Monthly Archives: May 2020
For the safety of the potatoes
Usually when he gives a speech, it is clear when Trump is on script and when he goes off on an impromptu tangent. He generally goes from sounding somewhat organized to going off on a riff that is rarely, if ever, still on topic, going, instead, off into the woods.
The degree of comedic content to these tangents vary, but more often than not, after a good deal of analysis, what connection might exist between the meandering thoughts and the topic, no matter how meandering, can be found.
This past Tuesday Trump was addressing farmers in the Oval Office. He was dealing with getting produce and dairy products to food banks rather than having them destroyed as excess because there was no way to distribute them to potential buyers.
Regardless of certain procedural questions, the idea was a good one, and if he had stuck to the topic, regardless of other concerns, would have come across that way. It might have been the frightening proximity to too many fruits and vegetables that set him on his mental wandering, but true to form, off Trump went into the mists of his mind.
Back in April in response to protests at the state capitols of Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia when armed terrorist either surrounded or entered the state houses when legislators were meeting, instead of standing against them, Trump seemed to support their objection to his steps to handle the Corona Virus, by encouraging the vocal minority, his supporters, to liberate their states. The governors of those three state are Democrats, but he went so far as to single out Virginia’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, in a press briefing by stating he “should be under siege.”
Although the topic had been the gatherings of armed people carrying Confederate flags and the appearance of their armed threat, Trump added a dig at the Virginia governor whose state legislature was considering a reasonable gun control bill, and went off topic with,
“They want to take their guns away. That’s the Second Amendment. That’s Virginia. You have a governor—I guess he should be under siege. He seems not to be. If he were a Republican, he would be under siege. But he seems to have escaped something that is really bad…So when you talk about ‘liberate’ or ‘liberation,’ you can certainly look at Virginia.”
His opinion of the protesters was that they simply were
“people expressing their views. They seem to be very responsible people to me. But they’ve been treated a little bit rough.”
Gun control was not the topic, those demonstrations was.
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So while his statement about Virginia and its governor may have been highly questionable coming from the president whose program was being supported by the Virginia governor, his statement after a speaker from Virginia made in the Oval office about getting food to food banks had absolutely no connection to the purpose of the White House photo-op.
From the fog of his mind, Trump intoned,
“We’re going after Virginia, with your crazy governor, we’re going after Virginia. They want to take your Second Amendment. You know that, right? You’ll have nobody guarding your potatoes.”
The governor simply responded,
“I grew up on a Virginia farm, Mr. President—our potatoes are fine. And as the only medical doctor among our nation’s governors, I suggest you stop taking hydroxychloroquine.”
For eight years the cry was that “Obama is coming for your guns!”
But the reality was and should be clear that after eight years of Obama and three and a half years with Trump, and as was obvious from the state house demonstrations, no one has actually done that..
Virginia is not known for its potatoes as it produces one of the smallest potato crops of any state.
Its biggest agricultural products are corn, soybeans, sweet potatoes, apples, tobacco, peanuts, and cotton.
Apparently, though, according to the president, that miniscule potato crop is its most important and needs armed protection.
And as the Second Amendment to the Constitution clearly states,
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State and for the protection of potatoes, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
More protests
Hodgson’s contradiction
One of Trump’s go-to tactics is to say things, and then, when he is called on it, deny he has said it. Sometimes he will claim, after the fact and after much reasoned criticism, that what he said was his just being sarcastic even if he had followed the original statement with his trade mark, “believe me”.
The Bristol County Sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, the Joe Arpaio of Massachusetts and acolyte that simply adores Trump and seeks his attention at every possible turn, has adopted Trump’s practice of making statements that cancel each other out while holding that each is legitimate.
As with Trump, the problem is that the words are written down and recorded so deniability is impossible.
After a major altercation at the ICE detention center on the campus of the Bristol County House of Corrections in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson received criticism for not only his handling of the actual incident, but also for the conditions in his facilities that would have made such an event inevitable.
While some have been calling for accountability for a number of years now, this incident has prompted others to begin scrutinizing his job performance more closely with some calling for independent investigations with others, after weighing the sheriff’s history, calling for his resignation.
If people in authority are allowed to abuse that authority without question either because there is no system for accountability, people are “too busy” to exercise that system, or that person’s actions, regardless how unacceptable, support certain political agendas, the intensity of the abuse increases. Over time, they become so used to their freedom to abuse, the assumption of the abuser is that it will continue to go unquestioned, and it usually does.
