“Look! You fools! You’re in danger! Can’t you see? They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives…our children…they’re here already! You’re next!”—Dr. Miles Bennell
I lifted line delivered by that wonderful actor, Kevin McCarthy from the great 1950’s film, Invasion of The Body Snatchers as a desperate warning of where we are headed.
I don’t know about my fellow Americans, but the day they try this crap here is the Day I take up arms against my own government.
Ever since Edward R. Murrow hit the scene, TV news executives have not dared change their proven pattern of boring news presentation. That pattern survived through nearly 50 years as a time honored proven winner. A proven winner only if you have a captive audience with no real TV news alternatives.
Before the last decade or so we had only three TV channels all doing news on a Monkey See, Monkey Do format. With the cable explosion and now the Internet steadily drawing once loyal viewers away, the old ways need to change in a hurry.
If I was a general manager or news director with creative authority I would do it all so differently. Gone would be the trusted unchanging anchors. Instead reporters would assume those duties on a rotating basis from the newsroom instead of those sterile news sets. Messy reporter and producer’s desks are far more visual and interesting.
The attention span of today’s rapid-fire remote control viewers can’t tolerate the predictable old format anymore. I suspect if Murrow reappeared viewers would zap him back to his grave in an instant. Of course reporters doing stories out in the field have to continue to tell their stories pretty much the way they always have. Reporters and photographers must be encouraged to try new things.
The photographers need to lose their tripods but for press conferences and bring some excitement to their visuals. The viewers need to see the whole scene of these events both in front of and behind the cameras.
I’m not big on the VJ, system where a reporter becomes the photographer, producer, and sound man. However there is a place for those skilled players in every TV newsroom.
Clothing worn by reporters should match the stories and never be predictable.
TV news websites are getting better than ever. Court documents, police reports and such should be made available in their entirety on these well promoted sites.
The news outlet’s websites video embedded codes should be placed on all video packaged stories so the thousands of bloggers can be licensed to use them freely. This would give additional story life and revenue possibilities. The advantage here is a small ad clip goes with that story along full credit for the source.
Station General Managers and News Directors can change or they may find themselves working as Wal-Mart greeters. These are desperate times that call for radical experimentation.
The federal government has demanded that states allow and pay for programs that invite people to submit themselves for anonymous rape tests. Potential evidence would be sealed while the "victims" makes up their mind whether to accuse someone of rape.
Rape allegations are only a 911 call away. We can all remember that most famous rape victim poster children, Tawana Brawley and the whore the Duke LaCrosse players paid to strip at a party.
False allegations are made every day and thousands have gone to prisons for rapes that never occurred or after consensual sex.
I see this anonymous program inviting all manner of extortion games after a consensual sex acts. A false allegation will nearly always cause a criminal felony trial and a jury will decide just who they want to believe.
I don’t want to dismiss or discount the reality that real rapes happen along with an emotional nightmare for the victims. But encouraging people to wait rather than report crimes invites all manner of shenanigans and manipulation of the criminal justice system. Very often the lives of the falsely accused suspects are destroyed despite acquittal by a jury. This program was a really dumb idea.
Los Angeles--According to what one LAX Police official told the L.A. Times the vast majority of them are off duty cops and such.
Cops carry guns everyday of their lives and don’t dwell on that fact. They are comfortable in knowing they are supposed to do so. Cops are absent minded too.
An example is when a cop is getting on a plane to attend the funeral of a family member or dear friend. Grief and devastating news can consume any normal person who is allowed by law to carry weapons. Remembering that the gun in a bag you drive around with by automobile every day is suddenly contraband on the airplane escapes many. The same goes for retired cops, security people such as bodyguards and private eyes.
The sad news is that many of our law enforcement officers caught up in the TSA dragnet have their careers and in some cases lives shattered by these monumental and embarrassing events.
For safety of all passengers it’s better that trained, vetted cops and retired cops carry their firearms without questions, beyond their official credentials.
It’s mindboggling when you know that two of the four doomed planes on 9/11 had disarmed cops on board who could have stopped the hijackings but for an insane and stupid FAA policy backed by a dumb federal law.
Personally I believe the Second Amendment does not end at a TSA passenger screening checkpoint and neither does the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure.
Accordingly, I don’t think it’s too much to ask our government to leave the cops and all American citizens alone if investigation reveals that there was no intent to do harm.
Los Angeles--It seems that Dennis Farina forgot he had a little .22 pistol in his briefcase as he went through an airport checkpoint at LAX this morning. The TSA weenies saved us from yet another hijacking!
Farina honorably served as a Chicago cop spending most of his career as an Area Six burglary detective until he and and a former robbery sergeant, Chuck Adamson were discovered by legendary film director and Chicago native Michael Mann. Soon Farina took his leave of absence and early retirement to portray a cop in scores of projects on the small and large screen.
