The FBI Has Hired a Super Sleuth to Respond to Calls for Help from the Public! (Graphic)

 

Barney Fife Does D.C. 

By Prince George’s County Ex-Pat

Google Uses Racist, Outlaw Organization, the SPLC, to Police YouTube Videos

 


 

By “W”

The Daily Caller.

Magic Bricks: Baltimore Officials to Demolish Part of Gilmor Homes Projects, and Move Criminals from Crime-Riddled Public Housing to New Areas for Them to Lay Waste to; All at Whitey’s Expense, Natch

By “W”

My favorite passage:

<< Also in 2015, women at the complex filed a lawsuit alleging that maintenance workers demanded sexual favors in return for repairing a gas leak, exterminating roaches and making other improvements. Housing officials settled the suit for $8 million. >>

“Buildings gone wrong….” Yes, it’s not just the streets, it’s the buildings they are on that is causing crime. That is why the city has decided to move the residents, who, apparently, are blameless for the crime-infested public housing they live in….

N.S.: Ray Kelly is talking out of both sides of his mouth: He’s right that the city plans to shuffle criminals to new pastures, but then he says, “Pricing people out of their neighborhoods destroys cultures that help make up the fabric of the city.”

The “culture,” as he already noted, is one of crime. And how can you “price” project people out of their neighborhood? The private market has no effect on their rents.

“Officials should consider where children will attend school,” so that they aren’t transferred to enemy gangs’ turf.

“It may be a very positive thing for them to come down — but we won’t know for sure until we see a plan,” and can figure out how much blood money we can extort from the devils who will be paying for this.

Two final notes prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what a brilliant idea this is: 1. The whole thing will be paid for by white net taxpayers; and 2. Nick Mosby supports it.

“Ray Kelly, a lifelong Sandtown resident who leads the advocacy group No Boundaries Coalition, said he sees demolition at Gilmor Homes as part of a larger gentrification plan for West Baltimore that includes clearing “the land so it can be appealing for developers.”

“When you add to a plan a complex like Gilmor Homes that houses so many but also has these issues that trickle out into the neighborhoods, it is a win-win for the state, the city and developer. Not only do you get this cleared land, the crime moves to a new place.”

The problem, he said, is what gentrification does to a long-impoverished community: Pricing people out of their neighborhoods destroys cultures that help make up the fabric of the city.
 


traderjim7
in reply to bnasty

f“Not only do you get this clea...more »
1 month(s) ago

The upside is that there will be less crime. The more buildings they tear down, the less crime there will be in the city. Now if we could tear down all of the buildings in Baltimore, there would be no crime at all!!! Isn't that wonderful?
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Tony R
1 month(s) ago

Delegate Lafferty wants these people moved to Rodgers Forge,Towson ,Catonsville,Perry Hall and other Baltimore County neighborhoods deemed too white. He tenaciously promotes the "Home Act" which in effect forces landlords to accept Section 8.This dovetails with Kevin Kamenetz's consent decree giving developers $30 million in subsidies for 2000 units in the above neighborhoods.
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klg2k2002
in reply to Tony R

fDelegate Lafferty wants these...more »
1 month(s) ago

This sounds like a #WhiteGenocide post.
• 1 l
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• Kate21093
in reply to Tony R

fDelegate Lafferty wants these...more »
1 month(s) ago

Just a note--the Baltimore County Council defeated a proposal last year to require all landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers. I am not against Section 8 housing but I am against requiring landlords to accept it. It's not a simple matter of accepting a voucher from the feds versus cash; there is a whole book of federal regulations that landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers have to comply with as well as state and local requirements. Landlords should be free to decide whether they want to be part of the Section 8 program or not.
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mimi.barron
1 month(s) ago

"Not only do you get this cleared land, the crime moves to a new place. The problem is what gentrification does to a long-impoverished community: Pricing people out of their neighborhoods destroys cultures that help make up the fabric of the city."

Does this make any sense or logic to anyone?

The "crime moves to a new place" - so the "impoverished residents" take "crime" to their new communities? Doesn't that mean that the culture of long impoverished neighborhoods - "the fabric of the city" - is in fact, "crime."

Nothing is ever good enough.
 

Baltimore may demolish part of Gilmor Homes, move residents from crime-riddled public housing


Baltimore officials plan to relocate more than 120 families from West Baltimore’s troubled Gilmor Homes public housing project and demolish six buildings. (Ulysses Muñoz, Kevin Richardson / Baltimore Sun video)
By Luke Broadwater and Talia Richman
January 10, 2018, 9:45 p.m.
The Baltimore Sun

Baltimore officials plan to relocate more than 120 families from West Baltimore’s troubled Gilmor Homes public housing project and demolish six buildings.
Mayor Catherine Pugh said Wednesday that the move is necessary to cut down on crime. The buildings in question are a hotbed for criminal activity, the mayor said.
The roughly 132 units proposed for demolition house more than 120 families, Pugh said. She said they would be moved to better housing.
“That’s a really high-crime area right there,” the mayor said. “The line of sight is terrible. The residents have complained about the violence. … Gilmor Homes was one of the places on our listening tour. People complained about not feeling safe.”

The six buildings are located on Spray Court, Vincent Court and Bruce Court. Baltimore Housing spokeswoman Tania Baker said that they “present particular challenges due to the physical conditions and safety concern.”

She said the proposal must still gain approval from the Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“We anticipate that planning and design will occur over the next 18 months,” she said.

State Del. Antonio Hayes, who was briefed on the plans, said city officials seemed most concerned about drug dealing on the premises.

“What I would like to see is there be a true conversation with the residents living there about the relocation,” Hayes said. “Gilmor Homes have already experienced a lot. There’s drug dealing and rat infestation. I’m hoping they hear out the concerns of the residents and give them an opportunity to live in areas where they have opportunity without subjecting them to the same conditions.”

The 600-unit complex in West Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood has been in disrepair for years. It drew national attention in 2015 when it was the scene of Freddie Gray’s arrest. The Baltimore Sun reported that year that the complex had a backlog of nearly 500 outstanding work orders for repairs.

Also in 2015, women at the complex filed a lawsuit alleging that maintenance workers demanded sexual favors in return for repairing a gas leak, exterminating roaches and making other improvements. Housing officials settled the suit for $8 million.

[N.S.: What about criminally prosecuting the maintenance workers? Never mind.]

The city has attempted to make improvements.

The Gilmor Homes Community Center reopened last year after being closed for at least 15 years. And the housing authority launched a Jobs Plus program with a $2.5 million federal grant to help connect residents with education and employment.

Baltimore is the 26th-largest city in the country, but it is the fifth-most in public housing — more than 11,000 units, many of them deteriorating. The Housing Authority says renovating or repairing all of them would cost $800 million.
 

Looking north at North Mount Street from Baker Street around Gilmor Homes
 

The city has embarked on a federal privatization plan to address about half the problem, officials say.

The plan involves the city’s selling 40 percent of its public housing to private developers to raise money for upgrades and maintenance. The federal government is offering tax credits to developers who buy and renovate public housing.

Ray Kelly, a lifelong Sandtown resident who leads the advocacy group No Boundaries Coalition, said he sees demolition at Gilmor Homes as part of a larger gentrification plan for West Baltimore that includes clearing “the land so it can be appealing for developers.”

“When you add to a plan a complex like Gilmor Homes that houses so many but also has these issues that trickle out into the neighborhoods, it is a win-win for the state, the city and developer,” Kelly said. “Not only do you get this cleared land, the crime moves to a new place.”

The problem, he said, is what gentrification does to a long-impoverished community: Pricing people out of their neighborhoods destroys cultures that help make up the fabric of the city.

“Sadly, the first precursor to a negative gentrification is demolition,” Kelly said. “When buildings are torn down ... the property values go up and indigenous people are forced out. There is a constant battle to camouflage gentrification and hide it with words like ‘innovation’ and ‘revitalization.’ ”

Ericka Alston-Buck, founder of Kids Safe Zone, asked what the city plans to do with the land opened up by the proposed demolition.

She said tearing down buildings just gives the Sandtown-Winchester community "more empty lots that attract rats."

“If there is not a plan to redevelop — to do something meaningful with the space — I think this is just another thing that tells the community: ‘We’re knocking you down and we’re knocking you out,’” Alston-Buck said.

