Geoffrey Rush and Sophie   Nélisse   shot with my iPhone Los Angeles, CA —I made sure I was in town to catch this film screening at the Daryl Zanuck Theater on the Fox Film Studio Lot.   What a treat it was! The Book Thief is a film adapted from the Markus Zusak book by the same name.   It’s a story about life in Germany during that dark period of 1933-1945.   It’s a joint offering from Fox 2000 Pictures, Studio Babelsberg of Berlin. It’s about a young and illiterate girl, Liesel Meminger played by Sophie Nélisse .   Liesel gets taken by Nazi social services from her mother and sent to an older couple for adoption.   Liesel has to adapt to a new and somewhat frightening wartime life in different surroundings.   Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson play her new parents who are struggling to make ends meet during wartime.  They seem mismatched but Rush's  character  cuts the ice as he turns on the charm....

Cassandra Feuerstein Skokie, IL —The Cook County State’s Attorney announced that felony charges were brought in a criminal complaint against 19-year veteran Skokie police officer Michael Hart , 43.  Last March, another officer of the Skokie Police Department arrested Cassandra Feuerstein , 47 for DUI. She was brought into the station where  Feuerstein was subjected to the routine booking process that includes fingerprinting and photographing.    Officer Hart was assisting in that effort but apparently the woman became uncooperative and resisted the process.   At some point Feuerstein refused to be photographed and as she was being returned to a holding cell she fought that effort with both hands to prevent that from happening.   There is video with a view inside the cell but none to show what happened outside the cell door. Officer Hart is seen giving Feuerstein a hearty shove into the cell when the unthinkable happened. ...

Chicago, IL —I can remember the days when the Chicago Police Department rejected the idea of SWAT teams as a horrible idea.   They did not want the public relations fallout from the SWAT concept.  They recoiled at the idea we would become urban commandos. They did have so-called heavy weapons training but that only involved the Ithaca Model 37 .12 gauge shotgun, the .30 US M-1 Carbine and a few 308 hunting style scoped bolt action rifles.  These weapons were kept in wagons dubbed, The War Wagon and they were dispatched to difficult crime calls.  Ballistic vests were yet unheard of and our issued batons were made of wood.  Our required duty weapon was a Colt or Smith & Wesson revolver chambered for a .357 or .38 special round.  We were issued 12 round of .38 special ammunition.  They were solid lead, round nose 158-grain bullets that bounced off most car windows. Later they went to a hollow point all lead .38+P round that wa...

Fairfax, VA --They left out the other Colt variants such as the Agent and Cobra patterned after this gun but here is a video from the NRA National Firearms Museum .

Washington, DC—Barack Obama and his henchmen squandered a staggering amount of taxpayer cash on everything but productivity or our economy.  They’ve made their friends and supporters obscenely wealthy as they’ve driven so many millions of American to the welfare and food stamp rolls. The Obamas should have been judged by the nefarious and notorious company they kept.  Instead they were elected on empty promises of hope and change.  The Obamas were inside a criminal Chicago cabal.  Their closest associates included Reverend Theodore Wright , Anton “Tony” Rezko , Rod Blagojevich, Jessie Jackson, Jr., William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn .  Communists, terrorists, swindlers, liars and thugs make the inner circle of Obama’s world. America was incredibly vulnerable after eight years of the mismanagement of that pretend Conservative president George W. Bush .  Voters and our media handed over the reins of our government to a bunch of Chicago’s more ...

Actress Noemi Schlosser with Crimefile News Blogger Paul Huebl Antwerp, Belgium —This terrific city is home to writer, director, singer, actress and comedian Noemi Schlosser .  Noemi has traveled to Chicago, L.A., Israel, Spain and all points in between putting up entertainment.  Each project is a new and exciting adventure for this talented lady.  It is also a lot of very hard work. A while back on one of her visits to the USA she sat down with me for an exclusive interview.  Noemi is bright, funny and delightful.  I spent the day with her taking her to such places as The mausoleum where the late actress Marilyn Monroe is interred, the L.A. Art Museum and the headquarters of the Screen Actor’s Guild where I’m a member. For me my visits with Noemi both in Chicago and L.A. have been a real treat!  I look forward to our next meeting perhaps in Europe.  I have to say I’m proud to count Noemi as a dear friend! ...

