Bo$ton Globe Backfire

Was bound to happen after they were firing in all directions:

"While Washington stalls, activists see optimism in gun control efforts at the state level" by Victoria McGrane Globe Staff, August 6, 2019

Gun-control advocates have scored major victories in red states as well as blue ones in recent years, bolstering their optimism even as they acknowledge that odds remain long that Washington will respond with federal legislation to the twin massacres in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio.

Activists and experts say their success in enacting gun-control legislation at the state level reflects the growing public clout the movement has gained since 20 first-graders and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

You get in trouble if you say Sandy Hook was a staged crisis drill and production, despite the voluminous videos and evidence that has been presented in the aftermath, and I should have seen this coming after they threw the book at us back in July.

While Congress has not passed meaningful gun-control legislation in decades, achievements in more than 40 states reflect the strength of a movement that is able to go toe-to-toe with the historically powerful National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups, activists contend.

“When you hear people say 20 first-graders were killed at Sandy Hook and nothing happened and that’s when it all became hopeless . . . that’s just false,” said Kristin Goss, a Duke University political scientist who studies the gun-control movement. “The gun violence prevention movement of today is just leagues larger, more strategic, better funded, more energetic than it was probably at any point in history.”

Sandy Hook and, later, the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in particular, sparked the formation of new groups and energized a young generation of activists who have in turn been the force behind legislative change, experts and activists say.

“There is progress being made,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, an anti-gun-violence group formed after Sandy Hook that boasts nearly 6 million supporters. She said she finds it “so frustrating” to hear people say nothing happened after that shooting, “because we happened,” noting her group tripled in size after Parkland.

Since Sandy Hook, 45 states and Washington, D.C., have put into place more than 300 new gun laws, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a national advocacy organization based in San Francisco.

In the year and a half since Parkland, where a former student killed 17 students and staff with a semiautomatic rifle, lawmakers across 32 states and D.C. have enacted 110 gun safety bills, according to the Giffords center. Those include measures to strengthen background checks, close private sale loopholes, and implement “red flag” laws that give judges the power to temporarily strip weapons away from people identified as a danger to themselves or others by law enforcement, family, or other close associates.

Parkland was from the same playbook, crisis actors and all.

In 16 states, Republican governors have been the ones to sign the post-Parkland laws. That includes Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, who put his signature on a red flag law a year ago, making the state one of 17 to put that particular type of law in place, and on Tuesday in Ohio, the Republican governor bucked his party and called on the GOP-led state Legislature to pass a slew of gun bills, including a red flag law and a measure that would require background checks for nearly all sales.

‘‘We can come together to do these things to save lives,’’ said Governor Mike DeWine.

That little weasel, and it actually is contradicted by the evidence. An armed citizen that can respond right away saves more lives than the reactive authorities; however, such things don't fit the pre$$ narrative and are either underplayed or completely ignored.

Each horrific shooting gets more people off the sidelines and fighting for stronger gun laws, Watts said. Her group takes credit at the state level across the country for thwarting efforts that would have allowed guns on college campuses, armed elementary and high school teachers, repealed laws requiring permits to carry concealed guns, or established expansive “stand your ground” self-defense rights even in cases where retreat is an option.

I love that last one. It means you can be charged with a crime if a criminal breaks into your home and you don't run out the back door. Property rights are only for the ruling cla$$, which never has to worry about such things (hmmmm). I mean, when was the last time any one of them got mowed down at a shindig? When something does happen to one of them, say a plane crash or head shot assassination, it's from the very forces and cla$$ of which they are a part.

This year alone, gun-control activists defeated bills backed by the gun lobby in 26 states, according to the Giffords center. Legislation to arm teachers and other civilian staff on K-12 campuses — an NRA-backed proposal for which President Trump expressed support after the Parkland massacre — failed in 18 states, but the NRA and gun rights movement have hardly been neutered, despite being mired in scandal and in-fighting. Top staff have been accused of mismanagement, and in recent months, the NRA’s president was ousted and its top lobbyist resigned amid the turmoil, yet the nation’s most powerful gun lobby continues to be a powerful force in Washington, particularly with key Republicans and the president.....

Cease fire! Cease fire!

--more--"

They are “pretty skeptical” Congress will pass any stronger gun laws now, but in Republican districts, swing districts, and Democratic-held districts, 43 federal races where a candidate backed by Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun-control organization funded by former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York won last time so.....

"‘Red flag’ gun control bills gain favor with GOP in Congress" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg New York Times, August 6, 2019

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans, under pressure to respond to the weekend’s massacres, appear to be coalescing around legislation to help law enforcement take guns from those who pose an imminent danger — a measure that, if signed into law, would be the most significant gun safety legislation in 20 years.

I guess the New York Times reporter sees it differently. Either that, or the Globe reporter is naive.

“Red flag” laws such as this might not be as momentous — or controversial — as the now-expired assault weapons ban or the instant background check system, both of which were enacted in 1994 as part of President Bill Clinton’s sprawling crime bill, but they may be politically feasible.

That which led to the racist mass incarceration of black men -- it did clean up the cities for a while, even the Globe will admit that. Boston was basically a war zone in the early 1990s -- is all forgotten with no one yelling racist (or rapist!) at Billy C.

With President Trump endorsing the idea, a number of Republicans — including Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the number two Republican — are embracing the concept. Thune told his hometown newspaper, The Argus Leader, that he was “confident Congress will be able to find common ground on the so-called red flag issue.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has already proposed federal grants to states to help them enact red flag laws, also known as “extreme risk protection orders,” and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has asked three committee chairmen to “reflect on the subjects the president raised” and hold bipartisan talks of “potential solutions.”

Related:

"The reelection campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, on Tuesday decried the actions of protesters outside his Louisville, Ky., home over the weekend as ‘‘serious calls to violence’’ and said it had notified law enforcement. A group of 20 to 30 people gathered outside McConnell’s home on Sunday night, with some voicing threats and shouting profanities during a protest that was broadcast on Facebook Live, according to an account in the New York Post. The protesters reportedly were responding to McConnell’s refusal thus far to allow the Republican-led Senate to consider bills passed by the Democratic-led House that seek to strengthen background checks for gun sales. The protest followed the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that left 31 people dead. The senator was reportedly home recovering from a fractured shoulder at the time of the protest. Facebook video captured a moment where one of the protesters urged another to stab a voodoo doll representing McConnell in the heart. 

I'm going to break in here, and it is in no defense of McConnell, but can you imagine the fear that old fart must have felt? He has a broken shoulder so he is particularly vulnerable. 

Of course, he probably had a gun handy, right? I mean, a lot of members of Congre$$ are packing. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.

In tweets Tuesday, McConnell’s campaign characterized the protesters as ‘‘an angry left-wing mob of Amy McGrath supporters,’’ referencing a Democrat who is seeking to topple McConnell in next year’s election in Kentucky. ‘‘These threats go far beyond a political cartoon or a broken shoulder, they are serious calls to physical violence and we’ve alerted law enforcement,’’ the campaign said in one of its tweets. In another tweet, the campaign referenced another episode over the weekend in which several McConnell supporters wearing ‘‘Team Mitch’’ T-shirts were photographed around a cardboard cutout of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, with some groping it and kissing it. In a tweet Monday night directed at McConnell, Ocasio-Cortez asked whether the Senate leader was ‘‘paying for young men to practice groping & choking members of Congress w/ your payroll, or is this just the standard culture of #TeamMitch?’’ The McConnell campaign’s tweets on Tuesday suggested that McConnell faced a far greater danger. ‘‘Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and liberal Twitter personalities are trying to dox some underage kids for taking a photo with a cutout at the Fancy Farm political picnic and are cheering on thousands of accounts calling for Senator McConnell to ‘break his neck,’ ‘‘ a campaign tweet said."