But state Del. Nick J. Mosby, who represents the area, said he would like to see the entire Gilmor Homes complex torn down and rebuilt. “We need to do a comprehensive rebuild of all Gilmor Homes,” he said. “If I could go after any public housing complex in Baltimore City in terms of a total redevelopment, it would totally be Gilmor Homes.”

Longtime Baltimore civil rights leader Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham, who lives three blocks from the complex, said that most people who know the condition of the Gilmor Homes would say the buildings should be demolished.

“If you just drive past them, you’d say, ‘Yes, this place needs to come down,’ ” he said. “But we’re talking about people, not just buildings.”

[But we’re talking about criminals, not just buildings.”]

Before moving forward, Cheatham said, the city must make plans for relocating current residents. Officials should consider where children will attend school, and whether the neighborhoods to which residents are relocated have adequate grocery stores and health care providers.

“A great injustice has taken place with Gilmor Homes in the last 20 years,” he said. “Do the buildings need to come down? More than likely, yes. There are as many apartments in bad condition as in good condition. It may be a very positive thing for them to come down — but we won’t know for sure until we see a plan. We have to make certain that this happens correctly, and that means putting the residents first.”

[N.S.: And that means putting the criminals first.]

Baltimore Sun reporter Yvonne Wenger contributed to this article.
lbroadwater@baltsun.com
twitter.com/lukebroadwater

Shades of The Third Man! “Florida” Pediatrician Arrested for Allegedly Using Partial Vaccine Doses, and Possibly Unsterile Practices

 


“Orlando pediatrician Dr. Ishrat Sohail was arrested and released on Friday (2/23/18) for giving partial doses of vaccines to patients and for Medicaid fraud”
 

Shots of Florida couture


“Sohail, pictured above in 2011, was outed by one of her staffers who alerted fraud authorities”
 


“The Florida doctor ran into trouble with state health officials in 2016 for giving vaccines intended for Medicaid and uninsured patients, to those with private insurances”
 

By “W”

And where does “Ishrat Sohail” come from?

N.S.: I believe that’s the Tallahassee region. After all, “W,” they said she’s from Florida, didn’t they?!

My hunch: Pakistan.

Behind the Name says that it is an Urdu name from Pakistan and India.

This case reminds me of the fictional Nietzschean black marketeer, Harry Lime, in the Carol Reed/Graham Greene masterpiece, The Third Man (1949).
 

Joseph Cotten, l, and Orson Welles 

Harry, as played by Orson Welles, murdered little children by taking stolen vials of penicillin, watering them down, and re-selling them on the black market, to buyers desperately seeking to fill the very shortage caused by Lime and his co-conspirators. The children died horrible deaths.

As Harry, Welles gives one of the movies’ most famous speeches, as they goes way up on the huge Ferris wheel at Vienna’s Prater fairgrounds, all the while implying that he is ready to push or shoot his friend, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), to his death.

Once the Ferris wheel touches down, Harry continues his meditations beyond good and evil.

Martins: [on the ferris wheel] Have you ever seen any of your victims?
Harry: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. [gestures to people far below] Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.
Martins: Lot of good your money'll do you in jail.
Harry: That jail's in another zone. There's no proof against me...besides you.
Martins: [holding onto the window ledge] I should be pretty easy to get rid of.
Harry: Pretty easy.
Martins: I wouldn't be too sure.
Harry: I carry a gun. You don't think they'd look for a bullet wound after you hit that ground….

HARRY: Don't be so gloomy...After all, it's not that awful. Remember what the fellow said...in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo – Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?...The cuckoo clock."

However, Harry Lime was a fictional character, and a career criminal, to boot, while Dr. Sohail is very real, and a doctor.

I was tempted to say that Dr. Sohail enjoys the presumption of innocence, but she has been caught before committing some of the crimes with which she is now charged. But rather than prosecuting her for her previous offense, medical authorities merely gave her a time-out.

The legal term for her previous treatment is, criminal justice affirmative action times four: Islamic, female, immigrant and non-white bonuses.
 

At People, which misspelled “vials” as “files.”


• Florida pediatrician is arrested for Medicaid fraud and giving partial doses of vaccines to 500 children in Orlando
• Dr. Ishrat Sohail was posted bond and released from jail Friday for giving partial doses of vaccines to 500 patients and for Medicaid fraud
• Officials caught her after raiding her office and finding vials of partial vaccine doses in the office refrigerator
• An employee from her office alerted fraud offices after hearing Sohail say she planned to shred patient's information regarding vaccine administration
• She also distributed vaccines meant for Medicaid and uninsured children to those with private insurance
• Despite giving out half doses, she charged insurance companies for full ones
• Her 500 child patients from 2016 to 2018 are urged to get re-vaccinated

At The Daily Mail.

Watch Ann Coulter Fight the Good Fight Against Leftwing and Reconquista Liars, Here and in England, on Fake News and Immigration! (Video)

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
 

The Best Years of Our Lives, and the World We Have Lost

 

[Re: TCM’s Presentation of the Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made: The Best Years of Our Lives.]
 

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Tuesday, February 27, 2018 at 1:26:00 A.M. EST

I decided to let FOX News and the horse races have the night off, and give The Best Years of Our Lives a chance for almost three hours of commercial-free viewing.

I don’t know how to gauge a movie early, or get a feel for it, in most cases. With that in mind, a few quick notes.

The first half-hour was gripping. The vulnerability of each soldier returning home was felt.

The next thing I wrote down was how impressed I was with the women's characters. They seemed to be sharper, more interesting people than the men. Myrna Loy was humorous and smart.

As the movie progressed, I found myself rooting for the guys to find some happiness, but the actresses' roles were the more memorable.

Later, the staring scene between Fred and Al at the bar was unique in movie history. The camera didn't move and neither did the two characters, as Fred was told, by Al, to stay away from Al's daughter.
 

Al: “I haven’t called you a heel… yet” 

I thought several times, throughout the film, about how much respect the white male characters were treated with by the film makers: hard-working, perseverant, and good people. Fast forward 72 years, are there ANY whites in TV and movies given similar respect? Most of the traits I see whites being allowed to have in 2018, are as incompetent fools and buffoons to be the dupes of “in-control” black characters.

As I mentioned previously, these movies show a different country than we have now, in so many ways. We were an America then—that was white—and a country at its peak.

Look what's happened to us now... I wistfully remember when we WERE great, not so long ago—and it WAS because we were 90-95% white.

(Thanks for the reminder that this film was on Monday night, by the way).

[N.S.: I thank David in TN, for the heads-up.]

The Devil Made Me Do It! Woman Opens Fire During Black Panther Seat Dispute...

By Reader-Researcher R.C.

At The Smoking Gun.

About that Woman’s Head in My Suitcase: I Can Explain…

By Reader-Researcher R.C.

“Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, of New York, was taken into custody after the 27-year-old woman’s head was found in a suitcase in his rental apartment, The Washington Post reports.”

Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

“Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar is an American tourist from New York who is being investigated in the disappearance of a woman in Japan after a head was found.”

heavy.com

“A 26-year-old American tourist in Japan is being investigated in the murder of a woman he met on a dating app after her severed head was found in an apartment he was renting, according to numerous reports in Japanese and international media.

“Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, of New York, was taken into custody after the 27-year-old woman’s head was found in a suitcase in his rental apartment, The Washington Post reports.”

N.S.: This guy is no “American tourist,” and he’s not “of New York.” He’s an itinerant Russian murderer, or serial killer.

In Feminist Super Power Sweden, Moslems Take Child Brides, but It Doesn’t Stop There!

By An Old Friend

I'm living in clown land.

15 yr old girl in Sweden was married away to an adult man.

The Swedish state took the girl & placed her in foster care - BUT the foster carer is none other than her "husband".

So now he's getting paid tax money for having sex with his child bride 🤡😡

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) February 26, 2018

Peter Sweden:
I'm living in clown land. 15 yr old girl in Sweden was married away to an adult man. The Swedish state took the girl & placed her in foster care - BUT the foster carer is none other than her "husband". So now he's getting paid tax money for having sex with his child bride
2:47 PM - 26 Feb 2018

Being paid tax payers money for "taking care" of your underage wife.

This could only happen in the feminist superpower of Sweden.

SWEDEN YES!

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) February 26, 2018

PeterSweden‏Verified account @PeterSweden7 6h6 hours ago
Being paid tax payers money for "taking care" of your underage wife. This could only happen in the feminist superpower of Sweden. SWEDEN YES!

There are about 300 officialy legal child marriages in Sweden right now.