Being called on it, therefore, is often so unexpected that the abuser is not prepared to react rationally, rather, ignoring facts and grabbing at any straws that protect the abuser, going so far as to take on the part of a victim being persecuted unfairly, and jumping from one defense to another with them being unconnected or inconsistent.
The abuser often just keeps throwing defenses out as needed and related only to the moment as they come to mind.
This is how it is now when, after having his ways unquestioned, the sheriff has taken one step too far and has now got to explain himself.
This reaction of the sheriff is most clearly seen in the letter he wrote to the friendly local newspaper in his defense against calls for his resignation.
When a person, who refers to the majority of people in his jails as “drug addicts” and people in the ICE detention center as “Criminal illegal aliens” to create a monster under the bed with which to frighten the people of Bristol County into accepting that he is more than what he really is, begins a defensive letter to the editor with
“The motto of the left-wing activist groups, abolish-ICE advocates, Prisoners’ Legal Services and plain anti-Trumpers has always been, and continues to be, ‘Don’t let the facts interfere with your political agenda,’
the reader just knows that what follows is going to be well reasoned and unbiased.
Right?
His condemnation of his critics that he claims paint him and ICE with a negative broad brush is priceless because the sheriff does exactly that by claiming to be able to characterize any critics as extremists.
And it is laughable that he assigns himself a lofty stature by also claiming some equivalence to the president by claiming criticizing him is somehow the work of “Anti-Trumpers”
As far as his description of those who have lately called for his resignation being Left-wing activist groups and anti-Trumpers, among them are Bristol County for Correctional Justice, Unidad Latina en Accion, the Coalition for Social Justice, the New Bedford Chapter of the NAACP, the Community Economic Development Center, the New Bedford Immigrant Support Network, the Business Innovation Center, Centro Communitario de Trabajadores, the Episcopal City Mission, Marching Forward, and the Southeastern Mass Labor Council.
Not surprisingly, the sheriff omitted the names of the groups in his defensive letter so he could mislead the public, unless he considers Immigrant groups, racial justice groups, churches, business organizations, and labor representatives as anti-Trump with solely political agendas in which case he further reveals his bias and perhaps more extreme attitudes.
Trump has nothing to do with this beyond as co-chair of the state’s Trump re-election committee Hodgson wants to promote his idol by any means necessary.
No, sheriff, they are against many of your practices that are bad for the incarcerated people in your facilities, most yet to be proven guilty in a court of law.
Things like suicides, poor medical treatment, attempts to deny them legitimate family contact, having no programs for re-entry into the community that results in a ridiculously high return rate were concerns before the time of COVID-19 and are what his critics have been addressing.
The sheriff’s history is rife with law suits against him for inmate abuse, employee abuse, and abuse of the county taxpayers, which he has lost to the cost of millions to the county.
He relates a tale about events on May 1 at the ICE detention center claiming there are tapes that show his version is the true version, but it has been two weeks since that event, and no one outside of his office and ICE has seen the tapes.
Yet he claims letters from inmates, conversations between inmates and their attorneys, and interviews with former inmates are merely a “manufactured version of events”.
While he claimed his actions had guaranteed that no inmates in his facilities had COVID-19, this was based on not having tested his inmates.
How would he have known if no one had the virus if he had not tested all his inmates?
When, after two months of resistance the sheriff finally began testing, he found that of the people he tested at least 5 people under his care tested positive.
He said he was thinking of the community’s safety since releasing nonviolent offenders, those there only because they could not afford bail, or those within days of their end of sentence release would expose them to the virus in the community, yet he lamely mumbles that among his staff who exit and reenter his facilities on a daily First, the nerve, or group of nerve fibers, must be intact; and secondly, the neurotransmitters or those natural substances that allow nerve impulses transmitting from nerve to nerve, and nerve sildenafil discount to end organ, must be present in sufficient quantity. He, no more, has to worry about running out of your medication either. levitra for sale online levitra generika 40mg Speed: Speed is another most important factor considered by every patient. Most of all not just for men but they have to have far generic cialis cipla robertrobb.com more than adequate knowledge of several procedures. basis and could very well be bringing the virus in, first 3 then 7 staff have tested positive for the virus.
Non-existing things cannot increase.
In defending himself against those calling on him to resign, the sheriff quotes certain parts of a recent court decision that he presents as supporting him, but which actually commend those who work under him.
