Boots & Sabers

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Category: Crime

Feds Selectively Use Police Power to Stifle Opposition to Government Actions

by | 0809, 22 Jan 22 | , | 13 Comments

In the wake of MLK Day, a day honoring a many who was deeply distrusted and investigated by federal law enforcement, it should trouble all Americans that our federal law enforcement agencies only aggressively investigate groups that oppose the government’s agenda. Protesting government actions is as American as apple pie.

Federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., has been closely monitoring social media for signs of potential violence and extremist activity ahead of a widely publicized demonstration against vaccine mandates this weekend, according to documents obtained by Yahoo News.

 

“Defeat the Mandates: An American Homecoming” is being billed as a peaceful gathering to promote unity among people who oppose COVID-19 vaccine requirements implemented across the country in an effort to mitigate the impact of the ongoing pandemic. The event is scheduled to take place on the National Mall this Sunday, Jan. 23, beginning with a march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, followed by a rally featuring speeches from several prominent anti-vaccine advocates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose nonprofit advocacy organization, Children’s Health Defense, is one of the event’s sponsors.

Madison Stalls on Police Body Cameras

by | 0910, 19 Jan 22 | , | 2 Comments

The public conversation on police body cameras has been fascinating and it is equally fascinating that leftist Madison is so far behind the times on this.

In an interview with News 3 Now last week, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said he was frustrated by the committee’s decision but hoped the pilot would move forward. He also said he hoped to hold a public hearing on the issue sometime this year.

 

Multiple attempts to install body-worn cameras on police officers in the city have failed in recent years.

 

A July 2021 report from the Police Body-Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee concluded they should only be implemented if a number of steps were undertaken before the program was launched. Those steps ranged from making sure an independent police monitor and the Police Civilian Oversight Board have full access to video to making sure the Dane County District Attorney’s Office undertakes measures to prevent overall charging rates for low-level offenses from climbing as a result of the program.

When cameras reached a size and portability to make body cameras available, it was really the anti-police forces pushing for them under the thought that police were committing all sorts of offenses. They thought that the cameras would help them catch bad cops.

Personally, I was on the fence. I thought that having a video that shows one perspective could be used to smear good work. I also thought that as the public watched police do their work, they would be shocked by the sometimes aggressive tactics that they have to use to maintain order.

In practice, body cameras have been great. More often they exonerate police when accused of bad behavior than confirm it. Also, the cameras have given the public a good window into what modern policing looks like and the crazy people that they often deal with. It’s like the TV show COPS where we can marvel at the patience and professionalism of the vast majority of police. At the same time, the cameras have been useful in catching police officers who do abuse their power. I’ve become a huge supporter of body cameras for police.

Which makes it telling that liberal Madison continues to drag their feet. Since body cameras have been a positive thing for police instead of a negative thing, Madison’s leaders are reluctant to deploy them. As if we didn’t already know that Madison’s political leaders were anti-police, this is yet another example.

Teacher Arrested for Injecting Student with Vaccine

by | 1854, 4 Jan 22 | | 8 Comments

Insane

A New York teacher has been arrested for allegedly injecting a minor with a Covid-19 vaccine without the consent of his parents, police have said.

 

Laura Russo, 54, was arrested on New Year’s Eve in Sea Cliff after police were informed that she had allegedly injected a 17-year-old boy with a vaccine, the Nassau County Police department said in a news release on Monday.

 

According to the department, the 17-year-old boy had visited Russo’s home, where she administered what was believed to be a Covid vaccine to him. It is unclear how she came to obtain the vaccine.

 

Police said that the boy’s mother called the authorities after her son told her he had gotten the jab.

 

“The mother had not given permission or authority to have her son injected with a Covid vaccine,” the department said.

Manhattan DA Absolves Cuomo of Killing of Thousands of Old Folks

by | 1922, 3 Jan 22 | , | 2 Comments

Don’t be shocked if Cuomo is never held accountable.

Disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been controversially cleared of causing 15,500 COVID deaths in nursing homes by a prosecutor who insists no crime was committed, his lawyer said.

 

Elkan Abramowitz, Cuomo’s lawyer, said Monday that the probe by Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had been dropped.  The office, currently headed by DA Alvin Bragg, declined to comment. Its probe into Cuomo was launched by Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, although it is unclear which of the two men apparently chose not to pursue charges against Cuomo.

 

‘I was contacted today by the head of the Elder Care Unit from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who informed me they have closed its investigation involving the Executive Chamber and nursing homes,’ said Abramowitz.

 

[…]

 

Cuomo still faces separate state and federal inquiries into the nursing home scandal, which saw the facilities forced to accept COVID patients from hospitals in March 2020, causing the virus to spread like wildfire among elderly and medically-vulnerable residents.

 

$100 (at least) Billion Stolen From COVID Slush Funds

by | 0727, 22 Dec 21 | , | 0 Comments

I found this story on page A5 of the Washington County Daily News. Shouldn’t this be on the front page of the national media?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly $100 billion at minimum has been stolen from COVID-19 relief programs set up to help businesses and people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, the U.S. Secret Service said Tuesday.

 

The estimate is based on Secret Service cases and data from the Labor Department and the Small Business Administration, said Roy Dotson, the agency’s national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator, in an interview. The Secret Service didn’t include COVID19 fraud cases prosecuted by the Justice Department.

 

While roughly 3% of the $3.4 trillion dispersed, the amount stolen from pandemic benefits programs shows ‘‘the sheer size of the pot is enticing to the criminals,’’ Dotson said.

 

Most of that figure comes from unemployment fraud. The Labor Department reported about $87 billion in unemployment benefits could have been paid improperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud.

 

The Secret Service said it has seized more than $1.2 billion while investigating unemployment insurance and loan fraud and has returned more than $2.3 billion of fraudulently obtained funds by working with financial partners and states to reverse transactions. The Secret Service says it has more than 900 active criminal investigations into pandemic fraud, with cases in every state, and 100 people have been arrested so far.

One could argue that the COVID relief funds have done more to support organized crime than they did to help those impacted by the pandemic.

We must not be ruled by fear

by | 1941, 4 Dec 21 | , , | 7 Comments

Here is my full column that ran earlier this week in the Washington County Daily News.

As Americans returned to the festive Thanksgiving celebrations that many forewent last year for fear of the dreaded virus, a new threat rose across the Atlantic. The newly dubbed omicron variant of COVID19 has aggressively swept through southern Africa and has made beachheads in Asia, Europe, and North America. It will only be a matter of time before we find it in America.

 

While we are still learning about the omicron variant, we have learned that the short- and long-term consequences of overreacting to a virus are incredibly damaging. The stock market, as a leading economic indicator, has already begun factoring in more destructive public policy responses to omicron. We must do all we can to prevent more reactionary and damaging public policies.

 

What we know about omicron is developing quickly. It seems to spread much faster than the original virus — similar to the delta variant. It does not appear to be more deadly than the original version of the virus out of China. We do not yet know if the current vaccines will do much good against it, but natural immunity seems to be as strong as ever. We also know that attempts to keep it out of America are futile. It is a highly transmissible virus and will find a way to burn through available hosts.

 

What we absolutely know for certain is that shutting down our economy, shuttering schools, and abandoning normalcy has been devastating to our society. We are still reeling from disastrous public policy decisions and the willingness of people to subserviate everything to the cause of virus mitigation.

 

With the thought that we must prevent people from being close to other people to prevent the spread of the virus, we allowed our government to close businesses. This act forced many people out of work and businesses into bankruptcy. We also allowed our government to force people to stay in their homes and in the futile hope that the virus would pass us by.

