Crucifying a Conservative Black Man--Just in Time for Easter

 Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court's ONLY black man, is being crucified in the news this week because he happened to have a rich conservative friend (gasp--a conservative has a conservative friend) with whom he went on vacations. No where in the judicial code does it say that Supreme Court Justices (or any judges for that matter) cannot have friends, attend parties, or go on vacations with other like-minded people. In fact, Courts across the nation have ruled that you must get your paycheck from a Plaintiff/Defendant or someone who could be a Plaintiff/Defendant in the case or one on a similar subject matter in order to recuse. They have also ruled that if you were put in your position by one of the Plaintiff/Defendants, (i.e. if someone made large donations to your election or re-election campaign), you also should recuse. Justices do not even have to disclose their financial information. But Clarence Thomas wasn't involved in an election campaign and the person he was vacationing with has never, to the best of my knowledge, been before him in  a legal case. Remember that.

The Code of Conduct for Judges also specifically states that a Judge cannot publicly give his or her opinion on a case prior to it coming before the judge, the judge reviewing the evidence from both sides, and then the judge officially giving his/her ruling. So, why wasn't RBG impeached or at least threatened with impeachment as Clarence Thomas is being threatened with impeachment? Ruth Bader Ginsberg (RBG) performed several gay marriages and attended both the wedding (obviously) and the party afterward--PRIOR TO RULING ON WHETHER OR NOT GAY MARRIAGE WAS LEGAL. When the case came before her, she didn't even think about recusing despite the clear guidelines that she must do so. Again, Clarence Thomas is a conservative black man. RBG was a liberal white woman. Clarence Thomas went on vacation with a rich, outspoken conservative. At no point did he discuss any of his cases or publicly make statements about them prior to deciding them based only on the evidence before him and the law. RBG, on the other hand, publicly supported gay marriages and performed them even when they were not legal, but her failure to recuse went by silently.

But let's talk about another judge who hasn't recused--probably the reason everyone is trying to crucify Clarence Thomas--so people don't talk about him. Let's talk about Justice Juan Merchan. In New York, you see, this judge was put into his position directly by the Democratic Party. That's right, in New York, home of Tammany Hall--the poster child of political corruption. Now, there are 136 judges in New York that are supposed to randomly get cases. Justice Juan Merchan has remarkably managed to draw 4 separate Trump cases and have them assigned to him in just a couple years. Please correct my math if its wrong, but that's like 3 in 1 billion odds. For comparison, in 2021, 65,000 criminal cases were filed during the entire year across the entire United States in the Federal Court System. Why isn't anyone questioning this? 

I am willing to say that a judge put in place by the Democrats could rule in an unbiased manner against someone the Democrats loath and absolutely do not want running for office in the next election, but I start to waver on that when I look at Trump's current indictment. Justice Juan Merchan allowed Trump to be indicted for 39 counts of hiding criminal actions. The problem is that Trump was not indicted for said CRIMINAL ACTIONS. How can a person be indicted for hiding criminal actions without BEING INDICTED FOR THOSE ACTIONS? The district attorney brought absolutely no other criminal charges. If Trump was hiding a crime, why wasn't he charged with that crime? If you don't have enough evidence that he committed one or more crimes, why in the world are you charging him with anything? 

Well, that's simple--although it is something that most unbiased courts frown upon. During court discovery, the Prosecuting attorney can ask for pretty much anything and Trump has to give it to him or try to get the judge to agree that the Prosecuting attorney doesn't need it. Now, imagine that every single detail of your life could be brought into a lawsuit--that little monitor in your car that records your speed wherever you go, for example, or all your checkbook records, your personal diary, your calendars...Can you say you have never broken a single law in all your life? Most people don't even read and know all the laws. So, if the judge doesn't stop it, the prosecuting attorney can go on a fishing expedition. And even if he doesn't find anything, he can still say Trump was hiding criminal intent and did it so well there isn't evidence of the actual crime. That's not the way the courts are supposed to work, but the case should have been thrown out from the beginning unless the prosecutor charged Trump with an actual crime that he was hiding. That Justice Juan Merchan did not do that is what makes me believe he should recuse. When that is added to all the other information about him, I question whether he could rule against the wishes of the party that put him in office. 

But Clarence Thomas going on vacation with friends is the topic of the poor news agencies this week. For them, Justice Juan Merchan is a hero, just as RBG was. I, personally, would like MORE black men on our Supreme Court. I fail to understand how going on vacation with a like-minded person could influence you in any way as a judge. You already agree on most topics--so where is the influence?

The Bad State of NY Healthcare Revealed with COVID-19

People are trying to make excuses for New York: It's a big city... It got COVID-19 from Europe, not China...

But the fact is, that NY just has lousy healthcare. I feel sorry for the people who live there. For comparison, California has 39.5 millionish people in the state and only 28,899 cases of COVID-19. 1021 people have died there from the virus. California was one the the first states to lockdown their entire state on March 20, 2020, and right after that, like every other place that has gone on lockdown, their new case numbers began a much steeper climb to the top. Testing was increased back around March 1, so that was not a good reason for rates to skyrocket, in my opinion, but it is what it is. We will never accurately see what COVID-19 is doing until we stop putting money into quarantine and start putting money into testing and improving healthcare access among the poor, especially those making 135%-180% federal poverty income levels, which basically screws them out of any state healthcare aid (even something like HIP-2.0, where they pay small premiums for Medicaid.)