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) February 26, 2018

Replying to @GAntill83
There are about 300 officialy legal child marriages in Sweden right now.
6:13 PM - Feb 26, 2018

Are there not 300 bullets in all of Sweden?

— Dame Sir Ron (@paddo_ron) February 27, 2018

Dame Sir Ron @paddo_ron
Replying to @PeterSweden7 @GAntill83
Are there not 300 bullets in all of Sweden?
9:13 PM - Feb 26, 2018

Timothy Cunningham: 5 Fast Facts

By Reader-Researcher R.C.

He graduated Morehouse, and he's brilliant?

Timothy J. Cunningham, ScD | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC

Team Lead, Division of Population Health National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Timothy J. Cunningham, ScD, is a team lead with CDC’s ...

www.cdc.gov

"His research has been oriented towards understanding health differences related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, and geography. Dr. Cunningham has also deployed for numerous public health emergencies, including Superstorm Sandy, Ebola, and Zika. He is an active member of the American Public Health Association and the American College of Epidemiology. Dr. Cunningham received his S.M. and Sc.D. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health."

I thought that race was a social construct?

Sounds like another black with a government sinecure.

At Heavy.

‘He’d rather die than poop!’ Jailed Drug Suspect Goes 40 Days Without Pooping (Weird News)

 

 

By Reader-Researcher R.C.

“Essex Live reported that Chambers' lawyer said his client would rather die than poop….

“But prosecutors say no poo, no release.”

At the San Francisco Chronicle.

Detroit Massacre, Part II

 

[Part I: “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Leaves 4 Dead; Where’s the National Media?”]
 

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Monday, February 26, 2018 at 6:11:00 P.M. EST
 

BLACK THUG SAVES TAXPAYERS MONEY, KILLS HIMSELF

George Davis killed himself in Ohio, after a police chase from Michigan. Following a triple murder at a gas station earlier today, Davis reloaded, drove to his cousin's place and blew him away also.

Pics on TV showed him to be black, and tattoed up to his neck. Criminal history? Of course.

Police followed him from NW Detroit to the Ohio border where Ohio State Police took the baton. Davis crashed his car and then ran on foot until he decided to avoid jail time—and save Michigan taxpayers some money.

No word if any of the deceased—two men and two women—were white. With felons like Davis, it wouldn't be a surprise if one of the women WAS white.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Leaves 4 Dead; Where’s the National Media?

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Monday, February 26, 2018 at 4:31:00 P.M. EST
 

BLACKS AT IT AGAIN IN DETROIT

DETROIT (AP) — Police are investigating the deaths of four people linked to a gun battle at a gas station on Detroit’s northwest side.

Officer Holly Lowe, a police spokeswoman, says a man and two women were found dead at the gas station on Monday morning. A second man was found dead not far away.

Lowe says a preliminary investigation indicates that the two men were involved in a shootout around 8:50 a.m. One died outside the gas station and the two women were fatally shot inside a vehicle at the business.

Police received another 911 call about 9:10 a.m. and found the second man dead not far away.

No arrests have been made and the deaths are under investigation.

GRA: If these are whites, in a shootout—in Detroit, I'll eat my tablet. Anyways, there'll be no coverage of this anywhere.

On Monday, February 26, at 8 p.m. ET, TCM is Presenting the Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made: The Best Years of Our Lives

 

 


[“Glory for Me: The Poem That Became the Movie The Best Years of Our Lives.”]
 

At Butch's Saloon, the bar that is practically a character in BYOL. From left to right: Harold Russell, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Freddie March and standing, bow-tie but cut off, behind Loy and March, Hoagy Carmichael.
 

“Perhaps the best movie theme of all time—incredibly moving—heroic, memorable and vulnerable—like the brave if somewhat broken men who came back.”

windstorm1000 on Hugo Friedhofer’s score
to The Best Years of Our Lives

 

By David in TN
Sunday, February 25, 2018 at 2:50:00 P.M. EST

On Monday, February 26, at 8 p.m. ET, TCM is showing The Best Years of Our Lives. It is part of TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar.”
 

Coming home: Russell, Andrews, March 

The Greatest Picture Ever Made: The Best Years of Our Lives
By Nicholas Stix
May 22, 2011 (Revised for this presentation)

One of the greatest lead performances by an actor ever (Fredric March)? Check.

What was then greatest performance by a supporting actor ever (Dana Andrews)? Check.

Great supporting work by a brilliant ensemble cast (Myrna Loy, Harold Russell, Teresa Wright, et al.)? Check.

Cinematography by the greatest cameraman of his generation, who gave the world deep-focus photography, which played a pivotal role (Gregg Toland)? Check.

A screen adaptation of a powerful, 268-page poem, Glory for Me, by one of America’s greatest writers (MacKinlay Kantor), adapted by another of America’s greatest writers (Robert E. Sherwood)? Check.

One of the greatest original scores ever composed for a picture (Hugo Friedhofer)? Check.

Great dialogue, including one of the greatest speeches ever written for a movie? Check.

If I sound like a DVD salesman, I am, but I’m not working for a commission. If America hadn’t been infected by the toxin of racial socialism, there’d be no need for me to promote BYOL, because every school child in America would already have seen it in elementary school.

But you don’t even have to order BYOL, though I recommend that you buy both the DVD of the picture, and the CD of its score, both of which we purchased a few years ago for the Stix Family library.

Turner Classic Movies is presenting the picture tomorrow night, at 8 p.m., as part of its “31 Days of Oscar.”

Some movies seem like masterpieces the first time you see them—Woody Allen’s Zelig hit me that way—but their impact fades with repeated viewings. Others, however, become more powerful with time. That’s the way it is with masterpieces. True Grit has had that effect on me over the years, since seeing it during its first run.

I knew that BYOL was a masterpiece the first time I saw it, in an Upper West Side Manhattan revival house (which I’m sure is long gone). One of the last two surviving cast members, Teresa Wright, spoke to the audience. I believe it was in 1994.

Since then, I’ve seen it three or four more times, to where I can say the lines ahead of the players. And I’m not the only one in this house that can do that.
 

Toland, Andrews, Wyler and Mayo on a sound stage 

And so, BYOL has climbed the charts of my top movies. First, Kane ruled the roost alone. Then, it was Kane, The Godfather, and The Godfather, Part II. And now, it’s the Big Four. However, I give BYOL a slight edge, due to its emotional power. I suppose, from a rigorous arithmetical standpoint, BYOL should reign alone at number one, with the other three pictures tied for number two, but I’m not ready to do that. Thus, here is my current Top Ten:

1. (Tied) The Best Years of Our Lives
1. Citizen Kane 1941
1. The Godfather 1972
1. The Godfather, Part II 1974
5. It’s a Wonderful Life 1946
6. Shane 1953
7. It Happened One Night 1934
8. (Tied) The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957
8. (Tied) Lawrence of Arabia 1962
10. The Third Man 1948
 

 

Main Title to BYOL’s Score, by Hugo Friedhofer
 


 

The Greatest Picture Ever Made: The Best Years of Our Lives
By Nicholas Stix
May 22, 2011 (Revised)

If a more powerful picture than The Best Years of Our Lives has ever been made that doesn’t have The Godfather or Kane in its name, I haven’t seen it.

The idea for the picture came from producer Samuel Goldwyn’s wife, Frances, who had read an article in 1944 about the problems some veterans were having, returning to civilian life in the Midwest. Goldwyn commissioned Iowan Mac Kinlay Kantor (here and here), who had served in the Army Air Force to write a script, and Kantor duly headed to a cabin in the country with a few cases of scotch, only to return a few weeks later with a … poem!? It was published in 1945 with the subtitle “A Novel” on the cover, but it’s a 268-page, narrative poem entitled Glory for Me that opens,

Fred Derry, twenty-one, and killer of a hundred men….

And a powerful poem it is, but Sam Goldwyn was not amused. He had to hire a second screenwriter, the legendary Robert E. Sherwood, winner of four Pulitzer Prizes, to translate and shape Kantor’s poem into screen prose. Sherwood worked his magic, but Kantor must share the credit, if not the Oscar. The picture won eight Oscars in all, and deserved at least seven of them. (The exception was Best Actor, which I now believe should have gone to Jimmy Stewart, who gave the greatest male lead performance I’ve ever seen, in It’s a Wonderful Life.)

