Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

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Well!

Friday, May 7th, 2021

A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a former U.S. representative from Florida who had been accused of running a sham charity and had served time in prison, with the judges finding that a juror had been wrongfully dismissed for saying that the Holy Spirit had told him that the former congresswoman was innocent.

Previous coverage of Corrine Brown.

More:

But the court’s majority found on Thursday that the judge who had presided over Ms. Brown’s case in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville had violated her constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict when he removed a juror and replaced him with an alternate during the panel’s deliberations.
Shortly after deliberations had begun, the juror told the other members of the jury he had received divine guidance, prompting another juror to bring his comments to the attention of Judge Timothy Corrigan.
In a majority opinion, the appeals court wrote that Judge Corrigan had not had cause to dismiss the unidentified juror, known as Juror No. 13, whom he had questioned about the role of his faith in deliberations.
“We ask whether Juror No. 13’s religious statements amounted to proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he could not render a verdict based solely on the evidence and the law, thereby disqualifying him, despite substantial evidence that he was fulfilling the duty he had sworn to render,” the court’s majority wrote. “They did not.”

The decision was 7-4.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 20, 2021.

Tuesday, April 20th, 2021

For the historical record, and because Lawrence has already posted: Walter Mondale. WP.

NYT obit for Richard Rush.

Posted in History, Movies, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Memo from the legal beat.

Tuesday, April 13th, 2021

Two recent stories from the Statesman that I find interesting, but haven’t sorted out yet. So they’re noted here with minimal comment.

1. The Pflugerville Police Department (Pflugerville is a small-ish suburb of Austin) hired a new chief in 2017. She left in February and got a six-figure payout (including unused sick leave and vacation time).

Did she leave because she was a Hispanic lesbian (that’s an actual statement from the article) fighting a “good old boy” system?

As an example, Robledo pointed to complaints by Alicia Fitzpatrick, a patrol officer since 2019, who accused a small group of officers in the Police Department of targeting and undermining her professional credibility to prevent her from being selected for specialized assignments.
Fitzpatrick similarly said that a good ol’ boy network dominated the department and that the network complains that female officers receive preferential treatment for promotions and are not subjected to the same disciplinary consequences as their male counterparts. She said the same “subculture” had an agenda to remove Robledo as chief, according to written reports.
In response, the city manager hired an outside investigator, the Austin Institute, to evaluate the department’s workplace culture. The institute’s December 2020 report was not made public but was recently obtained by the Statesman. The investigation confirmed that the subculture Fitzpatrick described exists within the Police Department.
“Given the voluminous amount of evidence that supports a finding of hostile work environment, gender bias and discrimination by Sgt. (Tyler) Summers, Sgt. (Richard) Thomas, Sgt. (Nathan) Hubel, Cpl. (Mark) Neff and Dispatcher (Alana) Kamp in targeting Officer Alicia Fitzpatrick … comparable misconduct, atrocious judgement, and behavior at such an unacceptable level has serious consequences in all police departments and should not be tolerated from a Sgt. of the Pflugerville Police Department,” the report said.

Or was she forced out because she was a bad leader?

Two former officers, in interviews with the Statesman, dismissed the notion that the department was unkind to anyone other than white men. Instead, they said Robledo caused the hostile work environment with her style of leadership and said she destroyed the careers of some of its longtime employees.
Reiff, who was not involved in either investigative report, said he received a dishonorable discharge after a 22-year career as an officer. In his dealings with the chief, he said, she often belittled officers and behaved with hostility toward them if they questioned policy changes, even if they were only seeking to clarify her new rules.
“I can attest to it personally when I was once working a homicide. She came into the conference room and the investigations division and told us, ‘Don’t f— this up,’” Reiff said. “You’re the chief of police. What do you think saying something like that does to everybody?”
He said the morale in the Police Department was so low and the stress so constant under Robledo that it was common for the officers to discuss how they did not feel comfortable.
“Nobody wanted to come to work. Everybody would have rather been off or was looking to get out,” Reiff said. “When she would get angry, she’d always say it was her passion coming through. But if another officer demonstrated the same type of behavior she did, it was a problem. Someone being afraid isn’t pushing someone to do better. She was a bully, and she hid behind her authority to push people around.”

2. Millie Thompson was elected as a County Court of Law judge in Hays County last fall.

Now she’s suing the other two judges.