He wrote,
“the judge praised the Bristol County House of Corrections for its Herculean efforts in following the CDC guidelines and places themselves at the frontlines of danger every day, unlike anyone in these vocal political activist groups. Contrary to the misleading ramblings of these groups, one only needs to actually read the words of the judge’s opinion to ascertain the truth,”
And then quotes the court decision,
“The Court acknowledges and commends the significant steps that BCHOC has taken in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at that facility and treat anyone infected.”
He also included the quote,
“The Court previously noted several protective measures that BCHOC has put in place since February, including restricting contact with outsiders, performing temperature screenings, and splitting up detainees during meals and recreation… The court recognizes the commendable efforts of the BCHOC staff, which have been operating in difficult and risky conditions where much is unknown. It is necessary to point this out given that, while the Court and the attorneys have been conferring remotely due to the pandemic, the dedicated professionals at BCHOC continue to perform their duties on site. That is no small thing.”
The sheriff is not the staff.
However, when the judge made his decision, Hodgson’s assessment of the Court decision he refers to was,
“I absolutely disagree with Judge Young’s decision”
while also declaring that the judge had “far exceeded his authority.”
He can’t condemn the decision for criticizing him and then rely on that same document to justify himself, especially when he clearly says that he disagrees with it.
The sheriff defends himself by relying on a court decision he himself sees no value in, but expects others to accept it when he quotes from it in his own defense.
He is both defensive and inconsistent in his claims, his actions, and his self-defense.
Like members of the religious right condemning other people by choosing selected Bible verses to quote in support of their opinion while ignoring any that contradicts them, while he might have found and quoted certain passages in the court decision to present to the public who most likely will never see the full document, he ignores those parts that outnumber those he chose and should also be seen by the public to get a full picture.
He also applies to himself in this case, comments relating to his hard working staff, not him.
What he omits to include are the negative parts of the decision that apply to him and his leadership. The judge made many statements that criticize him for putting his staff and those under his care at imminent risk to their health and wellbeing.
Immediately following the above quoted commendation of his staff, the decision has some things to say about what he must take responsibility for as he is the administrator of his facilities and establishes the practices that his staff is to follow.
Conveniently omitted statements in the decision include:
“Nonetheless there remains critical safety gaps that establish a likelihood of irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary equitable relief. Testing of both Staff and detainees has been minimal, so the real infection rate is a mystery.”
“A related problem is the “insufficient and ad hoc contact
tracing of detainees and BCHOC staff who may have interacted with COVID-19
positive individuals.”
“Of particular concern is the contradictory evidence in the
record regarding monitoring of those Detainees who are especially vulnerable to
COVID-19.”
“Had the Court
stayed its hand little or no progress would have been made at BCHOC towards
accurately determining the virus presence among the Detainees and Staff and
towards effectively separating potential carriers from others…”
“Keeping individuals confined closely together in the presence
of a potentially lethal virus, while neither knowing who is carrying it
nor taking effective measures to find out, likely displays deliberate
indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm. That is what the
evidence shows here.”
Those statements
substantially modify what the sheriff refers to as praise.
Further self-serving inconsistency is illustrated by his claim that
“Contrary to the misleading ramblings of these groups (his critics), one only needs to actually read the words of the judge’s opinion to ascertain the truth”,
while he leaves out the words that the public should read.
Deflection, another of his hero’s tactics.
It would be almost comical if his ego wasn’t putting people’s lives at risk.
Perhaps, if he were to simply do the job he was elected to do and cease trying to be more than what his job is and reduce his attempts at self-promotion, he would not have to defend himself in such a contradictory way, and people who care about those in his facilities would not have so much to question.
Trump’s dilemma
Well, that didn’t go right.
Trump has now made Mar a Lago his official residence, and that makes sense.
Who wouldn’t exchange a high rise apartment in a crowded city prone to cold winters for a residence on a grassy estate on the waterfront ina state that most people go to for the sun and warm winters.
Cape Cod Snow Birds do it every winter when the Cape closes down with nothing to do but wait out the cold weather and for the denial of heat because of power outages.
But Trump’s problem is different than most people who move to Florida.
Mar a Lago was once a private estate and residence, but Trump wanted to convert it to a private money making club. He could charge high membership fees, book weddings and other functions, have a restaurant and bar, and charge daily room fees for guests who chose to stay overnight.
At the time of purchase, however, West Palm Beach was a small community wary of over building and the type of businesses and home expansion that has pretty much wiped out the attraction that Cape Cod had until over building left it with a main land feel with only pockets remaining of the reason people liked to go there but then destroyed by moving there and wanting mainland amenities.