Because Goldwyn had engaged Freddie March to star, the focus of the story was shifted away from Fred to Al, while Homer’s affliction was changed from spasticity to having had his hands burned off in a battle. (And a good thing, too. Homer’s spasticity in the poem is just too heartbreaking to take.) And yet, running at two hours and 50 minutes, each character had enough screen time to merit Best Actor consideration.
 

“The Homecoming”


 

The After-Dinner Speech: Fredric March as Al Stephenson 

March imbues banker Al Stephenson with his signature mix of tragedy and comedy. Nobody played a comical drunk better than March, and Al Stephenson is a drunk. A functioning, jovial drunk, but a drunk, nonetheless. He loves his family, but hates his boss at the bank, Mr. Milton (Ray Collins), “the old hypocrite.”
 

Ray Collins as Mr. Milton, “the old hypocrite” 

I don’t know of any harder scripting task than writing a good speech. Can’t be too short or too long. Can’t be too melodramatic. Sherwood gives March’s drunken Al Stephenson an oft-times hilarious speech as the guest of honor at a dinner held by his boss, to celebrate his return and promotion, in which Al goes from the heights of his career to almost talking himself out of a job. It’s a real tightrope act, but March pulls it off, with subtle assistance from Loy.

Al’s opening—“I’m glad to see you all pulled through so well”—is a dig at the guests and his host, none of whom went in harm’s way, but all of whom seek to profit from the sacrifices of the men who did. This is one of the restrained ways in which Sherwood was able to work Kantor’s raw class war theme into the picture.

But it gets worse. Al is quite drunk, and losing control over his hatred of “the old hypocrite.”

Earlier that day, Al had okayed a farm loan for a veteran named Novack who had no collateral. Although the loan was guaranteed by the federal government, Mr. Milton still didn’t want Novack to get it. Al explained to Mr. Milton that as a sergeant, he’d had to size up men like Novak under fire, and that he was sure the younger man would pay off his loan. Al was mad as hell about Milton, and let him have it.

Al: “I want to tell you all that the reason for my success as a Sergeant is due primarily to my previous training in the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company. The knowledge I acquired in the good ol' bank I applied to my problems in the infantry. For instance, one day in Okinawa, a Major comes up to me and he says, ‘Stephenson, you see that hill?’ ‘Yes sir, I see it.’ ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You and your platoon will attack said hill and take it.’

So I said to the Major, ‘but that operation involves considerable risk. We haven't sufficient collateral.’ ‘I am aware of that,’ said the Major, ‘but the fact remains that there's the hill and you are the guys who are going to take it.’ So I said to him, ‘I'm sorry Major. No collateral, no hill.’ So we didn't take the hill, and we lost the war. I think that little story has considerable significance, but I've forgotten what it is.”

 
Clip of the Speech
 

Fredric March as Al Stephenson, l, Ray Collins as Mr. Milton, and Myrna Loy as Millie Stephenson
 

March uses some stage business as subtle punctuation to the misery Al feels in his work life. Anytime he deals with Mr. Milton or some other intolerable situation, he must have a drink and/or a cigarette in his hands. His creeping problem is that he increasingly also needs a drink in his hand, even when he’s in a happy situation.

Although Al is upper-middle-class, he served as a sergeant in the infantry, which permits March to embody the other characteristic that his best roles always exemplified: The aristocrat with the common touch, as he shows off particularly in his speech, and in a later confrontation with Fred.

Speaking of Fred, Dana Andrews’ role as the poor kid who made it to bombardier captain in the U.S. Army Air Force, a tortured hero who saw his buddies die in front of his eyes on a burning bomber, permitted him to display his unique blend of alternating, easy masculinity and doubt-ridden vulnerability that he’d established in 1944’s Laura.

Andrews had a role big enough to qualify for a Best Actor nomination, along with March, and gave what was then one of a handful of the greatest supporting actor performances ever, up there with Karl Malden in On the Waterfront, and Walter Brennan reading from the telephone book.

This was Andrews’ Oscar, but it was not to be.
 

“Fred & Peggy”
 


 

The Academy wanted to do something for veterans that year. Harold Russell was not only a veteran, but one who’d had both of his hands burned off in an accident. It would have all been fine, if the Academy had simply given Russell the honorary Oscar that it ultimately bestowed on him. But they couldn’t leave well enough alone, and the powers that be not only gave Russell an honorary Oscar, but nominated him for the official Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, as well. And who was going to stand in his way? Not that year.

The citation for Russell’s honorary Oscar reads, “For bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years of Our Lives.”

Don’t get me wrong; Russell gave an excellent performance by professional standards. Never mind that he was a “civilian.” He was particularly good in his scenes with Dana Andrews. But Andrews gave a performance for the ages.

And that was it for him.
 

“The Nightmare”


 

As Al’s daughter, Peggy, Teresa Wright’s insistent performance can be annoying at times, and yet, even it works, because she is paired with Myrna Loy, whose light touch is the perfect counterpoint as her mother, Millie.
 

“Neighbors / Wilma / Homer's Anger”


 

This was one of the last pictures that Gregg Toland photographed. His legendary “deep focus” technique of filming a scene on a sharp angle, in order to clearly show the action both in the foreground and background, was put to its best use in the saloon scene, where Al, Homer, and Uncle Butch are in the foreground, but the real action is in the background, as Fred makes a fateful call from the telephone booth at the other end of the bar, a call whose content only Al knows.
 

Gregg Toland's deep focus shot at Butch's Saloon 

Director William Wyler wanted Aaron Copland* to score the picture, but Copland was busy with other projects for the foreseeable future, and so Wyler instead engaged Hugo Friedhofer.
 

“Fred Asleep”


 

Friedhofer wrote a bold, ambitious score, but also gave the picture a distinctly Coplandian flavor. (It is impossible to overstate Copland’s influence on American movie music. Even Spike Lee has culturally appropriated his work.) He took an uptempo theme on the speeded-up nature of town life from Copland’s score to the 1937 ballet, Billy the Kid, slowed it down, and made it lush with strings, as the leitmotif of Homer’s longsuffering girlfriend from next-door, Wilma, in expressing her romantic and domestic yearnings.
 

Director Willi Wyler horsing around on set 

An earlier musical passage, “The Homecoming,” depicts the emotions felt by the three protagonists, Al Stephenson (Fredric March), Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) as they ride home in a supply plane. First, during the night while the other men asleep, Homer is filled with foreboding (this passage could be called “Homer’s Theme”). In the morning, the tempo and the men’s (even Homer’s) spirits pick up, as they see the old landscape of Boone City, and having once landed and sharing a taxi, they hit their old hometown, after four years off fighting the war. First comes the thrill of watching city life—their city, with pretty American girls walking down the street all dolled up—and yet, it’s like they’re seeing it for the first time. Then comes the foreboding each man feels as he nears his family home, after having been away for so long. Has the world back home passed them by?
 

“Homer Goes Upstairs” (Duet Between Homer’s Theme and Wilma’s Theme, Accompanying the Characters’ Debate)


 


Dana Andrews in the aircraft graveyard scene 

Finally, comes the scene at the airplane graveyard, thanks to Friedhofer, Toland, and Andrews, the most powerful scene in the entire picture. That scene comes early in Glory for Me, but Sherwood wisely moved it towards the end, and juxtaposes it with Fred’s father finding the medals and citations for bravery, including the Distinguished Flying Cross—just short of the Medal of Honor—that the humble Fred had not so much as mentioned to him and his stepmother.
 

Crooked Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf Breaks Federal Immigration Law, and Commits Obstruction of Justice

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Sunday, February 25, 2018 at 12:28:00 P.M. EST

More government malfeasance, this time locally.

BREAKING NEWS
Oakland mayor warns of impending ICE operation
By NATE GARTRELL | ngartrell@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: February 24, 2018 at 8:49 p.m. | UPDATED: February 25, 2018 at 8:49 a.m.

OAKLAND — In an effort “not to panic our residents but to protect them,” the city’s mayor released a statement warning of impending U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids starting as early as Sunday.

In her statement, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf cited “multiple credible sources,” and said she had learned ICE was getting ready to begin an operation in the Bay Area.

“I know that Oakland is a city of law-abiding immigrants (GRA: Not from what I'VE read) and families who deserve to live free from the constant threat of arrest and deportation,” Schaaf wrote. “I believe it is my duty and moral obligation as Mayor to give those families fair warning when that threat appears imminent.”