Apparently, she wants her own court coordinator, specifically for her court, rather than court coordinators being appointed by (and answering to) the court as a whole.

The employee whom Thompson attempted to fire — Chris Perez — is one of two court administrators who wrote to human resources to report that they were victims of a hostile work environment under Thompson, according to documents the American-Statesman obtained via an open records request.
“I love my job and the people that I work for and with,” Perez wrote in the email to HR. “However, the stress of this situation — and that includes the fact the Judge Thompson’s actions have already led to the resignation of two extremely valuable employees as well as the retirement of a 30+ year veteran employee of this office — is causing me extreme anxiety.”
Closed records on personnel matters make it unclear which employees have resigned since Thompson took office.
Thompson attempted to fire Perez because of a docket scheduling issue, Perez told the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. Thompson missed a hearing because she was unaware of it. Perez emailed Thompson about the hearing, and it was listed on the judges’ calendar.
However, Thompson’s attorney, George Lobb, said Perez didn’t make enough attempts to communicate that schedule to her.

For what it may be worth (I’m trying to be objective and honest here) Judge Thompson is a Democrat, and the other two judges are Republican.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 8, 2021.

Thursday, April 8th, 2021

Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge (US Army – ret.), Amercian badass. He was 99.

Leading a section of heavy machineguns supported by 1 platoon of Company K, he took a position near Hill 623, east of Belmont sur Buttant, France, on 24 October 1944, with the mission of covering the right flank of the 3d Battalion and supporting its action. T/Sergeant. Coolidge went forward with a sergeant of Company K to reconnoiter positions for coordinating the fires of the light and heavy machineguns. They ran into an enemy force in the woods estimated to be an infantry company. T/Sergeant. Coolidge, attempting to bluff the Germans by a show of assurance and boldness called upon them to surrender, whereupon the enemy opened fire. With his carbine, T/Sergeant. Coolidge wounded 2 of them. There being no officer present with the force, T/Sergeant. Coolidge at once assumed command. Many of the men were replacements recently arrived; this was their first experience under fire. T/Sergeant. Coolidge, unmindful of the enemy fire delivered at close range, walked along the position, calming and encouraging his men and directing their fire. The attack was thrown back. Through 25 and 26 October the enemy launched repeated attacks against the position of this combat group but each was repulsed due to T/Sergeant. Coolidge’s able leadership. On 27 October, German infantry, supported by 2 tanks, made a determined attack on the position. The area was swept by enemy small arms, machinegun, and tank fire. T/Sergeant. Coolidge armed himself with a bazooka and advanced to within 25 yards of the tanks. His bazooka failed to function and he threw it aside. Securing all the hand grenades he could carry, he crawled forward and inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing enemy. Finally it became apparent that the enemy, in greatly superior force, supported by tanks, would overrun the position. T/Sergeant. Coolidge, displaying great coolness and courage, directed and conducted an orderly withdrawal, being himself the last to leave the position. As a result of T/Sergeant. Coolidge’s heroic and superior leadership, the mission of this combat group was accomplished throughout 4 days of continuous fighting against numerically superior enemy troops in rain and cold and amid dense woods.

Sgt. Coolidge was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. He was the oldest living MoH recipient. (The current oldest is now Hershel W. Williams, who is 97.)

NYT obit for Alcee Hastings.

Edited to add: throwing some backlinks Lawrence’s way.

Posted in History, Obits, Politics | 3 Comments »

Obit watch: April 6, 2021.

Tuesday, April 6th, 2021

Breaking news, by way of Lawrence, and only from two sources at the moment: Alcee Hastings. Miami Herald in readable form.

Gloria Henry, most famous as the mother on the “Dennis the Menace” TV series.

Paul Ritter.

Ritter was best known in the U.K. in recent years for playing the family patriarch in long-running Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner, but was a recognizable face across numerous films, TV shows and stage plays, landing both Olivier and Tony nominations.
After his debut performance on famed police procedural drama The Bill in 1992, Ritter starred in films such as Son of Rambow, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Quantum of Solace. Ritter was recently seen in the Sky/HBO mini-series Chernobyl portraying Anatoly Dyatlov, the supervisor who was blamed for not following safety protocols leading to the nuclear disaster, and is set to appear in upcoming WWII drama Operation Mincemeat.