So once again we have staged and approved, controlled-opposition protests that are streamed live by Facebook(!!) exposing the whole agenda-pushing quality of the production. Everything I am reading is either some sort of contrived fakery, or a public perception management campaign that is based on imagery and illusion and is pure propaganda.

I guess you better get the message, Mitch. You know what will happen if you stand your ground. Some unfortunate accident.

Seventeen states, including Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia already have red flag laws, but the push for them on Capitol Hill stops well short of the legislation mandating universal background checks that Democrats and gun control advocates — as well as a handful of Republicans — have been clamoring for. Already, Democrats are warning that Republicans will use Graham’s proposal to skirt the larger issue.

“Right now I can sense from my conversations with Republican colleagues that they are really grappling and struggling — scrambling may be too strong a word — but they are really searching for some steps that are meaningful,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who is partnering with Graham on the red flag bill, said Tuesday. “And there’s nothing more strongly supported by the American people than background checks.”

Blumenthal and other Democrats are demanding that McConnell bring the Senate back from its August recess to pass two House bills to expand background checks to Internet and gun show purchases, and to allow the FBI more time to investigate a would-be gun buyer flagged by the current background check system. “The measures that have been passed by the House are absolutely necessary,” Blumenthal said. “A red flag statute is by no means enough.”

Gun violence has been one of the most divisive and intractable issues in Washington, and even gun control advocates conceded that getting the House bill through the Senate would be a heavy lift. The evidence for whether red flag laws work to prevent gun violence is inconclusive, according to a study by the RAND Corp. of the effectiveness of gun safety measures, but emerging evidence suggests temporary removal laws can have a measurable effect on suicide deaths. Research in Connecticut and Indiana has found that the enforcement of the laws saved lives — about one fewer suicide for every 10 to 20 cases of gun removals. Suicides represent around two-thirds of all gun deaths in the United States.

That means take they away from the vets who commit suicide to the tune of about 23 a day, and there is nothing but silence from the pre$$ on that and the mass-murdering violence of wars based on lies with a collaborative pre$$ bull horning the headlines. 

No, the focus is on the mass shooting events, these massacres, and now we must have tougher gun control to prevent even one suicide, as the deaths due to opioids, alcohol, and tobacco pile up, and poisons befoul the environment, I could go on, but you get the point. This gun grab in the wake of these events are now being pushed based on emotion. The ma$$ media has you all worked up into a tizzy. Do something, anything!

Btw, two of the most notorious gun confiscation regimes were The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, where all armaments were under legal authority with no private ownership. How did those turn out? You going to answer that knock at the door?

Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University, who studied the laws in both states, said his work showed that the laws could make a difference, even if they did not prevent mass shootings. Suicide “is certainly an important problem if you think about public health and mortality,” he said.

An analysis by gun control organization Everytown for Gun Safety of mass shootings — which it defines as those in which four or more people, not including the gunman, are killed — between 2009 and 2017 found that roughly half of the gunmen exhibited warning signs before the killings.

Oh, that's Bloomberg's group (sigh)!

Everytown advocates also point to the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where the gunman exhibited such troubling behavior, according to one neighbor, that his mother would on occasion call police. After the massacre of 17 students and staff members, Florida joined a number of other states in passing red flag laws.

(Blog editor pauses for a moment and reflects on how idiotic this whole agenda and cover story crap has become)

Gun control advocates are extremely enthusiastic about the possibility that Graham’s measure could become law. The legislation is still being drafted, and advocates have not taken a position on it, but Monday, John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, cited red flag laws as one of his two top priorities, along with background check legislation.

That's the president of Bloomberg's group, so you can see jwho wants to disarm you and turn us all into..... Palestinians! Think about it! Israel doesn't let guns in there! They are firing off homemade bottle rockets and floating balloons that are on fire over the border!

“The president spoke this morning,” Feinblatt said, shortly after Trump made his Monday remarks, “and if we’re to take him at his word, what he should be doing today is calling Mitch McConnell and getting a public pledge from him that he will call the Senate back immediately and take up a bipartisan background check and red flag legislation.”

Yeah, give him everything he wants as he gives this whole thing a big shove!

--more--"

Here comes the president's motorcade now:

"Trump will visit El Paso and Dayton, despite his critics’ advice to stay away" by John Wagner Washington Post, August 6, 2019

WASHINGTON — President Trump is preparing to visit Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso on Wednesday, appearances that will not be universally welcomed as the two cities grieve after weekend mass shootings that left 31 dead and many injured and rattled.

This bothers me. It's not like I like they or anything, he's exposed himself for the Zionist tool he is so he is probably in no danger, but why risk it? I still don't want anything to happen to our presidents, I didn't want harm to come to Bush or Obama, I don't want harm to this guy. It would be a terrible tragedy for our country no matter what you think of him, and we know it wouldn't be what we are told (besides, why not heart attack him after a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, Breaking News, a somber Lester Holt, it's official, President Trump died at 9:11 p.m., you know the script).

What I could see us being sold; however, is some betrayed white supremacist, right, right, who, after hearing of the trip, meanders on to the grassy knoll and echoes..... 

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway confirmed Trump’s plans on Tuesday, saying he ‘‘has wanted to go there since he learned of these tragedies.’’

Conway suggested Trump’s itinerary would be similar to those for other visits following mass shootings and natural disasters, trips that have included meetings with those affected and with law enforcement officials and first responders.

Several Democratic officials have urged Trump not to visit El Paso, a city of about 683,000 with a largely Latino population, in the aftermath of Saturday’s anti-immigrant attack at a Walmart Supercenter, which left 22 dead, and on Tuesday afternoon, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat, encouraged people unhappy with Trump’s upcoming visit to the city of about 140,000 to protest.

‘‘I think people should stand up and say they’re not happy if they’re not happy he’s coming,’’ Whaley told reporters.

Oh, that is so wrong. Protest now? It means the political opportunism and agenda-pushing overrides the unity and grief. It calls into question the veracity of the events themselves, and could lead to further violence -- and maybe that is the point.

The gunman in Dayton killed nine people early Sunday.

El Paso officials are still investigating but believe the alleged gunman posted a manifesto online that echoed Trump’s harsh rhetoric on immigrants, describing his attack as ‘‘a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.’’

--more--"

Please cancel the trip, Mr. PreZident, because  MSNBC’s ‘‘Morning Joe.’’ said you are ‘‘not welcome.’’ 

Stay out of California, too.

Related:

"Venezuelans were bracing for more hardship Tuesday after President Trump announced plans to impose a Cuba-style embargo against what he called the ‘‘illegitimate’’ government of President Nicolás Maduro. ‘‘No dictator has been ousted due to an embargo,’’ said Neyda London, a 54-year-old store manager who was filling her car at a gas station in the capital Tuesday. ‘‘I do appreciate, though, that the international pressure continues.’’ Trump’s executive order late Monday imposes a full embargo on Maduro’s government, putting the nation on a footing similar to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. The measure follows months of stiffening sanctions. The oil-rich country is already struggling under hyperinflation and power outages."

That's a lot to digest in a small article; however, the last item and link is because of U.S. sanctions, as Venezuela joins a very exclusive club that is in the crosshairs of the American Empire!

Beyond that, you wonder where they find these people who say I'd rather suffer and starve, thanks. If I were here I would start driving towards Colombia and set in motion that class action immigration lawsuit as the rest of the world reacts to El Paso shooting with concerns about guns, Trump, and white nationalism.

Trump's ideological son says expanded background checks wouldn’t prevent mass shootings, but it is self-evident that guns are still the problem and the Second Amendment must be repealed. 

"Why some white men go ‘bang’" by Ty Burr Globe Staff, August 5, 2019

It's also black men, Muslim men, I don't get it. The art critic has a prejudice against skin color?

