Sleepless in Midland

Not a jury of his peers -- Roger Stone juror was Trump hater

One of the foundations of the U.S. criminal justice system is that the defendant is entitled to a jury of his/her peers. Unfortunately, the federal court system's jury voir dire gives the judge the authority to question the jurors, not the attorneys. And while a prospective juror might proclaim impartiality, it would be difficult for the defense attorney to root out some deep seated animosity.

And now we are hearing about the jury foreman, Tomeka Hart, in Roger Stone's trial. Seems she is a Democrat party activist and an avid Trump hater. Furthermore, there were others on the jury with similar bias. Could it be that no one in a typical Washington, D.C. jury pool not biased against Donald Trump? If that's the case, the trial should have been removed to another jurisdiction.

References: Juror 1261 in Roger Stone's case: Was justice undone?;
Tomeka Hart: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know;
Roger Stone mistrial? Trump hater Tomeka Hart was Jury Foreman;
Roger Stone Requests A New Trial, Citing Revelations About Anti-Trump Juror.

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11:36 AM 2/15/2020

the dog that didn't bark -- Dems haven't passed any laws making what Trump did illegal

The impeachment theater has been going on so long the audience has either tuned out or passed out.

Nonetheless, it's now raging in the Senate.

But here's the dog that didn't bark. If Democrats are truly bothered by what Trump is alleged to have done in Ukraine, then why haven't they passed a bill that would outlaw the conduct that has so outraged them so that it won't happen again?

The answer is actually quite simple. They don't want to put laws in place that would likely be used against a future Democrat president. (Also, such a law could be unconstitutional.)

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2:40 PM 1/26/2020

A tale of two cities' reaction to killers

Two crimes. Two cities. Two reactions.

The headlines scream at us about the killings at a church near Fort Worth Sunday morning and the stabbings Saturday evening at a Hanukkah celebration at an Orthodox rabbi’s home in New York.

The reactions were breathtaking. The TV news days later showed us New York politicians speechifying about how bad hate is. The news in Texas told us the incident there was over in six seconds when members of the congregation pulled their own guns and dispatched the killer.

Amazing contrast.

Gun control advocates can't seem to grasp the concept that someone bent on killing will unlikely be deterred by a law banning guns.

Meanwhile, a big shout-out to Texas Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature for passing the amendment allowing concealed handgun license holders to carry in churches.

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1:57 PM 12/30/2019

Quote of the week -- Frank Sheeran

This is from the book, "I heard You Paint Houses." It's one of the versions of what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. It's a fascinating story, although we don't know how much of it is true. Anyway, the Netflix movie "The Irishman" was supposed to be based on this Irishman, Frank Sheeran.

On the last page of the book author Charles Brandt recounts a session Sheeran had with a reporter in which Sheeran said,

"If I did all the things they allege I did and I had to do them over again I would not do them."

Hmm. Regrets without admission. Well, OK then.

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2:48 PM 12/23/2019

Are serial killers competing to be the most prolific?

One has to wonder whether that factors into those professional profilers' analyses. But serial killers don't seem to keep accurate records.

What brings this to mind is a remark in this FBI press release -- FBI Seeking Assistance Connecting Victims to Samuel Little’s Confessions:

Five years after analysts with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) began linking cases to convicted murderer Samuel Little—and nearly 18 months after a Texas Ranger began to elicit from him a breathtaking number of confessions—the FBI has confirmed Little to be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.

Little has confessed to 93 murders, and FBI crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible. Law enforcement has been able to verify 50 confessions, with many more pending final confirmation.

"The most prolific serial killer in U.S. history." That line jumped out. So he's number 1? Note that they were only able to verify 50. So if confessions without verification count in the total, how about The Good Nurse, Charles Cullen? He was convicted of 13 murders, however:

Experts have estimated that Cullen may ultimately be responsible for 400 deaths, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in recorded history.

The race is on.

Furthermore, it's possible Albert Hicks, the last pirate of New York, may be in the running, but ships full of bodies scuttled at sea don't yield much evidence.

But serial killer score keepers need to be reminded that Henry Lee Lucas conned law enforcement officers into believing he murdered 200 people -- He was America's most deadly serial killer – but it was all a lie.

Serial killers trying to break the record need to keep better records.

