blanketing the city of Beijing prompted the first-ever "red alert" for toxic levels of smog that are some 20 times the level considered safe for the city's 20 million residents.

As Edward Wong reported in The New York Times last week, the smog prompted the government to shut down schools, businesses, factories and even some highways because of the lack of visibility caused in large part by fumes from coal burning factories and the millions of drivers who clog Beijing's roads.

Maybe Ted Cruz needs to take a fact-finding trip to Beijing; he could hold his hearings from there if the smog isn't too thick.

Anyway look for Republicans in Congress to continue doing what they can to undermine the U.S. honoring the commitments they agreed to in Paris while questioning whether man is influencing global warming.

In the meantime it's going to be 70 degrees in central New Jersey tomorrow - but I'm certain the 40 billion tons of CO2 that humans pumped into the atmosphere in 2014 have nothing to do with that.









 

El Chapo v ISIS? & Gary Webb - Victim of Truth

El Chapo: Ready to take on ISIS?

In the wake of recent deadly attacks on innocent civilians by ISIS in Egypt and Paris, and the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino being attributed to a radicalized couple's support of ISIS, has the deadly terrorist group overplayed it's hand?                                                                     
According to a story posted on the Cartelblog on Monday, a Mexican blogger with links to the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, they may have.

The unknown blogger reported that Joaquin Guzman Loera, AKA "El Chapo" (the Sinaloa leader who recently escaped from prison by escaping through a tunnel under the shower in his cell) recently sent an encrypted email directly to top ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi warning the Islamic terrorists to stop destroying Sinaloa Cartel drug shipments being shipped to rapidly-expanding drug markets in the middle east - or else.

Hard to tell if the story is legit as the inner workings of the Sinaloa Cartel are as classified as any government, but if true, who knows?

Perhaps the old adage that to catch a thief you need to send a thief applies equally to shutting down ISIS.

Speaking of deadly Latin American drug cartels...  
                                         

Investigative journalist Gary Stephen Webb

Today, December 10th, marks the eleventh anniversary of the death of Gary Webb (pictured left), one of the most courageous and controversial investigative journalists of the 20th century.

Albeit one whose name is far less familiar than other nationally-recognized journalists like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Webb's career as an investigative journalist spanned 24 years including stints with the Kentucky Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer and the San Jose Mercury News.

But he is most well known for "Dark Alliance", the explosive three-part series he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News in August of 1996.

At the height of the devastating crack epidemic in America, Webb's series explored how Rick "Freeway" Ross, one of the biggest drug dealers in Los Angeles, colluded with Oscar Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses (two Nicaraguans who helped smuggle cocaine into the U.S.) to traffic huge amounts of cocaine into LA which helped to fuel the explosion of crack in mostly African-American neighborhoods.

Oscar Blandon (left) and Rick Ross

Webb's story sparked a mixture of outrage and skepticism as he alleged that Blandon and Meneses were able to freely ship massive quantities of cocaine into the U.S. and elude capture by the Drug Enforcement Agency because they were trafficking cocaine on behalf of the anti-communist Contra rebels - who in turn were being financed by the CIA.

While the CIA and a number of major newspapers devoted significant time and resources to poking holes into Webb's story to discredit him as a journalist, there's no question that the U.S. government had been aware for years that the Contra's were heavily involved in drug trafficking to help finance their war against the pro-communist Sandanista government.

As journalist Ryan Devereaux noted last September in a well-researched article on The Intercept.com chronicling how Gary Webb was discredited entitled 'Managing a Nightmare: How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb', a 1989 Senate Sub-Committee (chaired by current Secretary of State John Kerry) published a detailed 1,166-page report on U.S. covert operations in Latin America and the Caribbean that makes clear the American government were well aware of the Contra's operations to smuggle drugs and weapons.

Recently declassified CIA documents show that the agency did in fact work with major newspapers (including the LA Times) to target Gary Webb and destroy his reputation partly out of concern over the fact that he intended to write a book about his allegations.

Discrediting journalists by governments is not new, it's a technique intelligence agencies like the CIA and Britain's GCHQ call "credential harvesting."

Webb's story is significant not just because of the allegations of U.S. government complacency in flooding poor urban neighborhoods around the country with cheap and highly-addictive crack cocaine, but also because it was one of the first stories to blow up on the Internet without the aid of a large mainstream media outlet.

It was a huge step for the kind of independent journalism now regularly produced by Frontline  or Vice.

Now people who are far more eloquent, versed, experienced and well-researched than I am have written extensively about Gary Webb, so if you're interested, take some time to look at Webb's Wikipedia page.

You can also check out Kill the Messenger, a 2014 film based on Gary Webb's experiences starring Jeremy Renner and Robert Patrick.

In the wake of efforts to discredit his story, Gary Webb eventually left the San Jose Mercury News, but he continued his work as an investigative journalist until his death.

On December 10, 2004, Gary Stephen Webb was found dead in his Carmichael, California home with two gunshot wounds to the head.

While the Sacramento County Coroner's office ruled his death a suicide, there are many, including yours truly who question the ability of anyone to shoot themselves in the head with a gun twice.

Especially a man with a wife and three kids with a life-long passion for investigative journalism.

Given the subject matter of his expose, the people and institutions he exposed and the repercussions (including four federal hearings and a tarnished reputation for the CIA), I certainly can't blame anyone in particular, but the circumstances of his death are less than clear to say the least.

As posted on Wikipedia, in a chapter published in an award-winning anthology on criticism of the press titled 'Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalist Expose the Myth of a Free Press', Gary Webb wrote:

"If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me ... And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job ... The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress ..."