Little Seizers [sic]

Another recent Smash/Grab
in Houston

Smash-and-grab crimes, in which the thieves ram a vehicle into a storefront window, steal some items and load them into the vehicle, and finally exit the way they entered, have regrettably become as common in Houston as in other big cities; just google the expression "smash grab houston" for some examples. This morning, ABC 13 Houston News reported such a break-in at a location of a well-known pizza chain. (The news item is not yet on the ABC13 site.)

Safe!?

The thieves (there seem to have been a lot of them, perhaps seven people) broke loose the store's safe, seized it (so said the newscaster), and got away with it in the truck. Apparently the safe was subsequently transferred to another vehicle, but the woman driving that car was caught and is in custody. Clearly smash-and-grab is now an equal opportunity offense!

Considering the pizza chain, you could call the thieves little seizers. Apparently no one was seriously hurt, and none of the pizza parlor staff suffered petit mal (little seizures). I regret that there was such a major crime, but I am glad everyone is safe... if any of the thieves ordered (or stole) a salad while they were there, I hope they also got a handful of safe crackers to go with it... (and on and on...)

(FTR, I never go to Little Ceasars. I just don't like what they bake. I'm not saying it's bad, only that I don't like it, and this is a city full of choices when it comes to pizza.)

‘Twin Peaks,’ Ten Freaks (Actually, Nine): Bikers Killed In Brawl In Waco Restaurant Parking Lot

AP via TPM:

WACO, Texas (AP) — A shootout among rival biker gangs at a popular Texas restaurant left nine people dead and 18 others injured, a police spokesman said on Sunday, sending panicked patrons and bystanders fleeing for safety.

The violence erupted shortly after noon at a busy Waco marketplace along Interstate 35 that draws a large lunchtime crowd. Waco, Texas police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said eight people died at the scene of the shooting at Twin Peaks restaurant and another person at a hospital. He told the Waco Tribune-Herald that the nine killed were all members of biker gangs.

...

Yes, there's a reason people call that city "Wacko" ... though I don't believe the city is to blame for this exceptionally violent crime. What does surprise me is the biker gangs: when I was a youth of about 30, the bikers I knew were, by and large, ordinary contributing members of society who liked to dress tough and make loud noises as part of their weekend recreation. Though I never rode, I used to go for Sunday morning breakfast at one of the local eateries favored by bikers, which at the time was called Phil's; despite hundreds of cycles parked outside and even more rough-clad bikers chowing down inside, there was simply no trouble from the biker groups... I wouldn't call them "gangs" because I saw no evidence of any criminal behavior. They even politely queued up and waited for their tables, ate their gigantic platefuls of bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes and very greasy dinner rolls ("these are the times that fry men's rolls," I used to say, though never to them), donned helmets (well, many of them did), got on their bikes and left with a roar that sounded like Indy cars at a race track... all without making trouble. How the times have changed!

I suppose the latest biker sticker reads, "If you ain't Harley, you ain't shot, or knifed, or bludgeoned..."

In FL Movie Theater During Previews: Man Texting, Ex‑Cop Tells Him To Stop, Man Throws Popcorn, Cop Whips Out Gun And Shoots Him Dead. 'Stand Your Ground'?

Via BadTux, from Christian Science Monitor:

Florida theater shooting: Will suspect's age open door to ‘stand your ground’?

Curtis Reeves was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of a man in a Florida movie theater after officials decided 'stand your ground' didn't apply. But his age, 71, could create leeway.

...

Curtis Reeves, the retired police captain who allegedly shot and killed a man who threw popcorn at him at a showing of “Lone Survivor” near Tampa on Monday, will remain in jail after a judge denied a bond request Tuesday.

Mr. Reeves was charged with second-degree murder after Pasco County, Fla., law enforcement officials considered and rejected the notion that the shooting of 43-year-old Chad Oulson inside the Wesley Chapel, Fla., movieplex was justified under the state’s hotly-debated “stand your ground” law, ...

...

The possible hitch is that Reeves's age, 71, may create leeway in how much threat is required to make him feel in serious danger. Two things come to my mind:

1) Reeves is a retired cop, and his gun was carried legally. But that should make him less inclined, not more, to resort to firing shots in a theater. I can't imagine most cops would whip out their guns when someone throws popcorn at them, even if they threw the whole bag at them. Good judgment is an absolutely essential ingredient in the makeup of a qualified law enforcement officer.

2) The cop felt mortally threatened, even though he looks like... this?

Jeebus! Why would that man, armed or not, fear any living person?