 

In hindsight, such actions did very little to stem the spread of the virus. The spread of the virus in states and cities that had draconian lockdowns differs little from those that were more liberal with their policies. The economic statistics and personal toll from the places with more aggressive lockdowns are heart-rending. We must not be ruled by fear and allow our government to force us to lock down again.

 

In response to the fact that the government forced people out of work and businesses into insolvency, our federal and state governments overreacted with poorly thought-out welfare schemes. This, coupled with the nation’s socialists seizing the opportunity to advance their unpopular agenda under the cover of pandemic relief, has launched a bevy of destructive programs and unleashed the scourge of high inflation that we have not seen in a generation. We must not be ruled by fear and allow our politicians to “fix” the problems they created.

 

The shutdown of our government schools will harm our children and our society for a generation. The evidence from private schools that remained mostly open versus schools that shut their doors shows that denying children education had little to no impact on stemming the virus. It did, however, have a cataclysmic impact on the children’s education. Recent school report card data in Wisconsin shows a dramatic decline in educational performance even after they lowered the standards. Those are months and years of education that our children will never get back. We must not be ruled by fear and shut down our schools.

 

For both adults and children, the negative impact of shutdowns and lock-outs on mental health has been horrendous. Suicides, drug addiction, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues have increased dramatically since our government began overreacting to COVID-19. We must not be ruled by fear and force people into isolation.

 

In conjunction with the societal deconstructing pro-crime insurgency of antifa and others, our public policy responses to COVID-19 have precipitated an explosion in crime — particularly violent crime. With less employment, more addiction, and defunded police departments, criminals have more freedom to wreak havoc than they have in decades. One could argue that the lengthy court delays in Milwaukee due to closing courts contributed to keeping the alleged Waukesha Christmas Parade killer on the streets well after he should have been imprisoned for previous crimes. We must not be ruled by fear and prevent speedy and judicial enforcement of the law. Finally, last year we allowed our government officials to completely abandon our electoral system for fear of the virus. We spent centuries crafting an electoral framework to allow free and fair elections where laws were made in the light of day by elected officials. We threw all of that in the garbage last November and allowed government officials to make up the rules as they went along. We must not be ruled by fear and abandon self-governance.

 

COVID-19, of any variant, is something to take seriously. Please take the time to wash your hands, avoid unnecessary contact, stay home if you are sick, get vaccinated if you choose, and take other reasonable steps to keep yourself and your loved ones from getting ill. But we must not be ruled by fear and give up our way of life. The virus is here to stay in one form or another. We must get on with living.

Chicago Frets Over Vaccines As Crime Runs Rampant

by | 0712, 2 Dec 21 | , | 2 Comments

Priorities on display.

Chicago’s mandate for police caused concerns of a cop shortage at a time when the city is dealing with soaring violent crime.

 

So far this year, the city has seen 739 murders, a 3 percent increase from last year’s already elevated figure and a 60 percent jump from 2019. Shootings are up 9 percent and 66 percent from 2020 and 2019 respectively.

 

Lightfoot’s shaky standing with cops was worsened by the murder of Officer Ella French, with many turning their backs on the mayor when she visited French’s wounded partner in hospital.

 

Having previously defunded the police department, Lightfoot has now backed plowing more money into it amid worsening crime in her city.

 

The city insisted that those who didn’t comply with the vaccine mandate would eventually be placed on ‘no-pay status.’

Monster Doesn’t Like Being Called a Monster

by | 0655, 2 Dec 21 | | 5 Comments

There aren’t words to convey my level of indifference for this monster’s feelings.

EXCLUSIVE: Darrell Brooks Jr. has spent the last 10 days locked up in a Wisconsin jail cell after allegedly mowing through the barricades and into revelers at the Waukesha Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring 62.

Now he feels “dehumanized,” he told Fox News Digital Wednesday in his first remarks to the media, seemingly surprised that he had visitors.

“I just feel like I’m being monster – demonized,” Brooks, 39, said during a brief video visit in Waukesha County Jail – a stone’s throw from where tragedy struck over a week earlier.

