Oklahoma City Police Captain Dexter Nelson wants to clarify the situation regarding Alina Fitzpatrick. In a story written by Oklahoman staff writer Bryan Dean and published on January 29th, Nelson is quoted as saying, "Homicide is just a legal term. That gives us legal grounds to prosecute someone. We are still investigating it as a suspicious death. You investigate them the same way."
That lets OKCPD Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow off the hook. On January 20th she was quoted as saying, "Officers are keeping a file on the case, but are not currently investigating her death as a homicide." To the average reader interpreting Wardlow's words it sounded like police were keeping a file open, but not actively investigating the case at all. However, by using the word "homicide" she left the door open for Nelson to do some legalese tap dancing.
So, if Captain Nelson is to be believed an investigation is indeed underway into the death of Alina Fitzpatrick, although there was no mention of the number of detectives and officers currently assigned to the case. The one item of note to be gleaned from this public relations rehab attempt is that, "The contusions and cuts and bruises were not enough to cause death." He did go on to say, according to Dean, that it is obviously unlikely she overdosed naked on the side of the road.
I guess that could be interpreted as progress of a sort.
Nelson summed up by saying "Detectives are at a point now where they could use some help. They have talked to a lot of people, but they don't have all the answers yet."
The main question from the public standpoint right now is do they have any answers at all? The only thing certain is they have the body of a seventeen year old girl who died under mysterious circumstances. Unless information is being withheld in order not to compromise the investigation, it is unknown if the overdose was accidental on her part, or if Ms. Fitzpatrick had meth forced into her system by unknown persons, or was slipped a deadly meth-mickey of some sort. It is certainly unknown who she met that day her cell phone was turned off. It is also unknown how she got dumped into a field in the wilds of far northeast Oklahoma City. And finally, it is unknown why she was beaten, or why someone felt it necessary to stuff a gag in her mouth.
In other words, nearly three months after the fact, there are a hell of a lot of unknowns.
And as awful as this is, police are apparently no closer to finding the killer, or killers of Kelsey Bransby. Of the three teenagers who were murdered this fall hers seems to be the case that has fallen in between the cracks. Even a five grand award offered by her parents hasn't provided any openings, or publicly anyway, any "persons of interest."
In the Carina Saunder's case two people are behind bars, but details have been not forthcoming since their arrests. Fitzpatrick's death has been mentioned by local print media twice in the last nine days. The Bransby murder and there can be no issue of cause of death there, hasn't rated a press release, or story in weeks, if not months.
Police have maintained from the beginning of this gruesome saga that the killings are not related. I'm not sure that is of comfort to anyone with a teen aged daughter in this town. I mean would you rather believe all this is the work of some sort of vicious gang, a cadre of psycho paths who can be run to ground and put away. Or, is it a bit more discomforting to realize there are any number of monsters roaming the streets of Oklahoma City who are doing these things simply because that is how they have fun.
It hasn't been a kind autumn and winter for three different families in the OKC metro area. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be an end in sight for two of them. At least not anytime soon.
One can only hope more is going on behind the scenes than officials are saying.
1-30-12
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Newt to the Moon, Farmers in Space, Upper Georgia Uber Alles
It is a Friday and sometimes late in the week things get so terribly weird that when you look at the TV, or the computer screen you have to wonder if what you are seeing is real. After all back in the day there were some serious chemicals involved with the lifestyle. So honestly there is no telling when some sort of awful acid flash back, or pent up hallucination will be released from the dark recesses of the brain without warning. God only knows when the monks of the Black Canon will come calling, flickering torches in hand.
A few minutes ago as I began to watch part of a recent Rachel Maddow show on line I had one of those terrible dizzy moments. The same sort of feeling the James Stewart character had in the movie "Vertigo" when Hitchcock pulled the camera back as fast as he zoomed in with the lens. She had shown up for her MSNBC show in a NASA space suit and was talking about how Newt Gingrich wanted to be president of the moon. I checked my hands to see if they had turned into butterflies, but they were fine.
Then came the film clip. Newt was at the podium in front of his cheering savants. His plan (honestly I swear this was real) is that by the end of his second term there will be a permanent American colony on the moon. He talked about legislation he proposed back when he was speaker that, once there were thirteen thousand Americans up there, they could petition for statehood. There was no mention of renaming the place during the speech. Maddow came up with North North Dakota, but I see something along the lines of Upper Georgia.
She went on to point out that Gingrich has in the past proposed setting up vast mirrors on the lunar surface to create ambient light in certain dicey urban areas to lower the crime rate. He has also envisioned out of work farmers being shipped into space to work in orbiting factories.
Now we know why mainstream republicans don't want this goof nominated. They think he is quite nearly certifiable. The probability of him showing up for the initial debate with Obama dressed as Napoleon is far too great for them.
The arch liberal Tom DeLay has referred to Mr. Gingrich as "erratic." The Drudge Report, the on line bible of republicans everywhere, is running one article after another highly critical of the former speaker. Even Bob Dole was dragged out of the attic the other day and dusted off. His take on the candidate was that, "hardly anyone who served with him in congress has endorsed him." He also allowed that when he ran his own campaign for president Newt used to show up at the headquarters carrying an empty bucket. There was never any explanation for this. Dole doesn't believe Gingrich himself knew why he was carrying it around.
The latest Wall St. Journal/NBC nation wide poll shows that among republicans Gingrich is pulling away from Romney. However, in same poll Romney, when pitted against Obama, trails by only three points. Mr. Gingrich on the other hand gets blasted by the president in a head to head contest. In other words no one outside of the conservative wing wants anything to do with the guy.
It is unclear who would have the edge in Upper Georgia, but that is a question for later.
Florida is only a few days away. The Romney campaign is suddenly reeling. What we are witnessing maybe the greatest breakdown of common sense since people rioted over Tickle Me Elmo dolls.
At least the flash backs and hallucinations go away.
To the chagrin of the lucid, Newt Gingrich won't.
1-27-12
A few minutes ago as I began to watch part of a recent Rachel Maddow show on line I had one of those terrible dizzy moments. The same sort of feeling the James Stewart character had in the movie "Vertigo" when Hitchcock pulled the camera back as fast as he zoomed in with the lens. She had shown up for her MSNBC show in a NASA space suit and was talking about how Newt Gingrich wanted to be president of the moon. I checked my hands to see if they had turned into butterflies, but they were fine.
Then came the film clip. Newt was at the podium in front of his cheering savants. His plan (honestly I swear this was real) is that by the end of his second term there will be a permanent American colony on the moon. He talked about legislation he proposed back when he was speaker that, once there were thirteen thousand Americans up there, they could petition for statehood. There was no mention of renaming the place during the speech. Maddow came up with North North Dakota, but I see something along the lines of Upper Georgia.
She went on to point out that Gingrich has in the past proposed setting up vast mirrors on the lunar surface to create ambient light in certain dicey urban areas to lower the crime rate. He has also envisioned out of work farmers being shipped into space to work in orbiting factories.
Now we know why mainstream republicans don't want this goof nominated. They think he is quite nearly certifiable. The probability of him showing up for the initial debate with Obama dressed as Napoleon is far too great for them.
The arch liberal Tom DeLay has referred to Mr. Gingrich as "erratic." The Drudge Report, the on line bible of republicans everywhere, is running one article after another highly critical of the former speaker. Even Bob Dole was dragged out of the attic the other day and dusted off. His take on the candidate was that, "hardly anyone who served with him in congress has endorsed him." He also allowed that when he ran his own campaign for president Newt used to show up at the headquarters carrying an empty bucket. There was never any explanation for this. Dole doesn't believe Gingrich himself knew why he was carrying it around.
The latest Wall St. Journal/NBC nation wide poll shows that among republicans Gingrich is pulling away from Romney. However, in same poll Romney, when pitted against Obama, trails by only three points. Mr. Gingrich on the other hand gets blasted by the president in a head to head contest. In other words no one outside of the conservative wing wants anything to do with the guy.
It is unclear who would have the edge in Upper Georgia, but that is a question for later.
Florida is only a few days away. The Romney campaign is suddenly reeling. What we are witnessing maybe the greatest breakdown of common sense since people rioted over Tickle Me Elmo dolls.
At least the flash backs and hallucinations go away.
To the chagrin of the lucid, Newt Gingrich won't.
1-27-12
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sheldon and Miriam Go Shopping
Sheldon Adelson wants Newt Gingrich to be the president of the United States of America and he is ready to put his money where his mouth is. Actually he all ready has. He first funneled $5 million to the pro Gingrich Super Pac, Winning Our Future. Then, apparently thinking that wasn't enough, his wife, Miriam turned around and wrote a check for another $5 million the other day. The gifts are thought to be the largest contributions made by individuals to a political campaign in US history.
This was all made possible by a conservative supreme court who ruled there shouldn't and won't be any limit on contributions by organizations or individuals to political action committees. The committees are not controlled by the candidates, but by their supporters. In short it is an end run around federal laws that limit individual campaign contributions put in effect to curb things like influence buying, which is a genteel term for bribery. Not to mention they can turn loose a barrage of advertising sludge and attacks so scurrilous that they border on being comparable to North Korean propaganda. And all the while the candidate can shrug and say something like, "Hey, I wasn't the one who said it."
According to Wikipedia, Adleson is a self made man. The son of Jewish Ukrainian immigrants, born and raised in Dorchester, a neighborhood at the southern end of Boston. He is CEO of, Las Vegas Sands Corp. which operates hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and Macao among other places. His worth is estimated at $23.3 billion, yes, that is with a "b" and that makes him the 8th wealthiest man in America and the 16th in the world. He also owns an Israeli newspaper which has the largest circulation in that country.
He doesn't like organized labor and has clashed with unions on more than one occasion at his properties. After a couple of these run ins he became a major contributor to the Republican National Committee and now, our man, Newt.
Gingrich has promised that his first act as president will be to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is a promise that probably has nothing at all to do with those contributions. Yes, and I have some ocean front property to sell you in New Jersey.
US News quotes Fred Wertheimer, the president of the campaign watchdog group, Democracy 21 as saying, "The bottom line (the supreme court super pac ruling) is that it creates the potential for one person to have far more influence than any one person should have." Parenthesise are mine.
It is good to be rich and a good time to be rich. Never has the ability to swing an election in favor of one individual by another been easier. Newt was losing in South Carolina pre Sheldon Adelson. He won going away post Sheldon Adelson.
Now Florida is up for grabs and the Adelsons have pitched in another five million.
Sheldon Adelson may not want to be president of the United States, but he certainly wants to own one. The question republicans and perhaps later this fall all of us should be asking is, what exactly does he want from his newest employee?
We may call this a democracy and we all still get to vote. However with guys like Adelson behind relentless and sometimes questionable television, print, radio, and telephone campaigns it is starting to seem less and less like one. It is starting to appear the presidency will go to the highest bidder, rather like some sort of prize hog at a state fair.
The Iranians are scary dudes, but honestly I'm more frightened by the Sheldon Adelsons of the world. He and Miriam are here right now and they are spending like drunken sailors on leave. Like all good business people they are going to want a healthy return on their investment. And that return would appear to be the soul of the president of the United States.
1-26-12
This was all made possible by a conservative supreme court who ruled there shouldn't and won't be any limit on contributions by organizations or individuals to political action committees. The committees are not controlled by the candidates, but by their supporters. In short it is an end run around federal laws that limit individual campaign contributions put in effect to curb things like influence buying, which is a genteel term for bribery. Not to mention they can turn loose a barrage of advertising sludge and attacks so scurrilous that they border on being comparable to North Korean propaganda. And all the while the candidate can shrug and say something like, "Hey, I wasn't the one who said it."