Face it: "stand your ground" is a flawed law. In at least its most famous application to date (George Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin), the law seems to require no clear standard of exercise of judgment on the part of the person standing his/her ground. Somehow that needs to be fixed, before we end up with a lot of Floridians dead and a lot of marginally homicidal individuals set free by the law.

‘The Payoff’

 Seldom does a Washington lobbyist, lawyer and power-broker write a book. Even less often do I bother reading such a book. But it looks as if I am going to finish Jeff Connaughton's The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins, in record time. It's not a page-turner for the author's writing (middling at best), his great personal charm (none that I can see), his admirable character (maybe, but like most wealthy people, he has some other aspects) or the novelty of the plot (I suspect this crap was going on long before our republic was a gleam in its founders' eyes), but because I find it simply dumbfounding that Wall Street essentially runs unregulated, and has the power to do literally anything it wants.

Read it and weep: we are wholly owned. Don't buy the book; I found it at the corner library, and you probably can, too.

Progress In Solving Decades-Old Art Theft

The year was 1990. Some years earlier, a friend had given me a wonderful framed print of one of Vermeer's few extant paintings, depicting a family making music: a woman sings, accompanied by a lutenist and a harpsichordist. The significance of the scene had to be explained to me: by their dress and their surroundings, this family was of the emerging middle class in the lowlands (today's Netherlands).

In France, around the same time, only the wealthy could afford harpsichords; generally they chose large instruments (2x8', 1x4', two manuals) by the Blanchet or Taskin families, cases finished in a shellac polished so that it looked 10 feet deep, trimmed in gold foil, with an elaborate soundboard painting, often of a pastoral scene.

By comparison, the middle class of the lowlands had a musical sophistication of their own, and a harpsichord-making family, Ruckers, built astonishingly good instruments for sale to them: smaller, narrower compass (mine is from G below great C to c''' two octaves above middle C), cases painted rather than shellacked, trimmed using gold paint and raw wood, and lids papered with elaborately patterned paper on which a motto was often painted (sometimes in misspelled Latin), with or without a soundboard painting, or (in the case of my own) small painted decorations... birds, flowers, insects etc. In other words, these instruments were clearly down-class from the large French two-manual jobs, but they were of such good quality that the well-known French makers often took them apart, enlarged the soundboards, added registers and manuals, etc. to turn them into fancy French harpsichords.

Child of the (lower-) middle class that I am, I confess I prefer the smaller Flemish instruments. That is what I own; that is what I performed on for many years. And that is clearly what the family in the Vermeer painting have and are using. I love my Vermeer print, both for the art and for the reference.

Back to 1990. As Igor Bobic of TPM tells us, the original of that painting, hanging in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, was stolen in broad daylight by thieves dressed as Boston policemen, and, along with other paintings of comparably high value, spirited away and sold. (One wonders: was it a "theft to order"?) While the FBI was and is on the case, the paintings are still missing almost a quarter century later. Now there are leads, and the FBI thinks it knows who the thieves are. Here's Bobic again:

“The FBI believes with a high degree of confidence that in the years after the theft, the art was transported to Connecticut and the Philadelphia region, and some of the art was taken to Philadelphia, where it was offered for sale by those responsible for the theft," Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, said in a statement. “With that same confidence, we have identified the thieves, who are members of a criminal organization with a base in the Mid-Atlantic states and New England.”

The FBI added that while they tracked the movements of the paintings after they were sold, they are not able to establish their current locations. Thirteen works of art—including rare paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer -- were stolen in a brazen heist involving thieves dressed as Boston police officers.

I was crestfallen at the news of the theft. Almost a quarter century later, I am still saddened. Art was taken from public view and secreted away for the private pleasure of wealthy people willing to steal it, damn them to Hell.

Will that painting be returned to public view within my lifetime? I don't know. I've often doubted it. But perhaps there is some hope now.

The Texas A&M Shooting: 3 Dead

The shooting, for those who know the campus, was at the intersection of George Bush Dr. and Wellborn Rd. (I swear I am not making those names up.) George Bush Dr. is a northeast-southwest street on the eastern border of campus, and the TAMU representative, as quoted by PoliticusUSA from the LA Times said the shooter was "not on campus". The constable, Brian Bachmann, who engaged in gunfire with the alleged perpetrator, was among the slain... as was the alleged shooter himself. From the above-linked CNN article:

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund noted that the slain constable, Brian Bachmann, is the sixth law enforcement official killed so far this year in Texas.

Six officers dead: six too many. R.I.P., Mr. Bachmann.