[…]

Not even his mother has dropped by, he said. Earlier in the day, she released a statement on behalf of the family decrying Wisconsin’s criminal justice system for failing her son, a longtime felon with a 50-page rap sheet detailing domestic violence, firearms, drugs and other convictions in Wisconsin, according to documents obtained by Fox News Digital.

Brooks is also a registered child sex offender in Nevada and served time in Georgia for beating his ex, records show.

We must not be ruled by fear

by | 0739, 30 Nov 21 | , , , , | 14 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

While we are still learning about the omicron variant, we have learned that the short- and long-term consequences of overreacting to a virus are incredibly damaging. The stock market, as a leading economic indicator, has already begun factoring in more destructive public policy responses to omicron. We must do all we can to prevent more reactionary and damaging public policies.

 

[…]

 

In conjunction with the societal deconstructing pro-crime insurgency of antifa and others, our public policy responses to COVID-19 have precipitated an explosion in crime — particularly violent crime. With less employment, more addiction, and defunded police departments, criminals have more freedom to wreak havoc than they have in decades. One could argue that the lengthy court delays in Milwaukee due to closing courts contributed to keeping the alleged Waukesha Christmas Parade killer on the streets well after he should have been imprisoned for previous crimes. We must not be ruled by fear and prevent speedy and judicial enforcement of the law. Finally, last year we allowed our government officials to completely abandon our electoral system for fear of the virus. We spent centuries crafting an electoral framework to allow free and fair elections where laws were made in the light of day by elected officials. We threw all of that in the garbage last November and allowed government officials to make up the rules as they went along. We must not be ruled by fear and abandon self-governance.

 

COVID-19, of any variant, is something to take seriously. Please take the time to wash your hands, avoid unnecessary contact, stay home if you are sick, get vaccinated if you choose, and take other reasonable steps to keep yourself and your loved ones from getting ill. But we must not be ruled by fear and give up our way of life. The virus is here to stay in one form or another. We must get on with living.

Smollett is the Real “Victim”

by | 2056, 29 Nov 21 | | 6 Comments

Uh huh…

Mr Smollett’s defence lawyer, Nenye Uche, denied the prosecutor’s arguments, saying that his client “is a real victim” of a “real crime”, according to AP News.

In court, Mr Smollett’s lawyer argued that the brothers attacked the actor because they did not like him. He also suggested that a third attacker was involved.

 

Mr Smollett arrived in court flanked by supporters and wearing a black face mask.

Previous disorderly conduct charges against him had been dropped following an emergency court appearance in March 2019, prompting Chicago police and the city’s mayor to accuse courts of letting Mr Smollett “off scot-free”.

More Justice

by | 1556, 24 Nov 21 | | 4 Comments

Juries are two for two in the last week.

A Georgia jury decided Wednesday to convict the three white men accused of murdering 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black jogger.

 

Father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan each faced nine felony charges during the trial. All defendants face a minimum sentence of life in prison.

 

Travis McMichael, the only one found guilty of malice murder, was convicted on all nine counts, which included felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit felony.

Good Samaritan Accidentally Hid Mass Murderer

by | 1225, 24 Nov 21 | | 0 Comments

Wow. Credit to this guy for his kind heart, but he’s lucky he got out alive.

A Wisconsin resident who unwittingly let the Christmas Parade ‘killer’ into his home minutes after the massacre has revealed how the ‘nervous’ stranger sat on the sofa, called his mom and ‘lied about everything.’

 

[…]

 

Now local resident Daniel Rider, 24, has told how he was sitting in his living room watching the Cowboys against the Chiefs when Brooks started banging on his door on Sunday night.

 

Doorbell footage showed a frantic Brooks at the door pleading for help, claiming he was waiting for an Uber – just 20 minutes after he smashed his SUV into crowds downtown.

 

Rider had no idea of the carnage that had just unfolded and decided he should let the shivering man into his home, remembering a recent sermon his mother had told him about helping the homeless.