Is it the guns or the insecure little boys who wield them?

Now he is going to play armchair psychologist, too? Something he learned in the movies (that are full of explosions and gunfire. It's called the action genre)

Anyone who has had kids has witnessed the moment. A toddler of about 3 or 4 will pick up a stick and, for the first time, point it at someone or something and say bang. It’s always boys. It’s never girls. I saw it hit my daughters’ play groups during pre-K. In fact, I remember the specific boy who did it first and the other boys who immediately imitated him until a little make-believe Montessori gun battle was raging. Little primates passing along the virus of domination.

Yeah, where did you get that idea, kiddo?!

Oddly enough, my first memories were love for the piggy bank, and think about what a mind-manipulating piece of indoctrination and inculcation that was to the kid, huh? Banks are good, and you can't imagine an existence without them!

Beyond that, this thing that came above the fold on the front page, is starting off as insulting as yesterday's op-ed.

Being a movie critic, I thought of Stanley Kubrick and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the scene of the first ape to pick up a bone and turn it into a weapon, and of all the prehistoric creatures who followed, even up to when they called themselves men.

Here’s news to no one: We are in a crisis of male insecurity in this country, specifically white male insecurity. The insecurity is prompted by, among other things, the demands of women and minorities for an equal share of the pie, the megaphone of the Internet that has allowed those groups a louder voice, and their increasing success at the local and national ballot box. Or, rather, the insecurity is prompted by fear of these developments — the belief that if other kinds of people achieve a measure of political power, there’ll be less for the men who always had it.

This is all projection but the Bo$ton Globe film critic. He's hammering the agenda and narrative right at the top, then delves into the bid, bad Internet that is putting them out of business except for the small elite cla$$ that still subscribes. That's the insecurity and fear he is talking about, the same that shows through in Israel's Zionist zealots and defenders, the one form of supremacism that is not spoken in my jew$paper.

To which the toddler brain says bang bang, but with real bullets and full magazines.

How insultingly elitist! We are all children out here!

I was one of those little boys once, I’m sure of it. I grew up. Part of my growing up was learning to shoot a rifle and shoot it well, and to understand what it should and should never be pointed at. I believe in responsible gun ownership, and I believe that by far the majority of Americans do, too, but even part of that majority loses its head when common-sense gun reform is discussed, because we have this strange idea in America, inflamed by the National Rifle Association and other vested entities, that guns are not only intimately entwined with liberty — with one’s personal and political freedom — but with one’s independence and potency as a male. There’s this notion that taking away the right to own a certain type of firearm will lead to a national unmanning.

What about the vested entities on the other side that he agrees with? In it for the altruism, huh?

The fact is, the gun has everything to do with liberty for it limits the amount of oppression a government can put on its citizens. That's why we are seeing this now. Something real bad is coming, and this government and its mouthpiece media want to silence and disarm all dissent. 

As for it being some sort of penis thing, that's his interpretation as an armchair psychoanalyst. I don't feel that way, although I must confess that the gay/trans agenda is out to unman -- but that's a different subject for a different post.

Btw, the wars based on lies blared from the headlines of the pre$$? The biggest male potency prover there is. Remember the cheers for Trump when he bombed Syria over the fabricated chemical attacks and factories? He was finally being presidential, meaning the mass murder of innocents is required to hold the office. 

All in a vacuum as this rank agenda and narrative is pushed by what is without a doubt one of the worst papers in the country. They are the ones blinded by hate and fomenting it as well.

Which, honestly, does not sound like a bad idea right about now. I, for one, am ready to hand the entire mess that is our dysfunctional society over to the women, but for a certain individual out on the fringes, a man who feels threatened and whose fear has been stoked, reaching for the boom-boom stick may be like reaching for the security blanket.

He's been watching to many movies, because the sickening stereotypes that are coming from him are offensive and insulting, and this idea that women from the same ruling cla$$ would be preventing wars.... HA! Golda Meier, Thatcher, etc, etc. It was Clinton, Rice, and Powers who pushed Obama into Libya!

The issue is certainly not video games, for pity’s sakes. Republican politicians and the bloviators on Fox News will tell you that “Call of Duty” and “Fortnite” are behind the carnage in El Paso and Dayton, the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the Poway synagogue in California. Do they understand how many millions of people play video games and don’t become mass murderers? That virtually everyone under 35 knows his or her way around a gaming console? A recent Oxford study found no correlation whatsoever between violent video game use and aggressive behavior in adolescents. One of the Sandy Hook killer’s favorite games was “Dance Dance Revolution.” Maybe we should ban that.

Maybe we should, and of course, blame isn't to be laid at that money-making training program for the military or the industry of which the critic is a part.

Want to blame mental illness? Every human society on earth has its share. No other country has even close to the number of mass shootings as the United States. Nor are social media or violence in movies and on TV the convenient villains some might hope for. The former empowers and educates as much as it divides and foments; the latter is more a symptom of the male need for bang bang than a cause.

The mixed messages and hypocritical contradictions are firing off so fast I'm ducking down and taking cover.

Honestly, it’s not even the guns. OK, it’s mostly the guns, but when you burrow down to the diseased heart of it all, what is shared by the worst mass killings in America — the ones with the highest body counts, the biggest amount of ordnance, and the most random victims — is that they are carried out by aggrieved white men who feel the country and the world slipping from their control. Which it is, very slowly but very surely, and probably about time, too.

Yeah, the inner-city gang violence that is an endless drip-drip doesn't count.

These men want their bang bang back — the feeling of indominability they feel they were promised and believed their kind once had. They see their power waning, their privilege finally in question, and it terrifies them. So they lash out, often at co-workers or spouses and girlfriends, and sometimes they pick up the biggest stick they can find and go after the boogeyman of them. Which, when all the shooting’s over and the bullets have been spent, always turns out to be men, women, children; fathers, mothers, grandparents. Republicans and Democrats. New Americans and old, not them (sic), in other words. Just us (sic).

So he ends it by making it an us vs them issue!

He's as bad as the people he is criticizing, and the stereotypes he is pushing ore outrageous!

--more--"

That is going to be the legacy of Reagan despite the dead black woman on the front page.

I suppose the "Don't Tread on Me, Live Free or Die State" is the last place we should go now, but.....

"Biden, Sanders, and Warren top post-debate survey of N.H. Democrats" by James Pindell Globe Staff, August 6, 2019

The first poll of likely New Hampshire Democrats since last week’s debates shows that penetrating the top tier of three candidates might be tougher than ever in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

I was told there weren't going to be anymore polls.

With six months until the anticipated February 2020 contest, a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released Tuesday found former vice president Joe Biden the leader among likely Democratic primary voters with 21 percent. In second, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had 17 percent, and, in third, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had 14 percent.

Where is that waste can?

“This is shaping up to be a race between three candidates who all cannot figure out how to get past each other, and then everyone else who [is] really vying for fourth place or just survival,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, who conducted the survey.

Hey, they have already done the work for you, voter!

In fourth place is Senator Kamala Harris of California at 8 percent, followed by South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 6 percent and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii at 3 percent.

I was very, very surprised to se that last name in the mix!

Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about the race.

This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half — 48 percent — of his supporters said they would definitely vote for him, including Douglas Deaett, a 70-year-old retired emergency room doctor from Hanover.

“Bernie has been dedicated to his polices for a long time,” said Deaett. “Most of the other contenders are riding his coattails and wouldn’t work as hard to bring his ideas to fruition.”

I'm a loyal Bernie bro. Only problem is I'm white.

Some 45 percent of Biden’s supporters say they have found their candidate, while 35 percent of Warren’s supporters consider themselves committed, according to the poll.