According to Wikipedia, Adleson is a self made man. The son of Jewish Ukrainian immigrants, born and raised in Dorchester, a neighborhood at the southern end of Boston. He is CEO of, Las Vegas Sands Corp. which operates hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and Macao among other places. His worth is estimated at $23.3 billion, yes, that is with a "b" and that makes him the 8th wealthiest man in America and the 16th in the world. He also owns an Israeli newspaper which has the largest circulation in that country.
He doesn't like organized labor and has clashed with unions on more than one occasion at his properties. After a couple of these run ins he became a major contributor to the Republican National Committee and now, our man, Newt.
Gingrich has promised that his first act as president will be to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is a promise that probably has nothing at all to do with those contributions. Yes, and I have some ocean front property to sell you in New Jersey.
US News quotes Fred Wertheimer, the president of the campaign watchdog group, Democracy 21 as saying, "The bottom line (the supreme court super pac ruling) is that it creates the potential for one person to have far more influence than any one person should have." Parenthesise are mine.
It is good to be rich and a good time to be rich. Never has the ability to swing an election in favor of one individual by another been easier. Newt was losing in South Carolina pre Sheldon Adelson. He won going away post Sheldon Adelson.
Now Florida is up for grabs and the Adelsons have pitched in another five million.
Sheldon Adelson may not want to be president of the United States, but he certainly wants to own one. The question republicans and perhaps later this fall all of us should be asking is, what exactly does he want from his newest employee?
We may call this a democracy and we all still get to vote. However with guys like Adelson behind relentless and sometimes questionable television, print, radio, and telephone campaigns it is starting to seem less and less like one. It is starting to appear the presidency will go to the highest bidder, rather like some sort of prize hog at a state fair.
The Iranians are scary dudes, but honestly I'm more frightened by the Sheldon Adelsons of the world. He and Miriam are here right now and they are spending like drunken sailors on leave. Like all good business people they are going to want a healthy return on their investment. And that return would appear to be the soul of the president of the United States.
1-26-12
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Mitt Isn't Like You and I
No, he isn't. He is a one percenter and that isn't in that Hell's Angel, outlaw biker sense of a one percenter.
Mr. Romney has made public his tax returns for the last couple of years and it turns out he has made $42.5 million dollars for doing, well, nothing much at all except run for president. Not bad work if you can get it.
Romney's people, because when you make that kind of money, you have people, disclosed the returns in response to increasingly vitriolic attacks by that arch enemy of capitalism, Newt Gingrich and questions about the sources of his income. His people hope to diffuse charges of greed and avarice on the candidate's part by making the records public. They probably just confirmed them.
The problem here is that most people actually have to do something to make a living. They have to transplant a heart, plead a case in court, or at least install a muffler to earn a check. Romney's income flows from three blind trusts. We are told, by his people once again, that Romney makes no decisions on how his trust money is invested. This, I guess, is supposed to make me feel better about the guy somehow. Unfortunately I'd prefer him to at least have to make some sort of effort. You know, like read the Wall Street Journal, pick up a phone to a broker, consider which options to exercise. However this is an entirely hands free, worry free, operation.
It is also revealed that Mr. Romney pays taxes at a 13.9% rate which is far less than most of us working stiffs on the street. Top wage earners in this country pay up to 35% of their income to the government. The reason Mitt doesn't pay as much is because his income is derived from capital gains on the investments someone else made for him and he doesn't know about.
This all breaks down to an income of roughly $57,000 per day for the last twenty four months. The rest of everyone else in the country on average makes $52, 221 a year. It is a figure that really means half of us don't even make that much.
Of course some of this could be forgiven if the trust fund money was there because in the past Romney went out and did something universally recognized as worthwhile. You know like manufacture millions of cars, or flawless mousetraps. However most of the loot came from his days at Bain Capital which doesn't make anything at all. It does, however, as political and social cynic Bill Maher said the other day, "find wounded animals and eat them."
How all this makes him qualified to be president is unclear to a number of people, myself included. He claims he created one hundred thousand jobs, but there is a list of bankrupt companies, bled dry by Bain that trail in its wake like so much flotsam. As an example, by the time Bain was done with Dade Medical, over seventeen hundred employees were out of work.
The republicans will argue that these questions are all part of some sort of socialist class warfare plot. Unfortunately for them this nefarious red cabal's chief spokesman right now is one of their own boys which causes wonder, anger, and gives a whole new meaning to the word, irony.
Romney and his PACs are spending tens of millions of dollars on this campaign, however like the sly businessman he is, he has made sure none of it is his.
Well what did you expect?
Feeding off others is a tough habit to break. And apparently we taste good.
1-24-12
Mr. Romney has made public his tax returns for the last couple of years and it turns out he has made $42.5 million dollars for doing, well, nothing much at all except run for president. Not bad work if you can get it.
Romney's people, because when you make that kind of money, you have people, disclosed the returns in response to increasingly vitriolic attacks by that arch enemy of capitalism, Newt Gingrich and questions about the sources of his income. His people hope to diffuse charges of greed and avarice on the candidate's part by making the records public. They probably just confirmed them.
The problem here is that most people actually have to do something to make a living. They have to transplant a heart, plead a case in court, or at least install a muffler to earn a check. Romney's income flows from three blind trusts. We are told, by his people once again, that Romney makes no decisions on how his trust money is invested. This, I guess, is supposed to make me feel better about the guy somehow. Unfortunately I'd prefer him to at least have to make some sort of effort. You know, like read the Wall Street Journal, pick up a phone to a broker, consider which options to exercise. However this is an entirely hands free, worry free, operation.
It is also revealed that Mr. Romney pays taxes at a 13.9% rate which is far less than most of us working stiffs on the street. Top wage earners in this country pay up to 35% of their income to the government. The reason Mitt doesn't pay as much is because his income is derived from capital gains on the investments someone else made for him and he doesn't know about.
This all breaks down to an income of roughly $57,000 per day for the last twenty four months. The rest of everyone else in the country on average makes $52, 221 a year. It is a figure that really means half of us don't even make that much.
Of course some of this could be forgiven if the trust fund money was there because in the past Romney went out and did something universally recognized as worthwhile. You know like manufacture millions of cars, or flawless mousetraps. However most of the loot came from his days at Bain Capital which doesn't make anything at all. It does, however, as political and social cynic Bill Maher said the other day, "find wounded animals and eat them."
How all this makes him qualified to be president is unclear to a number of people, myself included. He claims he created one hundred thousand jobs, but there is a list of bankrupt companies, bled dry by Bain that trail in its wake like so much flotsam. As an example, by the time Bain was done with Dade Medical, over seventeen hundred employees were out of work.
The republicans will argue that these questions are all part of some sort of socialist class warfare plot. Unfortunately for them this nefarious red cabal's chief spokesman right now is one of their own boys which causes wonder, anger, and gives a whole new meaning to the word, irony.
Romney and his PACs are spending tens of millions of dollars on this campaign, however like the sly businessman he is, he has made sure none of it is his.
Well what did you expect?
Feeding off others is a tough habit to break. And apparently we taste good.
1-24-12
Monday, January 23, 2012
Mindless Monday
Sometimes one must take a pause. Breathe in, breathe out. Let all the horrors go swirling down the drain rather like that moment in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho". That one right after the Janet Leigh character touched the end of the world in the shower thanks to Ma Bates. The one right before son Norman begins to yell something like, "The blood, Mother, all the blood!"
Okay it isn't that bad, but it isn't great either.It is just that once in a while the urge to kick back with some classical music, a cigar in one hand and a Bloody Mary in the other becomes so overwhelming it cannot be ignored.. Yes indeed, get onto the patio, in the sun under a cloudless, brilliant blue, sky and bask in the warmth like some great sea lion lolling on a dry rock. Enjoy the glow while you can because more clouds and cold, damp, winds are due in soon.
You close your eyes and let the light soak into your body and soul while the music drifts through the kitchen and out the open door, spilling into the still air around you. All the angst, drama, tragedy, and cynicism that accompanies being a news junkie melts away and what is left is a perfect few minutes of tranquility. Even the noise of traffic out on May Avenue goes away to someplace distant. The only mildly important things are whether you've added a dash too much worcestershire sauce to the cocktail and if the Thunder can handle the Pistons downtown tonight.
Thoughts of whining, screeching, politicians, murdered girls, earthquakes, mad Iranians, even crazier Koreans, college football disasters, evangelical hucksters, ever mounting blood sugar numbers, Anthony Bourdain, Ann Coulter, the tattered economy, Chinese aircraft carriers, ancient aliens and Mayan prophecies just, thankfully, disappear.
Such times don't last long, they never do. Without them though the world would become simply intolerable, or at least more so than it all ready is.
Thank God for Mozart, a long smoke and a few minutes of peace and quiet every now and then.
And, of course, good vodka.
Salud..
1-23-12
Okay it isn't that bad, but it isn't great either.It is just that once in a while the urge to kick back with some classical music, a cigar in one hand and a Bloody Mary in the other becomes so overwhelming it cannot be ignored.. Yes indeed, get onto the patio, in the sun under a cloudless, brilliant blue, sky and bask in the warmth like some great sea lion lolling on a dry rock. Enjoy the glow while you can because more clouds and cold, damp, winds are due in soon.
You close your eyes and let the light soak into your body and soul while the music drifts through the kitchen and out the open door, spilling into the still air around you. All the angst, drama, tragedy, and cynicism that accompanies being a news junkie melts away and what is left is a perfect few minutes of tranquility. Even the noise of traffic out on May Avenue goes away to someplace distant. The only mildly important things are whether you've added a dash too much worcestershire sauce to the cocktail and if the Thunder can handle the Pistons downtown tonight.
Thoughts of whining, screeching, politicians, murdered girls, earthquakes, mad Iranians, even crazier Koreans, college football disasters, evangelical hucksters, ever mounting blood sugar numbers, Anthony Bourdain, Ann Coulter, the tattered economy, Chinese aircraft carriers, ancient aliens and Mayan prophecies just, thankfully, disappear.
Such times don't last long, they never do. Without them though the world would become simply intolerable, or at least more so than it all ready is.
Thank God for Mozart, a long smoke and a few minutes of peace and quiet every now and then.
And, of course, good vodka.
Salud..
1-23-12
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Mitt Takes One to the Gut, But it Ain't Over 'Til Its Over
The blood letting in South Carolina is finally over for the republicans and the results are clear. Southern conservatives don't like Mitt Romney. They really don't like Mitt Romney.
Mr. Romney was savaged in just about every demographic available. He lost the election, 40% to 28%. Then the numbers got worse. Those South Carolinians who consider themselves "very conservative" voted for Newt Gingrich 48% to 19%. The tea party crowd voted for him 45% to 25%. Finally those who identified themselves as evangelical Christians went for Gingrich 44% to 22%. Thus proving that biblical fundamentalists would rather vote for a twice divorced, admitted adulterer, than a Mormon.
This can't be reassuring to the Romney camp which is now one and three during this campaign with the one win coming within a commuter train ride of Boston, in New Hampshire.
Next up is Florida and the Romney machine is going full bore. His campaign has all ready spent $3.3 million in advertising and his Super Pac, Restore Our Future has invested $4 million. As of now no one else has spent a dime.