ICE has led well-publicized immigration raids in California over the past year. In late January, immigration agents raided 77 businesses around the Bay Area.

GRA: She should be arrested for impeding Federal law enforcement. Civil war—which started in Ferguson, Dallas, Baltimore and other cities with blacks, is now a true Civil War, with local governments actively opposing Federal law and LE.

THAT'S real civil war.

Was Margaret Mead a Dupe, or a Deceiver?

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research October 8, 1999
By Derek Freeman (Author)
Reviewed by Hiram Caton
4.0 out of 5 stars
Was Mead Duped? Or Did She Lie?
February 9, 2006
Format: Hardcover

When her hosts in Manu'a learned that `Makelita' had made them world famous as libertines, they were dismayed by what to them was an abominable slander. And they were dumbfounded that, after showing her the utmost hospitality and cooperation, she could have so grossly betrayed them. They hit on the explanation that someone among them fed her a line of bull (tala pepelo lava).

This was a generous if implausible explanation. Generous, because it avoided taxing her with outright fabrication. Implausible, because Mead's depiction of Samoan promiscuity drives whoredom into the core of the social psyche. She claimed that Samoans have no sense of sin despite their regular church attendance and the admonitions of pastors (`They are able to count [sex] at its true value. . . [they recognize] the essential impersonality of sex attraction which we may well envy them']. She reported masturbation, homosexuality, and lesbianism as common practices that were regarded as `simply play' between casual heterosexual liaisons. In other words, Mead's Samoans, like Mead herself, were bisexual. She attributed the relaxed attitude to pre-marital sex and to adultery to the fact that Samoans have no deep attachments or strong emotional feelings. There is no parent-child bonding for the same reason. These and like claims construct the cultural `pattern' of a society untroubled by the storm and stress of adolescence. Such thinking was the trendy utopianism of the sexual reformers of her era, but it had nothing to do with Samoa until Mead's arrival from New York.

Freeman's book is a mighty effort to convert the Samoan belief in duping into a well-founded conclusion. He touts two `smoking guns'. One is the sworn testimony of Mead's dear friend during her field trip, Fa'apu'a Fa'amu, to the effect that she did indeed tell Mead fibs in reply to her questions about her relations with men. The other is correspondence between Mead and the supervisor of her Samoan research, Franz Boas.

The first smoking gun is a dud. Fa'amu testified only that she told Mead that `We spend nights with boys, yes, with boys!' and similar non-specific allusions. There is no express admission that intercourse occurred. There is no hint whatever of lesbianism. The duping hypothesis predicts that Mead's field notes would record the information given her by Fa'amu. In fact, the notes never attribute any information to her. The natural conclusion is that despite the affection, Mead did not regard her friend as an informant. It is improbable, in any case, that Mead credited Fa'amu's tease, partly because her notes show that she was alert to tall tales and partly because Fa'amu's status as a taupou, or ceremonial virgin, meant that she was never unchaperoned and hence had no opportunity for `spending nights with boys'. Finally, Fa'amu's non-specific allusions added nothing to what Mead's notes show she already believed she knew about Samoan promiscuity. In sum, the duping episode is irrelevant to understanding how Mead managed get Samoan moeurs so desperately wrong. Since the second smoking gun depends on the first, it too is a dud.

Did she make it up then? Although he repeatedly defends Mead's research integrity, Freeman destroys his noble defense by cataloguing deceit after deceit in things small and great. Mead indeed seems to have been a gamester who got a buzz from pulling the wool over people's eyes. And this was her reputation among her colleagues, who called her `the lady novelist', a `mythmaker', given to exaggeration and hyperbole, to sloppy and impressionistic description of no great reliability. The eminent Edward Sapir bluntly called her a `pathological liar'.

Freeman shows that Mead's fieldwork was premised on two strategic deceits. She concealed from her hosts her married status. By passing herself off as a virgin, she was honored by three villages with title of taupou, which conferred a great advantage-she had, as she said, `rank to burn' and could `order people about'. She second strategic deceit was perpetrated on her supervisor, Franz Boas and indirectly on her funding sponsor, the National Research Council. Boas and the Council expected her to research the personality of adolescent girls, to determine the extent to which nature (puberty) or culture influenced adolescent conflict. But Mead wasn't interested in this project. She accepted it because it got her a ticket to the field. Her real interest was ethnography. Unbeknownst to Boas, Mead struck an agreement with the Bishop Museum (Honolulu) to prepare a monograph on Samoa. Freeman shows by a meticulous reconstruction of her activities that she spent no more than four or five weeks on the funded project, hardly time enough for a systematic investigation of this complex and demanding subject. This is confirmed by her sparse field notes on the adolescent project.

Her strategic impostures led to the massive fraud that made her famous. Having little data, she just made it up and pretended, in the appendices of Coming of Age, to have found it. Mead seems to have delighted in slipping mickies as a kind of sport. She says, for example, that Samoa was untroubled by natural disasters. Yet it's common knowledge that no island is spared the ravages of storm, flood and occasional tsunamis. In fact, a hurricane devastated Manu'a in January of the year of her visit. She says that Samoan children alternately crawl or walk until the age of `three or four'. Every caregiver knows that once the child learns to walk, next it runs and never returns to crawling. She seems to have been supremely confident that no one would call her hand on such whoppers. Deception was so habitual that she lied gratuitously. Thus she told Boas that she was seasick for six weeks (!!) on her return voyage, while in fact she was romancing a new beau-love sick, not seasick. It's not surprising that her epistemological mottoes were: `The truth isn't out there, you know' and `If it isn't [true], it ought to be'.

Freeman's claim that the hoax `effectively solve[s] the enigma of Margaret Mead's research' unfortunately follows the fashion of substituting victimhood for active will. He would have us see her as the unwitting pawn of a mythopoetic fate. Fiddlesticks! Mead's behavior in Manu'a was a disgrace to herself and to her profession. Such conduct had no logical relation to Boasian anthropology. It was entirely her doing. Having deceived her hosts, she disgraced the sacrosanct taupou title by having affairs. That too was her personal choice. She went on to invent a salacious bisexual Samoa as a preamble to the part of Coming of Age that made her famous--her advocacy of educational, family, and sexual reform in America.

Mead's research presents no enigma. She always went to the field to find what she wanted to find-an uplifting story to boost a current social reform. As for those `primitives' who served as fodder, well, they were expendable in the great struggle to reform the world.

She Did What? She Crapped in Her Pants, in Order to Hide the Drugs?!

By A Texas Reader


"Police say they placed Shannen Martin in the back of a police cruiser where they say she intentionally defecated in her pants then hid a crack pipe, 2.3 grams of crack cocaine and a Valentine's Day card in her excrement."

Texas woman defecates in pants to hide drugs during arrest

CORSICANA, Texas (AP) - Police say a Texas woman attempted to hide evidence during an arrest by defecating in her pants and using the feces to conceal drugs.

Officers in Corsicana, about 55 miles (88 kilometers ) south of Dallas, were investigating a report of a theft at a grocery store on Wednesday when they attempted to subdue a female suspect and take her into custody. Police say they placed Shannen Martin in the back of a police cruiser where they say she intentionally defecated in her pants then hid a crack pipe, 2.3 grams of crack cocaine and a Valentine's Day card in her excrement.

www.mysanantonio.com

Valentine's Day card?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

FBI LIED about Investigating FL School Shooter – Told Public “We Could Not Identify Him” (VIDEO)

By Reader-Researcher RC


On Wednesday February 14, 2018 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz slaughtered 17 students and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The day after the shooting on Thursday morning the local FBI chief responded to the reports of a threat shooter Nikolas Cruz made on YouTube in 2017. Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in Wednesday’s horrific massacre at a Florida high school, was allegedly reported to the FBI in September after he left a comment on a bail bondsman’s YouTube channel sa…

“There is an agenda.” – Paul Craig Roberts

At The Gateway Pundit.

The New, Low-Information Journalism: How Can a “16-Year-Old from California” Visit Relatives in Maryland, Get Raped by 4 Black Men, and Not be Able to Seek Help, Because She Doesn’t Know a Word of English?

By Prince George’s County Ex-Pat

“ABC7 News has learned the 16-year-old was from California and she was visiting relatives in the neighborhood. Her language barrier prevented her from getting help right away after the assault, but eventually, an elderly man gave her…”

Victim probably Asian or Hispanic.

At WJLA.

