The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The ‘Historic’ Impeachment

Posted on | November 13, 2019 | No Comments

 

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

Readers will excuse the lack of blogging the past couple of days, but I got trapped in a research vortex that chewed up countless hours but has yet to yield an actual story. Also, Alabama lost to LSU, and recovering from that trauma involved a 7 Stages of Grief cycle, but I digress . . .

The morning Drudge headline stack:

SCHIFF: Impeachable Offenses Include 'Bribery'...
Dems' lead lawyer known for prosecuting mobsters, swindlers ...
Republican senator: All comes down to motive...
Trump Considered Firing Intel Inspector General...
In private speech, Bolton says some of President's policy decisions guided by personal interest...
Napolitano emerges as top critic...
FACEBOOK Sued for Censoring Posts Naming Whistleblower...
Death Threats Increase...
Aides counseling Trump not to fire Mulvaney...
Senate trial to last 6 WEEKS?

What to make of all this? It’s all a giant pile of bat guano craziness. Our Constitution grants the President nearly unlimited authority to conduct diplomacy, which was what President Trump was doing on that call to the newly-elected president of Ukraine. Somehow — and I swear, I can’t fathom it — Democrats have convinced themselves that urging President Zelensky to take a look into Hunter Biden’s Burisma hustle, etc., amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Because no further psychiatric damage was possible after the Tide lost Saturday, I decided to switch the TV in my bunker office over to CNN. Yes, lets attempt that Gonzo voodoo channeling of the Ghost of Impeachments Past to try to understand exactly how in the Hell they’re rationalizing this delusion.

“McCain’s lost it,” the readers will mutter in the comments. “He finally pushed it too close to The Edge and freaked out.”

No, ma’am. Your concern is appreciated, but despite three-days of binge-watch CNN’s round-the-clock Impeachment Wank-a-Thon, I’m still clinging to reality. Certainly, suspicions of that bipolar hypomanic “high” are justified, but I’m OK. Honest. No need for Thorazine yet.

Students of psychology are aware, of course, that one of the symptoms of a full-blown manic episode is a certain . . . impulsive approach to financial matters. If the tip jar hitters wanted to provide some therapy — rattle, rattle, rattle — I might drive down to D.C. and if my coverage of The Historic Impeachment involved an all-night binge at the $2 poker table, that might be for the best. Much better than watching the CNN personalities express their orgasmic pleasure in The Great Trump-Hunt. If hating Don Lemon is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

As I type this, Wolf Blitzer is anchoring the morning coverage with the sort of urgency and gravitas you’d expect if viewers were watching a live telecast of the first manned mission to Mars. I’ve had too much coffee already today, and might not be able to sleep until Thursday. But did I mention that Christmas shopping season at Amazon means that readers can buy all the decorations and gifts they want and, because we are an Amazon Associates program, I get a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Guess what gift I’ll be giving my kids for Christmas? Ho! Ho! Ho!


 

Category: Congress, Fear. Loathing., Scandal, Ukraine

Rally for the Wombat!

Posted on | November 10, 2019 | No Comments

If our regular readers are wondering why there has been no FMJRA or Rule 5 Sunday this week, it’s because our beloved Wombat has been experiencing health problems that have also turned into a housing problem. It’s a situation a lot like what my brother went through, with the bureaucratic hassles creating a very difficult situation.

Kevin has a Go Fund Me account where you can contribute, and you can also contribute to his PayPal:

https://www.paypal.me/ktrainor59

I hit Kevin’s tip jar yesterday, and whatever readers can give him — $5, $10, $20, whatever — will be deeply appreciated.

Having one crisis after another with my family and friends has been emotionally exhausting, not to mention Alabama losing to LSU Saturday. But I won’t speak of that. It’s too traumatic.

 

Category: Blogging

Why Wasn’t Ibraheem Yazeed in Jail?

Posted on | November 9, 2019 | No Comments

Aniah Blanchard (front center) with her family.

“The warrant affidavit for [Ibraheem] Yazeed says blood discovered in the passenger’s side of [Aniah Blanchard’s] car was indicative of someone suffering a life threatening injury.”