There are signs in the poll, however, that Warren might have the most room to grow in the next six months. She was by far the most popular second choice of respondents, with 21 percent saying they would back her after their first choice.

“This is an especially important number now that a number of candidates could drop out soon, and shows how she could grow,” Paleologos said.

Another key number for Warren: 60 percent of voters say they are open to changing their mind and might look to their second choice.

Meet your safety valve against Sanders and likely Democratic nominee. I'm sure she will have Burr's vote.

Just over one-fifth of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said they weren’t leaning toward any of the 25 candidates in the survey. Seven of the candidates, including Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton, of Salem, didn’t have a single respondent say they were backing them.

Not one vote for Moulton, huh?

The survey of 500 New Hampshire voters who said they were either “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to vote in the state’s Democratic primary next year was taken Thursday though Sunday. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

One candidate who may be starting to grab the attention of New Hampshire Democrats is Gabbard, who had just 1 percent in the last Suffolk/Globe poll of New Hampshire, taken in April. In the latest survey, the representative from Hawaii moved into sixth place — ahead of New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who had just 1 percent support — although the difference is still well within the poll’s margin of error, but the poll might disappoint the campaigns of Beto O’Rourke, a former representative, and Julian Castro, a former US housing secretary, who both had levels of support that rounded down to zero percent.

“As far as Beto is concerned this result isn’t surprising given how poorly his year has gone, but considering how he came into the race with such momentum it is still a little stunning to see,” Paleologos said. O’Rourke has been in headlines in recent days because of the mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso, though, given the timing, that likely would not have registered in the poll, and despite an aggressive television and social media ad campaign, California billionaire Tom Steyer was at 1 percent when his support was rounded up.

Not even the mass shooting can resurrect Beto's fortunes.

Another point that stood out in the poll? New Hampshire voters said they are ready for the historically large field to shrink. Nearly two out of three voters said they felt if a candidate didn’t qualify for the third round of debates they should drop out. Due to thresholds set by the Democratic National Committee, it’s possible that half the field will not qualify for the September debates.

On the issues, 85 percent of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said they want their party’s nominee to back Medicare for All. A majority also want the nominee to back the Green New Deal and impeach President Trump.

Oh, look, the ISSUES!

A majority of respondents also confirmed their top priority is a candidate who can beat Trump — even if it means that person doesn’t share their values.

Jennifer Pitts, 54, an executive recruiter for a business consulting firm, is among the 58 percent polled who said the most important thing for Democrats is to nominate a candidate who can stop Trump.

At this moment, she is backing Biden.

“I want to beat Trump, and it pains me to say that I fear only a well-known white guy like Biden can do it,” Pitts said. “But, like New Hampshire voters do, I will be watching to see what happens as the campaign plays out.”

--more--"

You know what was so odd about that piece? 

GUN CONTROL was NEVER MENTIONED!

Related:

"In 2000, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore selected Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate; Lieberman became the first Jewish person on a major party’s presidential ticket, and in 2010, Elena Kagan was sworn in as the 112th justice and fourth woman to serve on the US Supreme Court."

I think it is time for a Jewish president, and his name is Bernie Sanders, and while in New Hampshire:

"Dartmouth College settles sex harassment suit for $14 million" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, August 6, 2019

Dartmouth College has agreed to pay $14 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by current and former students who alleged that they were harassed and assaulted by their former professors — resolving a case that has shadowed the campus for two years and brought national attention to the barriers encountered by young female scientists.

The settlement is among the larger payouts by a higher education institution to deal with claims of sexual harassment and a hostile education environment, legal experts said.

“Fourteen million is starting to send a message,” said Christina Mancini, a criminal justice professor at the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It does signal to other universities to take this seriously.”

The New Hampshire college has also agreed to make policy changes and address the obstacles that prevent female students from succeeding in the sciences and female professors from gaining tenure.

The nine women who brought the lawsuit said in a joint statement with Dartmouth that they were “satisfied” with the agreement. They were initially seeking $70 million in damages for what they alleged was a 21st-century “Animal House” at Dartmouth’s nationally recognized psychology and brain sciences department.

They should have gotten a better lawyer.

“We hope our case sets a precedent for future cases,” Sasha Brietzke, one of the students who filed the lawsuit, wrote in a Twitter message. “I can see my generation of scientists organizing and saying ‘ENOUGH.’ Workplace environments that were accepted in the recent past will not cut it anymore. Our field will thrive if we work to make our culture better for scientists who come after us.”

Dartmouth did not acknowledge any wrongdoing, but officials said the college has in the past two years launched — and now plans to expand — several programs to address sexual misconduct and potential problems that arise out of power imbalances between professors and graduate and undergraduate students.

Dartmouth president Philip Hanlon condemned the behavior of the former professors in a statement, and said they are banned from campus.

“We have learned lessons that we believe will enable us to root out this behavior immediately if it ever threatens our campus community again,” Hanlon said.

The three neuroscience professors, Todd Heatherton, Paul Whalen, and Bill Kelley, retired or resigned in 2018 after Dartmouth threatened to revoke their tenure.

You know, it just struck me. All white men.

The women said that they were preyed upon by the professors, who allegedly hosted drinking and hot-tub parties with women, openly debated who had the “hottest lab,” and sexually assaulted graduate students, according to the lawsuit.

The women alleged the college failed to protect them. The women, many of them graduate students, said they relied on the professors to advance their scientific and academic careers. Shunning the men’s advances meant losing mentors and research support, they said.

Heatherton has previously apologized for his behavior and said that he acted “unprofessionally while intoxicated.”

Whalen and Kelley have not publicly commented on this case, and previous attempts to reach their attorneys have been unsuccessful.

The professors were not personally named as defendants in the civil lawsuit.

The case resonated with many female scientists across the country who in private message boards and on social media shared their own experiences working as young academics with more established, male professors who created toxic environments.

Soon after the lawsuit was filed in November 2018, hundreds of female scientists volunteered to help the Dartmouth students and any other young scientists with professional advice and research mentorship.

The case also drew attention from New Hampshire’s attorney general, who launched a criminal investigation into the professors’ alleged behavior. The matter is still under review, officials with the attorney general’s office said.

More recently New Hampshire lawmakers and several Democratic presidential hopefuls also took stands in support of the women, some of whom wanted to remain anonymous as the case progressed.

For colleges and universities, the cost of such cases reaches beyond the settlement amount, said Mancini, the VCU professor.

They can suffer a loss of prestige and anger donors and alumni, Mancini said.

Yeah, the poor $chool.

For aggrieved students, civil lawsuits are proving to be a valuable avenue to get resolution, even as the current US Department of Education moves to roll back the tough sexual harassment regulations adopted under the Obama administration, Mancini said.

It is difficult to calculate how much colleges generally spend to settle sexual harassment claims, because many agreements are done privately, legal experts said.

The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2017 estimated that colleges spent about $200,000 on average to settle sexual assault lawsuits.

In 2016, the University of Tennessee spent $2.48 million to settle claims with eight women.

More recent blockbuster lawsuits have upped the financial cost to universities.

In June, the University of Southern California agreed to a $215 million class-action settlement to resolve sexual abuse allegations against a former campus gynecologist, but that case potentially involved 17,000 women who could be eligible to receive between $2,500 and $250,000, according to news reports.

Last year, Michigan State University reached a $500 million settlement with sexual assault survivors of Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor. The university agreed to spend the money to pay 332 current victims and any future ones.

The Dartmouth settlement is smaller than these high-profile cases involving one serial abuser, said Scott Schneider, a Texas attorney who works on sexual harassment cases, but Dartmouth’s settlement “is pretty sizable,” Schneider said.

The number of Dartmouth students who could qualify for a settlement remains unclear but is likely to be fewer than 50, according to legal experts.

The size of the individual settlements will be determined later.