At the time of purchase, Trump had to decide if he was going to have a residence or a private club because, among other things to keep its character, West Palm Beach, in wanting to limit traffic on its waterways restricts docks to private residences that would have a limited number of boats to dock and travel the waters, and excludes clubs that would have many boats and much traffic.
So having to decide at the time between a home and a money-making business, Trump decided on the club and signed an agreement to that affect with the city. Also, because it is a private club and not a residence, he had to agree that members cannot stay longer than seven days at a time three times a year, and Trump’s attorney assured the town council that he would not live at the club.
So Mar a Lago is clearly a club and not a residence, and, although he may own it, Trump cannot live there beyond the limits he agreed to.
It seemed a good idea at the time.
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First, by not being a residence, Mar a Lago cannot be the home address of a registered voter which means that when he voted in the Florida Republican primary and not the New York address of registration ptimary his vote was mail ballot fraud.
He has also applied for a permit to build a dock for the travelling convenience of his club members, but there is that dock restriction.
His neighbors rightfully oppose a club accommodating dock.
Not only does it go against city restriction, it would adversely affect the beauty of the waterfront and their own boating excursions.
The legal question that the dock permit request brought up is whether Trump considers Mar a Lago a club or a residence.
If it is a club, he cannot reside there, so he cannot use it as his voter registration address.
If it is a residence, well, the ramifications would be obvious as residences cannot conduct businesses like restaurants, function room rentals, and room fees. His club would have to close.
When the dock application was submitted it claimed the dock was needed for Trump’s protection when he stayed there as the president on vacation from Washington, but it did not declare it as a residence. After this was pointed out Trump asserted that the Mar a Lago is his “personal residence” and the dock would be for private family use.
That would remove the club status and all that comes with it.
If it is a club, Trump cannot use it for voter registration.
What is he to do?
He can’t have it both ways, and either way goes against what he wants, and he does not handle not getting his way very well.
Take up my cross
In spite of the belief that by wearing masks, avoiding large crowds, staying home, and, well, just being considerate of others by not putting other people in danger either knowingly or unknowingly by passing on the virus we may or may not have or even know we have, most of the people who have been gathering to protest at various state capitals to protest these actions have been carrying certain objects in common—long guns, Confederate flags, Trump signs, and Christian symbols.
You hear a lot about God when people at these events are interviewed. Some have even claimed since they have God with them, they do not need to worry.
Maybe not worry about themselves, but what about their neighbor?
These people demand certain amenities, many not necessary, with most calling for people other than themselves to do what pleases them.
Opening bars, restaurants, hair and nail salons, bowling alleys and stores where they can get more things means someone has to be there to run the establishment and wait on them, and that means other people have to endanger themselves and are usually people who work for low wages.
Jesus said,
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it”.
He also gave us the Beatitudes and other teachings that tell us to be kind to others and sacrifice our wants for others’ needs.
Something that goes ignored in the demands to make people help us entertain ourselves at their expense and make some of us beautiful.
Nowadays, it seems, giving up selfish wants and desires is persecution in the minds of some.
To counter this persecution, some churches demand to be allowed to open, or defy the refusal to allow them to, not caring that they may be spreading the virus among themselves and not caring that they may also bring the virus from their churches into the wider community that has no say in the matter.
They want things their way or they will cry persecution. At the same time they deny anyone else having things their way.
Complaining about not being able to have Holy Week services, many Christian leaders harrumphed their belief that liberals, those persecutors of Christians would say nothing about Muslims closing mosques for Ramadan or Jews their synagogues for Passover, yet remained eerily silent when, with little fanfare and no protests, mosques and Synagogues were closed.
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Had there been outrage, she certainly would have known about that.
While condemning those who take a knee at football games because they are anti-American, they stand in front of statehouses threatening the legislators inside while carrying the flag of those who fought against the United States and claiming they are true patriots.
But that’s okay,
The rights of the others do not count, only theirs do because they have God on their side.
A Black man is killed while jogging and all known facts seem to point at it not being justified. But, the killers are good Christian men so anything negative about the victim is fair game no matter how irrelevant.
Throw “In Jesus’s name” into any defense and it’s bullet proof.
They claim that Trump is sent by God to rule over us, and since the Bible says,
“All of you must obey those who rule over you. There are no authorities except the ones God has chosen. Those who now rule have been chosen by God. So whoever opposes the authorities opposes leaders whom God has appointed.”
And so they march against those elected, and, therefore, God-chosen governors who are doing what science and experts say is best to help safeguard all people, not just those who voted for them because, well, Jesus and U.S.A.