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that this beautiful 19-year-old girl will be found alive, and the suspect will likely face murder charges:

The abduction of Alabama college student Aniah Blanchard outside an Auburn convenience store was witnessed, according to new court records made public Friday.
Charging documents against 29-year-old Ibraheem Yazeed said he was witnessed “forcing Blanchard into a vehicle against her will and then leaving with her in the vehicle. Blanchard has not been located at this time.”
Yazeed, formally charged Thursday with first-degree kidnapping, was taken into custody late Thursday night by U.S. Marshals in Pensacola. It was through that arrest that the affidavit in the kidnapping case became available. . . .
According to the affidavit by Auburn police Det. Josh Mixon, Blanchard was last seen by a family member the evening of Oct. 23 at a residence in the 1000 block of Alan Avenue in Auburn. The Southern Union College student from Homewood was officially reported missing Thursday, Oct. 24. She last communicated with a friend late on the night of Oct. 23. Police said her vehicle was seen in the early-morning hours of Oct. 24 along South College Street.
Police recovered the teen’s black 2017 Honda CRV from an apartment complex on the 6100 block of Boardwalk Boulevard in Montgomery around 6:15 p.m. the following evening, which was Friday. A citizen reported the vehicle to police.
Auburn police Capt. Lorenza Dorsey said Blanchard’s vehicle had been damaged sometime between the last time it was seen in Auburn and Friday night. The charging document obtained Friday said that blood evidence was discovered in the passenger’s compartment of the vehicle and was “indicative of someone suffering a life-threatening injury.”
The evidence was submitted to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences and confirmed to be that of Blanchard. Video evidence from the convenience store at 1599 South College Street placed both Blanchard and Yazeed at the store during the same time. “This was the last time she was seen,” Mixon wrote. A witness later identified Yazeed as the individual he saw forcing Blanchard into a vehicle against her will. . . .
Yazeed was already awaiting trial in an unrelated kidnapping, robbery and attempted murder in Montgomery that left a 77-year-old man “near death.”
Auburn Police Chief Paul Register said there’s a strong possibility at least one other person was involved in Blanchard’s disappearance and more arrests are expected.

As I mentioned in an update last night (“Police Arrest Ibraheem Yazeed, 29, in Disappearance of Aniah Blanchard, 19”), the suspect has a lengthy criminal record — apparently his entire adult life has been devoted to perpetrating crime — and yet, for some reason, Yazeed managed to get bonded out after being arrested for a savage crime that nearly killed an old man. What is happening in Alabama’s criminal justice system that would result in such a dangerous person being turned loose on the streets? I don’t know, but I suspect it might have something to do with The Bail Project, a Soros-funded operation I wrote about in April: “‘No One Could Have Predicted This Tragedy’ (But It Was Predictable).”

If what I suspect is true, here we have a young woman of color being victimized by a serial offender because turning violent criminals loose is what a bunch of idiot liberals consider “social justice.” People should be angry, and there needs to be some serious reporting on this. More violence against women that feminists won’t notice, for some reason.


 

Category: Alabama, Violence Against Women

flesmiH lliK t’ndiD nietspE

Posted on | November 8, 2019 | No Comments

by Smitty

Category: Uncategorized

Police Arrest Ibraheem Yazeed, 29, in Disappearance of Aniah Blanchard, 19

Posted on | November 8, 2019 | No Comments

Probably the suspect was resisting arrest, or something.

Far be it from me to imagine that a fugitive apprehended in the kidnapping of a teenager might have been intentionally injured by the cops who caught him, because accidents happen. (Nudge, nudge.) All things considered, Ibraheem Yazeed should count himself lucky that one of the police officers didn’t accidently fire a pistol into his face five or six times. But let’s go to the unbiased news coverage:

A man wanted in connection with the disappearance of UFC fighter Walt Harris’ 19-year-old stepdaughter was arrested in Florida late Thursday night, just one day after police released video surveillance showing him in the same location where the victim was last seen.
Ibraheem Yazeed, 29, was booked into the Escambia County Jail Friday at around 2:38 a.m. after U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement tracked him down to an area near Highway I-10 and Pine Forest Rd. in Pensacola where he was said to be hiding in a brushy area, dressed all in black, WEAR-tv reported.
Yazeed was arrested on an out-of-state-fugitive charge and is being held without bond, according to inmate records.
It’s likely that he is awaiting extradition to Alabama, where a warrant was issued Thursday for his arrest on the charge of kidnapping in the first degree in the disappearance of Aniah Blanchard.
Auburn Police said in a news release that Blanchard disappeared on Oct. 23 after she was last seen on video surveillance inside a convenience store on South College Street. Her 2017 Honda CR-V was then observed heading southbound on the same street. Investigators say she was last heard from after speaking to a friend just before midnight.
She was reported missing by her family the following day.
On Oct. 25, her vehicle was found significantly damaged and abandoned at an apartment complex in Montgomery. Several days later police announced that the investigation turned criminal after evidence collected from the car signaled that Blanchard “was harmed and is considered to be a victim of foul play.” . . .
Auburn police said that Yazeed was out on bond for kidnapping and attempted murder charges during the time of Blanchard’s disappearance.