Both sides will submit the complete settlement agreement in federal district court on Aug. 20 for the judge’s approval.

--more--"

Time to get out of the firing line for a while.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

That was Strzok one. 

Here is Strzok two:

"Agent whose anti-Trump texts got him fired from the FBI, sues for reinstatement" by Matt Zapotosky Washington Post, August 6, 2019

WASHINGTON — The FBI agent whose anti-Trump text messages got him removed from the investigation into Russia’s election interference and ultimately fired from the bureau asked in a lawsuit Tuesday to be reinstated and awarded back pay, arguing he was unfairly terminated for criticizing the president.

That sure is gall for you. He should be in a jail cell for his subversion of due process and his collaboration in the setting-up of the infiltration and spy ring before he served on Mueller's team.

This is your Deep State swamp creature rising up out of the bog right here, for it was my National lead.

Peter Strzok asserted in the suit that the Trump administration had ‘‘consistently tolerated and even encouraged partisan political speech by federal employees’’ — but only if that speech praised the president and attacked his opponents.

The former agent, whom President Trump has attacked repeatedly, alleged that his removal was ‘‘part of a broader campaign against the very principle of free speech,’’ which he said was ‘‘initiated and led by’’ the commander in chief.

‘‘It’s indisputable that his termination was a result of Trump’s unrelenting retaliatory campaign of false information, attacks, and direct appeals to top officials,’’ Aitan Goelman, Strzok’s lawyer, said in a statement. ‘‘Today, Pete Strzok is fighting back, and sending a message that the Administration’s purposeful disregard for constitutional rights must not be tolerated.’’

I think I'm going to throw up.

Strzok, who joined the FBI in 1996 as an analyst on terrorism cases, was once one of the bureau’s go-to agents for espionage and counterintelligence work, and he was a key figure in both the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state and the inquiry into whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election, but in the course of that work, Strzok began exchanging politically charged text messages with an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair. The messages, sent on work phones, were critical of numerous politicians, but none more so than Trump, who was derided by Strzok as ‘‘abysmal’’ and a ‘‘disaster.’’

In August 2016, after Page wrote Trump was ‘‘not ever going to become president, right? Right?!’’ Strzok responded: ‘‘No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.’’

That's alarming enough, but the WaComPo makes it sound as if that's all there was. What we will never get is a comprehensive investigation of the whole thing, from Obama on down, regarding the infiltration and spying on the Trump campaign based on a dodgy dossier that came from the Clinton campaign and was then funneled up through the channels of Brennan, Clapper, and Lynch via the dropping of the Steele dossier to Reid and McCain. We are about as close to expose and disclosure as they get.

The Justice Department inspector general found that message ‘‘implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.’’ Strzok, who had been assigned to work with special counsel Robert Mueller, was removed from the Russia investigation when the messages were discovered, and in August 2018 he was fired from the FBI entirely.

It's a fox guarding the henhouse type of thing.

The FBI had first proposed firing Strzok a few months earlier, writing in a notice that the messages would ‘‘be the subject of damning public discourse for days, months, and even years to come, and the FBI will be recipient of the expressed outrage,’’ but FBI Assistant Director Candice Will, who runs the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility, ultimately determined Strzok should be demoted and suspended for 60 days, according to the suit. She was overruled by FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, who determined that Strzok’s ‘‘sustained pattern of bad judgment in the use of an FBI device’’ had called into question the FBI’s decisions in the Russia and Clinton e-mail investigations, according to the suit.

It sure did, and you have to laugh at the fact that the FBI was more worried about their image than him!

Strzok alleged in the suit that others in the bureau had not received similar discipline for criticism of Clinton, and he asserted that Bowdich’s decision was the ‘‘direct result of unrelenting pressure from President Trump and his political allies on Capitol Hill.’’ Trump had repeatedly attacked Strzok publicly and privately and called for his firing.

Strzok asserted in the suit that his sentiments were ‘‘protected political speech,’’ and that his termination violated the First Amendment. He conceded that while the Hatch Act restricts the political activities of some employees, he had not violated even that law, and noted that Trump had rejected a recommendation to fire a senior White House adviser, Kellyanne Conway, for her violations of the Hatch Act.

We are on a slippery slope with that right now so.... ??

Strzok alleged in the suit that the Justice Department had violated the Privacy Act in releasing his and Page’s texts, and violated his Fifth Amendment rights in not allowing him to appeal Bowdich’s decision to a disciplinary review board.

The suit was filed in federal court in the District of Columbia. The FBI and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

--more--"

Here is Strzok three:

"Union: Mulvaney comments confirm agency moves meant to cut" by John Hanna and Ellen Knickmeyer Associated Press, August 6, 2019

TOPEKA, Kan. — A federal employees union charged Tuesday that recent comments by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, confirm the Trump administration’s ‘‘grand strategy’’ to cut the federal workforce by relocating agency offices out of Washington.

Yeah, God help that you reduce the bloat, drain the swamp, and move the government closer to the people it serves. Better they bubble up in D.C.

Mulvaney said last week that the Department of Agriculture’s plan to relocate several hundred of jobs from Washington to the Kansas City area is ‘‘a wonderful way to streamline government.’’ Speaking to a group of fellow Republicans in his home state of South Carolina, he said it’s ‘‘nearly impossible’’ to fire federal workers but added that many will not move to ‘‘the real part of the country.’’

Within days of taking office, President Trump declared a hiring freeze, and within months, Mulvaney, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, outlined a plan for reducing the civilian workforce.

What if it is bloat? 

I mean, I don't want a vested interest like a public service union arguing for continuing to feed on taxpayer test. That's how we got in this me$$.

Mulvaney said ‘‘the quiet parts out loud,’’ said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver nonprofit critical of the Trump administration’s Interior Department. Weiss sees an ‘‘intentional brain drain’’ to ‘‘get rid of expertise across the government.’’

‘‘This is part of their grand strategy,’’ said Dave Verardo, president of the American Federation of Government Employees local that represents the USDA workers. ‘‘Reduce government so that people can come into power and do whatever they want without any checks and balances.’’

Spokesman John Czwartacki defended Mulvaney’s comments Tuesday as ‘‘commentary through a political lens at a political event.’’  Interior Secretary David Bernhardt described the Bureau of Land Management move as a ‘‘realignment’’ to ‘‘better respond to the needs of the American people.’’

Look, they moved the offices out west to the Rockies and Plains because that's where most of the issues are.

Officials in Kansas and Missouri and their congressional delegations were delighted with the USDA’s plans, believing the research agencies to be a good fit for the region.

And all the government loot that will roll in.

The Economic Research Service examines issues including the rural economy, international trade, food safety, and programs that provide food assistance to poor Americans.

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture provides grants for agricultural research.....

--more--"

And you are outta there!

Also see:

"In a pair of photos, two white lawmen atop horses guide a bound black man with a rope down a wide and empty street. If it weren’t for the cars and pavement, a quick glance may lead to the conclusion that they were colorized plates from the antebellum South, but it was Saturday in the island city Galveston, Texas, and officers arrested Brandon Neely on suspicion of criminal trespassing. They had horses and a rope, but no patrol car. The officers attached the blue rope onto his handcuffs, and Neely, 43, was led to a mounted officer staging area. Bystander photos from the arrest went viral across social media, with many African- Americans saying the photos were reminiscent of captured slaves in the 1800s. The outcry prompted an apology on Monday from Galveston Police Chief Vernon Hale, who called the arrest an ‘‘unnecessary embarrassment’’ for Neely. ‘‘I believe our officers showed poor judgment in this instance and could have waited for a transport unit at the location of the arrest,’’ Hale said in a statement, adding the officers did not have ‘‘malicious intent.’’ The officers trained in the arrest technique for crowd control and other scenarios, he said. Neely was freed on bond, the Associated Press reported. He could not be reached to comment."