They chant that refusing to allow the haircut, the nail filing, and bowling is a denial of the rights fought for by those in the armed services in a number of wars and then threaten the very democratic process they claim was won for them and protected for them by those others.
They disrupt lawfully assembled legislatures from functioning and threaten those members of them who try to meet in spite of the vocal minorities particular wishes.
And you know that, even as they deny others their rights and label them just a vocal minority who is trying to push their agenda on everyone else, the see no contradiction in their doing just that themselves.
But that would take reflection.
Just as it takes reflection to assess whether or not you are actually following the teaching of He whom they claim they follow.
But that could be work and a little to revealing.
By their fruits you shall know them.
The pig headed sheriff
Perhaps his belief now is that no one saw it coming?
When COVID-19 began its evolution to a pandemic and social distancing and quarantining became a way to slow its spread, people expressed concern for those incarcerated in federal and state prisons, county jails, and ICE detention centers. Unlike those on the outside, these people are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to these preventative practices, so it was proposed that those whose sentences were just short of being completed, those only sitting in jails waiting for their day in court for an alleged nonviolent crime because they could not make bail, and those who had been convicted of minor nonviolent crimes be released with provisions made, such as house arrest, for those who would have to return.
Like what has been done in the case of Paul Manafort, a convicted felon.
But when that proposal was made in Massachusetts, Bristol County Sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, with more than half of his inmates yet to have their day in court, and according to common law are still considered innocent as they have yet to be found guilty, was dead set against the idea.
He consistently claims that he has created conditions in his facilities that can stave off the virus.
When it came to the proposal to release some ICE detainees in his ICE detention unit to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 there, he opposed that as well.
His official response covering all facilities was,
“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described. We continue to monitor the Corona virus situation; it is fluid and changing daily.”
The sheriff said he has the capability to keep prisoners safe from the pandemic, claiming
“We’ve not had any circumstances with any inmates here indicating [that they may have the corona virus].”
While explaining that if there were any inmates in his jails who had or were carrying the virus, they would bring it out into the larger community, he seemed to have ignored that his staff, as well as he himself, were leaving and re-entering his facilities on a daily basis and could be exposed to the virus when off-duty while bringing it back with them when on.
And, while making this claim, three staff members at his facility had tested positive for Covid-19, and, obviously, these three had, like all other staff, left and re-entered his facilities on a regular basis.
His mantra became that he had a handle on the virus and was preventing it from entering his jails and the ICE detention unit housed on his North Dartmouth campus.
However, conditions may not have been as clean and manageable as the sheriff had been claiming, especially as he justified giving his staff a well deserved raise because,
“My staff has to come into a very challenging environment, and we’ve actually asked them to do quite a bit more to minimize the risks of people contracting the disease in here. They have to go through decontamination and when they go home the first thing they have to do is wash their clothes. So, these are really are sort of over-and-above precautionary things that they otherwise wouldn’t have had to do. And certainly, dealing with the inmates and the new protocols and things that we have, I felt that they were definitely worthy of it.”
“The ongoing efforts of our team and attention to detail regarding the historic challenge before us have been amazing. Provided we remain mindful and vigilant with our social distancing and personal sanitation, both here and in the community, we can reach our shared goal of preventing our inmate population, us, and our families from becoming exposed to and infected by COVID-19.”
“So far we don’t have any COVID-19 cases, knock on wood, in regards to our inmates and detainees. We hopefully won’t have any, but we’ll see. We’ve asked them to take extra precautions and disciplines, and we’re grateful for that.”
Bristol County for Correctional Justice, an ad hoc committee of local citizens concerned about conditions in the facilities run by Hodgson, has in its possession a letter from 47 inmates listing the unhealthy conditions that the sheriff claims do not exist, a list that contradicts the sheriff’s claim that everything is just fine.
His having to modify his assessment somewhat from totally safe to “an environment that is dangerous”, would imply the direction is not good.
In spite of this, however, he continues to play tough, and this resulted in U.S. District Court Judge William Young charging Sheriff Hodgson with “deliberate indifference” toward the people in his custody.
While using the term “Criminal illegal aliens” to subliminally implant a certain image in the minds of the people of the community, he totally misrepresents these people at every turn, going so far as to release a public information tool he calls the “Prisoner Release Alert System” on Facebook and his website that lists what he claims are criminal charges and convictions against individual immigration detainees, implying these are who is being released when, not only not connecting any names to the alleged crimes as Massachusetts law governs the way criminal records are publicized, but knowing no one can verify his claims.