Florida is a wild mix of retirees, northeastern snow birds and violently anti Castro Cubans in the south and from about Orlando headed north and west into the panhandle deep Dixie rednecks. It is also a breathtaking gamble for everyone involved. It is a republican only primary and a winner take all bet. There won't be any independents muddying up the picture and no small slices of the delegate pie for the losers. It could mark the end for Santorum who polled 17% in South Carolina and should pull the plug on Ron Paul (13% in S.C.), but probably won't because Paul is Paul. The man just can't take no for an answer.
The rhetoric is just starting to ramp up. New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, a possible VP candidate with Romney, has publicly said, Gingrich "has embarrassed the republican party," reinforcing what we know all ready. The mainstream of the republican party loathes the man and wants him gone as soon as possible.
The feeling here is Romney is still the odds on favorite. The primary and caucus schedule seems to favor him. After the Florida showdown there are caucuses in Nevada and Maine. While everyone thinks of Vegas, Nevada has a huge Mormon population and Maine is a return to Romney's back yard. Then comes Arizona and significantly Michigan where Mitt's old man made a name for himself. After that it is super Tuesday which given the line up could end the deal. While Gingrich could carry Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma, he will no doubt lose in Massachusetts and Vermont. He will probably lose in Ohio, North Dakota, Idaho and Wyoming. Incredibly, he didn't even make it onto the ballot in Virginia so those delegates are lost to him also.
No matter how the long campaign lasts, Gingrich will have to continue to hammer Romney's business record. In other words try to become the anti capitalist nominee of the party that is the champion of unfettered capitalism. Who says American presidential politics doesn't have a sense of humor?
There is a long way to go and the chink in the Romney armor has been found. However the man has seemingly unlimited resources and is using all of them. The round went to Gingrich, but it appears the bout is still Mitt's to lose.
1-22-12
Mr. Romney was savaged in just about every demographic available. He lost the election, 40% to 28%. Then the numbers got worse. Those South Carolinians who consider themselves "very conservative" voted for Newt Gingrich 48% to 19%. The tea party crowd voted for him 45% to 25%. Finally those who identified themselves as evangelical Christians went for Gingrich 44% to 22%. Thus proving that biblical fundamentalists would rather vote for a twice divorced, admitted adulterer, than a Mormon.
This can't be reassuring to the Romney camp which is now one and three during this campaign with the one win coming within a commuter train ride of Boston, in New Hampshire.
Next up is Florida and the Romney machine is going full bore. His campaign has all ready spent $3.3 million in advertising and his Super Pac, Restore Our Future has invested $4 million. As of now no one else has spent a dime.
Florida is a wild mix of retirees, northeastern snow birds and violently anti Castro Cubans in the south and from about Orlando headed north and west into the panhandle deep Dixie rednecks. It is also a breathtaking gamble for everyone involved. It is a republican only primary and a winner take all bet. There won't be any independents muddying up the picture and no small slices of the delegate pie for the losers. It could mark the end for Santorum who polled 17% in South Carolina and should pull the plug on Ron Paul (13% in S.C.), but probably won't because Paul is Paul. The man just can't take no for an answer.
The rhetoric is just starting to ramp up. New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, a possible VP candidate with Romney, has publicly said, Gingrich "has embarrassed the republican party," reinforcing what we know all ready. The mainstream of the republican party loathes the man and wants him gone as soon as possible.
The feeling here is Romney is still the odds on favorite. The primary and caucus schedule seems to favor him. After the Florida showdown there are caucuses in Nevada and Maine. While everyone thinks of Vegas, Nevada has a huge Mormon population and Maine is a return to Romney's back yard. Then comes Arizona and significantly Michigan where Mitt's old man made a name for himself. After that it is super Tuesday which given the line up could end the deal. While Gingrich could carry Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma, he will no doubt lose in Massachusetts and Vermont. He will probably lose in Ohio, North Dakota, Idaho and Wyoming. Incredibly, he didn't even make it onto the ballot in Virginia so those delegates are lost to him also.
No matter how the long campaign lasts, Gingrich will have to continue to hammer Romney's business record. In other words try to become the anti capitalist nominee of the party that is the champion of unfettered capitalism. Who says American presidential politics doesn't have a sense of humor?
There is a long way to go and the chink in the Romney armor has been found. However the man has seemingly unlimited resources and is using all of them. The round went to Gingrich, but it appears the bout is still Mitt's to lose.
1-22-12
Friday, January 20, 2012
Clueless in Oklahoma City: Alina Fitzpatrick, The Medical Examiner, and The OKCPD
In the Friday, January 20 edition of The Oklahoman there is a story by staff writer, Matt Dinger regarding the investigation, or lack there of into the death of Alina Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick went missing on November 4, 2011 and her body was discovered in far northeast Oklahoma City on November 9. She was the third girl to be murdered within a month in the metro area.
Or was she? According to Dinger's story, pathologist Chai S. Choi lists the probable cause of death as unknown, but hints that it could be methamphetamine toxicity. So far the ME's office has yet to determine if she died by accident, or was murdered. Tests showed there were 0.96 micrograms per milliliter of meth in her heart blood. It is an amount that might, or might not be fatal. Dinger says Choi went on to write, "There are apparently suspicious circumstances surrounding her death."
You think?
The same report notes that she was found nude, had been gagged with either wet paper, or a cotton like material, and had multiple abrasions on her head caused by blunt force as well as hemorrhaging and swelling. Her body had widespread bruising and abrasions thought to have occurred about the time she died.
Yes, I suppose that does sound fairly suspicious.
Her death and those of Carina Saunders and Kelsey Bransby have been the subject of several blog posts by other authors. One, without citing any sources, has claimed Fitzpatrick was upset because some stranger had gotten access to her cell phone number and was making disturbing calls to her--that she complained of a strange man following her and she was deliberately vague on the exact location of the apartment she was visiting the day she disappeared. All of this, without any substantiation, remains simply rumors.
What is certain is we have two choices here. She did have meth in her system, that is a reality. So she got sky high, then was either able to get out into the middle of nowhere on her own, undress, go running around stark naked in a field falling numerous times, thereby beating herself to a pulp, and finally decided to dine on a wad of wet note book paper, or she was murdered by monster or monsters unknown. I'll admit I'm no Holmes, but I tend to go with the second option.
Obviously that isn't every one's choice. According to Dinger, OKCPD Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow has said that although officers are keeping a file on the case, they are not currently investigating her death as a homicide. Unless that is an investigative ruse it must be of great comfort to someone out there. It certainly cannot be to the parents of Alina Fitzpatrick, or those of any other teen aged girl running around this burg.
In the end there seems to be something else going on here that the public and press aren't privy to. Obviously there are no Detective Columbo's, or CSI Miami labs in the real world, but this lack of concern and befuddlement by every official involved is so callous and or inept that the word shocking is a terrible understatement.
If this is the best law enforcement in this town can do we'd all better lock our doors and windows and buy large caliber weapons. Because quite frankly, we're on our own.
1-20-12
Fitzpatrick went missing on November 4, 2011 and her body was discovered in far northeast Oklahoma City on November 9. She was the third girl to be murdered within a month in the metro area.
Or was she? According to Dinger's story, pathologist Chai S. Choi lists the probable cause of death as unknown, but hints that it could be methamphetamine toxicity. So far the ME's office has yet to determine if she died by accident, or was murdered. Tests showed there were 0.96 micrograms per milliliter of meth in her heart blood. It is an amount that might, or might not be fatal. Dinger says Choi went on to write, "There are apparently suspicious circumstances surrounding her death."
You think?
The same report notes that she was found nude, had been gagged with either wet paper, or a cotton like material, and had multiple abrasions on her head caused by blunt force as well as hemorrhaging and swelling. Her body had widespread bruising and abrasions thought to have occurred about the time she died.
Yes, I suppose that does sound fairly suspicious.
Her death and those of Carina Saunders and Kelsey Bransby have been the subject of several blog posts by other authors. One, without citing any sources, has claimed Fitzpatrick was upset because some stranger had gotten access to her cell phone number and was making disturbing calls to her--that she complained of a strange man following her and she was deliberately vague on the exact location of the apartment she was visiting the day she disappeared. All of this, without any substantiation, remains simply rumors.
What is certain is we have two choices here. She did have meth in her system, that is a reality. So she got sky high, then was either able to get out into the middle of nowhere on her own, undress, go running around stark naked in a field falling numerous times, thereby beating herself to a pulp, and finally decided to dine on a wad of wet note book paper, or she was murdered by monster or monsters unknown. I'll admit I'm no Holmes, but I tend to go with the second option.
Obviously that isn't every one's choice. According to Dinger, OKCPD Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow has said that although officers are keeping a file on the case, they are not currently investigating her death as a homicide. Unless that is an investigative ruse it must be of great comfort to someone out there. It certainly cannot be to the parents of Alina Fitzpatrick, or those of any other teen aged girl running around this burg.
In the end there seems to be something else going on here that the public and press aren't privy to. Obviously there are no Detective Columbo's, or CSI Miami labs in the real world, but this lack of concern and befuddlement by every official involved is so callous and or inept that the word shocking is a terrible understatement.
If this is the best law enforcement in this town can do we'd all better lock our doors and windows and buy large caliber weapons. Because quite frankly, we're on our own.
1-20-12
Thursday, January 19, 2012
The New Wolf's Lair Resort, Newt and El Mitt
Some days the news comes in so fast and weird that it is hard to digest, or at least reconcile with any sort of logic.
In Poland the "local forest authorities" are looking for investors to turn the Wolfsschanze into a tourist attraction. The English translation, of Wolfsschanze, which isn't entirely correct, is "Wolf's Lair".
The Wolf's Lair would be the late and unlamented Adolf Hitler's eastern military headquarters. Located in north east Poland, just up the road from Auschwitz, it was where he ran the invasion of Russia. He and his pals like Martin Bormann, Albert Speer, and Hermann Goring among others hung out in the complex and listened to Beethoven, Mozart, and Wagner between military briefings. Herr Hitler used to walk his dog there in the mornings while meditating. That would before he poisoned the poor beast in order to test the efficiency of the type of cyanide pill he would later take himself.
So far, there haven't been any offers for the property. Major investors seem a bit not there with buying into a large tract of land and crumbling ruins, then actually building and refurbishing a place where the greatest mass murderer of the twentieth century ran his war machine. Yes, somehow a three or four star hotel, not to mention a fully stocked gift shop would seem to be a tad in bad taste.
Back here Newt Gingrich's second wife is about to go on ABC and say that Newt came to her, confessed to having a long term affair with Callista Bisek, but wanted to stay married to her. Marianne Gingrich, who was having sex with Newt before his divorce from his first wife, Jackie was final says Newt wanted an "open marriage". In other words he wanted to keep banging Callista while he was married to her. She says Newt filed for divorce just a few months after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Newt began his affair with her after his first wife was diagnosed with cancer. A note to his current wife, Callista: don't get sick.
And finally it is reported that Mitt Romney was on board with the Marriott Corporation during a time when they were accused and being sued multiple times for taking kickbacks and cheating clients out of huge amounts of money. While there is no record that Romney approved of the kickbacks he certainly knew of them and never repudiated the business practices of the Marriott Corp. despite the law suits and censures by numerous courts. This maybe that business experience our man, Willard Mitt Romney is bragging about. After all, if you can't be good at cheating other businessmen, how can you be expected to rake the average middle class American over the coals.
Yes, it was a weird and eclectic day.
There are times when you kick back with that third martini, shake your head and just wonder if this world is all some sort of practical joke played upon humankind by God. Or, if we're the ones playing the jokes on ourselves.
There is a reason I take communion.