The problem with casual accessibility of guns to just about anyone who seeks them, with scant or no background checks, is that, among the many gun enthusiasts wanting to purchase guns for legal uses, there are always a few who are actually nuts, and the wide-open atmosphere regarding the sale of guns in the US means that even such regulations as exist requiring criminal background checks are often not enforced. How many of these mass shootings in the heat of summer could be prevented by stricter enforcement of regulations? We have to at least try: the No Rational Argument lobby assures that no politician is going to attempt a legislative solution even if it complies fully with the Second Amendment. We have to work with the laws we have, not the ones we wish we had. Meanwhile, the roll of the dead grows ever longer...

He Was Either Responsible Or Irresponsible:Nixon Was Worse Than We Ever Knew

Please read Phoenix Woman of FDL's "What Even Woodward and Bernstein Can't Say Out Loud: Nixon Wrecked the Paris Peace Talks" and Robert Parry of Consortium News's "The Dark Continuum of Watergate".

Even after four decades, the shit Nixon is revealed to have done still makes me angry. Someone in comments on the FDL post remarked that Ford's pardon of Nixon was the trigger of the entire "imperial presidency" phenomenon. I don't know if it's that simple, but I do know it makes me wish I believed in an actual Hell...

Will Walker Face Fate Worse Than Recall?

upyernoz points to a post on Cognitive Dissidence reminding us that Scott Walker's troubles may not end with his survival of the recall. Here's Capper, quoting a post by David Shuster of Take Action News back on June 2:

According to government lawyers familiar with a Milwaukee criminal corruption probe, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is now a "target" of the investigation.

The legal sources, who are not involved in Wisconsin's recall, spoke on condition of anonymity. They said Walker faces "serious legal challenges," including "a possible indictment," regardless of the election results on Tuesday.

The sources indicate Walker's status was clarified more than a week ago, allegedly following a series of requests by Walker's legal team that prosecutors publicly clear him of any wrong doing before the recall election. Take Action News reached out to Governor Walker's spokesperson for comment on this story and received no response.

I wonder about Wisconsin law: can Walker govern from prison?

UPDATE: Here's more info from the same post by Capper:

Walker, even as recently as Saturday, has denied that he is the target of any investigation and that his "high level of integrity" will be apparent when he is cleared. But that's not quite true. In fact, it's a pretty galling lie.

There is a code that US Attorneys follow that requires them to provide a letter to a person stating that they are not the target of their investigation. And word is, like they're supposed to, Walker's attorneys have been asking for such a letter for weeks. And if Walker had such a letter, he would be free to produce it and remove any doubt about his innocence once and for all.

But Walker has produced no such letter, basically because none exists.

Likewise, if Walker had done nothing wrong, he would not be required to withhold any of the 1,400+ emails that were found on the secret router. He could easily release those emails and clear his good name. But he consistently refuses to, saying that he can't, per the DA. We already know the only way he couldn't is if he had to appear before Judge Nettesheim and testified about his emails.

It certainly sounds as if something is going on...

AFTERTHOUGHT: of course, the Walker backers (hmm... "you dirty Walkerbackers!") could always buy a judge or two...

Dave Lippman: 'Bank The Knife'

Rather than embed this YouTube, I'm going to send you to the original. The song is fairly long, and YouTube also displays full lyrics, which you may need. Don't take my word for it; see for yourself... Dave doesn't let the banksters off lightly. Here's the video. Enjoy, if that's the right word.

Block The Vote

Over my political lifetime, I've seen all kinds of efforts by Republicans to prevent Democrats from voting. But I have to say, this one, a confrontation over the Wisconsin recall, takes the cake:

A Chippewa Falls man who repeatedly tried to block his estranged wife from driving to the polls Tuesday was hospitalized with head, neck and back injuries when she struck him with her sport utility vehicle. 

... 

The pair had been arguing early Tuesday afternoon over who she was going to vote for in the gubernatorial recall election primary, said Chippewa Falls Police Chief Wendy L. Stelter. 

... 

When Amanda Radle, 30, attempted to pull out, Jeffrey Radle, 36, stood in front of her, according to a police department statement. She nudged him with the vehicle several times. 

Each time he would "retreat and re-establish his ground," the release said. "At one point he climbed onto the hood." 

When she finally attempted to drive around him, Jeffrey Radle jumped in front of the vehicle and was hit. Amanda Radle left the scene and went to the police department to report the incident, the release said. 

"These crazy liberal nuts are always pulling this crap," said Radle's brother, Mike Radle, describing himself and his brother as firm supporters of Walker, the subject of the recall. 

...

Yes, "these crazy liberal nuts" don't like to be physically obstructed from exercising their franchise. Damn libruls anyway. [/snark]