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12:44 PM 12/11/2019

Ransomware attacks on nursing homes? That's ruthless

The attack occurred on November 17 and involve the Ryuk ransomware strain. Attackers are getting ruthless, as it shut down Milwaukee, Wisc. based Virtual Care Provider Inc. which provides internet and data storage for nursing homes. Krebsonsecurity.com has the story in 110 Nursing Homes Cut Off from Health Records in Ransomware Attack. Here's the scary part:

Christianson said her firm cannot afford to pay the ransom amount being demanded — roughly $14 million worth of Bitcoin — and said some clients will soon be in danger of having to shut their doors if VCPI can’t recover from the attack.

“We’ve got some facilities where the nurses can’t get the drugs updated and the order put in so the drugs can arrive on time,” she said. “In another case, we have this one small assisted living place that is just a single unit that connects to billing. And if they don’t get their billing into Medicaid by December 5, they close their doors. Seniors that don’t have family to go to are then done. We have a lot of [clients] right now who are like, ‘Just give me my data,’ but we can’t.”

Brutal. The culprits could have blood on their hands.

Via: Sophos' Naked Security website which offers tips on how to prevent ransomware attacks.  However, even with all the publicity these attacks get, they are still happening.

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3:45 PM 12/4/2019

Quote of the week 11-3-19 -- People fall for ideas that make too much sense

This is a quote from Rich Cohen's book, "The Last Pirate of New York" about Albert W. Hicks and the horrific crimes for which he was tried, convicted, and hanged on Friday the 13th of July, 1860.

This particular passage was about phrenology -- the pseudo science popular around that time about psychology and the shape of the skull.

Fowler fell for phrenology for the reason confused people tend to fall for ideas that make too much sense. It explained everything. No more mystery or confusion. No more sin or redemption. No more free will or guilt. Who could be condemned for committing even the worst crime if it was preordained in the frontal lobe?

It would do us all well to be aware that scientists can be wrong, even if there seems to be a consensus.

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2:46 PM 11/2/2019

Lavrentiy Beria -- history remembers his famous quote "show me the man; I'll find you the crime"

Just who was Lavrentiy Beria? Most of us have heard his famous quote: "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."

Beria was the head of the Soviet secret police beginning in 1938, and during his reign of that agency he conducted Joseph Stalin's purge of the old Soviet big shots who fell out of favor with Stalin. One has to figure that he made that quote while boasting about all the confessions and guilty verdicts he was able to obtain.

His famous quote comes up quite often when writers address over criminalization or seriously question the Democrats' search for impeachable offenses.

After Stalin died Beria himself became a purge target, was convicted of an assortment of crimes, and executed in 1953.

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Here's some book trivia.

The other day on this blog we talked about the novel, "Darkness at Noon," by Arthur Koestler, which was a fictional account of one such party big shot who became a victim of those Soviet purges. And the main character, Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov, was supposed to have been a composite of a few real people who had been subjects of those purges.

Beria is wearing pince-nez type of glasses in the photo. So it may not be a coincidence that there were at least a dozen mentions of Rubashov's pince-nez glasses in the novel.

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1:48 PM 10/26/2019

NY mobster planted GPS tracking device on girlfriend's car -- apparently that's all that was necessary for government to obtain wiretap authorization

This story comes to us by way of Naked Security in GPS tracker from stalked woman’s car led to indictment of 20 mobsters. The DOJ news release tells us this:

As alleged in the indictments and the government’s detention letters, the investigation began in November 2016 when a GPS tracking device was found concealed on an MTA bus.  Amato had earlier obtained the device to surveil his then-girlfriend and boasted about the resources at his disposal to keep her under close surveillance.  ... His then-girlfriend discovered the device on her vehicle and removed it, and it was subsequently attached to and recovered from the MTA bus at a depot n Staten Island.  Thereafter, the government obtained court-authorization to intercept communications over various cellular telephones used by the defendants.

As detailed in the government’s court filings, Amato and members of his crew used violence and threats of violence to earn illegal proceeds and solidify the crew’s reputation and standing. ...

The court-authorized wiretaps also captured the defendants’ scheme to fix an NCAA college basketball game.  To further the scheme, defendant Benjamin Bifalco offered members of a college basketball team thousands of dollars to intentionally lose the game.

That the girlfriend located the tracker and sent it off on a bus ride is interesting enough. But the shocker is that that's all it took to get a cell phone wiretap warrant. There must be more to the story than what we're told.