1-19-12
In Poland the "local forest authorities" are looking for investors to turn the Wolfsschanze into a tourist attraction. The English translation, of Wolfsschanze, which isn't entirely correct, is "Wolf's Lair".
The Wolf's Lair would be the late and unlamented Adolf Hitler's eastern military headquarters. Located in north east Poland, just up the road from Auschwitz, it was where he ran the invasion of Russia. He and his pals like Martin Bormann, Albert Speer, and Hermann Goring among others hung out in the complex and listened to Beethoven, Mozart, and Wagner between military briefings. Herr Hitler used to walk his dog there in the mornings while meditating. That would before he poisoned the poor beast in order to test the efficiency of the type of cyanide pill he would later take himself.
So far, there haven't been any offers for the property. Major investors seem a bit not there with buying into a large tract of land and crumbling ruins, then actually building and refurbishing a place where the greatest mass murderer of the twentieth century ran his war machine. Yes, somehow a three or four star hotel, not to mention a fully stocked gift shop would seem to be a tad in bad taste.
Back here Newt Gingrich's second wife is about to go on ABC and say that Newt came to her, confessed to having a long term affair with Callista Bisek, but wanted to stay married to her. Marianne Gingrich, who was having sex with Newt before his divorce from his first wife, Jackie was final says Newt wanted an "open marriage". In other words he wanted to keep banging Callista while he was married to her. She says Newt filed for divorce just a few months after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Newt began his affair with her after his first wife was diagnosed with cancer. A note to his current wife, Callista: don't get sick.
And finally it is reported that Mitt Romney was on board with the Marriott Corporation during a time when they were accused and being sued multiple times for taking kickbacks and cheating clients out of huge amounts of money. While there is no record that Romney approved of the kickbacks he certainly knew of them and never repudiated the business practices of the Marriott Corp. despite the law suits and censures by numerous courts. This maybe that business experience our man, Willard Mitt Romney is bragging about. After all, if you can't be good at cheating other businessmen, how can you be expected to rake the average middle class American over the coals.
Yes, it was a weird and eclectic day.
There are times when you kick back with that third martini, shake your head and just wonder if this world is all some sort of practical joke played upon humankind by God. Or, if we're the ones playing the jokes on ourselves.
There is a reason I take communion.
1-19-12
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The Problem and the Hard Choice for Obama
Barak Obama has a problem. It is called the Keystone Pipeline. It has put the president between the proverbial rock and a hard place in this political season. He is in a lose, lose situation and he knows it. It is why he made up some sort of excuse about different studies making a decision impossible on whether to approve or kill the project until 2013. In other words during a second term with no re-election on the line.
The proposed oil pipeline would run from Alberta, Canada to the Texas gulf coast and presumably create tens of thousands of jobs. It would lessen, to a degree, US dependence on foriegn oil in a time when the Iranians seem to be off their collective nut even more so than usual. Of course the American addiction to oil could be compared to some trailer park dude's addiction to meth. Both just grow and grow no matter how much you supply either with.
That is pretty much what enviornmental groups are screeching about. The contention is that instead of looking for an alternative fuel source we are spending all our time and efforts adding to our dependence on oil. Not only are we putting increasing stress on the atmosphere through carbon emissions, but a pipeline as massive as the Keystone threatens fragile habitats and could put a major aquifer at risk. Not to mention becoming a target for the terrorist boogy men.
Organized labor on the other hand wants the jobs. They see a vast opportunity for existing unions and for the recruitment of new members.
No wonder the republicans wanted to force this issue right now, this year before the election, which they were able to do. By doing so they are driving a wedge between two of Obama's key support groups, at least in terms of contributions if not actual voters at the polls. Enviornmental groups have all ready said that if he doesn't reject the pipeline they will withhold their support. His is not a campaign that can spare either money, or votes anywhere, especially if the GOP doesn't completely lose its mind and nominate someone besides the cash fat centerist Mitt Romney.
Reports are he will reject the pipeline this afternoon, perhaps even before I finish typing this. If that is true then he and his people have decided that despite their anger the unions will stay with him. That the greens will indeed not contribute to him or vote for him. It is probably the correct, if still difficult choice. The enviornmental movement is to the democrats what the evangelicals are to the republicans. They are nihlistic enough to throw away an entire election rather than compromise on an issue, or issues key to them and them alone. In another words, they're nuts. Just ask Al Gore.
This could be a major set back for Obama in the November election. It will certainly be hammered on by whoever he runs against.
Things just got a little dicier for this president.
1-18-12
The proposed oil pipeline would run from Alberta, Canada to the Texas gulf coast and presumably create tens of thousands of jobs. It would lessen, to a degree, US dependence on foriegn oil in a time when the Iranians seem to be off their collective nut even more so than usual. Of course the American addiction to oil could be compared to some trailer park dude's addiction to meth. Both just grow and grow no matter how much you supply either with.
That is pretty much what enviornmental groups are screeching about. The contention is that instead of looking for an alternative fuel source we are spending all our time and efforts adding to our dependence on oil. Not only are we putting increasing stress on the atmosphere through carbon emissions, but a pipeline as massive as the Keystone threatens fragile habitats and could put a major aquifer at risk. Not to mention becoming a target for the terrorist boogy men.
Organized labor on the other hand wants the jobs. They see a vast opportunity for existing unions and for the recruitment of new members.
No wonder the republicans wanted to force this issue right now, this year before the election, which they were able to do. By doing so they are driving a wedge between two of Obama's key support groups, at least in terms of contributions if not actual voters at the polls. Enviornmental groups have all ready said that if he doesn't reject the pipeline they will withhold their support. His is not a campaign that can spare either money, or votes anywhere, especially if the GOP doesn't completely lose its mind and nominate someone besides the cash fat centerist Mitt Romney.
Reports are he will reject the pipeline this afternoon, perhaps even before I finish typing this. If that is true then he and his people have decided that despite their anger the unions will stay with him. That the greens will indeed not contribute to him or vote for him. It is probably the correct, if still difficult choice. The enviornmental movement is to the democrats what the evangelicals are to the republicans. They are nihlistic enough to throw away an entire election rather than compromise on an issue, or issues key to them and them alone. In another words, they're nuts. Just ask Al Gore.
This could be a major set back for Obama in the November election. It will certainly be hammered on by whoever he runs against.
Things just got a little dicier for this president.
1-18-12
Monday, January 16, 2012
Huntsman is Done and the PAC Men Rule
And there goes Jon Hunstman off into that long dark night. The former governor of Utah and United States ambassador to the People's Republic of China has given up his abbreviated campaign and thereby placed all of about five hundred South Carolina republicans back in the undecided pool. One poll had shown him trailing comedian Stephen Colbert in the primary. You know you are in trouble when a guy whose career is based on satirizing politics and politicians is ahead of you in a very real election.
Huntsman has endorsed Mitt Romney despite believing Romney to be "squishy" on important issues. What he has probably decided is that Romney is going to win the nomination and it is best to board that train as quickly as possible. What he has also done is confirmed what every hard right conservative in the country has suspected. Romney reeks of moderation and middle of the road politics and can't be trusted in the crunch.
In his departure speech Huntsman actually sounded like a reasonable sort of guy, which probably explains his early exit from this field of unprincipled ferrets. "This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people," he said. Indeed, he sees what every republican establishment pro sees. In the last few weeks republican candidates have given Barak Obama enough campaign fodder to last through three election cycles. Hell, in the Ron Paul conspiracy world, Newt Gingrich might even be considered an Obama mole. He could certainly be an ad writer for the president. Huntsman added, "The current toxic form of our political discourse does not help our cause."
It is going to get worse.
Thanks to the Super PACS no type of spurious and vile attack is too over the top. Millions of dollars are being donated and there is no accounting for the cash and where it came from. TV and radio time is being monopolized by these shadowy organizations that have about the same morals as did Augusto Pinochet hit squads. The pro Romney, Restore Our Future PAC has reportedly raised anywhere from $300 to $350 million. Newt's pal, casino owner, Sheldon Adelson alone has given the pro Gingrich, Winning Our Future PAC $5 million.
What Barak Obama really needs right now is for someone, anyone, to trip up El Mitt in South Carolina and Florida. He needs "this toxic form of political discourse" to continue as long as it possibly can. He needs those Super PACS out there on the airways screeching all sorts of inflammatory nonsense. In short he needs the republican blood letting to continue unabated for about three more months.
If Romney wins in South Carolina and certainly in Florida the race for the nomination is a done deal. His PAC can turn all that money and savagery onto Obama, which is exactly what he wants and needs to do.
If he loses both those states, or even one, the infighting will continue and republican money will continue to flow to other candidates rather than him.
In this new age of politics, more than ever, money talks and it talks loudly and incessantly. He who owes the most to the few wins.
To paraphrase Bill Shakespeare, a bribe by any other name....
1-16-12
Huntsman has endorsed Mitt Romney despite believing Romney to be "squishy" on important issues. What he has probably decided is that Romney is going to win the nomination and it is best to board that train as quickly as possible. What he has also done is confirmed what every hard right conservative in the country has suspected. Romney reeks of moderation and middle of the road politics and can't be trusted in the crunch.
In his departure speech Huntsman actually sounded like a reasonable sort of guy, which probably explains his early exit from this field of unprincipled ferrets. "This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people," he said. Indeed, he sees what every republican establishment pro sees. In the last few weeks republican candidates have given Barak Obama enough campaign fodder to last through three election cycles. Hell, in the Ron Paul conspiracy world, Newt Gingrich might even be considered an Obama mole. He could certainly be an ad writer for the president. Huntsman added, "The current toxic form of our political discourse does not help our cause."
It is going to get worse.
Thanks to the Super PACS no type of spurious and vile attack is too over the top. Millions of dollars are being donated and there is no accounting for the cash and where it came from. TV and radio time is being monopolized by these shadowy organizations that have about the same morals as did Augusto Pinochet hit squads. The pro Romney, Restore Our Future PAC has reportedly raised anywhere from $300 to $350 million. Newt's pal, casino owner, Sheldon Adelson alone has given the pro Gingrich, Winning Our Future PAC $5 million.
What Barak Obama really needs right now is for someone, anyone, to trip up El Mitt in South Carolina and Florida. He needs "this toxic form of political discourse" to continue as long as it possibly can. He needs those Super PACS out there on the airways screeching all sorts of inflammatory nonsense. In short he needs the republican blood letting to continue unabated for about three more months.
If Romney wins in South Carolina and certainly in Florida the race for the nomination is a done deal. His PAC can turn all that money and savagery onto Obama, which is exactly what he wants and needs to do.
If he loses both those states, or even one, the infighting will continue and republican money will continue to flow to other candidates rather than him.
In this new age of politics, more than ever, money talks and it talks loudly and incessantly. He who owes the most to the few wins.
To paraphrase Bill Shakespeare, a bribe by any other name....
1-16-12
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Like Us, or We'll Kill You
The American people and therefore the American government are capable of many great and wonderful things. We've been doing them throughout our existence and especially in the last sixty or seventy years. However there is a terrible flaw within us and it exhibits itself in the policies of the nation's leadership. That is because, despite tea party rants, there is not a government in the world that more closely resembles the character of its people than the one here does.
We have this disturbing expectancy for everyone else to like us. And it goes beyond that. We expect not only to be liked, but to be admired, and be extended huge testimonials of gratitude for not only what we stand for, but what we do. Everyone it seems should either want to live here, or be exactly like us.
And it is hard not to think that, especially if you live on the edge of the southwest where hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are streaming across the boarder on a yearly basis.