Holy freaking crap! This guy had already been charged with two serious felonies in a different case, but somehow got bailed out and then, according to police, he kidnapped this beautiful 19-year-old girl who is probably dead somewhere. My guess is that the injury Yazeed sustained while being apprehended in Florida is nothing compared to the injury that this girl’s father — a professional fighter — would like to inflict.

UPDATE: This guy has an extensive criminal record:

He first appeared to run afoul of the law in April 2011 when he was charged with two counts of first-degree robbery. Yazeed, and three other unnamed co-defendants, robbed two men at gunpoint of about $2,700 in cash, two wallets, a $50 money order and a cellphone at the Good Night Inn on West South Boulevard, according to court records.
Those cases were ultimately dismissed by a grand jury.
In January 2012, Yazeed allegedly rammed a vehicle into a Montgomery police officer’s patrol car in an attempt to kill two officers as they exited the vehicle at a Chevron gas station on East South Boulevard.
Those cases were also dismissed by a grand jury, according to court records.
In September 2013, Yazeed was charged with possession of a pistol without a permit and first-degree possession of marijuana. According to the arrest affidavits, Yazeed was found “hanging over the entrance gate” to the Blount Mansion on Taylor Road. The officer then conducted a search of his vehicle after smelling marijuana and discovered a bag of the substance under the driver’s seat along with a pistol.
About two weeks after that interaction with law enforcement, an officer attempted a traffic stop on a vehicle Yazeed was driving, according to court records. He failed to stop, hopping a grassy median to get to another parking lot before jumping out of the still moving vehicle and fleeing to a wooded area. The officer caught him a short time later.
Police found about 3 grams of crack cocaine in the area Yazeed was apprehended. A search of the vehicle revealed 16 grams of marijuana and rolling papers. He was subsequently charged with attempting to elude, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of crack cocaine and second-degree possession of marijuana.
Yazeed was indicted on all the September 2013 charges, and he pleaded guilty to them in 2015.
In January 2016, former Circuit Judge William Shashy sentenced Yazeed to serve 30 days in the county jail on the misdemeanor pistol permit charge, and 13 months on the felony drug charge. The sentence for the drug charge, however, was suspended and he was ordered to 6 months probation, according to court records.
Months later, Yazeed was sentenced on the remaining charges. A judge ruled he’d serve 13 months, though that too was suspended.
Three days after his sentencing, Yazeed was charged with trafficking spice, but the case was ultimately dismissed by a grand jury.
Yazeed then left the city and was arrested by Cass County sheriff’s deputies in Missouri on a warrant from Johnson County, Kansas, in July 2017. He was charged with aggravated battery on a law enforcement official, aggravated assault, fleeing a law enforcement official and first-degree possession of marijuana. Online court records do not detail the events that led to those charges.
Yazeed remained in the Johnson County Jail until his trial in February 2018. He was found guilty of fleeing a law enforcement official and possession of marijuana but found not guilty of the aggravated assault and battery charges.
A judge in March 2018 sentenced Yazeed to serve 16 months in jail. He was released from the Johnson County Jail six days later, earning credit for the approximately eight months he waited in jail for a resolution to the cases.
Less than a year later, Yazeed was back in the Montgomery County Jail accused of entering a SureStay Hotel on Eastern Boulevard armed with a handgun in January and holding two men against their will with Nicky Terrell Gains and Jessie Dale Ford.
According to court records, the trio beat one victim “until he was unconscious, unresponsive, severely injured and near death.” The other victim was also beaten and injured, according to records.
Before fleeing the scene, the three took a Rolex watch, rifle, handguns, wallets, credit and debit cards, clothing and cash from both the victims.
Yazeed and Ford were captured when Macon County deputies made contact with a vehicle driving erratically down the interstate. Inside the vehicle was a severely beaten 77-year-old man who has been assaulted, robbed and abducted from his vehicle in Montgomery, investigators with the State Bureau of Investigations.
Yazeed was ultimately charged with two counts of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of first-degree robbery, attempted murder and first-degree possession of marijuana. He was freed on a combined $295,000 bond, set by a magistrate when the warrants were initially signed, the day after his arrest in February.