 

‘So I was like, ‘Oh! This was my chance to help somebody. I’m going to warm him up and give him some food,” Rider told CBS.

 

‘I gave him a jacket, made him a sandwich and just watched over to make sure everything was okay,’ he told CNN. He also gave the stranger his phone so he could call his mom.

What the Rittenhouse verdict reminds us about government power

by | 0748, 23 Nov 21 | , , | 4 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The greatest crime perpetrated was that Rittenhouse was ever tried at all. Given the overwhelming evidence from multiple videos and witness testimonies, there was never any doubt that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Yet, despite that overwhelming evidence, the district attorney and his deputies decided to prosecute Rittenhouse anyway for reasons that can only be explained by their political and personal biases.

 

[…]

 

If you have a healthy distrust, with respect, for our government law enforcement agencies, that is good. You are in the right frame of mind to be an engaged citizen of a self-governing society. Now you must extend that distrust to all of the other government agencies. While a corrupt or abusive police officer or prosecutor can negatively impact your life, so, too, can a corrupt or abusive Department of Revenue agent, game warden, school superintendent, or mayor. We give these people extraordinary power over our lives as the price paid for a civil society, but we must do so grudgingly and with extraordinary oversight. We have been blessed with more than our fair share of superb elected and unelected government officials, but we have also had our fair share of the corrupt and the stupid.

Milwaukee’s Deadly Pro-Criminal Policies Led to Carnage

by | 1706, 22 Nov 21 | , | 6 Comments

53 people in Waukesha and their families are paying the price for Milwaukee’s intentionally pro-criminal policies. But even before that, many people suffered at the hands of this monster.

The shamefaced Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office admitted on Monday it was ‘inappropriate’ for convicted felon Darrell Brooks to be allowed out of jail on a $1,000 bond three weeks ago after trying to run over his ex-girlfriend, as he was charged with five counts of murder for the lives he took at the Waukesha Christmas Parade on Sunday night.

 

Brooks, 39, was taken into custody in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Sunday night after police found his red Ford SUV parked neatly in a driveway five blocks from where he drove through crowds of kids and elderly dancing groups.

 

The amateur rapper has a long criminal history dating back to 1999 with more than 15 arrests in the state of Wisconsin alone for charges including possession of drugs, strangulation and suffocation, battery, illegally possessing firearms as a convicted felon and resisting arrest.

Prayers for Waukesha

by | 2043, 21 Nov 21 | | 49 Comments

The unimaginable. Like many, I’ve been in and watched hundreds of parades – including many, many with my children and friends. I can’t imagine the evil that makes someone do this.

Police have said there were “some fatalities” after a car ploughed into a parade in Wisconsin.

Footage posted online shows a red sports utility vehicle (SUV) driving through a Christmas parade in the city of Waukesha, west of Milwaukee, at around 16:40 local time (22:40 GMT).

 

Police chief Dan Thompson said it hit more than 20 people including children.

 

He confirmed people had died but said they would not give details until family members had been told.

 

Mr Thompson said officers had recovered a suspect vehicle and a person of interest was in custody, but gave no further details. He added the investigation was “very fluid” and the injured has been taken to hospital by ambulance, police and family members.

Police fired at the car to try to stop it, he said. The FBI is assisting with the investigation.

Prisons To Stop Delivering Drug-Laced Mail

by | 1922, 3 Nov 21 | , | 1 Comment

I’m a little surprised that this is a new thing. I would have thought that prisons would have done this long ago. Using paper as a medium for drug use is not new.

Starting Dec. 6, all Wisconsin prisoners will only receive photocopies of their personal mail — not the originals — because of a new policy aimed at curbing the infiltration of paper laced with a dangerous drug.

The policy was implemented as a pilot at Fox Lake Correctional Institution in April, but is now being expanded to the entire state prison system because of its success in reducing overdoses and violent behavior associated with K2, or “spice,” a mind-altering synthetic cannabinoid. Paper can be laced with K2 and then smoked, which is how the drug was getting through the mail.