As with everything though, we pay attention to what we read and see and not what we don't see. Yes, while thousands do everything imaginable to get here, tens of millions of people south of the boarder are perfectly happy where they are at. They have no plans to move here, don't want to move here, can't imagine being here. In other parts of the world there are massive numbers of people and not just a few governments who don't feel they owe us a thing and simply won't kowtow to our every whim, or demand.
When that happens something sort of snaps in the American psyche. We go a little crazy in what we say and do. Sometimes, more times than anyone here wants to admit, we send in the troops. This is because the unfortunate lesson we learned from WWII was that because of American technology, American industrial might, and by sheer numbers we can kick just about anyone's ass. We have bombs. We have huge numbers of big bombs, small bombs and medium sized bombs. If you piss us off enough, don't like us enough, don't do what we want, we'll use them.
That is, by the way, one of the reasons a lot of the people who don't like us, really don't like us.
The fact is once the Soviet Union collapsed and the Chinese found out how much fun it is to make money there is not one individual power out there that can defeat us. Oh they can prick us, even stagger us with an individual blow, but since the Russians and Chinese are out of the game, there is not one single player that can bring us low. We keep acting like there are, but there aren't.
Along with this excruciating need to be liked comes a selfishness that is absolutely stunning on many parts of this blue ball. Make me stand in line for gas and by God it is back to Ice Age for you. We sometimes treat the rest of the world like a fast foot restaurant. We want every comfort, every perk and we want them now. If we can't have it all right away get us the manager so we can read he or she the riot act. After all we saved your ass when times were tough, now you owe us.
In a lot of places we actually kept in power blood thirsty, violent, and oppressive regimes in order to save people from blood thirsty, violent, and oppressive regimes. We did this because the other guys who would have been blood thirsty didn't like us, or at least liked someone else better than us.
If America really wants to lead the world we'll first have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to like us, or do what we want. We're going to have to stop trying to punish people for not liking us and stop acting as if the world is our personal Wal-Mart.
No one wins a popularity contest, or any other election unanimously. If humankind lasts another thousand years history will look back at these times rather like we look back at the Greek city states now. In the future America will be considered either the Sparta or Athens of the our age. It is for us to decide how we are regarded.
Maturity, and the decency to respect others will go a long way in that regard. So will accepting the fact not everyone is going to like us.
1-15-12
We have this disturbing expectancy for everyone else to like us. And it goes beyond that. We expect not only to be liked, but to be admired, and be extended huge testimonials of gratitude for not only what we stand for, but what we do. Everyone it seems should either want to live here, or be exactly like us.
And it is hard not to think that, especially if you live on the edge of the southwest where hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are streaming across the boarder on a yearly basis.
As with everything though, we pay attention to what we read and see and not what we don't see. Yes, while thousands do everything imaginable to get here, tens of millions of people south of the boarder are perfectly happy where they are at. They have no plans to move here, don't want to move here, can't imagine being here. In other parts of the world there are massive numbers of people and not just a few governments who don't feel they owe us a thing and simply won't kowtow to our every whim, or demand.
When that happens something sort of snaps in the American psyche. We go a little crazy in what we say and do. Sometimes, more times than anyone here wants to admit, we send in the troops. This is because the unfortunate lesson we learned from WWII was that because of American technology, American industrial might, and by sheer numbers we can kick just about anyone's ass. We have bombs. We have huge numbers of big bombs, small bombs and medium sized bombs. If you piss us off enough, don't like us enough, don't do what we want, we'll use them.
That is, by the way, one of the reasons a lot of the people who don't like us, really don't like us.
The fact is once the Soviet Union collapsed and the Chinese found out how much fun it is to make money there is not one individual power out there that can defeat us. Oh they can prick us, even stagger us with an individual blow, but since the Russians and Chinese are out of the game, there is not one single player that can bring us low. We keep acting like there are, but there aren't.
Along with this excruciating need to be liked comes a selfishness that is absolutely stunning on many parts of this blue ball. Make me stand in line for gas and by God it is back to Ice Age for you. We sometimes treat the rest of the world like a fast foot restaurant. We want every comfort, every perk and we want them now. If we can't have it all right away get us the manager so we can read he or she the riot act. After all we saved your ass when times were tough, now you owe us.
In a lot of places we actually kept in power blood thirsty, violent, and oppressive regimes in order to save people from blood thirsty, violent, and oppressive regimes. We did this because the other guys who would have been blood thirsty didn't like us, or at least liked someone else better than us.
If America really wants to lead the world we'll first have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to like us, or do what we want. We're going to have to stop trying to punish people for not liking us and stop acting as if the world is our personal Wal-Mart.
No one wins a popularity contest, or any other election unanimously. If humankind lasts another thousand years history will look back at these times rather like we look back at the Greek city states now. In the future America will be considered either the Sparta or Athens of the our age. It is for us to decide how we are regarded.
Maturity, and the decency to respect others will go a long way in that regard. So will accepting the fact not everyone is going to like us.
1-15-12
Thursday, January 12, 2012
The Bain Conundrum: The Cost of Making an Omelet
There is a certain shrill, nervous, and stammering chatter coming from the republican mainstream the last few days. It has to do with the attacks on Mitt Romney's time as head honcho over at Bain Capital. Things get bad enough for these guys when democrats play the "profits at the expense of the working man" card, but when your own people start to do it the situation becomes down right unacceptable. You can't very well accuse the other party of waging "class warfare" when candidates from within the GOP are doing exactly the same thing.
Newt Gingrich has taken off the gloves and opened a Pandora's box of problems for not just the front runner, but the party itself. To call Romney a flip flopper, and conservative of convenience is one thing, but to call him what amounts to a profiteering monster feeding off the bones of the average Joe work force is someting else altogether. It is rather like calling everone else in the bank robbery gang, well, bank robbers. It rats out of the entire crew.
"And so Mr. Romney, do you still beat your wife?"
Indeed. Ronald Reagan is spinning wildly in his grave as I type. The faithful are coming to Romney's defense in droves. Rush Limbaugh has crawled out of the attic, so has Rudy Giuliani. Even Jon Huntsman, who probably knows the most he can gain in this election cycle is some sort of cabinet job if Romney wins, is on his side for this one. He is quoted as saying, "If you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been a part of capitalism, it becomes disengenuous to take on Bain Capital." In other words you can't make a profitable omlet without breaking some eggs. Lay offs, ruined careers and disrupted lives are simply part of the cost of our great and glorious business system. You know, the one we represent.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Or the one that holds your leash.
Of course Romney brought this all out in the open in the first place. He chose to tout his experience as a venture capitalist rather his health care program in Massachusetts, or some of those other liberalesque policies he endorsed before he had his eye on the big white house in Washington D.C. Once he began the great shift to the right his governership in the Bay State became a liability. He was, no doubt, prepared for Barak Obama to make charges such as these. He could shrug them off as simply more liberal whining. It never, in his worst nightmare, occured to him that the godfather of the conservative revolution, the author of the contract with America would smack him in the face with them.
Now we know why this crowd fired Gingrich as the speaker of the house years ago. The term loose cannon is an understatement of epic proportions.
At this point the entire republican establishment is having to try to explain capitalism in bottom line economic terms, while these are heart and soul emotional issues to the vast majority of the American voting public. Lets see, you layed me off, cost me my house and my life savings so that you could buy a new yacht? No, that isn't the sort of question you can answer to the satisfaction of anyone who has had the plug pulled on his or her career.
South Carolina republican senator Jim DeMint summed up the Newt problem succinctly. "We need to understand the principles of our party," he said.
Well of course some of us all ready do, senator, that is why there are democrats.
This is going to be a long and dirty campaign. One thing you can count on is that coming soon to a TV in your house will be Barak Obama's political attack ads, starring, none other Newt Gingrich.
If anyone thinks any differently they are fooling themselves.
1-12-12
Newt Gingrich has taken off the gloves and opened a Pandora's box of problems for not just the front runner, but the party itself. To call Romney a flip flopper, and conservative of convenience is one thing, but to call him what amounts to a profiteering monster feeding off the bones of the average Joe work force is someting else altogether. It is rather like calling everone else in the bank robbery gang, well, bank robbers. It rats out of the entire crew.
"And so Mr. Romney, do you still beat your wife?"
Indeed. Ronald Reagan is spinning wildly in his grave as I type. The faithful are coming to Romney's defense in droves. Rush Limbaugh has crawled out of the attic, so has Rudy Giuliani. Even Jon Huntsman, who probably knows the most he can gain in this election cycle is some sort of cabinet job if Romney wins, is on his side for this one. He is quoted as saying, "If you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been a part of capitalism, it becomes disengenuous to take on Bain Capital." In other words you can't make a profitable omlet without breaking some eggs. Lay offs, ruined careers and disrupted lives are simply part of the cost of our great and glorious business system. You know, the one we represent.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Or the one that holds your leash.
Of course Romney brought this all out in the open in the first place. He chose to tout his experience as a venture capitalist rather his health care program in Massachusetts, or some of those other liberalesque policies he endorsed before he had his eye on the big white house in Washington D.C. Once he began the great shift to the right his governership in the Bay State became a liability. He was, no doubt, prepared for Barak Obama to make charges such as these. He could shrug them off as simply more liberal whining. It never, in his worst nightmare, occured to him that the godfather of the conservative revolution, the author of the contract with America would smack him in the face with them.
Now we know why this crowd fired Gingrich as the speaker of the house years ago. The term loose cannon is an understatement of epic proportions.
At this point the entire republican establishment is having to try to explain capitalism in bottom line economic terms, while these are heart and soul emotional issues to the vast majority of the American voting public. Lets see, you layed me off, cost me my house and my life savings so that you could buy a new yacht? No, that isn't the sort of question you can answer to the satisfaction of anyone who has had the plug pulled on his or her career.
South Carolina republican senator Jim DeMint summed up the Newt problem succinctly. "We need to understand the principles of our party," he said.
Well of course some of us all ready do, senator, that is why there are democrats.
This is going to be a long and dirty campaign. One thing you can count on is that coming soon to a TV in your house will be Barak Obama's political attack ads, starring, none other Newt Gingrich.
If anyone thinks any differently they are fooling themselves.
1-12-12
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Viva El Mitt
It really shouldn't be a surprise that the Mittster kicked every one's tail in New Hampshire. He lives right across the boarder in Massachusetts. The far right hand corner of the nation possesses a regional identity that transcends state lines. Other than perhaps the deep south, such a thing simply doesn't exist anywhere else in the country. Mitt's people could spend all day campaigning in the Granite State and drive home to North Quincy every night. Everyone is a Red Sox fan. No one likes the Yankees, or just about anyone else for that matter. The world ends on the west shore of Lake Champlain. No, lets not put too much into the percentages just yet. Bigger things in stranger places are yet to come.
What was impressive for Mr. Romney was where his support came from. Just about everyone but the young crowd voted for him. He won the $30K to $50K income bracket, he won the $200+K voters. He won among those who have no college education and among those who have post graduate degrees. He even won among those who consider themselves aligned with the tea party movement.
That last demographic should give serious pause to his opponents, all of whom have been counting on the tea party mob to turn away from what they portray as a closet liberal.
Ron Paul came in second with 23% of the vote as opposed to Romney's 39%. He continues to do well with the kids. His constituency in New Hampshire was heavily dependent on 18 to 24 year old single white males with little money who consider themselves not republican, but independent. A Ron Paul news letter assertion that agents of the Israeli Mossad were actually the perpetrators of the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington seems not to matter a whit. His run has become the ultimate anti-Washington candidacy. His fan base is so convinced that government as usual is evil they might even believe that nonsense. What they would do, or would actually happen to them if he were to somehow become president of the United States isn't something they even think about.