But at least California, skyrocketing as it is, is not NY. NY has a population of only 19.5 million. A little less than half the population of CA. New York's numbers are disgusting, though: 126,383 as of the same day I took CA's stats. New York also has 8448 deaths. In one instance, it was reported they stored at least 10 COVID-19 dead bodies in a nursing home. Is it any wonder they have so many cases? Apparently, they are truly trying to re-enact the 1300s. They also have been blowing up the lungs of COVID-19 patients and increasing their chances of bacterial pneumonia by putting them on ventilators when all they need is an Oxygen mask. This is something the Chinese tried to explain to us in February in a published paper, but we didn't listen.

And now people are protesting these lockdowns and the governor of MI actually said they were blocking ambulances. Really? All the hospitals I have seen on a map of Lansing were outside the protest area. An ambulance driver would need to deliberately reroute through the area (out of the way) to get to them. Not surprisingly, I saw no ambulances blocked in any news footage. I also saw a news agency claim the protesters were racist and carrying Confederate flags... so I looked. The only thing I saw was blue President Trump flags, Don't Tread on Me Flags, and USA flags from 2020. Sorry. Neither of those resemble the Confederate flag. I did see a lot of camo... but really? Its Michigan. Do they have anything else to wear up there? Especially since the Governor probably has deemed clothing "non-essential."

Hey, here's an idea: If you don't want people to protest, why don't you give them something else to do, like, I don't know... WORK! I mean really, saying that people who choose to go out are going to get everyone who is huddled in their homes sick, is like saying a person without a vaccine can get a person with a (WORKING) vaccine sick. Apparently, most Americans have thrown logic out the door.

Something is a little fishy and it isn't the U.S.S. Comfort

The hospitals in New York are overrun with Covid-19 cases, so the Navy sent a ship to New York City, population 8.6 million to deal with all the non-Covid-19 cases... It is treating 20 patients. The mayor says everyone sick in New York has Covid-19 and that is why the ship doesn't have any patients... but there are 8.6 million people in the city. How can only 20 of them not have Covid-19... Prior to this article, everyone checking into the hospitals was apparently begin given a rapid test and only 20 of them did not have it and so they were able to go to the ship. Now, (probably because there is research showing that if you don't have symptoms you cannot spread it), the ship will just be taking people's temperatures to get them on board. Still only 20 sick people in all of New York don't have this disease right now... I smell a rat somewhere, but I don't think it's on the U.S.S. Comfort because it probably has Covid-19.

Cops are not PREJUDICED in America - they treat us all EQUALLY!

I did not want to take down my post on M rated games throughout December because of the high chances that parents may buy these for Christmas presents. However, it is past time someone addressed the fallacy that police in America are prejudice. Please note, I personally don't think there should be any distinction between people with light skin and dark skin - we are all part of the human race. However, since this is about the perceived differences, I choose to use the words "black" and "white." I have personally never seen a black person, a white person, or a <cringing> "colored" person. We are all shades of brown and the sooner we get over pointing out differences in skin tone the better.

The statistic that police kill more black people than white people is (as are most statistics) blatantly LYING. They neglect to tell you that this statistic is VOLUNTARILY reported and mostly reported by large inner city precincts who, in fact, have a larger number of black people than the national average. Consider this, if you went to a town, such as Ferguson, where the proportion of black people to white people is much greater than the national average, then you would expect more black people to be killed in the line of duty than white people - and that would have nothing to do with race. There is an article here, that nicely illustrates my point. This one admits the collected statistics are not representative of the nation, and then goes on to say that is okay and cites statistic after statistic in ways that you cannot compare them to each other and is filled with overly simplified graphics based upon the faulty statistics. For example, "Black officers account for a little more than 10% of all fatal police shootings. Of those they kill... 78 percent were black," is paralleled with "White officers killed 91 percent of the whites... 68% of [blacks]... 46% of all those killed by white officers [were black]." Now, if you will notice, when this article talks about black officers, it says that 78% of the people they kill are black. It then throws in some other statistics before getting to the actual parallel - 46% of the people killed by white police officers are black. Further, it neglects to remind the reader that these statistics come from cities where the proportion of black people in the general population is greater than the proportion of white people. It neglects to give us a nice graphic of how many whites vs. black are on the police force (obviously if you have a situation like Ferguson, you will have more white police officers killing people because there are more white police officers on the force.

Warping statistics and not giving us the whole story causes even more tension. People who are black, in general, say, "See - the police are out to get you." Which leads to more fear and belligerency when black people confront police, which , in turn, leads to more black people getting treated violently. People who are white, in general, say, "The reason more black people are getting shot is because more black people commit crimes." Say what?!?! Yeah - that is a serious problem. Now we have black people afraid of cops and acting like criminals in their attempts to flee persecution and white people thinking black people are criminals.

For the record, I am including a bunch of links showing that police will beat up ANYONE who does not do what they are told:

And this one just raises a whole lot of questions about whether a police officer should have the right to ask he not be filmed?

Sometimes, cops are beaten and hurt themselves. Which is why they are quick to attack:

And for the U.N. to call for an investigation is the pot calling the kettle black - seriously here are some of the police in other countries:
Spain -

 U.K.-

France -

With technology what it is, all cops should wear cameras. Citizen photographers cannot (and frequently do not) get the story right from start to finish. Citizen photographers can also edit their films to support their agenda. Remember Rodney King? He charged the police (you can see it while the video is still blurry) and neglected to stay down on the ground. However, all we saw on national news was him getting beaten. We also never heard about all the alcohol and drugs he had in his system at the time (including PCP which makes people violent)or the fact that he was on parole (and breaking it). Since sparking all those riots, he was found dead in his swimming pool from drowning after being high on PCP and while engaged to and living with one of the jurors who ruled in his favor during the civil suit he brought against the police.

On a final note, cops also do very brave and heroic things. I think those should also be recognized. Here are just a few:

Skater cop (can't get this one to embed - sorry)