Farina has returned for many funerals of fellow officers and never missed a chance to help one of his own.
The TSA called LAX Police who booked Farina at the LAPD Pacific Division on a felony charge. Farina’s gun was allegedly not registered in California. California gives their residents a 60 day grace period in which to register firearms imported from other states. Farina told police he had recently brought the gun in from his home in Scottsdale.
Farina owns and lives in properties in Michigan, Illinois, and Arizona that I know about. Farina spends the least amount of time in Los Angeles and should not be considered a resident subject to local gun registration laws. Federal law lets retired officers carry firearms and another federal law protects non-residents from state and local registration laws where simple possession is involved. Police chose to charge Farina with a felony. Bail was set at $35,000.00, I never knew Farina was such a flight risk or so dangerous to the public.
Normally I avoid harsh language on my blog but this arrest is beyond CHICKENSHIT. What the Hell is going on in America?
The United States Supreme Court will be ruling on whether Americans have a right to keep and bear arms any Monday in D.C. vs Heller before the summer recess.
As I have always said, gun laws only impact the law-abiding. Will Farina get punished for being absent minded? I hope not. For now he is being punished with bad publicity, the Hollywood Perpwalk, court appearances and wasted time and money dealing with lawyers.
Through his publicist, Lori De Waal, Farina said "I apologize to anyone and everyone that I have caused any embarrassment or inconvenience to. It is my own stupidity to find myself in this embarrassing situation. I don't put the blame on anyone else but myself. I want to apologize to my friends, family and business associates who I'll explain to privately later. I'll be spending the next few days kicking my own ass. No one is more embarrassed than myself."
Here’s where Farina and I disagree. Obviously Farina did not intend to bring the gun onto the plane or hurt anyone. The police investigation should have uncovered that and they could have used discretion by releasing rather than booking the actor.
Farina obviously showed real class despite being subjected to an unnecessary trip through the criminal justice system as a defendant.
Farina’s latest movie, “What Happens in Vegas...” just had a premier at the Mann Village in Westwood, Los Angeles. Maybe the LAX Police are “helping” sell tickets?
An Update: Farina was released on bail after 12 hours in custody from the Van Nuys jail. I can just imagine fumbling around for cash on a Sunday when all the banks were closed for a bail bond from a jail cell must have been quite a challenge. Here is KTLA-TV's top story at 10:00 PM
Aside from more major newspaper editorial support for Marie Walsh’s freedom, she arrived somewhat early from her 2000 mile prison bus trip last night.
Walsh will be held in a quarantine setting for a while as she is processed into the general population at the Robert Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth, Michigan.
Soon Walsh will have an approved list of people she can call by telephone assuming she has money in her personal prison account. It takes time for the bureaucracy to handle these things.
All of Walsh’s visitors including family members will have to undergo background investigations by prison officials before any visits can take place.
My hopes are that a defense lawyer can get the original Saginaw County Court to accept a motion for re-sentencing. Should the court take jurisdiction they may well set bail and release her pending a pre-sentence investigation and further court appearances.
Walsh’s former prosecutor publically said if he was the prosecutor today he’d join in Walsh’s motion to set her free. Walsh has been punished enough. Hopefully the current prosecutor may have a similar attitude. Of course the court will have to accept jurisdiction over this matter befor any movement here.
Should that effort fail a commutation application must be initiated and put into the Pardon Board’s overflowing caseload for consideration. A hearing would result and and recommendation made to the Governor. I know that Governor Granholm is well aware of this case but only she knows what she will do.
Let’s hope that this 33 year-old nightmare ends for Marie Walsh and is put behind her.
It’s actually very simple; Blacks and Hispanics live in these cities.
It’s really about the culture embraced by these minority groups and not the color of their skin.
The apologists can talk all they want about the root causes being poverty, ignorance and despair. Murder epidemics are just not present where these same issues plague White Americans.
I’m not suggesting that White people don’t murder or commit other violence; they just do it far less frequently.
Here is something that proves my point. Take your own Meghan’s Law sex offender web sites in large cities and examine them. Search for offenders by zip code and you will find very few offenders in predominately White zip codes. Do the same for sex offenders in the Black or Hispanic zip codes and see frightening numbers of rapists and child molesters.
In our large cities the jails are as high as 90% minority occupied. You can argue poor people have no money to post for bail but it’s also true for non-bondable offenses like murder.
To suggest that discrimination and racial profiling by police result in these crimes is a bogus argument. How these factors impact out-of-control minority related rape and child molesting crimes? They don’t because it’s a lawless culture problem.
There is no cure short of banishing minorities out of our cities to some other continent or even genocide. Those are not the practices of a civilized nation so another way must be found.