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3:34 PM 10/8/2019

David Charles Wilson case -- mirror image of Amber Guyger case

Amber Guyger dominated the headlines recently as the guilty verdict was rendered in the murder case against her. You will recall the facts of that case. She entered the wrong apartment thinking it was her own. Being a trained police officer, upon seeing a stranger sitting on the couch she drew her weapon and gave the stranger instructions. He didn't comply, and she shot him dead.

The David Charles Wilson case now pending in Midland, Texas, is the mirror image. Mr. Wilson was in his home when he shot and killed a police officer at his door.

The prosecution side of the argument will contend that the police officer was responding to investigate an automatic burglar alarm, opened an unlocked front door, identified himself, and was shot by the homeowner, Mr. Wilson.

Wilson was charged with manslaughter. And we learned in September that his attorneys have filled a motion to dismiss. Caitlin Randle describes a brief filed to support the motion in Court brief: MPD was mistakenly alerted. Here are some excerpts from that MRT article:

MPD was alerted about an alarm breach in the Wilsons’ pool house, according to the brief. The Wilsons’ have separate alarm systems in the pool house and the main house.

Heidelberg and the other officer first checked the backyard, but the gate was locked, the brief states. The officers then proceeded to the front of the house where they tried the front door and found it to be unlocked.

Once the officers opened the front door, a door alarm chimed, according to the brief. The chime woke Wilson’s wife, who then woke him and said she thought someone was in the house.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wilson can hear and see silhouettes outside with flashlights,” the brief states. “But they have no idea who is outside, what they are saying, or what they are doing. There were no red and blue police lights.”

It continues, “No one has contacted the Wilsons in any way to tell them it is the police outside. All they see are surreptitious silhouettes lurking with flashlights outside their home after midnight.”

The brief states that after seeing unidentified figures outside with flashlights, Wilson frantically retrieved his gun and ran from his bedroom at the same time Heidelberg fully opened the front door and shined his flashlight inside. It does not say that Heidelberg entered the home.

Wilson fired one shot before closing the door and calling 911, according to the brief.

The brief filed Thursday was in support of a motion by Wilson’s defense lawyers to dismiss the indictment.

Mistakes were made on both sides of that early morning mishap. We'll see whether this goes to trial.

Previously on these pages: Cop shot by homeowner in Midland fearing home invasion

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2:46 PM 10/6/2019

FBI crime stats 2018 -- weapons used in murders

The FBI crime statistics for 2018 have been published. And one interesting segment of it addresses weapons used in murders. The table you see below was adapted from Table 20.

Table 20 - Murder - Types of weapons 2018
Total murders	Total firearms	handguns	rifles	shot-guns	firearms unknown	knives or cutting	other weapons	hands, fists, feet etc
14,123	10,265	6,603	297	235	3,130	1,515	1,671	672
100%	73%	47%	2%	2%	22%	11%	12%	5%

As you can see, roughly 73% were committed with firearms with almost half, 43%, with handguns. Rifles only 2%, same as shotguns. But with 22% being unknown firearms then some of those other percentages would probably be higher.

In any event, it's an interesting set of stats the FBI has put together.

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4:24 PM 10/1/2019

American retirees in Mexico trusted banker -- big mistake

This is sad. But was it predictable?

American retirees in Mexico say their life savings vanished from a Mexican bank. Excerpt:

The Machirs sold their house in the U.S. and used the proceeds to begin building a new house in San Miguel de Allende. But their retirement dream turned into a nightmare in December 2018 when they suddenly found themselves unable to pay their contractors.

Their story may send a chill down the spines of the more than 1 million other U.S. citizens, many of them retirees, who live in Mexico. The life savings they had entrusted to their local banker of more than six years had all but disappeared. ...

NBC News spoke to nine American families who say Marcela Zavala Taylor, a former banker with Grupo Financiero Monex, had gained their trust only to disappear after they discovered money had gone missing from their personal accounts. These families, whose estimated losses total more than $7 million dollars, all say they were blindsided by what had happened.

Well, it's Mexico. No FDIC insurance there. And there was this:

Several of the people NBC News spoke to say getting their money back from Monex has been an uphill battle, especially when it comes to getting refunded for 100 percent of the amount they say was initially in their accounts.

Wells Fargo should open a bank in Mexico. Oh wait. Never mind.

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1:56 PM 9/29/2019

Democrats, not letting crisis go to waste, lost no time bashing gun ownership

I love the title of this article: Democrats Pounce On Odessa Shooting To Boost Their Political Campaigns.