Yet Another “Dreamer” Nightmare: DACA Student Arrested in Upstate New York after Threatening School Shooting

By Prince George’s County Ex-Pat

DACA student arrested in Upstate New York after threatening school shooting

Rochester, N.Y. (WHAM) Rochester Police have arrested a 21-year-old student in the Rochester City School District after they said she made a credible threat against East High School.

Rochester Deputy Mayor Dr. Cedric Alexander and Deputy Chief La'Ron Singl...

wjla.com

Joe Scarborough to President Trump on Gutting the Second Amendment: Resistance is Futile

By Nicholas Stix

This morning, Scarborough and his mistress, Mika Brzezinski were doing their usual shtick, viciously attacking President Trump on… whatever.

This morning, “whatever” meant the DPUSA gun control narrative, following the Parkland High School mass murder. Scarborough announced to the President, “Anytime you attack them, all you do is make these young Americans stronger.”


There were three problems with their attacks on Trump:

• Trump hadn’t attacked the students (though I wish he would!), so Scarborough’s argument was a straw man;

• What’s wrong with Trump attacking them? If resistance is futile, they’ll just win, anyway. But of course, resistance isn’t futile. That’s just rhetorical bluster from Joe Scarborough, to try and win an argument that he can only win through cheating; and

• The “students” are wrong on the law, and wrong on morality!

We already have laws on the books to keep guns out of crazy people’s hands, and we already have waiting periods to purchase guns.

Scarborough’s cheap rhetorical tricks were typical of the racial socialist Left: Any attempt to assert non-leftist prerogatives is doomed to lose, and to make the racial socialists stronger. E.g., Arresting criminals is an act of aggressive racial profiling, and just makes them madder.

Meanwhile, Brzezinski asserted that “nothing Trump does will be enough.”

In other words, they weren’t even trying to hide their hatred of the President, and their criticisms were all pretexts, with which to vent said hatred.

They also used teachers and students from Parkland, and one of their own Dembot “reporters.”

A Parkland teacher named Alicia Bond asserted to a reporter on the issue of possibly training teachers to protect the school that “No matter how much you train a civilian, the self-preservation sense may take over.”

Bond makes the requisite training sound mysterious and inadequate, no matter how there is of it.

You’d never know, to hear her, that armed civilians come to the aid of policemen all the time.

And how would cops overcome their own self-preservation instinct?

Meanwhile, another hysterical Parkland student demanded that cowardly deputy Scott Peterson, who deserted his post at the school, “should be in jail.”

The MSNBC crew also interviewed a Parkland teacher, who said, “The question is, do I shoot a student?”

Well, if the student is murdering people, you’re darned tootin,’ you shoot him!

Why would it matter, if the shooter was a student? And what kind of people are working in America’s schools? Democrat imbeciles, apparently—just like in the media.

Ronald Reagan Tells Three-Legged Chicken Joke (Video)

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
 

Chuck Jones (1912-2002): The Evolution of an Artist (Short, Brilliant Video about Bugs Bunny Director)

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Eight-minute video about one of the great figures of animation.

The narrator sounds just like the NPR guy (This American Life?). Same guy, or just similar voices?

 

 


Every Frame a Painting
Published on Jul 16, 2015

If you grew up watching Looney Tunes, then you know Chuck Jones, one of all-time masters of visual comedy. Normally I would talk about his ingenious framing and timing, but not today. Instead, I’d like to explore the evolution of his sensibilities as an artist. To see the names of the films, press the CC button and select “Movie Titles.” This video also had a wonderful animation consultant: Taylor Ramos (http://taylorkramos.tumblr.com/)

For educational purposes only. You can donate to support the channel at Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/everyframeapai...

And follow me here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/tonyszhou Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everyframeap...

Music: Raymond Scott - “Powerhouse," "Minuet in Jazz,” “Twilight in Turkey,” “The Toy Trumpet"

Carl Stalling - "Scentimental Romeo," "Guided Muscle,” "Feline Frame-Up,” “Rabbit Seasoning," “Duck! Rabbit, Duck!” Milt Franklyn - “One Froggy Evening,” "Robin Hood Daffy,” “What’s Opera, Doc?"

Interview Clips (from Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol 1): Chuck Jones Interview: EmmyTVLegends.org (http://bit.ly/1J2ZXuW)

Chuck Jones: Extremes & In-Betweens (http://bit.ly/1SpUb7i)

A Chuck Jones Tutorial: Tricks of the Cartoon Trade (http://bit.ly/1HxxRG5)

It Hopped One Night: A Look at “One Froggy Evening” (http://bit.ly/1RC3plV)

Recommended Reading: 9 Rules of the Coyote and the Road Runner (http://bit.ly/1LdfN8d)

Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist (http://amzn.com/0374526206)

The Noble Approach: Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design (http://amzn.com/1452102945)

Help us caption & translate this video! http://amara.org/v/GqOW/

Despicable, Young Democrat Parkland H.S. School Activist to NRA: “Disband”; You’re Either Funding the Killers, or You’re Standing with the Children” (Video); Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel: “Eighteen year-olds should never have a rifle.”

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

CNN: “Shooting survivor calls NRA ‘child murderers’”

“After a school shooting left 17 people dead in Parkland, Florida, survivors Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg are demanding action from officials in Washington on gun control.”

At CNN.
 

Shooting survivor confronts NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch


 

He wasn't 18, he was 19. But an 18-year-old is plenty old enough to handle a firearm. So, the same people who want 14-year-olds to vote on gun-grabbing legislation assert that a 19-year-old is too young to handle a gun?

I'm not aware of any legislation that would have prevented this atrocity, save for repealing any laws that create "gun-free zones."

We already have background checks and do not issue licenses to known crazy people.

Dana Loesch is being way too defensive. She needs to ask who is behind Emma Gonzalez and Co. The obsession with shutting down the NRA means that Gonzalez' handlers seek to repeal or nullify the Second Amendment.

Who are you serving, Emma?

Note too: Jake Tapper is doing a lousy job as MC.

By the way, Emma Gonzalez is not a shooting survivor. Nobody shot her. A shooting survivor is somebody who was shot, but lived.
 

Sheriff Scott Israel: “Eighteen-year-olds should never have a rifle.”

Now, we see it clearly. They’re making their move on the Second Amendment.

Sheriff Israel’s assertion is as wrong as wrong can be. There are millions of responsible 12-year-old rifle owners in this country.

So, we’re supposed to let underaged, leftist “children” order us around, and shame us into submitting to their authority, and yet no eighteen-year-olds should ever have a rifle?

Unlike Dana Loesch, I do not salute Emma Gonzalez or her comrades. Loesch is playing a losing hand.

Obama’s “Children”: MS-13 Has been Tied to How Many Murders?! How Much Blood is on Obama's Hands?

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 at 1:34:00 P.M. EST

Don't forget about these killers...

Thank you, Obama.
 

MS-13 Resurgence: Immigration Enforcement Needed to Take Back Our Streets
 


 

Published on Feb 21, 2018

Center researchers reviewed more than 500 cases of MS-13 gang members arrested nationwide since 2012. We conclude that this resurgence represents a very serious threat to public safety in communities where MS-13 has rebuilt itself. The resurgence is directly connected to the illegal arrival and resettlement of more than 300,000 Central American youths and families that has continued unabated for six years, and to a de-prioritization of immigration enforcement in the interior of the country that occurred at the same time.
 

MS-13 Resurgence: Immigration Enforcement Needed to Take Back Our Streets

By Jessica M. Vaughan
February 21, 2018
Center for Immigration Studies

Download a PDF of this Backgrounder.

Jessica M. Vaughan is the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. Research assistance was provided by Preston Huennekens, a research assistant at the Center for Immigration Studies, and Joseph Kolb. The map was created by Bryan Griffith, the Center’s multimedia director, and Preston Huennekens.

---

The Trump administration has declared war on MS-13, the notoriously brutal gang based in El Salvador. A similar initiative launched by the Bush administration in 2005 stifled the gang's activity after several years, but the gang has been able to rebuild itself here since 2012.

Center researchers reviewed more than 500 cases of MS-13 gang members arrested nationwide since 2012. We conclude that this resurgence represents a very serious threat to public safety in communities where MS-13 has rebuilt itself. The resurgence is directly connected to the illegal arrival and resettlement of more than 300,000 Central American youths and families that has continued unabated for six years, and to a de-prioritization of immigration enforcement in the interior of the country that occurred at the same time.