Austin, TX —Recently I’ve joined the GoPro camera aficionados in a big way.  I’ve also learned that YouTube has some terrific tutorials for almost anything.  So I went searching for ways to best exploit my GoPros (so far I have two).  I found Mitch Bergsma’s  YouTube channel and began watching this fellow’s fine instructional videos.  Most of his videos have no sound nor does he speak.   Nonetheless I’m learning a lot from the video tips he provides.  Bergsma is young, athletic, incredibly creative and happens to be stone deaf!  Having suffered a somewhat serious hearing loss in recent years I’m fortunate in that I’ve been helped with hearing aids that allow me to function quite normally. Bergsma who was born deaf has also been helped with hearing aids but prefers to work without them.  It’s obvious that he’s adapted very well at a time before the hearing aids were improved as they are today.  Let me be the firs...

Los Angeles, CA — Adolph Hitler was evil personified. Hitler murdered six million Jews and over nine million Germans lost their lives because of that vile despot. Jews in particular become offended when any of our politicians are compared to Hitler.  They take the position that Hitler was so evil he stands alone as an object of hate.  Suggesting anyone else may be trying to fill Hitler’s shoes marginalizes that dictator’s horrific accomplishments.   Let me say that Hitler was not just evil but more importantly he had great success in his world-class crime spree and genocide.  It’s not that others are not less evil; they just never had Hitler’s kind of success.  Josef Stalin was every bit as evil as Hitler and was also an enemy of Jews.  Josef Stalin killed as many or more people than Hitler, but since Stalin was victorious in defeating Hitler his henchmen authored the history books. There were a vast amount of Soviet war criminals...

Los Angeles, CA —When an American jury is empaneled they are admonished to avoid all print, broadcast or Internet related materials involving the case they are deciding.  Do they follow the rules when the juicy gossip is only a few mouse clicks away?  The answer is NO!  Before I indict all jurors let me suggest that a small percentage do obey the instructions.  Perhaps it is only because they are not computer literate.  The rest are a bunch of undisciplined folks that do what they damn well please. It is apparent that our jurors allow themselves to become influenced by illicit outside information.  My blog gave me a real window into a jury in action on a Hollywood Attempted Murder case that began in December of 2005.   Alexander Terminassian shot and wounded an assailant, Marco C . Fuentes .  I remain convinced that the charges should have never been filed!  It was a clear act of self-defense. I was outraged by the e...

Berlin, Germany —The Wikileaks massive document dumps exposing mass government deception and corruption inspired this film.  Apparently fugitive blogger/hacker Julian Assange somehow got ahold of the script and completely hated what he’d read in this Dreamworks project. Hundred of thousands of cablegrams were intercepted and forwarded to the Wikileaks organization.  The material was censored before it was published by various news organizations.  Wikileaks went ahead and posted the raw material on line for the entire world to examine. The biggest issue was the material provided by Army private Bradley Manning .  Was manning a spy or a whistleblower?  I think the answer lies in the corruption and deception by our own government.  Manning is doing some serious time over his role.  Frankly I’m on his side of this argument.  Americans have a right to know when their elected officials are engaging in deception to us.  The scriptw...

Los Angeles, CA —For the second night in a row dry ice bombs exploded in LAX terminals housing international flights. However tonight there were reportedly three bombs discovered, two of them were duds. The bombs were planted in to so-called “sterile areas” of Terminal 2 and the Bradley International Terminal .   It’s obvious that the suspect is familiar with the video surveillance camera locations and is well acquainted with airport security procedures.   I will go out on a limb and suggest that a near-do-well TSA baggage screener is trying to get elevated to hero status and a win a promotion.   He, and yes I’m sure the offender is a male has a nefarious self-aggrandizing plan.   Frankly getting bombs and firearms past the TSA checkpoints is child’s play.   The TSA has been running an expensive fraud on travelers as they have done nothing more than create an illusion of security. Along the way they created a massive jobs program for the ha...