"Democrats Pounce!" Ha ha! It's nice to see a conservative writer use the phrase against Dems. It's usually the other way around as the msm try headline Republicans' reactions to something rather than focusing on that thing.

Anyway, Ryan Saavedra's article provides several examples of Democrat presidential hopefuls proclaiming that guns in citizens' hands are the problem. They've got lots of support for the idea among their voter base. But the rest of us see guns as a deterrent of bad behavior, not a cause.

We don't know why the Odessa shooter went on a killing spree. If there is even the slightest evidence that he was a Republican or a Trump supporter, the msm will waste no time telling us. Too bad they can't address the real problem, and that's the disorder caused by the disconnect that society has with young males.

The more these things happen, the lower the threshold for the next disaffected person to go over the edge.

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1:24 PM 9/1/2019

Local media caught off guard when active shooter struck Odessa

So I clicked on the TV Saturday mid-afternoon in Midland, Texas, and heard on a cable station about an active shooter in "Midland/Odessa." (Actually, the two cities are roughly 20 miles apart. But that's not important.)

My thought was that a local channel would be right on top of it. Nope. CBS7 was the only one trying to cover it, but they were woefully lacking in information. They were getting their information from CNN and New York Times.

Their studio was in an Odessa mall, and at a couple of points they reported that armed law enforcement officers were walking through the mall. That prompted the news readers to go hide. So they went somewhere off screen leaving the audience staring at the empty space they just left. They kept on talking through their wireless microphones, so we knew they were there, somewhere. They were never in danger, but they didn't know that at the time.

But that seemingly forced abandonment of the broadcast desk became news for the cable outlets. The local broadcasters made themselves part of the story without actually doing anything but hiding.

The killing was tragic, but the local media were disappointing.  Their reliance on the major news outlets demonstrated that local news outlets may be able to add drama, but not much else.

Update: This article at OAOA.com was an Associated Press update as of 4:46 am, Sun Sep 1, 2019: 5 dead after man stopped by Texas troopers goes on rampage.

And here's something interesting: "Active shooter incidents were also reported at Music City Mall, Midland Park Mall and Midland Memorial Hospital, but all were false, according to local police departments." Found at Odessa mass shooting leaves 5 dead, 21 injured. How do false reports like that originate?

Meanwhile, local news says the Odessa Police Chief will hold a press conference at noon today.

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9:20 AM 9/1/2019

James Comey making payments on his insurance policy -- donating to Democrats

The headline says it all James Comey and Wife Donated Nearly $20K to Democrats This Year.

Republicans are gunning for him because of his corrupt actions in the FBI which were directed toward the efforts to remove Donald Trump from the presidency. Comey's chances improve drastically with Democrats in the House and Senate. But his best chance is with a Democrat president.

It's self preservation. It's his insurance policy.

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6:07 AM 8/19/2019

Slow down the mass killing trend -- treat disaffected young Americans like military does PTSD

Some expert on NPR the other day was decrying President Trump's statement that mental illness was the cause of the mass killings we've experienced recently. The only gun crimes committed by the mentally ill, according to the expert, were suicides.

Not being an expert on mental health, I've got no rebuttal to the expert on the radio. But it seems that the willingness to accede to an overwhelming urge to kill a bunch of people certainly isn't a sign of good mental health.

Perhaps it might have satisfied more people to call it a "disorder." In any event, it doesn't take an expert to observe that young males are disrespected by society, and they become alienated as a result.

Meanwhile, Taylor Day writes this at Americanthinker.com Mass Shootings: The Elephant in the Room in which she lays out the five stages of thinking she calls the Levin & Madfis model that lead to a mass shooting: chronic strain, uncontrolled strain, acute strain, planning, and ultimately, the attack. Click the link for more detail on those five stages.

Malcolm Gladwell's observation that each mass shooting lowers the threshold for the next one is not very comforting.

Lawmakers are under pressure to do something. But whatever they end up doing will probably be useless. See The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy in which the study authors say this:

The annual number of laws that loosen gun restrictions doubles in the year following a mass shooting in states with Republican-controlled legislatures. We find no significant effect of mass shootings on laws enacted when there is a Democrat-controlled legislature, nor do we find a significant effect of mass shootings on the enactment of laws that tighten gun restrictions.

So what do we do? The military has bent over backwards to identify and treat PTSD in combat veterans. Let's apply that same mentality to disaffected youth with efforts to identify them and try to help solve their disorder. It may or may not work. But it wouldn't hurt to try.