Arthur Kopit, playwright. Noted here because of his most famous work: “Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad”. Among his many other works: the book for “Nine”.

Malcolm Cecil, synthesizer guy.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Politics, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 370

Monday, April 5th, 2021

Military History Monday strikes again! And today I’ve got two kind of odd ones for you.

“The Small Boat Navy”, a 1968 Navy propaganda film about shallow water Navy ops in Vietnam. The odd part? This is narrated by Steve Martin Perry Mason Chief Ironside Raymond Burr.

Bonus: this is a little on the short side, and just has overlaid background music, but I wanted to include it for the odd factor. Video of test flights of the prototype two seat Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II trainer jet aircraft from the 1970s.

What’s odd about this? Two things: this is the only one of these aircraft ever built.

It was originally intended as a prototype for an A-10 trainer / all weather and night attack expansion of the A-10A Warthog, but no money was allocated for further production of the variant so it remained a one-off. Today this aircraft is on display at Edwards AFB.

Thing #2: The guy flying in the second seat is…Barry Goldwater. Yes, the Senator from Arizona.

Goldwater remained in the Arizona Air National Guard until 1967, retiring as a Command Pilot with the rank of major general. By that time, he had flown 165 different types of aircraft. As an Air Force Reserve major general, he continued piloting aircraft, to include the B-52 Stratofortress, until late in his military career.

Posted in 1970s, History, Planes, Politics, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: March 3, 2021.

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021

Margaret Maron, noted mystery writer. She actually passed away on February 23rd, but the paper of record didn’t get around to mentioning it until yesterday. The Rap Sheet has a nice tribute.

Bunny Wailer, of the Wailers.

Vernon Jordan.

Posted in Books, Music, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 24, 2021.

Wednesday, February 24th, 2021

Fanne Foxe. Ms. Foxe was also known as “the Argentine Firecracker”, though she became most famous as the woman who jumped out of Wilbur Mills’s car.

The first whiff of trouble broke about 2 a.m. on Oct. 7, 1974, when two United States Park Service police officers spotted Mr. Mills’s car speeding with lights off near the Jefferson Memorial and pulled it over. Apparently panicking, Ms. Foxe bolted from the car and, yelling in English and Spanish, tried to escape by jumping into the Tidal Basin, a Potomac estuary with an average depth of 10 feet.
The officers pulled her out, handcuffed her when she tried to jump in again and returned her to the car, where they found Mr. Mills and several other occupants intoxicated. Mr. Mills was bleeding from his nose and facial scratches, and Ms. Foxe had two black eyes. An officer drove her to a hospital and the others to their homes.
The incident might have gone unnoticed, but a television cameraman came upon the scene and recorded it. The police filed no charges, and Mr. Mills issued a statement that cast events in an innocent light. But within days the outlines of a political sex scandal began to emerge. Mr. Mills, facing voters in November, returned home to campaign and was narrowly re-elected to his 19th term.
But under withering publicity detailing his alcoholism and peccadilloes with Ms. Foxe, including an impromptu appearance at a Boston burlesque stage where she was performing, Mr. Mills checked into an alcoholic-treatment center, resigned as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and did not run for re-election in 1976, ending a 38-year congressional career.

…

Ms. Foxe appeared on television talk shows and in Las Vegas nightclubs, was featured in Playboy magazine in 1976 and 1977 and starred in several movies as herself, including “Posse From Heaven” (1975), about a stripper who becomes a guardian angel to a cowboy, and “This Is America” (1977), a documentary featuring car crashes and a nude beauty contest.
Her 180-page paperback, “The Stripper and the Congressman” (1975, with Yvonne Dunleavy), detailed an affair that began after she and her Argentine husband, Edwardo Battistella, met Mr. Mills and his wife, Polly Mills, in their building in 1973. The couples became friends and went dancing together.
Then, the book said, Mr. Mills began visiting the Silver Slipper often. He took Ms. Foxe on a three-week junket to Antigua and promised to marry her if he could get a divorce. Ms. Foxe’s husband, with whom she had three children, divorced her just before the affair was publicly disclosed. Mr. Mills, as a recovered alcoholic who counseled other alcoholics, remained married to his wife until his death, at 82, in 1992.

