Covid-19

 My sister-in-law has contracted covid-19. She is in a nursing home in Lakewood, Ohio. So far the symptoms are mild. 

A Friend's Letter-to-the-Editor

 

Wittman’s Trademark

            I agree with the recent letter labeling Congressman Wittman as Trump’s enabler. In fact, I would go even further. Wittman’s silence on so many issues stands in sharp contrast to the tone of his emails flooding into peoples’ inboxes saying he represents us.

            A large number of Wittman’s constituents are active duty or retired military. Yet when Trump belittles and ridicules those who go into the military, those who are wounded and those who lost their lives for this country, the congressman is silent.

            When Trump said former Arizona Senator John McCain was a hero only because he got caught; I like people who don’t get caught. McCain was tortured and spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison.   Now, more evidence of Trump ridiculing those who fought and died for this country, is emerging. And Wittman doesn’t call the President out for his remarks.

            Don’t forget Wittman’s silence about Congressman Jim Jordan, the holier-than-thou Representative from Ohio. Jordan is embroiled in a sex scandal relating to his ignoring male students’ complaints about being assaulted by a team doctor at Ohio State. Several of the victims have said they reported the incidents to then-assistant wrestling coach Jordan, who did nothing to stop the molestations.

            Jordan’s silence helped enable Dr. Strauss to continue sexually assault young men. I am a retired nurse and have seen the psychological damage sexual assaults can have on young men and women.

            Enabling appears to be Wittman’s trademark—Wittman looks the other way and thereby enables people to get away with almost anything. I don’t want an enabler representing me.

The Virginia Supreme Court--Trustworthy?

 

            F. Lee Baily, speaking nearly two decades ago following the mass shooting at Appalachian School of Law, said, “The God of common law is not justice. The God of common law is consistency.”

            Consistency should be adherence to the law. But if consistency is devotion to ideology regardless of the law, that is a corruption. There is evidence the Virginia Supreme Court is wedded to ideology—even to the point of introducing false evidence in at least one decision.

            Two Virginia Tech families, the Prydes and Petersons, sued over the deaths of their daughters in Cho’s rampage. They won a jury verdict and were each awarded $100,000.

            The Virginia Supreme Court overturned the verdict. Justice Powell erroneously asserted Blacksburg Police Chief Crannis and not Tech Police Chief Flinchum was in charge of the investigation following the initial double homicide. Crannis did not have the authority to warn the campus, therefore the school is not liable.

            Several times under oath, both Crannis and Flinchum testified the Flinchum was in charge on April 16, 2007. Nowhere in the trial transcript does it say Crannis was in charge.

            This November, Virginians will vote on a redistricting bill aimed at curtailing gerrymandering. If the bill passes, a 16-member commission made up of eight members of the General Assembly (four from each party) and eight “independent” citizens will be set up. Six of the eight Republicans and Democrats must approve the plan for it to pass. If the commission fails, the process is passed to the Virginia Supreme Court—therein lies the rub.

            If the Supreme Court will introduce false evidence in its decision involving the Tech massacre, denying two grieving families justice, does anyone believe the court will handle gerrymandering fairly?

            I vote “no."

 

 

Where Are All The Patriots?

            Where is the outcry over President Trump’s failure to confront Vladimir Putin over Russian intelligence paying a bounty for dead American soldiers in Afghanistan?

             The Intelligence appeared in the February 27^th President’s Daily Brief (PDB). But Trump apparently did not read it. The National Security Council believed the intelligence was so strong that the Council met and drew up alternatives for Trump to consider in responding to Moscow’s murderous actions.

            The press indicates the intelligence is solid, including wire transfers of Russian payments to known Taliban operatives after each killing. Apparently, the deaths of at least three marines are tied to these bounty payments.

            Trump, according to press reports, has had seven conversations with Putin since Moscow’s treachery landed on his desk. When asked if he raised the reports, Trump said he does not publicly discuss the substance of his talks with the Russian President. Why then did Trump discuss the substance of his talks with the Russian leader after Helsinki?