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10:56 AM 8/7/2019

That was fast -- Pink Lady Bandit arrested

There was a time when serial bank robbers were folk heroes, of sorts. Think Bonnie, Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Not any more.

Robbing banks the old fashioned way still gets attention. But these days it's a high risk, low yield game as the perps get popped rather quickly.

No sooner had I read that The FBI is hunting for a ‘Pink Lady Bandit’ who keeps robbing banks along the East Coast, an update showed up. ‘Pink Lady Bandit’ busted with accomplice in North Carolina.

A pink handbag earned her the moniker. Maybe that famous Arizona sheriff Joe who outfitted his prisoners in pink underwear could help pick out some fashionable prison outerwear for her.

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4:00 PM 7/30/2019

Fake hate crimes on the rise while chronicler is victimized by real hate crime

This post started out about the rise of fake hate crimes. And by at least one account less than a third of hate crime allegations were genuine.

Of course, that's not to say that here are no hate crimes. And one that appears to have happened just in the past few days was against a chronicler of fake hate crimes. See Antifa Mob Viciously Assaults Journalist Andy Ngo at Portland Rally. Police arrested three. Hopefully they were the right three.

The rise of fake hate crimes is inspired by the potential for sympathetic media coverage. After all, had very many people ever heard of Jussie Smollett before he hit the headlines with his outrageous, but debunked, claim to hate crime victim status?

Meanwhile, those of us out here in flyover country have developed a knee jerk reaction to hate crime allegations which compels us to say, "Slow down, let's wait for the evidence."

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10:53 AM 6/30/2019

What's with all the murderers in the medical profession?

Recently we talked about the book, "The Good Nurse," about Charles Cullen, the nurse who killed so many patients under his care that a total number couldn't be confirmed. See previously on these pages, Charles Graeber's "The Good Nurse" - one scary book and The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber - chapter 25.

There's this phenomenon where a person sees something he hadn't noticed before, then it seems as though whatever it was is showing up everywhere. Here are a few recent headlines:

Former German Nurse Guilty Of Killing 85 Patients In Serial Murder Case;
Ohio doctor pleads not guilty to murder charges for 25 painkiller overdose deaths; and
Nurse accused of killing 8 babies rearrested for attempted murder.

Whew! Makes a person want to eat an apple a day to keep the doctor away. But check the apple first.

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3:44 PM 6/18/2019

Charles Graeber's "The Good Nurse" - one scary book

I just finished part one of Charles Graeber's book, "The Good Nurse," and just had to talk about it. The good nurse in the title was Charles Cullen, and it's a true tale about murder by medicine. It's the stuff of nightmares.

Cullen was the nurse the media called the "angel of death" after his murders came to light. Graeber writes a fascinating account of this killer, and it's a scary story. Cullen's M.O. went like this. He would punch his own nurse's code into the Pyxis MedStation along with a request for a particular drug for some patient; the drawer would open; he would steal a different drug; then cancel the order and close the drawer.

He would inject a massive dose of some life saving drug like insulin or digozin into a patient's IV bag, then go about his other nursing duties. But too much of a good thing can kill a person, and if the person was sick already, the patient's death might not raise much suspicion. Often when the patient coded and Cullen was around, he was a hero. Cullen was first on the scene trying to revive the person. And miraculously, Cullen could come up with the antidote. What a brilliant nurse he was. But it was a sham, and too many times the patient died.

Cullen was a cold blooded killer, and he used his medical skills to do it in secret. That was part one of "The Good Nurse." It was years before justice caught up with him, and part two deals with the ultimate investigations that led to his conviction. So there's more to the story than you are reading here.

For a taste of the story an excerpt from the book is reproduced here.

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3:06 PM 6/3/2019

Skimmers found in San Antonio

A couple of years ago credit card skimmers had a field day on unprotected gasoline station credit card readers here in Midland, Texas. But they seem to have moved on. Where to? San Antonio, at least for the time being.

See Records: 11 credit card skimmers found at San Antonio gas stations in April:

This month's tally is significantly less than the previous month. In March, police found 25 credit card skimmers around town.

In the first four months of 2019, police have found and confiscated 72 skimmers total in San Antonio.

This crude device was in a photo that accompanied the San Antonio Express News article.

Meanwhile, the FDIC lists four common skimming devices, as follows:

Card-reader overlays
Hidden cameras
PIN-capture overlays, and
Fake ATM faceplates

About all the consumer can do is watch out for anything suspicious looking.