All criminal gangs are a threat to public safety, but MS-13 is a unique problem because of the unusually brutal crimes its members have committed, its success in using intimidation to victimize and control people in its territory, and its focus on recruiting young members, often in schools.

Nevertheless, because such a large share of MS-13 members are not citizens, they are especially vulnerable to law enforcement, and many can be removed from the communities they terrorize. Strategic use of immigration enforcement is a necessary element to disrupting and dismantling MS-13 gangs and any other transnational criminal organization operating in our communities.

The proliferation of sanctuary policies that interfere with cooperation between state and local law enforcement agencies threatens to hamper efforts to stifle MS-13 activity. The federal government must take steps to clarify how federal law permits such cooperation and also must set up consequences for those jurisdictions and officials who impose sanctuary policies.
 

Key findings:

• We found 506 MS-13 members arrested or charged with crimes that were reported in 22 states. The most cases were reported in California (92), Maryland (85), New York (80), and Virginia (63).
• MS-13 crimes are not primarily petty nuisance crimes; 207 MS-13 members were charged with murder. In addition we found more than 100 accused of conspiracy/racketeering, and dozens of others for drug trafficking, sex trafficking, attempted murder, sexual assaults, and extortion.
• While most of the reports of MS-13 suspects in our case set did not include information on the immigration status of the individual, we could determine that 126 of the 506 suspects (and 38 of the 207 murder suspects) were illegal aliens.
• The median age of MS-13 gang members identified was 23, and suspects ranged in age from 14 to 57.
• The median age of their victims was 19, and victims ranged in age from 14 to 74. Sixty of the victims were under the age of 18, including 52 of the murder victims.
• 120 of the 506 MS-13 suspects in our case set arrived as UACs (Unaccompanied Alien Children), including 48 of the murder suspects.
• The location of these MS-13 crimes corresponds with locations of large numbers of UACs who were resettled by the federal government.

MS-13 Crime in the United States Has Rebounded. Federal and state law enforcement agencies around the country have expressed concern about the resurgence of crime and violence attributed to the MS-13 gang. The gang activity subsided for a time following successful disruption and dismantling efforts, including ICE's Operation Community Shield, which began in 2005. A key element in that success was the assertive use of immigration law enforcement tools.¹ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents participated in regional gang task forces led by local law enforcement agencies, ICE field offices launched operations with the help of local agencies, ICE encouraged the formation of 287(g) partnerships to delegate immigration enforcement authority to local gang unit officers, and ICE worked to target individual gang members who were identified by local agencies, even in sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Miami. Documented gang members often were arrested on administrative immigration violations, which had the effect of disrupting the gang's activities and ridding communities of troublemakers. In addition, these lower-level arrests often led to more significant criminal investigations of gang leaders and the dismantling of local MS-13 cliques.

The Obama administration revised these policies, however, and ICE field offices were directed to cease efforts to disrupt gangs by arresting members for immigration violations or minor crimes and instead focus on major conspiracy cases. ICE officers were no longer permitted to arrest and remove foreign gang members until they had been convicted of major crimes. Gang arrests by ICE plummeted from about 4,600 in 2012 to about 1,580 in 2014.

This de-prioritization of anti-gang enforcement by ICE corresponded to an influx of unaccompanied youths and families arriving illegally from Central America, which began in 2012. During this surge, the Border Patrol has apprehended more than 300,000 UACs and families. Under Obama administration policies, most of the families were released and allowed to continue to their destination, with orders to appear for immigration court proceedings that would take place years in the future, but most have absconded from the process. The Obama administration also adopted a lenient interpretation of the law with respect to UACs, most of whom were males between the ages of 13 and 17, and who were quickly resettled with sponsors, usually family members who were already residing here illegally; some were released to non-family sponsors.² The government has made almost no effort to monitor or keep track of these individuals. According to DHS, about two-thirds of the youths who were permitted to resettle here as UACs have applied for green cards under a special program for juveniles who claim to have experienced hardship or been abandoned by one of their parents.³

Beginning in 2015, law enforcement agencies across the country began to express concerns about the renewal of MS-13 activity in a number of locations.

For instance, the Texas Department of Public Safety determined that MS-13 had again become a top-tier public safety threat in 2015, on par with larger established gangs, noting the increasing numbers of illegal alien members arriving in Texas and an increase in violent crime associated with it:

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) has emerged as a top tier gang threat in Texas for 2015. The influx of illegal alien gang members crossing the border into Texas in 2014, along with reports of extremely violent murders committed by its members in the Houston area, positions the gang as one of the most significant gang threats in the state for this upcoming year.

Since 2011, the number of MS-13 members encountered by U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector has increased each year, accelerating in 2014 and coinciding with increased illegal migration from Central America during the same period.

Although a large number of MS-13 members have been captured along the border, it is likely many more have successfully crossed into Texas and remain hidden from law enforcement. Gang members from Guatemala, Honduras, and

El Salvador could be destined for locations in Texas with large Central American communities, including the Houston and Dallas areas. Law enforcement agencies in Houston already report the highest number of identified MS-13 members in the state. …

Several recent crimes in Texas illustrate the criminal threat associated with MS-13.

• On September 15, 2014, the mutilated body of a 14-year-old middle school student was discovered in the woods near Houston after he was murdered with a machete. … In October 2014, a 14-year-old and three adult males were arrested and charged with murder in this case. The adult males are from El Salvador, and at least two are documented MS-13 gang members. ...
• In mid-August 2014, a 29-year-old 18th Street gang member was stabbed to death in Houston by a 16-year-old El Salvadoran member of MS-13…. According to investigators, the juvenile suspect revealed he illegally crossed into the U.S. in March 2014.⁴

MS-13 remains listed as at top-tier threat in the 2017 edition of the report, stating that while the illegal border influx has declined “slightly” since 2014, and that while state law enforcement agencies have made some progress, its transnational activity is still a major public safety problem for the state.⁵

Other state law enforcement agencies report similarly significant increases in MS-13 crime. The Montgomery County, Md., corrections head says the number of incarcerated MS-13 members has risen 20 percent, straining their ability to maintain order. Suffolk County, N.Y., reports a similar rise over the last two years. Prince William County, Va., reports a 32 percent increase in two years, and next-door Fairfax County says their MS-13 inmate population has doubled in the last year.⁶

506 MS-13 Cases Compiled. Using simple internet searches, Center researchers found 506 cases of MS-13 members arrested or charged with crimes since 2012. We compiled information on the name of the suspect, location of arrest, country of citizenship, age, offense, victim's name and age, and immigration history.

The map below represents the Center's review of these cases. For the purposes of the map, the accused were grouped into a single point when related, such as when multiple members were arrested for a single murder or were part of a racketeering indictment. The points were then color-coded under four general crime categories:

1. Murder and Attempted Murder
2. Sex Crimes
3. Assault and Violent Crime
4. Other Crimes.

Though a single point may be marked as a "Murder or Attempted Murder", this does not preclude the offender(s) from having committed crimes not related to murder. For details on each individual represented on the map, please download our complete list of MS-13 criminals.

This set of cases is not a full representation of MS-13 activity throughout the country during this time period, of course. Nevertheless, it gives an indication of the scale of the problem and the direct connection to immigration policy.

 

 

MS-13 Arrests Occurred Across the Country, but Are Concentrated in UAC Settlement Areas. The cases we identified were located in 22 different states. The state with the most reported arrests was California (92), followed by Maryland (84), New York (80), and Virginia (63). Table 1 shows the arrests by state.

The arrests occurred primarily in urban or suburban locations, like Boston, Charlotte, Fairfax County, Va., and Brentwood, N.Y., but also in a number of relatively rural areas, like Frederick County, Md., Lynchburg, Va., and Seneca County, Ohio.

The parts of the country that have experienced an increase in MS-13 activity correspond roughly to the areas where there have been the largest number of UAC resettlement placements by the federal government.⁷ This makes sense; about 15 years ago, MS-13 made a push to expand from Los Angeles to other parts of the country with sizeable Central American communities, including many illegal aliens. Most of the MS-13 members also were in the country illegally.⁸ These same communities have been the destination of the recent UAC arrivals, who were joining family and friends who had arrived earlier.⁹

207 MS-13 Murders. The MS-13 members identified in the cases we found were accused of very serious crimes, including 207 murders. More than 100 were accused of conspiracy/racketeering, and dozens of others were charged with drug trafficking, sex trafficking, attempted murder, sexual assaults, and extortion.