What is one to say about the rest of the field? Jon Hunstman pulled in 17% and his campaign seems delusional enough to think he can attract independents and democrats.
Newt Gingrich polled only 10%. However, South Carolina and Florida are coming up and Newt has pulled off the gloves. His is now officially a campaign of burning bridges and scorched earth. Since he is down south and on the ropes he is going to let loose with a barrage the likes of which haven't been seen since Big Joe McCarthy was running amok in Washington.
Santorum, who was kicked out of office in his home state, finished with 9%. That fantasy lasted exactly one week.
Rick Perry polled 1% of the vote. He'll do marginally better in the south, but the brutal truth is he probably won't even last until April 3rd, when Texas holds its primary. Exit polls showed his constituency to be older women with low incomes and little education.
So is it over? Some of the president's people think so. Attack ads against Romney have all ready begun to surface on the web.
The truth is it probably isn't over, but someone is going to have to put a real dent into the Romney machine either in South Carolina, or Florida. If he wins both those primaries the field can fold their tents and save every one's time and money. The feeling here is that the March 3rd Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses will settle the argument once and for all.
The other feeling is that Ron Paul is going to go rogue this fall and run as an independent. When he does the happiest person in America will be Barak Hussein Obama
1-11-12
What was impressive for Mr. Romney was where his support came from. Just about everyone but the young crowd voted for him. He won the $30K to $50K income bracket, he won the $200+K voters. He won among those who have no college education and among those who have post graduate degrees. He even won among those who consider themselves aligned with the tea party movement.
That last demographic should give serious pause to his opponents, all of whom have been counting on the tea party mob to turn away from what they portray as a closet liberal.
Ron Paul came in second with 23% of the vote as opposed to Romney's 39%. He continues to do well with the kids. His constituency in New Hampshire was heavily dependent on 18 to 24 year old single white males with little money who consider themselves not republican, but independent. A Ron Paul news letter assertion that agents of the Israeli Mossad were actually the perpetrators of the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington seems not to matter a whit. His run has become the ultimate anti-Washington candidacy. His fan base is so convinced that government as usual is evil they might even believe that nonsense. What they would do, or would actually happen to them if he were to somehow become president of the United States isn't something they even think about.
What is one to say about the rest of the field? Jon Hunstman pulled in 17% and his campaign seems delusional enough to think he can attract independents and democrats.
Newt Gingrich polled only 10%. However, South Carolina and Florida are coming up and Newt has pulled off the gloves. His is now officially a campaign of burning bridges and scorched earth. Since he is down south and on the ropes he is going to let loose with a barrage the likes of which haven't been seen since Big Joe McCarthy was running amok in Washington.
Santorum, who was kicked out of office in his home state, finished with 9%. That fantasy lasted exactly one week.
Rick Perry polled 1% of the vote. He'll do marginally better in the south, but the brutal truth is he probably won't even last until April 3rd, when Texas holds its primary. Exit polls showed his constituency to be older women with low incomes and little education.
So is it over? Some of the president's people think so. Attack ads against Romney have all ready begun to surface on the web.
The truth is it probably isn't over, but someone is going to have to put a real dent into the Romney machine either in South Carolina, or Florida. If he wins both those primaries the field can fold their tents and save every one's time and money. The feeling here is that the March 3rd Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses will settle the argument once and for all.
The other feeling is that Ron Paul is going to go rogue this fall and run as an independent. When he does the happiest person in America will be Barak Hussein Obama
1-11-12
Monday, January 9, 2012
China, Iran, and Korea Oh My
Yes, that metal on metal sound you hear in the background are sabres being rattled from the Caspian Sea to the DMZ, a bare twenty miles from Seoul.
It would seem all sorts of people are warning the US, threatening the US, or making enough noise to turn heads in Washington. People in several high places act like they want a piece of us and although the reasons vary they maybe deadly serious about it now days.
China is calling us a trouble maker because of a shift in US Asian military policy. They don't like shifts in American policies in China. They desperately want the world to understand they are getting ready to call the shots both economically and militarily on a global scale. The past century, the latter half anyway, may have been the United States', but Beijing sees itself as the planet's premier super power in the twenty first century. They have their hooks into everyone's well being on a daily basis. They are all over the Caribbean building huge infra structure projects gratis. It is just their way of saying there is a new sugar daddy in town. And, these projects, highly visible, are a direct reward to many, who have never seen a dollar in real US aid, because those bucks are now resting in some corrupt minister's Swiss bank account.
The Chinese however are pragmatists. You can't make a buck off anyone if the whole world is at war. No, there is a maturity in the Chinese leadership that knows despite everything it is better to suck America dry and let it rot away rather than to try to put out a hit on it.
The same thing probably can't be said about Iran. The Iranians know they aren't going to run the world and don't really want to. They do, however want to run the middle east. They see it as their historical imperative. The Ayatollahs consider it a religious obligation to free the region of the presence of Israel and the influence of Western infidels. They have watched the US and others struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan and know that while we can create havoc, we will never be able to completely subdue them militarily. They also know the US military is stretched as far as it can possibly go. The forces simply aren't available for the United States to fight an all out conventional war.
The problem the Iranians have is that they don't know when to stop pushing. No one in the United States is prepared to be the least bit tolerant if these clowns do something stupid, like torpedo an American aircraft carrier. We'll put up with high gas prices, even rationing if it boils down to it, but not one person in this country will feel the least bit of guilt if Iran makes a rash military move against US personnel and the response is overwhelmingly brutal. Nor, is there a politician alive in this country who can sit idly by as Israel is ravaged by Iranian aggression.
Yes, in that place that is, according to the leadership, completely devoid of homosexuals, the rants and raving can reach screeching heights, but someone better understand that we don't need boots on the ground to reduce Tehran to absolute rubble. And, that an attack on one American ship is an attack on practically every American.
Then there are the North Koreans. His Royal Majesty Kim III now seems firmly in control, but if he needs to reassure his military and the people of who is in charge you can probably count on some sort of military provocation against the south. It is doubtful it would be something major, but again, who knows for sure? The new kid maybe battier than his old man and grandfather.
The fact is since the end of WWII, the majority of Americans haven't been impacted in the least by any of the wars we've been involved in. We've gone out and bought our groceries, watched our football games, and sat down in front of the TV. Even as we've recoiled at the news accounts of the conflicts we've been able to go to bed warm, safe and happy with full bellies.
That age is quickly coming to a close if any of these people decide to push us to the limit. Cool heads need to prevail on all sides.
In response to the North Korean and therefore tacitly to Iranian nuclear ambitions an American president once said, "North Korea doesn't need nuclear weapons, because if they ever use them North Korea will cease to exist."
Who was this wild eyed conservative cowboy president? He would be William Jefferson Clinton.
The Chinese understand this. Hopefully the Iranians and North Koreans do too.
1-9-12
It would seem all sorts of people are warning the US, threatening the US, or making enough noise to turn heads in Washington. People in several high places act like they want a piece of us and although the reasons vary they maybe deadly serious about it now days.
China is calling us a trouble maker because of a shift in US Asian military policy. They don't like shifts in American policies in China. They desperately want the world to understand they are getting ready to call the shots both economically and militarily on a global scale. The past century, the latter half anyway, may have been the United States', but Beijing sees itself as the planet's premier super power in the twenty first century. They have their hooks into everyone's well being on a daily basis. They are all over the Caribbean building huge infra structure projects gratis. It is just their way of saying there is a new sugar daddy in town. And, these projects, highly visible, are a direct reward to many, who have never seen a dollar in real US aid, because those bucks are now resting in some corrupt minister's Swiss bank account.
The Chinese however are pragmatists. You can't make a buck off anyone if the whole world is at war. No, there is a maturity in the Chinese leadership that knows despite everything it is better to suck America dry and let it rot away rather than to try to put out a hit on it.
The same thing probably can't be said about Iran. The Iranians know they aren't going to run the world and don't really want to. They do, however want to run the middle east. They see it as their historical imperative. The Ayatollahs consider it a religious obligation to free the region of the presence of Israel and the influence of Western infidels. They have watched the US and others struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan and know that while we can create havoc, we will never be able to completely subdue them militarily. They also know the US military is stretched as far as it can possibly go. The forces simply aren't available for the United States to fight an all out conventional war.
The problem the Iranians have is that they don't know when to stop pushing. No one in the United States is prepared to be the least bit tolerant if these clowns do something stupid, like torpedo an American aircraft carrier. We'll put up with high gas prices, even rationing if it boils down to it, but not one person in this country will feel the least bit of guilt if Iran makes a rash military move against US personnel and the response is overwhelmingly brutal. Nor, is there a politician alive in this country who can sit idly by as Israel is ravaged by Iranian aggression.
Yes, in that place that is, according to the leadership, completely devoid of homosexuals, the rants and raving can reach screeching heights, but someone better understand that we don't need boots on the ground to reduce Tehran to absolute rubble. And, that an attack on one American ship is an attack on practically every American.
Then there are the North Koreans. His Royal Majesty Kim III now seems firmly in control, but if he needs to reassure his military and the people of who is in charge you can probably count on some sort of military provocation against the south. It is doubtful it would be something major, but again, who knows for sure? The new kid maybe battier than his old man and grandfather.
The fact is since the end of WWII, the majority of Americans haven't been impacted in the least by any of the wars we've been involved in. We've gone out and bought our groceries, watched our football games, and sat down in front of the TV. Even as we've recoiled at the news accounts of the conflicts we've been able to go to bed warm, safe and happy with full bellies.
That age is quickly coming to a close if any of these people decide to push us to the limit. Cool heads need to prevail on all sides.
In response to the North Korean and therefore tacitly to Iranian nuclear ambitions an American president once said, "North Korea doesn't need nuclear weapons, because if they ever use them North Korea will cease to exist."
Who was this wild eyed conservative cowboy president? He would be William Jefferson Clinton.
The Chinese understand this. Hopefully the Iranians and North Koreans do too.
1-9-12
Sunday, January 8, 2012
The Lost Girls Revisited
Jimmy Lee Massey and Francisco Gomez currently are residing in the Oklahoma County jail. They are accused of, at the very least, abetting the grisly murder of Carina Saunders. According to Massey, he kidnapped an unnamed woman, took her to a "room" and forced her to watch Ms. Saunders get tortured, dismembered and then stuffed piece meal into a duffel bag. This was done, according to Mr. Massey to make a point. In other words, you do what we say, or the same thing happens to you. It would seem that prostitution isn't quite the victimless crime some would like to think it is. At least not this version of it.
Saunders was living on the edge of a lot of dark things. She had no fixed address and according to one acquaintance never changed clothes, or as near as she could tell bathe, or shower. She was, according to one report, last seen getting into a SUV near Interstate 40 and Rockwell Ave driven by "an older guy with gray hair". It doesn't take much to read between those lines. The Bethany police have speculated she was a "target of opportunity". That she was an innocent victim picked at random so that others would toe the line. The entire gruesome episode reeks of gang intimidation and leads us down the dark, dank, alley of drugs and forced prostitution.
Kelsey Bransby was in the same Mustang High School class as Saunders. Depending on who you believe she either did, or didn't graduate from Mustang High, however it seems improbable that she didn't at least know who Carina Saunders was. She was murdered shortly after Saunders. She was living in a south side OKC apartment and the leads are so few and cold that even the offer of a reward hasn't drawn a huge amount of public attention. Her case has largely gone ignored for reasons known only to the local paper and perhaps the police. There is absolutely no indication in anything released by the police, or the press that she was into a lifestyle that could be described as dangerous, or criminal. However, from the outside, the coincidence seems too huge to ignore.