Can someone explain to me how this one-man crime wave — the perpetual perpetrator, the eternal offender — was able to raise bail money? I mean, if one of my children had spent the past decade engaged in violent felonies and sundry lesser offenses, I’d be like, “F–k no, I ain’t bailing you out again.” And yet Yazeed gets sprung on a $250,000 bond?

My brother has suggested Yazeed’s bond must have been posted by some kind of 501(c)3 tax-exempt group. Apparently, it’s now “charity” to spring career felons from jail, so as not to infringe their right to terrorize the law-abiding citizenry. If there is such a 501(c)3 doing this, I’d be willing to bet that it’s funded by George Soros.


 

Category: Alabama, Violence Against Women

Harvard-Educated Sociology Professor Charged With Brooklyn Hate Crime

Posted on | November 7, 2019 | No Comments

 

Michael Gould-Wartofsky graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2007 and is the author of the 2015 book The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement. He had been an adjunct professor at New York University, where he was pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology, but that was before he was caught vandalizing a Catholic church:

A former professor at NYU has been arrested and charged with hate crime after he allegedly uprooted plants outside a Brooklyn church, throwing them at the door and damaging a $5,000 statue.
The whole incident was caught on security camera at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Williamsburg early Sunday. The church’s pastor, Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, tells NBC New York that police told him 34-year-old Michael Gould Wartofsky was drunk when he vandalized the church’s property.
Wartofsky is seen on video with two other men, walking down 8th Street. He stopped in front of the church and started pulling plants from the garden, throwing it at the door but two other men didn’t participate, according to the church.
The ex-Sociology professor also yelled something at the security camera. He then dragged a heavy resin statue of St. Jude to the middle of the street, repeatedly kicking it and then leaving it there.
Gigantiello says he believes Wartofsky was making a statement. “This exhibition of violence, anger, and hatred is very disturbing. This is definitely an attack on the Catholic Church,” Gigantiello said.
Police charged Wartofsky with hate crime criminal mischief but no charges of public intoxication were filed.
An NYU spokesperson tells NBC New York that Wartofsky has no fall term assignment as an adjunct professor at NYU, and that he’s not currently an NYU employee.

My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that (a) Gould-Wartofsky is gay and (b) he’s a trust-funder who wasn’t “currently” working at NYU because he doesn’t actually need to work for a living. As to guess (a), why else would a man be walking down a street drunk, with two other men, and feel such overwhelming animosity toward a Catholic church that he’d take vengeance on a statue of St. Jude? And as evidence for guess (b), he doesn’t seem to have published anything since 2015 and the last public event listed<> on his personal website was in 2017. If you’re a “progressive” young academic living in the Trump Age, you could be publishing essays and op-eds every day, to feed the limitless demand for anti-Trump opinions. So the fact that Gould-Wartofsky apparently hasn’t been publishing much of anything lately, and isn’t currently teaching, suggests to me that he possesses independent wealth, i.e., he’s a trust fund baby.

As I say, these are only guesses, and if I’ve guessed wrong about Gould-Wartofsky — if he’s a working-class heterosexual — he would not have proper grounds for a libel suit, because you can’t sue for mere speculation, if it’s clearly labeled as such. But I don’t expect to get any cease-and-desist letters from Gould-Wartofsky’s attorneys, because if your client’s charged with a hate crime, it will keep you pretty busy.


 

Category: Catholics, Crime, New York

Anti-Trump Book Is Spectacular Flop

Posted on | November 7, 2019 | No Comments

 

Book sales nowadays are often a reflection of celebrity: If you’ve got a hit TV show, a publisher will pay you big bucks in advance for a book and hire a ghostwriter to put it together for you, on the theory that your fans will all pay $24.95 for anything with your picture on the cover. So what happens after a celebrity loses their TV platform?