He also hopes that people will assume this is who the court and advocates want released, when, in actuality, release is for those, as I said earlie whose sentences were just short of being completed, those only sitting in jails waiting for their day in court for an alleged nonviolent crime because they could not make bail, and those who had been convicted of minor nonviolent crimes with provisions made, such as house arrest, for those who would have to return.
Either he is purposely lying to the people of Bristol County to create the fear of “Others”, or he is deliberately releasing people not included in the court decision or the advocacy of social justice groups and the inmates’ attorneys as a way to thumb his nose at them.
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His actions are totally innocent and justified, while those who criticize him are pushing a political agenda.
After a “riot” at his ICE detention facility, the sheriff explained away those demanding an independent investigation of what led up to the incident and how it was handled because the detainees are,
“the same people who have been calling their attorneys and advocate groups, saying that they need to be released because they’re going to get contaminated because it’s too dangerous in here.”
And, he asks, “Why do you guys keep listening to inmates who lie to you and then take it as gospel?”
Yet while claiming that those involved in the altercation were opposed to being tested, he has chosen to ignore that inmates, advocates, and lawyers have been demanding testing for two months prior to May 1 when the sheriff told detainees to gather their possessions and report for testing.
Demands for testing went back to the beginning of March, so the testing was not the issue, but the timing, speed, and the need to pack their things for removal were, with the Detainees’ opposition stemming from the sudden need to be tested quickly, the possibility of being removed from their unit where the tests could already have been done, and being placed in solitary confinement.
Now it has been released that six Bristol County Sheriff’s Office staff members and nine inmates in the general population have tested positive for COVID-19, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported one positive test among its detainees.
In spite of these new numbers coming from a place where it just would not happen, the sheriff’s defense is to veer from any responsibility on his part to attempting to distract by giving the impression that the only negative would be the bad attitude his critics have toward those upon whom we all rely during this pandemic.
“The COVID pandemic has taken a toll on our country. In the middle of this national epidemic, essential workers like those in corrections, law enforcement, and health care have joined others at grocery stores, gas stations and other places in reporting to work to keep our country going. They deserve an enormous amount of credit.”
And they are getting it.
Releasing eligible inmates and detainees is a separate issue.
When he gave his staff that raise, his attempt was to paint his critics as being anti-staff when in reality no one was criticizing the staff, but, rather, were consistently and clearly criticizing him.
Now he is pushing those upon whom we rely and those to whom we show respect in front of him to take the bullet.
There are 11 groups, Bristol County for Correctional Justice, Unidad Latina en Accion, the Coalition for Social Justice, the New Bedford Chapter of the NAACP, the Community Economic Development Center, the New Bedford Immigrant Support Network, the Business Innovation Center, Centro Communitario de Trabajadores, the Episcopal City Mission, Marching Forward, and the Southeastern Mass Labor Council, calling on Sheriff Thomas Hodgson to resign.
The local newspaper, with a cozy relationship with the sheriff and which often credits a former reporter who is now the sheriff’s spokesperson with being a contributing writer, in its reporting of this demand has labeled the coalition as a “progressive group” playing along with the sheriff’s political agenda of having any critic being a political enemy as the sheriff, along with being a conservative, is the co-chair of the state’s Trump reelection committee.
According to this group, the decision of U.S. District Court Judge William Young that called Hodgson’s treatment of his inmates “deliberate indifference” toward the people in his custody that violates the 8th Amendment’s proscription against “cruel and unusual” punishment
“along with calls for investigations by our entire Congressional delegation and the State Senate, into the recent violent confrontation of the Sheriff against defenseless people detained in the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facility in Dartmouth, demonstrate that the Sheriff is clearly unfit to manage the Bristol County House of Correction. It is clear that the Sheriff has broken the law and has placed the lives of those in his care in danger. Sheriff Hodgson must resign immediately to allow authorities to implement lawful measures to ensure the safe and efficient care of federal detainees and people in jail in the county jails.”
Remember, this sheriff has a high recidivism rate, claims all his inmate woes are based on 80% of them having a drug addiction while he has no effective program to deal with that, and leads the county jails in the state in the number of suicides.
Whereas he has claimed there was no need to test inmates or release those who could reasonably be released, he certainly has to admit now that he had been wrong and should have given up his tough guy image for caution, and will do that now.
In spite of being told ways to avoid the virus spreading in his facilities, he steadfastly held that he, and he alone, would be the one able to stave off the virus by doing things his way and his alone.