Alina Fitzpatrick was dropped off near an apartment complex near NW 23rd and Western a little while later. Her body was found a few days afterward dumped in a field in far eastern OKC. According to her parents she was taking classes from a Putnam City cyber school so that she could avoid bullying at Putnam City North in NW OKC. The Putnam City school district was quick to say they had no record of her being bullied. According to unconfirmed and conflicting reports she was found either shot in the face, nude and dismembered, or nude and severely beaten. There has been no official word from the police, or the slightest hint that they might be close to solving her murder. There is no indication that she knew either Saunders, or Bransby, or had any mutual acquaintances. The only connection here is age, gender, and an off center beginning of adulthood. And of course the queasy feeling that in three months, three young women who seem eerily familiar, have been brutally murdered.
Then along comes, Jaymie Adams. She doesn't fit the profile, but she did go missing and then was found quite dead. She was 25 and all ready had four children with a fifth on the way. She was out there. As in way out there. Her husband, either a man of tolerance beyond belief, or a stone cold sociopath who took a cut of the John's cash without blinking an eye, acknowledged she was pulling tricks. She advertised on Craiglist as a massage therapist, but that was a transparent ruse. He has admitted they were, among other things, swingers, who liked to find people of a similar philosophy so they could swap partners for sex. Ms. Adams was to meet a "friend", or actually a client late on December 10th. Her body was found near Lake Stanley Draper yesterday. The police are, of course, mum about the details.
It is, so far, a dry windy winter in Oklahoma City. Dead leaves still scuttle along the gutters of streets. The grass is brittle underfoot and dusty. There is, at this time, no telling what is going on. A single rogue serial killer is probably not the case. However, some sort of vicious gang enforcement unit might be possible. And, in the case of Adams, there is no telling what happened. Possibly it is a trick gone terribly bad, or a husband gone off his nut.
What we do know is that since October there have been four young women, girls really, brutally done in by person, or persons unknown. The edge has never seemed so deadly as it is now. The dark underbelly of this town has been exposed like never before.
Welcome to the big leagues, Oklahoma City. It is an ugly and deadly ballgame being played and we're all in it to the final whistle.
1-8-12
Saunders was living on the edge of a lot of dark things. She had no fixed address and according to one acquaintance never changed clothes, or as near as she could tell bathe, or shower. She was, according to one report, last seen getting into a SUV near Interstate 40 and Rockwell Ave driven by "an older guy with gray hair". It doesn't take much to read between those lines. The Bethany police have speculated she was a "target of opportunity". That she was an innocent victim picked at random so that others would toe the line. The entire gruesome episode reeks of gang intimidation and leads us down the dark, dank, alley of drugs and forced prostitution.
Kelsey Bransby was in the same Mustang High School class as Saunders. Depending on who you believe she either did, or didn't graduate from Mustang High, however it seems improbable that she didn't at least know who Carina Saunders was. She was murdered shortly after Saunders. She was living in a south side OKC apartment and the leads are so few and cold that even the offer of a reward hasn't drawn a huge amount of public attention. Her case has largely gone ignored for reasons known only to the local paper and perhaps the police. There is absolutely no indication in anything released by the police, or the press that she was into a lifestyle that could be described as dangerous, or criminal. However, from the outside, the coincidence seems too huge to ignore.
Alina Fitzpatrick was dropped off near an apartment complex near NW 23rd and Western a little while later. Her body was found a few days afterward dumped in a field in far eastern OKC. According to her parents she was taking classes from a Putnam City cyber school so that she could avoid bullying at Putnam City North in NW OKC. The Putnam City school district was quick to say they had no record of her being bullied. According to unconfirmed and conflicting reports she was found either shot in the face, nude and dismembered, or nude and severely beaten. There has been no official word from the police, or the slightest hint that they might be close to solving her murder. There is no indication that she knew either Saunders, or Bransby, or had any mutual acquaintances. The only connection here is age, gender, and an off center beginning of adulthood. And of course the queasy feeling that in three months, three young women who seem eerily familiar, have been brutally murdered.
Then along comes, Jaymie Adams. She doesn't fit the profile, but she did go missing and then was found quite dead. She was 25 and all ready had four children with a fifth on the way. She was out there. As in way out there. Her husband, either a man of tolerance beyond belief, or a stone cold sociopath who took a cut of the John's cash without blinking an eye, acknowledged she was pulling tricks. She advertised on Craiglist as a massage therapist, but that was a transparent ruse. He has admitted they were, among other things, swingers, who liked to find people of a similar philosophy so they could swap partners for sex. Ms. Adams was to meet a "friend", or actually a client late on December 10th. Her body was found near Lake Stanley Draper yesterday. The police are, of course, mum about the details.
It is, so far, a dry windy winter in Oklahoma City. Dead leaves still scuttle along the gutters of streets. The grass is brittle underfoot and dusty. There is, at this time, no telling what is going on. A single rogue serial killer is probably not the case. However, some sort of vicious gang enforcement unit might be possible. And, in the case of Adams, there is no telling what happened. Possibly it is a trick gone terribly bad, or a husband gone off his nut.
What we do know is that since October there have been four young women, girls really, brutally done in by person, or persons unknown. The edge has never seemed so deadly as it is now. The dark underbelly of this town has been exposed like never before.
Welcome to the big leagues, Oklahoma City. It is an ugly and deadly ballgame being played and we're all in it to the final whistle.
1-8-12
Friday, January 6, 2012
Miles Moved to Mexico, George Owned a Rambler, Mitt Runs for President
First there was Miles Park Romney. He led his family out of the wilds of Utah to, according to his great grandson, escape persecution because of their religious beliefs. Apparently one of those beliefs was polygamy which the Mormons had to dump in order to get Utah into the union. Another, one would presume, was that all black people were black because they were cursed by God. That one stuck around until just a few decades ago when people finally began to ask why there weren't any black athletes playing for BYU.
Be that as it may, then came George, who was born in Colonia Dublan in Chihuahua, Mexico. His part of the family moved back to the United States when he was five because a revolution made things a bit dicey south of the boarder.
George was a self made man. He ended up being the head honcho at American Motors and governor of Michigan despite never having graduated from college. He was in fact one of the last members of that extinct species known as liberal republicans. He sought the republican nomination in 1968. Our old pal Dick Nixon blew him out of the water and didn't even need birther conspiracy theories to do so. President Nixon later named him head of Housing and Urban Development. George increased federally subsidized housing, but finally was violently reigned in by his own administration when he tried to expand that housing to the suburbs. He was not invited back for Nixon's aborted second term.
His son, Mitt is now the odds on favorite to be the republican nominee for president of the United States. He will not, as his father did, have the whole hearted support of organized labor. In fact, despite still having family in Mexico, he probably won't even get a large chunk of the Hispanic vote thanks to his views on immigration.
Mitt doesn't talk or write much about the Mexican connection, or his relatives that still reside in places like Colonia Dublan. Apparently he's never even paid his cousins a visit.
I suppose now that might be a security issue for everyone concerned, although his second cousin Leighton Romney is about to go on national TV and talk all about it. Leighton and about forty others are still in Mexico and appear to be doing quite well. However once all this becomes very public knowledge I would think every last one of the Chihuahuan Romneys are going to be on a bunch of kidnapper's A lists.
Something like that could pose quite the problem for Mitt Romney. What do you do if a relative of the president of the United States, or even a candidate for that office is nabbed and held for ransom? Do you pay it? Do you ignore it and sacrifice the life of a cousin, even though he or she is one you've never met? Do you send in the SEALS?
None of those options are very appealing, however it might be something Mitt Romney has to consider in the very near future.
See there, we all thought those West Wing episodes were really out there. Now they maybe right around the corner.
Who says living in the twenty-first century isn't great?
1-6-12
Be that as it may, then came George, who was born in Colonia Dublan in Chihuahua, Mexico. His part of the family moved back to the United States when he was five because a revolution made things a bit dicey south of the boarder.
George was a self made man. He ended up being the head honcho at American Motors and governor of Michigan despite never having graduated from college. He was in fact one of the last members of that extinct species known as liberal republicans. He sought the republican nomination in 1968. Our old pal Dick Nixon blew him out of the water and didn't even need birther conspiracy theories to do so. President Nixon later named him head of Housing and Urban Development. George increased federally subsidized housing, but finally was violently reigned in by his own administration when he tried to expand that housing to the suburbs. He was not invited back for Nixon's aborted second term.
His son, Mitt is now the odds on favorite to be the republican nominee for president of the United States. He will not, as his father did, have the whole hearted support of organized labor. In fact, despite still having family in Mexico, he probably won't even get a large chunk of the Hispanic vote thanks to his views on immigration.
Mitt doesn't talk or write much about the Mexican connection, or his relatives that still reside in places like Colonia Dublan. Apparently he's never even paid his cousins a visit.
I suppose now that might be a security issue for everyone concerned, although his second cousin Leighton Romney is about to go on national TV and talk all about it. Leighton and about forty others are still in Mexico and appear to be doing quite well. However once all this becomes very public knowledge I would think every last one of the Chihuahuan Romneys are going to be on a bunch of kidnapper's A lists.
Something like that could pose quite the problem for Mitt Romney. What do you do if a relative of the president of the United States, or even a candidate for that office is nabbed and held for ransom? Do you pay it? Do you ignore it and sacrifice the life of a cousin, even though he or she is one you've never met? Do you send in the SEALS?
None of those options are very appealing, however it might be something Mitt Romney has to consider in the very near future.
See there, we all thought those West Wing episodes were really out there. Now they maybe right around the corner.
Who says living in the twenty-first century isn't great?
1-6-12
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
And the Winner Is...
His name is Richard John Santorum and he is sort of from Pennsylvania. He is a former congressman and senator and is the latest in the long line of conservatives to make a run at the perceived liberal mole, Mitt Romney.
His finish was a frantic blaze of lightning that struck just a few days before the Iowa caucuses were held. The question now of course is can he maintain momentum against a well oiled and increasingly ruthless Romney campaign. No one else has. Every right wing alternative to the former Massachusetts governor who has bobbed to the top has gone on to sink with breath taking speed.
Santorum lost Iowa by a total of eight votes out of 122,000 cast. So much for staying home on election day. He and Romney ended in basically a dead heat, each with a little more than 24% of the vote. Ron Paul faded, but not far, coming in with 21.5%. Former speaker Newt Gingrich slipped to 13%, while Rick Perry carried 10% and Michelle Bachman a mere 5%.
Bachman had the good sense to drop out immediately. Perry is hanging on, no doubt trying to sell his support and delegates somewhere later on down the line to the highest bidder. He will do better in the south, but the reality is that he's a dead duck. Gingrich vows to fight on and will do better in places like South Carolina and Florida where the distrust of Romney is at a fever pitch. His candidacy, among all the other losers probably remains the most viable. Paul is, well, Paul. He is going to pull in a respectable number of votes everywhere he goes and not win a single primary. His racist and conspiracy theory laced past doesn't seem to phase, or dismay large numbers of young conservatives who view him as the one true alternative to Washington as usual.
That brings us to the latest shooting star, former senator Rick Santorum. The reason he is a former senator is because he got his head handed to him in a 2006 re-election campaign that saw him lose by eighteen percentage points to Bob Casey. It is the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent Republican senator in the history of the state. It isn't something you normally expect, or want to see on the resume of your party's nominee.