Disgraced former MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin’s book How to Beat Trump: America’s Top Political Strategists On What It Will Take sold 502 copies during its first week, according to NPD BookScan’s Wednesday report.
Not many Americans purchased Halperin’s book this week despite the description on Amazon that claims, “more than 100 million anxious Americans want to know: how can Donald Trump be beaten in 2020 and evicted from the White House?”
Just six reviews of the book have been posted to Amazon, one of which is titled “Write what you know, Mark.” In it, user Ball Student wrote, “He’d be better off avoiding speculation and sticking to areas he has extensive experience in: groping female employees.”
Halperin has faced numerous allegations of sexual harassment and assault, and the news of his book contract with Regan Arts has drawn a substantial backlash. CNN reported that 12 women came forward publicly to accuse Halperin of sexual harassment or assault, which he denied.
Journalist Emily Miller, who worked with Halperin at ABC News, criticized anyone aiding him because she said it undermines the victims who came forward.
“Every person who’s helping him regain power and a public platform is complicit in re-traumatizing all the victims,” Miller said.
“Men like him don’t change,” she said. “He spent decades using his position of power in the media to sexually assault women. He hasn’t even apologized to his victims.”
Former CNN producer Eleanor McManus, who also said she was victimized by Halperin, criticized Regan Arts for signing him to a book deal despite his refusal to apologize.
“He has yet to take responsibility for his actions by apologizing to his victims or demonstrating genuine contrition,” McManus said. “Giving him a book once again puts him in a position of authority and that is a slap to all the women that he has victimized.”
NBC News terminated Halperin in light of the allegations. He has since started his own political blog.

Do you think a big New York publisher would give me a book deal? I’ve never been on MSNBC, but at the same time, I haven’t been accused of groping a dozen women. Not yet, anyway. But I digress . . .

My point, however, is that when Mark Halperin became a New York Times bestselling author in 2010, he was a member in good standing of the liberal media and a regular guest on Morning Joe. Then the #MeToo movement destroyed his reputation and now? Welcome to Flop City.

Sic transit gloria mundi.


 

Category: Books, Celebrities, Scandal

‘Crimes Against Nature’

Posted on | November 7, 2019 | No Comments

 

Say hello to Emma Ogle, a North Carolina teacher who was suspended Oct. 31 from her job teaching at Garinger High School:

She was charged on Halloween with three felony counts, including having sex with a student, indecent liberties with a student, and crimes against nature with a student.
The 63-year-old educator supposedly began a relationship with a 17-year-old student in spring, which became sexual over the summer, according to WSOC-TV. The teen allegedly reported Ogle to school staff on Thursday, hours before she was booked. The alleged sexual encounters didn’t occur on campus, district officials for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools stated.

Notice that the report does not specify whether Ms. Ogle’s teenage victim was male or female, but “crimes against nature”? Someone might have to research the relevant North Carolina statute, but I’m under the impression that “crimes against nature” suggests homosexuality, which as a criminal offense ought to have been rendered void by the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision. But this case will not go to trial, because Ms. Ross will now be judged by a much higher court, so to speak:

A North Carolina teacher who was accused last week of having sex with a high school student was found dead in her home, along with her husband, on Wednesday morning in what appears to have been a murder-suicide.
Police, paramedics, and crisis negotiators descended on Emma and Michael Ogle’s home early Wednesday morning following reports of an active shooting incident. Shortly before 10 a.m., authorities confirmed they had located the bodies of the married couple, who had sustained fatal gunshot wounds.
Only last week, Emma Neil Ogle, 63, a Charlotte teacher, had been arrested and charged for allegedly having sex with a high school student, according to online court records. She had bonded out and been released on Nov. 1.
But police said that when her husband Michael Ogle, 59, didn’t show up to work at his hardwood flooring company in Huntersville, North Carolina on Wednesday, a family member went to check on him. When the relative arrived, Michael was dead and Emma was holed up inside with a pistol, according to police.
“She noticed 63-old Emma Ogle inside with a gun,” said officer Odette Saglimbeni, a Huntersville Police spokesperson, during a press conference Wednesday. “She was still alive when the family member got there and her husband was not.” . . .
“Once our SWAT team was able to make entry into the home they did locate two deceased parties inside the residence and they were of Emma Ogle and Michael Ogle,” Saglimbeni also said. “And they did suffer from gunshot wounds.”

What happened to Emma Ogle? What could inspire a 63-year-old teacher to commit “crimes against nature” with a 17-year-old? She had been a teacher for many years. Had she previously done things like this and gotten away with it? Had she spent decades restraining her unnatural desires, secretly lusting for teenage flesh, until finally — as she neared retirement age — old Emma just said, “Time to go for it”? YOLO.

One suspects that the police and school officials don’t want to get into the lurid details of Ms. Ogle’s crime, but under the circumstances, this case seems to be a permanent mystery. Ms. Ogle won’t go to trial, and she killed her husband before killing herself, so it’s unlikely we will ever have any explanation of how her life went so wrong.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain.)


 

Category: Crime, Education, North Carolina
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