I would like to know who trained them, and I'm starting to really wonder if these things are totally staged. Are the cops really that stupid and tone deaf? They sure rally quickly when it comes to defending themselves and their actions. This further promotes the narrative we have going right now, and if authority has to take a few hits and say we're sorry, no harm done. They aren't going away. 

We have reached a point where reading through the Globe is nuts! By the time this post finishes you will see how it's one blow after another in tying everything together and advancing the agenda.

"Mississippi residents turned out in the summer heat Tuesday to vote in party primaries, narrowing the list of Democratic and Republican candidates for governor. The state’s four-term Attorney General Jim Hood was seeking to defeat seven lesser-known candidates in the Democratic primary for governor and break the grip Republicans have held on the office for 24 of the past 28 years. Mississippi is one of only three states electing a governor this year. Louisiana and Kentucky are the others. Second-term Republican Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves is endorsed by Republican Governor Phil Bryant, who cannot seek a third term, and he’s raised millions more than any of his GOP rivals. Voters are weighing whether the GOP should retain its lock on the governor’s office amid questions about the future economic direction of the conservative Southern state. At a precinct in the Jackson suburb of Ridgeland, retired teacher Sara Caldwell, 88, said she voted in the Republican primary, choosing former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Bill Waller Jr. over Reeves for governor. She said Waller seems to have a more detailed plan to pay for highway improvements. Adam Wells, 34, is a former teacher who’s now an education consultant. At a precinct in Canton, Wells said he voted for Hood. ‘‘I think he’s the only shot the Democrats have to beat Tate Reeves,’’ Wells said. Winning a primary requires a majority of the votes. If runoffs are needed, they will be on Aug. 27."

Before I get running, I would just like to mention that underneath the racial firestorm it should be noted that it was the Democrats who were the party of slavery so long. You gotta know your own history, warts and all. Of course, we are in the middle of a big scrub and cleanse.

Related:

"Puerto Rico’s revenue outstripped its forecasts by $1.1 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, giving the bankrupt island a cash boost as it faces a succession crisis over whether Governor Pedro Pierluisi illegally took office after large street protests forced the resignation of his predecessor. The stronger revenue performance comes after island officials anticipated that the economy, which had been in a recession for more than a decade, would grow by 4 percent during the year as federal disaster aid and insurance money flowed in to help rebuild from Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico has been embroiled in a political crisis for the past month after protesters demanded the resignation of then-Governor Ricardo Rossello over the release of chat messages in which administration officials disparaged residents and political rivals. Pierluisi, Rossello’s pick to succeed him, was sworn in on Friday but Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz filed suit in Puerto Rico court, demanding that Pierluisi give up exercising the functions of the office. Prices on most Puerto Rico securities have gained during the political turmoil, as investors bet that a federal oversight board that manages the island’s finances and its bankruptcy may gain more power....." 

Oh, Good Lord, the 'investors" are literally betting on their very lives! 

Now THAT is RACIST!

Not only that, the pre$$ is acting like the federal money that is going to be pouring in makes an economy grow. As for the aid money, first we were told the money was missing, then we were told they didn't distribute it yet, and now we are being told it will soon come pouring in to help rebuild even as corruption seeps from the incompetent and criminally negligent government. When I think of all the people who we were told we would rebuild, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Haiti, and the fact that the efforts have lagged if attempted at all while money went missing out the door, it's the same damn script every time!

Now we go from Puerto Rico to Alaska:

"Court reinstates Sarah Palin suit against New York Times" by Larry Neumeister Associated Press, August 6, 2019

NEW YORK — A defamation lawsuit Sarah Palin brought against The New York Times was restored by a federal appeals court Tuesday, giving the onetime Republican vice presidential nominee an opportunity to prove her claims that the newspaper falsely accused her of inciting a mass shooting that severely wounded a congresswoman.

Now I have to line up with the New York Times even though they hate people like me! That's why I'm better than them. I will fight for their right to peddle garbage. It's up to us to call them out.

Palin sued the Times for unspecified damages after the editorial about gun control was published following the June 2017 shooting of Louisiana US Representative Steve Scalise, also a Republican, on a baseball diamond in Washington.

They had their fangs out but it started to drop below the fold when they found out the shooter suffered from Hodgkinson's disease so they dumped it, and again, I'll mention the timing or Globe focus here. It's all a bit too convenient.

In the editorial, the Times wrote that before the 2011 shooting of then-Arizona US Representative Gabby Giffords, Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.

The editorial was criticized by some readers who challenged the notion that the map constituted ‘‘political incitement’’ or that there was any ‘‘link’’ between it and the Arizona shooting, the Times lawyers have said.

What map would that be?



Oh, sorry, didn't mean to incite.

The Times lawyers have said the newspaper revised the online version of the editorial the following morning to remove those references and to make clear that the crosshairs on the map appeared over Giffords’ district rather than over her name or image.

A Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an e-mailed statement: ‘‘We are disappointed in the decision and intend to continue to defend the action vigorously.’’

--more--"

Also see:

"President Trump once again accused Alphabet Inc.’s Google of amplifying negative news stories about him, this time citing an ex-employee who claims he was fired for conservative bias. Trump said he’d watched comments by Kevin Cernekee in a Fox News interview, where the former Google employee alleged that conservatives were harassed at the company.  Trump also cited comments to Fox Business by author Peter Schweizer, who alleged Google suppressed negative stories about Hillary Clinton. Google CEO Sundar Pichai “was in the Oval Office working very hard to explain how much he liked me, what a great job the Administration is doing, that Google was not involved with China’s military, that they didn’t help Crooked Hillary over me in the 2016 Election and that they are NOT planning to illegally subvert the 2020 Election despite all that has been said to the contrary,” Trump said in a pair of Tuesday tweets....."

The Globe really has it in for Fox these days (probably because they are Clinton protectors), and it must be because Tucker called them out.

"An MIT emeritus professor has hit the jackpot, earning a $1 million prize for his groundbreaking work in physics. Daniel Z. Freedman, now a visiting professor at Stanford University, is splitting a $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics with two other particle physics experts for the “invention of supergravity, in which quantum variables are part of the description of the geometry of spacetime,” the prize selection committee said. The Breakthrough Prizes are meant to honor fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics that are changing the world. Its founders include Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google....."

The ruling cla$$ thinking of rea$ons to pa$$ out dough joo each other.

Maybe he can explain how 110-story steel and concrete towers can collapse in their own footprint at free fall speed in contravention to the laws of physics, or a 47-story one that was never hit by a plane and yet folded up nicely around 5 p.m. that awful day.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

By the time I got to the B-section I believed the gunfire would be over. 

I was wrong:

"Philadelphia murder suspect arrested in Cambridge after Harvard Square search" by Martin Finucane and Diamond Naga Siu Globe Staff and Gobe Correspondent, August 6, 2019

CAMBRIDGE — A Philadelphia man wanted for allegedly murdering his father over the weekend was arrested in a shopping mall in bustling Harvard Square on Tuesday afternoon, following a tense search by heavily armed police officers.

Sohan Panjrolia, 31, a graduate of Harvard University Extension School, was taken into custody without incident near the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop inside The Garage mall building on John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge police said.

You have got to be kidding me.

If true, what the hell is going on out there? 

If not, it's another crapola story with a paid asset or whatever. I would say you can't make this stuff up, but apparently they can.

He is due to be arraigned Wednesday in Cambridge District Court on a charge of being a fugitive from justice, Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard said at a news conference.