            Some in the administration excuse the inaction by saying the intelligence did not have unanimous support in the Intelligence Community. Having worked for over 50 years in intelligence, including decades of writing for the PDB, I know it is common for members of the Community to disagree, but the intelligence goes forward. When the intelligence indicates Americans are being murdered, the President is most definitely notified.

            If you spout “Constitution not Communism,” and say nothing about Trump’s silence concerning the murder of  U.S. soldiers, give yourself the “Obama Test.” What would you do if Obama had remained silent? Scream about Obama? Silent about Trump? The hypocrisy is clear. Those who remain silent, are willing to let young Americans have targets on their backs.

           

 

CONGRESSMAN JORDAN KNEW ABOUT ASSAULTS ON YOUNG MEN

The evidence Congressman Jim Jordan knew about the sexual assaults on young men at Ohio State mounts. Jordan was assistant wrestling coach when Dr. Richard Strauss, a team doctor, molested a confirmed 177 young men. Dozens of these victims have filed lawsuits against the university.

Adam DiSabato, brother of Mike DiSabato one of the victims, was a wrestler and testified before the Ohio legislature in early February 2020 that he told then-assistant wrestling coach Jim Jordan about the assaults. Other members of the wrestling team sat behind DiSabato in a show of support for his words.

Fox news reported on February 13, 2020 that Jordan called Adam DiSabato several times “begging” him to contradict his brother. The calls were so annoying that DiSabato’s lawyer contacted Jordan to tell him to stop.

Jordan has denied all knowledge of the sexual assaults. But others, including a referee, claim the congressman knew.

Jordan, who is one of President Trump’s strongest supporters, claims the school’s analysis exonerates him. That is not true. The report names no names and only mentions some “officials” knew.

This scandal is disgusting on many levels: the assaults themselves; a coach-now congressman apparently lying about about a sexual predator; the President’s continued embrace of Jordan, praising the Congressman’s wrestling body (I wonder what Freud would say); and the Republican Party’s failure to hold Jordan accountable. The last point stands in sharp contrast to the Democrat’s quick rebuke of Senator Al Frankin.

SLEAZEBAGS IN ACTION

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Below is a letter to the editor I wrote. It appeared in approximately half-dozen newspapers in Eastern Virginia.

Editor:

Over the last three years, President Trump has insulted some of our finest Intelligence Agencies, agency directors, and employees with abusive names. One name he uses is “Sleazebag.”

I earned my “Sleazebag” credentials working over 50 years with the CIA and elsewhere in the Intelligence Community, where there were many “Sleazebags” hard at work.

One of those “Sleazebags” was a Cuban-American. Sent to fight terrorists in Central America, he and others were captured and threatened with execution. He convinced his captors the group was sent by Havana. His trick worked.  They were set free. Trump would call him a “Latino-infestation Sleazebag.”

Wonder why we have not had a spate of terrorist attacks while Europe has been hit numerous times? One reason is two young women who were in one of my classes at the FBI. They developed a method of analyzing raw Intelligence that thwarted 12 planned terrorist attacks on the U.S. in an 18-month period. I am honored to have worked with those FBI “Sleazebags.”

Iraqi and Afghan immigrants have been in my classes. These men brought their families here for safety. They repaid the United States by going into battle with our soldiers to interrogate prisoners. What great American “Sleazebags”—they did not let bone spurs prevent them from putting their lives on the line for the U.S.

I have worked with hundreds of Trump’s so-called “Sleazebags” throughout the Intelligence Community, analysts and officers who tirelessly bring child molesters, drug traffickers, embezzlers, thieves, and foreign agents to justice.

I am a “Sleazebag” because I served as part of the Stabilization Force Peace Keeping Mission in Bosnia where Serbs were hunting Americans. Snipers and landmines were part of my daily concern. I am proud of my “Sleazebag” status.