His political past is riddled with hypocrisy and what could be called fraud by some more brutally frank souls. He initially won a seat in congress by hammering his opponent for not living full time in the district. When he was running for senate re-election he admitted he lived at his Pennsylvania residence "maybe one month a year." Five of his kids attended a cyber school and The Penn Hills School District was billed $73,000 for their education, despite all of them living full time in Virginia. One might call him a Gingrich in training.
No, very shortly the media and Romney staff will begin to eviscerate him. He will start to flounder in New Hampshire and by the time the votes begin to roll in from south of the Mason-Dixon Line he will have gone the way of, Bachman, Perry, and the Triceratops. He is the conservative ice cream cone flavor of the month and ice cream cones don't stand up well under the bright lights of a presidential campaign. Just ask the pizza guy.
It appears Romney has withstood the initial storm, although he had to spend a ton of money and go negative to grab that eight vote victory. More ugliness will follow. Ronald Reagan's republican code of omerta has been blown away in all the desperation and rage. Republicans and conservatives in particular have always gone down and dirty in elections, it is their nature to do so. Don't look for that to change even though they are running against themselves.
There may have been a surprise in this round, but in the end keep your money on the big boys. First round upsets aren't rare, but Cinderella finishes are. There is nothing you can do, as Rick Santorum is about to find out, to stop the clock from striking midnight. Keep an eye out for a large unattended pumpkin rolling down the road in the very near future.
1-4-12
His finish was a frantic blaze of lightning that struck just a few days before the Iowa caucuses were held. The question now of course is can he maintain momentum against a well oiled and increasingly ruthless Romney campaign. No one else has. Every right wing alternative to the former Massachusetts governor who has bobbed to the top has gone on to sink with breath taking speed.
Santorum lost Iowa by a total of eight votes out of 122,000 cast. So much for staying home on election day. He and Romney ended in basically a dead heat, each with a little more than 24% of the vote. Ron Paul faded, but not far, coming in with 21.5%. Former speaker Newt Gingrich slipped to 13%, while Rick Perry carried 10% and Michelle Bachman a mere 5%.
Bachman had the good sense to drop out immediately. Perry is hanging on, no doubt trying to sell his support and delegates somewhere later on down the line to the highest bidder. He will do better in the south, but the reality is that he's a dead duck. Gingrich vows to fight on and will do better in places like South Carolina and Florida where the distrust of Romney is at a fever pitch. His candidacy, among all the other losers probably remains the most viable. Paul is, well, Paul. He is going to pull in a respectable number of votes everywhere he goes and not win a single primary. His racist and conspiracy theory laced past doesn't seem to phase, or dismay large numbers of young conservatives who view him as the one true alternative to Washington as usual.
That brings us to the latest shooting star, former senator Rick Santorum. The reason he is a former senator is because he got his head handed to him in a 2006 re-election campaign that saw him lose by eighteen percentage points to Bob Casey. It is the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent Republican senator in the history of the state. It isn't something you normally expect, or want to see on the resume of your party's nominee.
His political past is riddled with hypocrisy and what could be called fraud by some more brutally frank souls. He initially won a seat in congress by hammering his opponent for not living full time in the district. When he was running for senate re-election he admitted he lived at his Pennsylvania residence "maybe one month a year." Five of his kids attended a cyber school and The Penn Hills School District was billed $73,000 for their education, despite all of them living full time in Virginia. One might call him a Gingrich in training.
No, very shortly the media and Romney staff will begin to eviscerate him. He will start to flounder in New Hampshire and by the time the votes begin to roll in from south of the Mason-Dixon Line he will have gone the way of, Bachman, Perry, and the Triceratops. He is the conservative ice cream cone flavor of the month and ice cream cones don't stand up well under the bright lights of a presidential campaign. Just ask the pizza guy.
It appears Romney has withstood the initial storm, although he had to spend a ton of money and go negative to grab that eight vote victory. More ugliness will follow. Ronald Reagan's republican code of omerta has been blown away in all the desperation and rage. Republicans and conservatives in particular have always gone down and dirty in elections, it is their nature to do so. Don't look for that to change even though they are running against themselves.
There may have been a surprise in this round, but in the end keep your money on the big boys. First round upsets aren't rare, but Cinderella finishes are. There is nothing you can do, as Rick Santorum is about to find out, to stop the clock from striking midnight. Keep an eye out for a large unattended pumpkin rolling down the road in the very near future.
1-4-12
Monday, January 2, 2012
Revelations of the Weirdest Kind: Nixon in Heat? Say It Ain't So
Just when you didn't think it isn't possible for someone to say bad things about Dick Nixon that haven't already been said, along comes David Fulsom.
Mr. Fulsom's new book, "Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President" is soon to be released by the Macmillan publishing house. It makes charges that normally would be found only in a supermarket checkout line tabloid.
Fulsom's credentials, however are solid. He was UPI's man in the white house under president's Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton and its Washington bureau chief for seven years. He is now a professor at American University teaching a course titled, surprise surprise, "Watergate: A Constitutional Crisis."
Apparently his obsession with all things Nixonian have dominated his later life and career.
It is very easy to think the worst of Richard Nixon. I have since I was ten years old and I'm unrepentant in that regard.
Some of Fulsom's charges are quite easy to believe. First is that he was an occasional wife beater. We know he possessed a searing anger deep within and every now and then it came bubbling out like lava from a steaming fissure. He was a man with severe persecution issues. He was acutely aware that huge numbers of the press and public not only abhorred him, but considered him some sort of bizarre mutant. He made his bones in congress by searching out suspected communists and other enemies of the state. He lost the presidency to a rich, privileged, good looking playboy by the barest of margins. Then was reduced to being beaten like a dog by the political hack, Pat Brown in a gubernatorial election. The image of him giving his wife, Pat a vicious whack once in a while really isn't a stretch.
The allegations that he was a drunk who had mob connections, even if they might be tenuous, also tend to ring true. Stories of him wandering the halls of the white house cocktail in hand as the Watergate investigation closed in on him are more than numerous. And back in the day, before there were campaign contribution disclosure laws some of the made guys felt not only betrayed by the Kennedys, but also hunted by them. One can easily believe gifts were exchanged and cash deals were made. Dick Nixon was never a man to question where the cash came from, so long it was headed his way and it couldn't be traced.
Then, as singer/actor Mac Brown said in the movie, "North Dallas Forty", comes the weird part. Fulsom alleges Richard Nixon and his long time pal Charles "Bebe" Rebozo had a homosexual affair. The mind reels as that picture is painted. There is no hard evidence for this incredible charge. Pulitzer Prize winning writer Patrick Sloyan recalls an unsubstantiated instance of public hand holding. Others talk about how close the two were. (In fact Rebozo was on hand when Nixon left for that great cabinet meeting in the sky). No one, however, including Fulsom, can produce the smoking gun on this one. Luckily for the author the dead and their estates can't sue for libel. He can say whatever he wants with only speculation from those who didn't particularly like the guy anyway backing him up.
Staff members claim Rebozo was there "to mix the martinis" and to be the ice breaker for the notoriously wooden Nixon. That he was Fredo to Nixon's Michael Corleone. Charles Coulson and Pat Nixon have said that the relationship was strictly one way. In other words Rebozo was in awe of Nixon and Nixon was using Rebozo. Now that sounds more plausible than those two oily figures doing the naked hump in the cramped cabin of some yacht in the Florida Keys.
If Dick Nixon knew anything it was how to use people to further his career. The very idea of him having sex with anyone or anything is out there with tales of alien abductions. I'm not sure his wife saw him naked when they conceived their daughters. I'm not even sure he was naked when he showered, if he did indeed shower.
Somehow, as implausible as it seems, Richard Nixon has become a dead horse to beat. We all know how paranoid, rotten and downright feral the guy was. After nearly forty years why should we care if new revelations, proven, or unproven are published? Nostalgia? Tradition? Scores to settle?
It is time to move on. There is a new crop of Nixons to deal with. Lets concentrate on them rather than dwell on the past. The Tricky one is gone, this crowd, I'm afraid, is with us right now.
1-2-12
Mr. Fulsom's new book, "Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President" is soon to be released by the Macmillan publishing house. It makes charges that normally would be found only in a supermarket checkout line tabloid.
Fulsom's credentials, however are solid. He was UPI's man in the white house under president's Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton and its Washington bureau chief for seven years. He is now a professor at American University teaching a course titled, surprise surprise, "Watergate: A Constitutional Crisis."
Apparently his obsession with all things Nixonian have dominated his later life and career.
It is very easy to think the worst of Richard Nixon. I have since I was ten years old and I'm unrepentant in that regard.
Some of Fulsom's charges are quite easy to believe. First is that he was an occasional wife beater. We know he possessed a searing anger deep within and every now and then it came bubbling out like lava from a steaming fissure. He was a man with severe persecution issues. He was acutely aware that huge numbers of the press and public not only abhorred him, but considered him some sort of bizarre mutant. He made his bones in congress by searching out suspected communists and other enemies of the state. He lost the presidency to a rich, privileged, good looking playboy by the barest of margins. Then was reduced to being beaten like a dog by the political hack, Pat Brown in a gubernatorial election. The image of him giving his wife, Pat a vicious whack once in a while really isn't a stretch.
The allegations that he was a drunk who had mob connections, even if they might be tenuous, also tend to ring true. Stories of him wandering the halls of the white house cocktail in hand as the Watergate investigation closed in on him are more than numerous. And back in the day, before there were campaign contribution disclosure laws some of the made guys felt not only betrayed by the Kennedys, but also hunted by them. One can easily believe gifts were exchanged and cash deals were made. Dick Nixon was never a man to question where the cash came from, so long it was headed his way and it couldn't be traced.
Then, as singer/actor Mac Brown said in the movie, "North Dallas Forty", comes the weird part. Fulsom alleges Richard Nixon and his long time pal Charles "Bebe" Rebozo had a homosexual affair. The mind reels as that picture is painted. There is no hard evidence for this incredible charge. Pulitzer Prize winning writer Patrick Sloyan recalls an unsubstantiated instance of public hand holding. Others talk about how close the two were. (In fact Rebozo was on hand when Nixon left for that great cabinet meeting in the sky). No one, however, including Fulsom, can produce the smoking gun on this one. Luckily for the author the dead and their estates can't sue for libel. He can say whatever he wants with only speculation from those who didn't particularly like the guy anyway backing him up.
Staff members claim Rebozo was there "to mix the martinis" and to be the ice breaker for the notoriously wooden Nixon. That he was Fredo to Nixon's Michael Corleone. Charles Coulson and Pat Nixon have said that the relationship was strictly one way. In other words Rebozo was in awe of Nixon and Nixon was using Rebozo. Now that sounds more plausible than those two oily figures doing the naked hump in the cramped cabin of some yacht in the Florida Keys.
If Dick Nixon knew anything it was how to use people to further his career. The very idea of him having sex with anyone or anything is out there with tales of alien abductions. I'm not sure his wife saw him naked when they conceived their daughters. I'm not even sure he was naked when he showered, if he did indeed shower.
Somehow, as implausible as it seems, Richard Nixon has become a dead horse to beat. We all know how paranoid, rotten and downright feral the guy was. After nearly forty years why should we care if new revelations, proven, or unproven are published? Nostalgia? Tradition? Scores to settle?
It is time to move on. There is a new crop of Nixons to deal with. Lets concentrate on them rather than dwell on the past. The Tricky one is gone, this crowd, I'm afraid, is with us right now.
1-2-12
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