The US Marshal’s Service notified police late Monday night and again early Tuesday that Panjrolia might be in the area, Bard said. A Harvard University police officer on Tuesday located a rented Toyota Camry that Panjrolia was believed to be driving in a Harvard Square garage. “Within minutes” the suspect, who was unarmed, was taken into custody at the mall up the street, police said.

They didn't find a duffle bag on the street, did they?

“It appeared he wasn’t expecting to be engaged by police,” Bard said.

Noting that police had been advised Panjrolia might be armed with an assault rifle, Bard said, “We were lucky here that we caught the suspect unprepared.”

No weapons were found on him during his arrest, according to police.

(Blog editor throws his hands up in the air)

Bard said police were seeking but had not yet executed a search warrant for the car Panjrolia had been driving. He said authorities are not sure what brought him to Cambridge after he fled Philadelphia.

Maybe someone dropped him off to be found?

“It’s a huge sigh of relief, I touched on it earlier. [In] a densely populated area, well-known area, high-power assault rifle, that we suspected the suspect had, it could have turned out much different than it did,” Bard said.

Harvard had issued an alert advising people to stay in place and avoid the area of JFK and Eliot streets.

Oh, God, a shelter in place scare!

A Harvard spokesman said Panjrolia had received a bachelor of liberal arts degree in 2013 from the Extension School, a division of the Ivy League university that serves people seeking part-time, online courses and nonresidential programs to advance their careers or pursue an academic interest.

Panjrolia had been arrested by Cambridge police for a domestic incident in 2010, according to Cambridge police.

The intense search stunned workers and visitors, many of who ran into stores for safety.

A saleswoman at the Harvard Shop, which is inside The Garage, witnessed the arrest through the shop window.

She said she received an alert about the police searching for a man, and then around five to 10 minutes later, at 12:40 p.m., police started clearing people out of the corridor that leads to Ben & Jerry’s.

“They came in, kind of in formation, guns drawn, moving through here,” said the saleswoman, who did not want to give her name.

There were only five or six customers and a stock worker in the shop when it unfolded, the salesperson said. Everyone moved to the back of the store to be safe.

“I saw them kind of rush and get him on the ground, and then they lifted him up and he was in cuffs up against the wall,” she said.

Arun Budsatsoki, owner of the Subway shop in The Garage, said he heard a noise and saw panicked people running into his store.

“They came inside the Subway, in our store, so we took them in back in the alleyway where it was safe,” he said.

He said the chaos was over in five minutes.

“We were confused — what’s happening? — And then everything went normal,” he said.

Sigh!

John Selletto, owner of Petali Flowers, which is across Mount Auburn Street from The Garage, said people poured out of the mall.

“Next thing we knew, the cops had the guy in handcuffs and were taking him away,” he said. “It was very exciting. So much drama.”

No, no, no! Don't say that! It could very well have been just that!

Construction worker Jose Rodriguez said he just saw police everywhere.

Bo Kim, 25, who completed his first year at Harvard Law School, was in the area when the alert went out.

Kim immediately texted his mother and twin brother so that they heard the news from him versus online.

They don't like the Globe website?

“It would have been scary normally — but I was particularly aware given the recent events,” Kim said, referring to mass shootings in Texas and Ohio this weekend.

I was waiting for them to bring those up, and it convinces me even more that we are looking at staged and scripted productions. Sorry. 

“My brother was pretty concerned, and he kept checking Twitter to make sure there weren’t any updates he was missing,” he said.

“My family tends to be quite concerned about these things — these high-visibility, allegedly low-probability events,” he said.

He even called it an event! That's a slip! 

So was there a crisis drill in Bo$ton yesterday that we aren't being told about?

Panjrolia had allegedly opened fire on his parents with an assault rifle inside the family home in Philadelphia on Aug. 3, killing his father.

“The son went upstairs and retrieved an assault rifle and went into a first-floor bathroom discharging the weapon once,” Philadelphia police wrote in a blog post Sunday. “The son exited the bathroom and then pointed the gun in the direction of his parents. He fired multiple shots at his father striking him in the head.”

The shooting happened around 9:53 p.m. Saturday, police said.

Sohan Panjrolia has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and might be using narcotics, police said.

I was just going to ask.

Panjrolia left in a Camry that Philadelphia police located a few blocks away Saturday. They had been searching for him since.

The probe into Panjrolia’s whereabouts included response from US Marshals in Boston and Philadelphia, Cambridge, and Harvard police, and Massachusetts State Police, according to authorities.

Isn't it strange how everything was coordinated so quickly?

State Police and Cambridge police detectives are working with law enforcement colleagues in Philadelphia “in furtherance of the investigation in Massachusetts,” according to a statement from State Police.

A spokesman for Philadelphia police said the department had no new information to share regarding Panjrolia’s case on Tuesday.

Messages left with the Philadelphia district attorney’s office were not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.....

--more--"

Related:

Motorcycle backfiring causes panic in Times Square, police say

Good Lord, this nation is becoming a bunch of snowflakes and scaredy-cats! That is the end result of the endless mind-f**ks like the one to which we have just been treated.

"Four people were shot in the span of nine hours overnight, according to Boston police. The first incident was reported at 8:04 p.m. Monday, when a man was shot at Humboldt Avenue and Waumbeck Street in Roxbury, according to Officer Kim Tavares, a spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department. There was ballistic damage to a vehicle and the man was taken to an area hospital with unknown injuries. No arrests have been made, she said. Another shooting was reported at 1:29 a.m. Tuesday on Wildwood Street in Mattapan, and the male victim was taken to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries. There have been no arrests, she said. Three hours later, at 4:28 a.m., police responded to a report of a shooting on Blue Hill Avenue. Tavares said two people were sho"t at the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue and Devon Street. “Unknown injuries at this time,” she said."

Nothing but a brief on the blotter. Hmmm.

Also see:

Closing arguments underway in Boston Calling trial

Maybe some of that labor muscle can be applied to this:

Business activists push city to offer more contracts to minority firms

I just hope the train gets you there on time:

For Red Line commutes, a roll of the dice and branch determine timing

The Green Line isn't any better, and you should definitely stay off the Orange Line:

"Sex offender charged in Northeastern case has a history of indecent assaults" by Shelley Murphy and Lauren Fox Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, August 6, 2019

A Northeastern University student was studying alone in an empty classroom last month when a man took a seat nearby, mumbling to himself. When she got up to leave, he allegedly pushed her against a wall, exposed his genitals, and tried to rape her.

She shoved him back and managed to escape down a hallway, screaming for help, while her attacker fled on the MBTA’s Orange Line. Minutes later, he allegedly exposed himself to another woman on a train at Forest Hills Station, police say.

I'm thinking mental illness again.

The terrified passenger alerted authorities, but the man slipped away.

It wasn’t the first time.

Police caught up with Kennedy D. Colson Jr., a 29-year-old Level 3 sex offender, two days later in Jamaica Plain and charged him with both crimes, but a review of Colson’s long criminal history reveals not only a frightening pattern of sexual assaults in public places, but also the systemic challenges authorities face in keeping sex offenders off the street.

Okay, that does it. Here we are talking perverts and I'm being given lame excuses about the inadequacies and incompetence of government as it loots us dry. In addition, I'm getting the feeling this a big push for mandatory mental health evaluations in the wake of the shootings. Authority wants to lock us all up, probably in the abandoned malls that will function as a FEMA camp.

Colson was released from jail in May after serving 18 months for sexually assaulting a woman in Somerville. Just two weeks later, he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square and ordered held on $3,500 cash bail, but Suffolk County prosecutors dropped that charge on July 12, citing the unavailability of two witnesses, allowing him to go free.

It's Suffolk, where the new DA is lenient.

Beyond that, we have nearly two years of #MeToo and yet this is where we are at?

The assault on NU’s campus happened just six days later.