Unless he is that kid who, in spite of all the evidence, desperately clings to a belief in Santa Claus even as it is obvious he should just stop, perhaps he will now close the barn door before all the horses get out.
Or resign unless he has the temerity to acknowledge his error and rectify it.
Fortuitous Revenge
In the mid 1970s I was teaching in New Rochelle, New York, and when I was home with my family for Christmas break one year I went into Boston for a day, and as I headed back to the train I went into a musical instrument store on Boylston Street. The store had been there since to 19th Century and it was the one that many professional musicians frequented through the years.
What had enticed me to go in was a set of bagpipes I saw through the window that was in a display case. I always wanted a set of pipes and I was curious about the price.
It was a full set of Highland pipes with drones, mouthpiece, and chanter made of African ebony with real ivory trims and mounts, and an authentic suede bag covered with the tartan of the Black Watch, the Forty Twa.
I was surprised with the low price, but as the clerk explained, they had bought the set from a person who sold it to the store for a very low price to cure a financial problem, and pipes not being something they dealt with, they wanted to just move it along.
They allowed me to make a small down payment, and a week or two later I was able to get back to pay the balance.
I played various woodwind instruments among them the recorder, and it did not take long to see that the fingering was easy because of that.
Filling the bag and keeping it filled was the problem.
A fellow teacher in New Rochelle, who was also an auxiliary NYC police officer, introduced me to the officer who led the NYCPD Bagpipe contingent who solved that problem by telling me to fill the bag until the chanter had an erection, his language was quite colorful, and then just blow into the bag to keep it filled.
I had that set of pipes for about 15 years before they were taken by someone with discerning taste who had broken into my apartment in Long Beach, California also taking other objects that were not run of the mill fencible items.
Before that I had playfully used the pipes at a Christmas party or two, impromptu mini-parades accompanying people entering certain functions, once paddling a canoe to the middle of the lake near my house when I lived in a small town to play one tune before paddling back so no one would see me, and then hearing people at the Laundromat the next day talk about hearing pipes the night before, and driving my special Education students crazy by playing them one day in my class in Carson, California.
As I was untrained, I never did anything “official” with the pipes, but I had a set, and I played them for my enjoyment, official anything be damned.
Then they were gone.
After a pipeless 30 years, I saw a set of pipes for sale on the internet.
Again, someone was experiencing financial difficulty and the price was close to giving them away.
During the COVID-19 quarantining, as social gatherings were out, I kept putting aside whatever money I would have spent hanging out with friends at the bar on each day I would have done that, so that I could buy something for myself on my approaching landmark birthday.
To my surprise, in full honesty, it was quite an amount when looked at all together instead of a beer here and a drink or two there.
And I came upon the pipes.
Unlike the antique quality of my first set, these were Great Highland Bagpipes with rosewood drones, mouthpiece, and chanter with metal silver trims and mounts with a black velvet cover and matching cord, and the seller was throwing in a practice chanter that makes Erectile Dysfunction is a sexual ailment in which a man is unable to get and sustain an erection during sexual activity. levitra buy generic There were some studies go to web-site buy uk viagra which also proved that riding a bicycle also affects your love life. Cheap Kamagra as the cost of tadalafil best care- Over the past decade, the demand of the tablets at discounted prices. The solution of acupressure is not a pfizer viagra 100mg replacement for medications. it possible to play in my apartment without annoying the neighbors with what should only be played outdoors.
I will most likely rarely play them in public, if at all, but my dream of owning and then potentially replacing the stolen set has been realized.
And on the up side, in full disclosure, the price only put a dent in my bar savings.
And perhaps, if the imp in me possesses me enough to do it, I can use them for revenge.
At the beginning of last summer, a tenant moved into the apartment above me.
The previous tenants were aware of the constraints on apartment living enough to be rarely heard. Once in a while when they had friends over there were footfalls on my ceiling, but that was only occasional.
The new tenant has apparently never lived in an apartment before, and if he had, he was probably as bad a neighbor then as he is now.
He begins each morning jumping out of bed with a thud that shakes the ceiling fan in my bedroom and then, I assume, makes his bed which involves dragging the thing around the room, moving it rather than walking around it, unless he just likes to move his bed around.
He spends the next hour clomping from one room to another in a never ending procession often moving furniture on the hard wood floors, and, for some reason, dragging pieces of it from room to room. When he leaves for work, he slams the backdoor shut and then loudly plods down the back stairs.