…

Ms. Montgomery moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., in the late 1980s, and undertook a series of challenging late-in-life academic pursuits. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tampa in 1995 and a master’s in marine science (in 2001) and a master’s in business administration (2004) from the University of South Florida, all with magna cum laude honors.
“I’m not sure what her motivation was, but we were all very proud of her accomplishments,” Alex Montgomery said of his mother in a 2019 interview for this obituary. “She was a very intelligent woman. Remarkable. She also became a scuba-diving master at the University of South Florida and went to Cozumel, Mexico, to do some underwater filming.”

WP, and since the paper is basically unreadable without a subscription, here’s a slightly less unreadable version from archive.is.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, beat poet and owner of the City Lights Bookstore.

Posted in Books, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 17, 2021.

Wednesday, February 17th, 2021

Rush Limbaugh. Because I think the last thing in the world El Rushbo would want me to link to is the NYT, especially since the obit that’s up now is both incomplete and kind of insulting.

The website, which seems to be under heavy load right now.

I wish I could say more, but I was never a Rush listener, or really a talk radio listener after I left high school.

Edited to add: Lawrence. Also, thank you, Chris.

Posted in Obits, Politics, Radio | 2 Comments »

Smash Lampjaw!

Saturday, February 13th, 2021

I wanted to note this yesterday, but I was kind of waiting to hear back from someone.

Austin Police chief Punch Rockgroin Brian Manley is retiring at the end of March.

He’s been the police chief for about three years, but he’s been on the force for 30.

It could be that he’s fed up with the current state of Austin politics and wants to get out while the getting is good. (Lawrence has suggested that Chief Slate Slabrock would have a lot of support if he ran for mayor. I currently live outside the city limits so I can’t vote for him if he does run.)

It could just be that, after 30 years, he wants to go off and do something else. At the 30 year mark, an APD officer gets 96% of their base salary in retirement. I think that’s based on your salary for the past two years, but I could be wrong about that. At “commander” rank, base salary ranges from $138,144 to $158,160 a year: I’m not clear on what chief pay is, but even 96% of the high end for a commander is still over $150K a year. Plus Chief Roll Fizzlebeef has a MBA from St. Edward’s University (one of the reasons I like the guy) so I doubt he’d have any trouble finding a job in private business.

Another person who shall remain nameless shared some speculation that Chief Punch Sideiron resigned as part of a deal with the City Council and city manager to get them to approve a new police academy class: we’ll bring in some new recruits who will (we hope) turn into officers, and in return you get to appoint the next guy to run the department. If so, that would be fairly noble on his part.

The big question in my mind right now is: who gets the job? Somebody local (which is another reason I liked Chief Rip Slagcheek: he was a local boy), or will they bring in someone from California (like they did with the previous chief, Art damn it! Art Acevedo). I suspect the latter, but would be pleasantly surprised with the former, depending on who they do appoint. (Ken Cassady, the head of the police union, is probably right off the list of candidates.)

I wish Chief Buck Plankchest the best of luck in whatever he does next, even if it does mean I don’t have as many chances to use selections from the Dave Ryder Wiki entry.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Also…

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

…I know I need to update the various lists of politicians. I’ve been waiting until after the inauguration, and for the various IT teams to get things configured.

My hope is that I can get all the lists (City Council, County Commissioners, and state representatives) updated this week, as I know it is becoming increasingly urgent.

Posted in Austin, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 9, 2021.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

This just in: Marty Schottenheimer, NFL coach.

Schottenheimer coached the original Cleveland Browns from midway through the 1984 season to 1988, the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 1998, the Washington Redskins in 2001 (the team dropped that name last July) and the San Diego Chargers from 2002 to 2006.
His teams went 200-126-1 over all, and he was named the 2004 N.F.L. coach of the year by The Associated Press when his Chargers went 12-4 after finishing the previous season at 4-12. But they were upset by the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.
Schottenheimer’s squads had a 5-13 record in playoff games.

Mary Wilson, of the Supremes.

Joe Allen, NYC restaurateur. Noted here because he was the guy who hung posters of Broadway flops on the wall of Joe Allen’s.

Ron Wright, Texas Congressman. (District 6, which is in North Texas.)

By way of Lawrence, a burning in Hell watch: Anthony Sowell, Ohio serial killer.

Posted in Law, Music, NFL, Obits, Politics, Sports, Texas | Comments Closed

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