And this is a bit too typical.

During the pilot, Fox Lake prisoners said they saw months-long delays in receiving mail, educational materials denied, missing pages and the margins of letters cut off with no way to get the missing material back, the Wisconsin State Journal reported in September. But the Department of Corrections said it has hired an outside company to process the photocopying, which should fix the problems inmates saw with the pilot.

“Hiring a group that specializes in this type of work should minimize any issues with the photocopies,” DOC Division of Adult Institutions Administrator Sarah Cooper said.

Lawless Portland

by | 1343, 18 Oct 21 | , | 5 Comments

And some people were saying that passing concealed carry legislation would bring on the days of the Wild West. As it turns out, following leftist policies does that.

At least 100 self-proclaimed anarchists tore through Portland, setting dumpsters aflame, smashing windows and causing $500,000 in damage, but police stood idle because of a new state law that restricts how law enforcement can respond to riots.

 

The city just reached the ‘grim’ milestone of 1,000 shootings through 2021 in what has been a year of destructive protests, violent street clashes and a police staffing crisis.

 

Now police say a recently passed law ties their hands even further as it prohibits police from using crowd control techniques like pepper spray or tear gas. Instead, law enforcement agencies are told to rely on follow-up investigations to hold rioters accountable.

 

[…]

 

Residents frustrated by the violence last Tuesday questioned whether that meant anything goes now in Portland.

 

‘Does that mean we are now like a lawless city? Anybody could come in and just bash around and do all the damage that they want without any repercussions whatsoever?’ Linda Witt asked during the meeting with police.

Yes. Yes it does. And a majority of the folks in Portland voted for it.

Spy Caught

by | 2036, 10 Oct 21 | , , | 23 Comments

They are caught dead to rights. Firing squad for traitors.

The FBI says the scheme began in April 2020 when Jonathan Toebbe sent a package of Navy documents to a foreign government and wrote that he was interested in selling to that country operations manuals, performance reports and other sensitive information.

 

Authorities say he also provided instructions for how to conduct the furtive relationship, with a letter that said: ‘I apologize for this poor translation into your language. Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax.’

 

That package, which had a return address in Pittsburgh, was obtained by the FBI last December through its legal attache office in the unspecified foreign country.

 

That led to a monthslong undercover operation in which an agent posing as a representative of the foreign government made contact with Toebbe and agreed to pay thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency for the information he was offering.

 

In June, the FBI says, the undercover agent sent $10,000 in cryptocurrency to Toebbe, describing it as a sign of good faith and trust.

 

Weeks later, federal agents watched as the Toebbes arrived at an agreed-upon location in West Virginia for the exchange, with Diana Toebbe appearing to serve as a lookout for her husband during a dead-drop operation for which the FBI paid $20,000, according to the complaint.

 

The FBI recovered a blue memory card wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a peanut butter sandwich, court documents said.

 

The FBI provided the contents of the memory card to a Navy subject matter expert who determined that the records included design elements and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors, the Justice Department said.

Classic Straw Man

by | 0739, 1 Oct 21 | , | 19 Comments

I was amused by this letter to the editor about my column this week:

Being in my late 70s, I thought I had heard just about everything. Then I read Owen Robinson’s column on Tuesday where he blames President Biden for the 2020 murder rate. “Unbelievable.” If you follow that kind of logic then Biden was also responsible for the insurrection at our Capitol. No need for a second impeachment, and President Obama must have been responsible for the “Great Recession” instead of actually ending it. That takes Bush off the hook and now he wants to take Trump off the hook.

 

Readers of the Daily News needn’t worry about reading revisionist history. Robinson has that covered.

Ummm… OK, but here’s my column. I don’t even mention Biden. I wrote about Democrats, but there are Democrats who aren’t a member of the Biden family. It’s a good example of someone who read what he wanted to read instead of what was actually written.

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