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3:55 PM 5/14/2019

Nellie Ohr -- Hi Honey

Hopes are high out here in flyover country that the Department of Justice will experience some major reform. Surely there are plenty of people in that department who would like a return to the time when they were held in much higher esteem than now. But that's going to take work.

Judicial Watch has done a lot of the work that that needed doing to pull some of the nefarious activities out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Here's John Solomon's latest at thehill.com, Nellie Ohr's 'Hi Honey' emails to DOJ about Russia collusion should alarm us all:

Now, a series of “Hi Honey” emails from Nellie Ohr to her high-ranking federal prosecutor husband and his colleagues raise the prospect that Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research was being funneled into the Justice Department during the 2016 election through a back-door marital channel. It's a tale that raises questions of both conflict of interest and possible false testimony.

Ohr has admitted to Congress that, during the 2016 presidential election, she worked for Fusion GPS — the firm hired by Democratic nominee Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to perform political opposition research — on a project specifically trying to connect Donald Trump and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to Russian organized crime.

Now, 339 pages of emails from her private account to Department of Justice (DOJ) email accounts, have been released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. And they are raising concerns among Republicans in Congress, who filed a criminal referral with the Justice Department on Wednesday night.

Hat's off to Judicial Watch for doing the work that Americans want done.

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11:08 AM 5/2/2019

Let's hope the Smollett treatment isn't a preview of the treatment of the spies and agents involved in the Trump frame-up

The evidence that Jussie Smollett concocted the scheme which framed some fictitious Trump supporters for a hate crime overwhelms Smollett's denial. Yet he was let off the hook by the higher-ups in the Illinois justice system.

Move on to the false claim of collision between team Trump and the Russians. That claim was concocted by anti-Trump forces in high places: James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, and James Clapper, to name the most well known of the key players.

An investigation into that is certainly warranted. What a disaster if the outcome is ultimately the Smollett result.

Meanwhile, if the Russians really did want to sow discord in the American public, someone in Moscow should be in line for a huge medal for achieving that result through the useful idiots within the U.S. government.

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10:24 AM 3/27/2019

End red light cameras -- the only people wanting them must have something to gain from them

End red light cameras -- the only people wanting them must have something to gain from them

The concept of a Robocop must have some appeal for movie goers. But in the real world that appeal is quickly overshadowed with a quite rational fear of any computer with the power to punish for the purpose of enhancing revenue for government entities. Red light cameras fall into that category, and, voters who have been given a choice have rejected them as too invasive.

Red light cameras are legal in Texas, and while 34 Texas cities have them, most jurisdictions have exercised the good judgment not to implement them. Texas state house representative Jonathan Strickland authored H.B. No. 142 in 2015 to outlaw them. But that bill was left pending when the session ended.

Texas legislative session #86 has started, and Representative Strickland is trying again with H.B. No. 1631. He's got the backing of none other than the governor of the great state of Texas, Greg Abbott. Let's hope they can get it through the sluggish Texas legislature this time for the governor to sign.

Further reading:
Proposed Ban On Red Light Cameras Gaining Traction In Texas Legislature
Don’t like red light cameras? These Texas lawmakers don’t either — and want to ban them
Attempts to outlaw red-light cameras hit a slowdown

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2:53 PM 3/25/2019

Mark Riddell -- smart test taker, dumb business man

Mark Riddell was the guy hired by William "Rick" Singer to take college entrance exams for the rich parents who were willing to pay big bucks to get their kid into a prestigious school. Riddell was so smart he was able to get just about any score he thought might be plausible for the kid.

But get this. Riddell was only paid around $10,000 per test. Meanwhile, the ringleader, Singer, charged the parents "anywhere between $200,000 and $6.5 million for this service."

Talk about income inequality! But while this might appear on its face to be unfair to Riddell, it helps to remember who actually brought the buyer and seller together. Riddell just wasn't a very good negotiator. Oh yeah, it might also help to remember that everyone involved in the scam was scum.

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4:35 PM 3/19/2019

Organ harvesting -- a gruesome side of China's organ transplant industry

The sad truth is that the list of people awaiting a donated organ is significantly larger than the organs available for transplant. One source says this: "Currently, more than 115,000 men, women and children are awaiting organ transplants in the United States. On average 22 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant."

I recently saw an article about how trades are made from time to time which allowed the loved one of someone needing a new organ but who isn't a match to team up with a similar couple who are a match with the first couple. But when looking for that article again I came up empty.