HOW MANY MORE?

How many more have to die from gun violence? Virginia Beach, El Paso, Dayton, and now Odessa, Texas—the bodies pile up.

In Virginia, the legislature will not discuss ways to curb the bloodshed. Governor Northam convened the legislature following the Virginia Beach rampage, but the session lasted an hour and a half, thanks to the shenanigans of politicians like Margaret Ransone and Ryan McDougle.

Virginia is ripe for another mass shooting, but Ransone and McDougle packed up and left Richmond without a peep. A fitting tribute to the memory of those gunned down on May 31^st would have been a dialog about how to prevent this bloodshed.

When parents are forced to buy bulletproof backpacks for their children; when innocent people are mowed down in theaters, shopping malls, concerts or any place of public gathering, we have a crisis.

The statistics from Michael Bloomberg’s everytownresearch.org., (updated on April 4, 2019) are shocking. Every day, guns kill an average of 100 Americans; the average gun deaths per year are 36,383, the average number of injuries in this country from guns, per year, is 100,120.

Access to guns increases the risk of death by suicide three times. The U.S. gun homicide rate is 25 times greater than other high-income countries.

Firearms are the second leading cause of death for American children and teens—only exceeded by motor vehicle accidents.

Guns play a huge role in domestic abuse. Every month, on average, domestic partners gun down 52 women; nearly one million women alive today have been shot by a domestic partner; and access to a gun makes it five times more likely a women will be killed.

VIRGINIA BEACH: IS THE FIX IN?

May 31, 2019 was Virginia’s third mass shooting—12 dead and five wounded at Virginia Beach. The first two massacres were the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia on January 16, 2002—three dead, three wounded, and Virginia Tech April 16, 2007—32 dead and at least 17 injured. The aftermath of both those rampages was marred by duplicity and attempted cover-ups. Incompetent people were never held accountable.  

In the case of Virginia Tech, the Governor’s Review Panel Report contains numerous errors and misleading verbiage, all of which is designed to protect against lawsuits. A member of the Virginia Tech review panel later said they were under pressure from the outset to produce a report that would not lead to litigation.

At Grundy, no one asked the school President to explain his rejection of requests for increased school security. At a meeting just weeks before the rampage he brushed aside female faculty members concerns for classroom safety saying, “You women and your hormones and your intuition … there is nothing to be afraid of … it will be ok.”  

Virginia Beach hired Hilliard Heintze to write an independent review of the tragedy, agreeing to pay the firm nearly $500,000—including expenses. The use if the word “review” rather than “analysis” is troubling.

There is a reason why after a crime, in law enforcement the investigation is called a “crime scene analysis.” An analysis delves deeply into motivation, actions, misconduct, as well as people and policies contributing to the crime. A review is just that, a review of what happened without plumbing all the evidence for what led to the crime.             

An “analysis” is a critical investigation, a “review” is not.

Hilliard Heintze is accepting money for its services; legally, its obligation is to the city—referred to as its fiduciary duty.

The city may well be buying and paying for the report it wants—a document that will exonerate. 

Hilliard Heintze’s Scope of Services makes no mention of crime scene analysis. It lists as its core services: violence prevention, threat assessments, and awareness and response training. That is fine going forward, but nowhere does the company include analyzing crimes—particularly mass shootings.  

The company proposed, and the city accepted, to a twelve-week schedule to do the review and produce the report. That schedule is fine for violence prevention, but woefully short for crime scene analysis.

The Virginia Tech analysis took over two years. Analyzing the May 31^st carnage could easily take that long.

The chances are slim Hilliard Heintze will bite the hand that feeds it and produce a report holding the city or any of its employees accountable. 

Initially, Hilliard Heintze’s indicated it would deliver two reports: one confidential and a second for the public consumption. In a press conference on July 23, the company president asserted there would be only one report and he would determine the content. 

The warning signs are already apparent—the fix may be in.