We understand that it is the most serious crimes that are most likely to be reported in the news media and by prosecutors. Nevertheless, in the aggregate, this compilation of cases is alarming, and confirms the severity of the public safety threat posed by MS-13.

At a recent roundtable of officials convened at the White House by President Trump on February 6, 2018, to discuss the MS-13 problem, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said that MS-13 members had committed 17 murders in an 18-month period, representing 38 percent of all homicides in his district. According to investigators, the number of MS-13-related murders in Montgomery County, Md., has gone from about one a year to seven in the last two years.¹⁰

Table 2 presents the most serious criminal charges or offenses for each case in our set.
 

 

Many MS-13 Members Are Foreign Nationals, Often Here Illegally. The MS-13 gang was formed by illegal aliens from El Salvador who settled in Los Angeles in the 1980s, along with hundreds of thousands of others from Central America. A number of the founding members of MS-13 fought with guerilla and paramilitary groups and participated in violence in El Salvador before relocating to the United States. They held their own in the California gang environments and succeeded in carving out a niche for criminal activity, cultivating a reputation for brutality, intimidation, and zero tolerance for informants or snitching. They recruited new members aggressively, primarily other citizens of El Salvador or the children of Salvadoran migrants. Federal authorities estimated that in its heyday, 90 percent of the MS-13 members were in the country illegally.

ICE and other law enforcement agencies moved aggressively against MS-13 beginning in 2005, seeking to disrupt activities, arrest, prosecute and deport gang members and associates where possible, and dismantle individual cliques and criminal enterprises. The gang's strength was significantly diminished and soon ICE shifted focus to other gangs it considered to be a greater threat.

Today, a smaller percentage of MS-13 members is believed to be here illegally. Some are U.S.-born, others have obtained green cards or have Temporary Protected Status; some have Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But when the gang leadership decided to launch a more concerted effort to enlarge in the United States, it was able to take advantage of the Obama administration's catch-and-release policies for unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border to move in younger members from Central America. For example, one MS-13 clique leader in Frederick, Md., who had received a DACA work permit and was employed as a custodian at a middle school in Frederick, Md., and who was recently incarcerated for various gang-related crimes, reportedly was told by gang leaders in El Salvador to take advantage of the lenient policies on UACs to bring in new recruits, knowing that they would be allowed to resettle in the area with few questions asked. Several of these unaccompanied minors now have been arrested and incarcerated for various crimes, including a vicious random attack on a sheriff's deputy in 2015.

In addition, the influx of tens of thousands of teenagers, mostly male, into areas where the gang already had a presence, provided a large pool of youths from which to recruit new members. According to local gang investigators, these gangs have been aggressively recruiting recently arrived Central American children as young as 10 years old.

While most of the reports of MS-13 suspects in our case set did not include information on the immigration status of the individual, in 126 of the 506 cases (and in 38 of the 207 murder cases) we were able to determine that the suspect was an illegal alien.

According to ICE, 30 percent of the MS-13 members that ICE has arrested in recent years are UACs. We could determine that 120 of the 507 MS-13 arrests in our case set arrived as UACs, including 48 of the murder suspects.

Not all of the reports included information on the suspect's country of citizenship, but of those that included this information, 88 percent were from El Salvador. The rest were citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.

MS-13 Suspects Were Young, but their Victims Were Younger. Nearly all of the reports we found included information on the age of the MS-13 suspect at the time of arrest. In these cases, the age of the gang members ranged from 14 to 57, with a median age of 23. (See Figure 1.)
 

 

Information on the victims of the crimes was provided in 164 of the cases. They ranged in age from 14 to 74, with a median age of 19. Sixty of the victims were under the age of 18, including 52 of the murder victims.

The Proliferation of Sanctuaries May Complicate Disruption of MS-13. Many of the hotbeds of MS-13 activity are also places where local officials have adopted sanctuary policies. These policies prevent ICE from working effectively with local law enforcement agencies. There are approximately 300 sanctuary jurisdictions in the country, and they include municipalities, counties, and states.¹¹ About half of the MS-13 arrests in our case set (222) occurred in sanctuary jurisdictions.

In addition to information and intelligence, ICE and other immigration agencies have unique immigration authorities that can be particularly effective in addressing criminal activity from transnational gangs. These authorities include the ability to charge criminal aliens with immigration violations such as illegal entry, overstaying a visa, re-entry after deportation, failure to appear for immigration proceedings, illegal possession of a firearm, identity or document fraud, immigration fraud, alien smuggling, immigration charges based on prior commission of serious crimes (aggravated felonies) and other prosecutorial tools.¹²

Sanctuary policies are destructive to local and federal efforts to combat gangs because they interfere with communication and cooperation that could lead to disruption and dismantling of gangs with large numbers of non-citizens. In addition, sanctuary policies inevitably result in the release of criminal aliens back to the streets where they can and do re-offend. Finally, sanctuary policies can act as a magnet for criminal gangs whose members are in the country illegally, because they know that immigration violations will be overlooked and that their use of fraudulent documents and identities is less likely to be detected.

The practical result of such policies is the release of deportable criminal alien gang members back to the streets of the communities, where they are likely to resume their criminal activities. Acting ICE Director Tom Homan has stated that since January 2014, there have been 10,000 criminal aliens who were released by sanctuaries and who were then subsequently arrested for additional crimes. Homan said that the recidivism rate for released criminal aliens could be as high as 70 percent, which is consistent with the recidivism rate for all offenders in the United States.¹³

Recommendations. There are a number of steps Congress should take to assist federal and local law enforcement agencies in combating MS-13 and other transnational criminal organizations. Many of these provisions are found in the Secure America's Future Act, introduced by a group of committee chairs in the U.S. House of Representatives.¹⁴

These steps include:

• Update the definition of a criminal gang in federal law, and provide for a designation process to create a bar to the admission of gang members and grounds for their removal. This ensures that the federal government can prevent the entry of known gang members and deny them access to any form of visa, permanent residence, work permit, asylum, or other immigration benefit. Currently, the government must wait for a gang member to commit a crime before disqualifying them from such benefits.
• Require ICE and the Border Patrol to detain gang members while they are being processed for deportation.
• Update the law to provide for more serious consequences for sanctuary jurisdictions and the officials who impose sanctuary policies.
• Revise immigration law to allow DHS more flexibility in dealing with minors and families who are caught after crossing the border illegally.

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End Notes

¹ Jessica Vaughan and Jon Feere, "Taking Back the Streets: ICE and Local Law Enforcement Target Immigrant Gangs", Center for Immigration Studies, September 30, 2008.

² Joseph J. Kolb, "Immigration Impunity: Illegal immigrant sponsors of UACs avoid accountability for non-compliance with deportation process", Center for Immigration Studies, February 2017.

³ "President Trump Holds a Law Enforcement Roundtable on MS-13", Latest.com, February 6, 2018.

⁴ "Texas Gang Threat Assessment", Texas Joint Crime Information Center, Intelligence & Counterterrorism Division, Texas Department of Public Safety, August, 2015.

⁵ "DPS Releases Texas Gang Threat Assessment", Texas Department of Public Safety, July 25, 2017.

⁶ Michael E. Miller, "'Vying for control': How MS-13 uses violence and extortion in America's jails", The Washington Post, February 5, 2018.

⁷ See "Facts and Data" section of the Office of Refugee Resettlement website.

⁸ See Vaughan and Feere, "Taking Back the Streets".

⁹ Joseph J. Kolb, "Brentwood, NY Consumed by MS-13 Crime Wave", Center for Immigration Studies, November 3, 2016, and "Immigration Impunity", Center for Immigration Studies, February 17, 2017.

¹⁰ J. Weston Phippen, "What Trump Doesn't Understand About MS-13", The Atlantic, June 26, 2017.

¹¹ See the Center for Immigration Studies map and lists of sanctuary jurisdictions here.

¹² For more information, see Claude Arnold, "Immigration Authorities and Gang Enforcement", U.S. Attorney's Bulletin 47, May 2006.

¹³ Acting ICE Director Tom Homan in remarks in Miami, Fla.; see "ICE Director: Sanctuaries 'Pulling their own funding' by disobeying feds", Fox News, August 16, 2017.

¹⁴ H.R.4760 - Securing America's Future Act of 2018.
 

[N.S.: See my recent, comprehensive, Social Contract report on MS-13, and its “humanitarian” and media accomplices.]