So instead, this post will center on something sinister -- the practice of killing a prisoner for his or her organ. It's hard to prove because no one who benefits from such a program wants to admit it. But the circumstantial evidence is substantial.

Organ Harvesting In China And The Many Questions To Be Answered by Ewelina U. Ochab, Oct 16, 2018 :

The research of Kilgour, Matas and Gutmann sheds light on two important issues concerning organ harvesting in China.

First, organ harvesting volume in China is larger than identified in the official statistics that (highly likely) relate to organ transplantations only. The report identifies that while the official China's central government's statistics suggest that approximately 10,000 organ transplantations take place per year, the numbers may be as high as between 60,000 and 100,000 organ transplants per year. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief have already queried this large discrepancy. However, they were not able to significantly advance the issue. 

Second, the report suggests that prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans and House Christians became specifically targeted groups for the purposes of organ harvesting. In an oral evidence hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representative, Gutmann explained how the practice of organ harvesting has been used as a method of persecution against Falun Gong members and to maintain the supply of the demand for human organs. Kilgour, Matas and Gutmann claim that “there are only two places where one can receive the full range of organs from a prisoner of conscience: China and more recently, the territory under the control of the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS.”

More here: Organ Harvesting in China By Benedict Rogers, June 29, 2016:

Three researchers – distinguished human rights lawyer David Matas, former Canadian member of parliament and government minister David Kilgour, and journalist Ethan Gutmann – have published a detailed tome that argues, on the basis of forensic research into the public records of 712 hospitals in China carrying out liver and kidney transplants, that the scale of organ harvesting is far, far bigger than previously imagined. All three have previously published reports on the topic, but they now conclude that between 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year in Chinese hospitals. The numbers and the extraordinarily short waiting times for transplant patients suggest that prisoners of conscience, from the spiritual movement Falun Gong as well as Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and house church Christians, may be the primary victims.

Self defense is one thing, but killing someone so his/her organs can keep you alive is something altogether different.

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4:09 PM 3/12/2019

Is assisting illegal immigration a protected religious freedom? Nope.

This case was an attempt to excuse crimes on the basis of religious freedom. The group of volunteers trying to help illegal immigrants was accused of trespassing into a wilderness area. One of their defenses is described by one of the lawyers in Tucson court cases could upend long-standing status quo for border aid:

Warren’s lawyers also asked Velasco to dismiss two human-smuggling counts, arguing he was acting according to his sincerely-held beliefs that his actions were protected by religious freedom.

Not so fast, counselor. 'No More Deaths' Volunteers Face Possible Jail Time For Aiding Migrants:

Volunteers who've been caught leaving water and food for migrants have gotten into big trouble. Four No More Deaths volunteers were convicted after leaving supplies in the Cabeza Prieta refuge. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco found them guilty of abandonment of property and of entering the refuge without a permit. They face sentencing on Friday.

Statement by #Cabeza9 defendants:

We may have been found guilty but the real crime is the government’s deliberate policy to use “death as a deterrent” at the US/Mexico border. The criminalization of those acting in solidarity is a classic example of the ramping up of an authoritarian regime.

Breaking the law to help others break the law -- isn't that trying to say two wrongs make a right? And would a border wall have deterred illegal immigration in the first place?

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3:49 PM 3/4/2019

Palladium mining -- from catalytic converters -- thieves at work with saws

There was a time when thieves targeted vehicle radios so much that car owners would put "No radio" signs in their windows avoid getting a broken window.

Later, thieves trended toward other items, like tires, pickup truck tailgates, and seats. Seats? Apparently, there was a ready market for them. Vehicle theft victims might receive a call from the local police, "We located your car, and you can pick it up at the impound lot. Bring something to sit on."

Now it's catalytic converters sawed out from under a vehicle. With the price of palladium so high it must be worth the risk. See Thieves Mine Catalytic Converters for Metal More Valuable Than Gold. Alternate link. Here's an excerpt:

Police in Chicago say perpetrators, who harvest the devices and sell the scrap metal, have converter theft down to a fine art.

“What tends to happen is that in the middle of the night, a group of guys come by with a truck and a reciprocating saw. They cut out the converter, throw it in the truck and drive away,” said Howard Ludwig, public information officer at the Chicago Police Department.

“They’ll tend to hit several blocks in the same evening with at least one guy driving the [getaway] vehicle and one underneath the car.”