The Drug War has done nothing but provide opportunities for huge wealth in America. That has given the minorities reasons to kill each other. Disputes tied to territory, snitching, stealing and grudges have turned minority neighborhoods into war zones.
The Drug war bringing vastly inflated prices/profits for drugs that a significant percentage of Americans consume has brought us much more blight and crime than the drugs themselves.
The ugliest part of our Immigration mess is Mexico’s export of drugs, crime and poverty into the United States. If the drugs were legal the out-of-control violence would end. The flow of criminals bearing drugs, death and deatruction would also end.
Let’s spend the Drug War money on treatment for the drug dependent. As for those young, neighborhood drug dealers, perhaps their new unemployment may lead them into job training programs.
America is a great country that generates new millionaires every day. Perhaps a culture of violence can somehow change into a culture of productivity.
The larger than life O.J. Simpson was made for all manner of journalists. Sex, murder, rumors, lawyers, profiteers and Fred Goldman follow Simpson wherever he goes.
We can only speculate who murdered Nicolle Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The public made their guess and jury verdicts notwithstanding, Simpson is standing alone as the killer.
The ongoing Las Vegas Palace Station robbery case is nothing but garbage. This sordid mess is not worthy of the tax dollars it will burn trying to sort out which group of thieves, thugs and liars robbed the other. Another fortune will be made by writers and pundits who cover the saga.
Simpson has made many careers and millions of dollars for so many writers and television personalities already. They include disgraced, former LAPD Detective and convicted felon, Mark Fuhrman.
Now comes yet another profiteer who is putting a new book up for sale, "How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret and Remorse".
Had not the Statute of Limitations expired on felony Obstruction of Justice crimes the confession by the book’s author would bring him some well deserved prison time.
Who better to tell us about that book but the incomparable Associated Press correspondent, Linda Deutsch. Deutsch has been covering Simpson for the AP for a substantial period of her career.
I have a fondness for horses, but then what’s not to love about some of God’s masterpieces? This film will mystify and amaze you like it did me. Whatever you do, don’t try this at home!
This extraordinary case needs to run through the Michigan Parole Board and Governor’s commutation program at a record speed. I hope that the parole board sees things the way I do and so many kind people that have stepped in to help Marie Walsh.
Los Angeles—KNBC-TV veteran anchor Paul Moyer told viewers about newly released information on a July 4, 2002 terrorist attack at The LAX, El Al Airline ticket counter by a suicide gunman who unleashed a bloodbath.
I strongly recommend that citizens with adequate training ignore politician’s gun bans because as this story demonstrates self-help is all you have to survive the unthinkable. Carry your guns so you and others may live through events like the one Moyer reports.
Susan Lefevre is on a prisoner bus traveling to a state that felt she needed 10 to 20 years imprisonment to turn her into a productive and law-abiding citizen. Michigan was dead wrong as today the stellar wife and mother, now know as Marie Walsh has become today serves as solid evidence of their misjudgment.
I’m asking along with the hundreds of the fugitive’s friends and supporters for Governor Jennifer Granholm to use her commutation power in an unprecedented way in this unparalleled case.
Governor has sole commutation power to set Lefevre free under Article 5 & 14 of the Michigan Constitution. That’s despite a bureaucracy that was set up to include all ten politically appointed members of the Michigan Parole Board.
Usually parole boards are expected to be clairvoyant and predict which offenders are worth the risk of parole or commutation. They investigate and take a long hard look at each case before them and they nearly always vote on the side of caution against disturbing sentences imposed by courts.
Despite clear powers to do so, Michigan governors have never bypassed the parole board process or given a commutation where the board has not recommended mercy. Nobody can recall a similar case like Marie Walsh’s either.
The governor can and should sidestep the parole board’s fortune tellers because she is empowered to do so. Granholm can begin her own investigation and act reasonably and prudently before any clemency application begins its journey.
This is not to slight the members of the parole board or their important work, this rare case does not need to waste their time and limited resources.
The governor can save a family, save taxpayers a small fortune and bring a fair resolution to this woman’s case by just being a courageous governor.
The cost to taxpayers of keeping Marie Walsh for five and a half years in prison is well over $172,000.00. I know there are more important uses for that money than protecting Michigan from a middle aged, reformed soccer mom who lives 2,000 miles away from the place where she offended so long ago.
Here is the contact information for Governor Granholm: Governor Jennifer M. Granholm P.O. Box 30013 Lansing, Michigan 48909 PHONE: (517) 373-3400 PHONE: (517) 335-7858 - Constituent Services FAX:(517) 335-6863
“Look! You fools! You’re in danger! Can’t you see? They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives…our children…they’re here already! You’re next!”—Dr. Miles Bennell