When he returns, the clomping goes up the stairs, followed by a slamming of the backdoor and in apartment clomping and furniture movement. He seems to spend most of his time rearranging the living room furniture and this is often accompanied on a nightly basis of large objects falling to the floor, something that has woken me out of a deep sleep when he follows this practice after returning from a night with friends and the bars close.
Sometime he blesses me with more than one large thudding.
Both my landlord and the building’s maintenance man have been in my apartment when something heavy has been dropped, and I asked if, perhaps, my neighbor had some infirmity that causes him to fall to the floor occasionally which, it turns out, is not the case.
His interpretation of quarantine and social distancing seems to be that these apply to his going someplace, so he often has groups of people over who join in on the clomping and furniture moving as it is incessant until the last one clomps down the back stairs.
On more than one occasion, besides hanging pictures after midnight, he has seemed to be building something in his apartment that requires late night hammering, and on at least one occasion my neighbors have come to their backdoors because the volume of the late night hammering sounded like some construction was taking place on the shared back stairs.
Short of banging on my ceiling or the heating pipes, I have been at a loss as to some way to be equally annoying. I don‘t like confrontation especially if a request for some consideration can be met with a deliberate increase of annoying behavior,
Now, sitting on the top of my curio cabinet, I have my answer.
The pipes.
Another day of home schooling.
Was he speaking in code?
According to Trump, Obama committed “the biggest political crime in American history”, and that claim, devoid of details, is how he left it at his Monday afternoon press conference.
When a reporter ask what the crime actually had been, Trump may have waxed Trumpian, but omitted any details.
“Obamagate. It’s been going for a long time. It’s been going on from before I even got elected and it’s a disgrace that it happened and if you look at what’s gone on and if you look at all of this information that’s been released and from what I understand it’s only the beginning.
Terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again. And you’ll be seeing what’s going on, over the coming weeks but I wish you’d write honestly about it but unfortunately you choose not to do so.”
Not sure of what “all of this information that’s been released” was, another reporter that Trump turned to in order to get away from the first reporter sought some details, asking,
“What is the crime exactly that you’re accusing him of?”
Trump, as if asked to name some of all those people who are always telling him in great numbers that what he does is the best, responded,
“You know what the crime is, the crime is very obvious to everybody all you have to do is read the newspapers
He publicly accused President Obama of committing a crime, but wouldn’t say what the crime was.
And who does he call on as the witness to his contention?
The very source he says is fake and untruthful.
The media.
In previous statements, among many, he has declared,
“The media is—really, the word, I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with—is fake, I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years, but I’ve never noticed it,”
“Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. … What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
“The news is fake because so much of the news is fake.”
In deciding whether you’re experiencing Low T symptoms, our hormone replacement therapy doctor and medical staff will ask you a few questions and have you take a blood test. bought here order viagra prescription Finally, the form of cialis 5 mg the gel drug offers different ways of a dealing with different of anxiety owed different causes. Far too a whole lot of alcohol intake can lead to erectile dysfunction. viagra cost australia The blood valves present inside the cialis lowest prices penis to produce the functions that are normally performed by the body.“You [the media] know, you’re dishonest people.
“The FAKE NEWS media is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
“Totally biased NBCNews went out of its way to say that the big announcement from Ford, G.M., Lockheed & others that jobs are coming back…to the U.S., but had nothing to do with TRUMP, is more FAKE NEWS. Ask top CEO’s of those companies for real facts. Came back because of me!”
This was after NBC did a story revealing the announcements were largely market-driven and were in the works before Trump was elected.
“They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community. And I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number-one stop is exactly the opposite — exactly.”
At the time Trump had disparaged the intelligence community.
“Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!”
Trump’s tweet was in response to a Washington Post story a day earlier about a tense phone call between the two leaders, an assessment that was borne out by the transcript.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none. I saw one story recently where they said, “Nine people have confirmed.” There’re no nine people.”
“Don’t let the FAKE NEWS tell you that there is big infighting in the Trump Admin. We are getting along great, and getting major things done!”
“Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.”
“Fake News story of secret dinner with Putin is ‘sick.’ All G 20 leaders, and spouses, were invited by the Chancellor of Germany. Press knew!”
The press had referred to the dinner as “private”, not “secret”.
“Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?”
“In analyzing the Alabama Primary race, FAKE NEWS always fails to mention that the candidate I endorsed went up MANY points after endorsement!”
So, based on his verifiable attitude that the media only disseminates fake news, in telling us publicly without any details that the source of his claim is clearly in what the media has reported, is Trump actually telling us in a secretive way that Obamagate is not a true thing at all if his proof of it can only be found in the media?