Catalytic converters sit in the undercarriage of a car between the engine and the tailpipe, capturing toxic gases and particles. They use metals such as palladium, rhodium and platinum to transform the pollutants into less harmful types of exhaust.

“We’ve had three different sets of parking lots hit, and they usually get four or five vehicles each time,” said police Lt. Chuck Nagle in Vestavia Hills, Ala., a small city outside of Birmingham.

“They’re usually taking them out of state and getting anywhere from $150 to $200 at a clip….they’re not selling the part. They’re selling the metal,” Lt. Nagle added.

We can thank environmental regulations for making victims out of ordinary car owners.

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2:29 PM 2/12/2019

Witnesses in El Chapo trial tell how they smuggled drugs

People in the U.S. made El Chapo very wealthy with their appetite for the contraband drugs. Testimony in the trial has revealed how his people smuggled the drugs into the U.S.

Planes, trains, automobiles, trucks, boats, submarines and tunnels are some of the means they used to smuggle drugs. By far the most interesting method was putting cocaine in jalapeño cans weighted to feel as if they actually contained jalapeños. Very clever. And it serves as a reminder that someone determined enough can thwart those whose job it is to detect smugglers -- deception is always one step ahead of detection, by definition.

Democrats focus on the trial testimony of witnesses who confirmed the belief that a majority of the smuggled drugs would not have been stopped by a wall. But that's a dodge used to demonstrate how much smarter they are than Donald Trump. However, the purpose of border barricades is to stop illegal immigration. Stopping drug smuggling would be a side effect.

Sources: ‘El Chapo’ tried to smuggle cocaine in jalapeño cans, was involved in numerous killings, prosecutors say;
Frozen sharks, fake carrots, and catapults: The bizarre ways smugglers like 'El Chapo' Guzmán get drugs across borders;
Traffickers at the El Chapo trial say drugs aren't smuggled through open parts of the border;
El Chapo Cartel Members Say Drugs Aren’t Smuggled Through Gaps In The Border Wall;
Hundreds of migrants cross Arizona border after 'several busloads' dropped off in Mexico.

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1:58 PM 1/30/2019

chips in credit cards didn't cut fraud that much

The suggestion for this post comes to us by way of a post at boingboing which relies heavily on an item at Geminiadvisory titled Card Fraud on the Rise, Despite National EMV Adoption from last May.

While the chips on our credit cards may help, they certainly don't prevent fraud at the point of sale -- called "card-present fraud." Here are the key findings from Geminiadvisory:

- 60 million US payment cards have been compromised in the past 12 months.

- 45.8 million or 75% are Card-Present (CP) records and were stolen at the point-of-sale devices, while only 25% were compromised in online breaches.
- 90% of the CP compromised US payment cards were EMV enabled.
- The US leads the rest of the world in the total amount of compromised EMV payment cards by a massive 37.3 million records.
- Financially motivated threat groups are still exploiting the lack of merchant EMV compliance.
- An imminent shift from card-present to card-not-present fraud is already evident with a 14% increase in payment cards stolen through e-commerce breaches in the past 12 months.

And there's this:

Based on the proprietary Gemini Advisory telemetry data collected from various dark-web sources over several years, we have determined that in the past 12 months at least 60 million US cards were compromised. Of those, 75% or 45.8 million were CP records, likely compromised through card-sniffing and point-of-sale (POS) breaches of businesses such as Saks, Lord & Taylor, Jason’s Deli, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Forever 21, and Whole Foods. To break it down even further, 90% or 41.6 million of those records were EMV chip-enabled.

The card-present fraud is committed by malware, skimmers, or shimmers. Krebsonsecurity has a pretty good explanation of how the old skimmers worked. See Pro-Grade Point-of-Sale Skimmer They wouldn't work on a chipped card, but the newer version -- "shimmer" -- would.

What's a Shimmer? Here's the definition provided at Credit Card Glossary:

A paper-thin, card-size shim containing an embedded microchip and flash storage is inserted into the “dip and wait” card slot of an ATM or gas pump payment terminal that's indoors or outdoors. There it resides unseen to intercept data off your credit or debit card’s EMV chip for fraudsters. The intercepted data is used to create a magnetic stripe version of the card that can be used in payment terminals that haven't been updated with EMV chip technology.

The old saw still holds true: Deception, by definition, is always one step ahead of detection. So be aware.

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2:15 PM 11/11/2018