“If someone can’t be out of jail for more than one week without reoffending, he should be deemed a sexually dangerous person,” said Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel at the Victim Rights Law Center in Boston. “It’s important in a case like this where obviously he lacks the impulse control and he is a consistent threat to women.”

Offenders who are deemed sexually dangerous remain in state custody at the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater under a civil commitment law after their criminal sentences have ended. Between 2009 and 2017, an average of 20 people a year were cleared for release after either a jury or two psychologists concluded they no longer posed a threat, according to state figures.

Suffolk County prosecutors also charged Colson with failing to register as a sex offender in June after police discovered he wasn’t living at the Roslindale address he had provided authorities, but a week later they dismissed the charge, saying it would have been impossible for him to register while in jail.

The assault at the public library happened the afternoon of May 24, when a woman was washing her hands in a second-floor ladies room. Colson allegedly emerged from a handicapped stall and grabbed her by the neck, according to court records.

She fought back, punching him in the face as he sexually assaulted her. He fled when another woman came out of a stall and yelled at him to leave the victim alone, records show.

Boston police released a surveillance photograph of the suspect, and Colson was spotted four days later at the library, sleeping in a chair near the ladies room where the woman was assaulted.

On May 29, Colson pleaded not guilty in Boston Municipal Court to an indecent assault and battery charge. A judge ordered him to wear a GPS monitoring device if he were released, but Colson couldn’t make bail and remained in custody for six weeks until prosecutors dismissed the charge.

In a court filing, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office wrote that prosecutors were unable to present the case to a grand jury for indictment “due to witness unavailability.” As a result, dropping the charges was “in the interest of justice,” the filing stated.

In response to inquiries from The Boston Globe, Rollins’s spokeswoman Renee Nadeau Algarin said in a statement this week that prosecutors “were unable to move forward in the grand jury without the vital testimony of the victim and a witness — one of whom was out of the state and the other out of the country.” They dismissed the case “based on our ethical and legal obligations.”

Probably the right thing to do given the circumstances, but it sure looks bad.

The dismissal “in no way precludes the Commonwealth from charging this offense in the future,” she said. “Efforts to obtain the witnesses’ presence have and will continue.”

Boston police Sergeant Detective John Boyle said police and prosecutors are actively working on the investigation and “we do hope to charge the individual.”

Colson’s lawyer in that case did not return calls seeking comment.

A library spokeswoman declined to comment on the alleged assault, but said the BPL “has in place procedures and systems to ensure the safety of all its patrons, employees, and collections” and has received additional funding for security in the city’s recently passed budget.

Last month, Colson pleaded not guilty to the alleged offenses at NU and on the Orange Line, including assault to rape, kidnapping, assault and battery, and open and gross lewdness. He was also charged again with failing to register as a sex offender after he was released from jail in July.

At his arraignment for the Orange Line incident, his lawyer, Ross E. Schreiber, said Colson had been unable to provide the sex offender registry board a valid address because he was homeless. He had been staying at the Pine Street Inn but needed to remain there a few days longer to obtain the paperwork he needed to register.

“He’s living hand to mouth on the street,” Schreiber said. “He’s got no one on the outside that could assist him. He’s estranged from his parents and anyone else he could rely on in the area.”

He made a good argument. They should release him.

Attorney Eric Tennen, who has no involvement in Colson’s case but has represented many sex offenders, said there is a “glaring gap” in the criminal justice system for released sex offenders who may be suffering from mental health issues or substance abuse but are often denied access to services.

“There really is nothing available to most men and especially sex offenders that helps them transition out of prison or jail, so they are left to their own devices,” Tennen said. “The criminal justice system is good at charging and incarcerating them, but it’s not good at getting help.”

What an indictment is that.

On Friday, a Roxbury Municipal Court judge ordered Colson held without bail on attempted rape charges in the NU assault. Prosecutors were prepared to present evidence that Colson would pose a threat to the community if released, but Colson’s lawyer waived the hearing and agreed to his detention.

Colson has a lengthy criminal record, which includes convictions for sexual assault, assault with a dangerous weapon, and violating a restraining order.

I suppose the revolving door keeps everybody busy and the money flowing.

In November 2017, Colson slipped into the ladies room at the Davis Square MBTA Station in Somerville, dropped his pants to expose his genitals, and groped a woman when she emerged from a stall, court records show.

I don't, I..... (puke)

He pleaded guilty to indecent assault and battery and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Middlesex District Court Judge Jean M. Curran told him he was required to register as a sex offender when he was released and warned him that “at some point” prosecutors might seek to have him declared sexually dangerous.

That never happened.

Two weeks after his sentence ended, Colson was again hiding out in a ladies bathroom, authorities say, waiting for another victim.

--more--"

At least the story made me forget about white supremacy (and once again, the ladies come in second in concern).

Related:

"A man exhibiting bizarre behavior at the Haymarket MBTA station who said he smoked “a lot of K2” was arrested Monday night after he allegedly elbowed a Transit Police officer in the face, according to police. Julien Exantus, 22, of Revere, was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest, and assault with a dangerous weapon, according to Transit Police Superintendent Richard Sullivan. The incident began around 11:30 p.m., when Transit Police officers were called to handle a report of a naked man running around in the busway at Haymarket station. Witnesses directed officers to Exantus, who was clothed and “behaving strangely,” according to a blog post on tpdnews411.com. Police said Exantus made numerous odd statements and yelled “give your life to me” to the officers. He also said he smoked “a lot of K2,” the blog post said. Police said an officer tried to subdue Exantus as he allegedly began to swing a skateboard towards a bystander, and during the struggle, Exantus elbowed the officer above his left eye. The officer was taken to the hospital and the wound required stitches, the blog post said."

Time to look for an off ramp, but don't get too far from the beaten path:

"Missing Massachusetts hiker found dead in Maine near Appalachian Trail" by Emily Sweeney Globe Staff, August 6, 2019

The body of a Massachusetts man who was reported missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail has been located in Maine, authorities said Tuesday.

Jeffrey Aylward, a 63-year-old retired firefighter from Plymouth, was found dead in his tent about 50 yards off the trail shortly after 10 a.m. Monday by Game Warden Kyle Hladik, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Aylward was about a fifth of a mile west of Route 17 near the Height of Land, which is a popular destination on the Rangeley Lakes National Scenic Byway.

“Game wardens have no reason to suspect Aylward’s death is suspicious,” officials wrote in a Facebook post. “Aylward did have a history of recent health issues.”

Aylward’s family had been bringing him fresh supplies about every eight days, but had not heard from him since he sent a text message on July 23, officials said.

Look, I don't want to be skeptical of everything, but the guy had health problems and the family is just waving goodbye as he headed off alone? No companion or friend to accompany?

Officials said that game wardens had been hiking to lean-to and sign-in stations along the Appalachian Trail to distribute information about Aylward’s disappearance, and tips from hikers who reported seeing a lone tent off the trail led to the discovery of his body.

According to Plymouth town records, Aylward was appointed as a firefighter to the Plymouth Fire Department in 1985. Over his career, he served as a fire prevention officer and hazmat technician, and he was on the department’s dive team. Aylward retired as a lieutenant with 29 years of service in 2014.

He didn't work down at Ground Zero, did he?

Plymouth Fire Chief G. Edward Bradley said Aylward was a “great guy” with an excellent work ethic and attention to detail. When he worked as the department’s fire prevention officer, his uniform always looked brand new and had perfect creases, he said.

Bradley said Aylward often talked about his plans for hiking the Appalachian Trail when he retired. “It was something he always wanted to do,” he said.....

That's kind of a weird sentiment, but not that uncommon I suppose.

--more--"

Maybe you should just work from home, no matter what county and forget the drive in.

"A Connecticut man was killed in a two-car crash Tuesday morning in Marlborough after his car was hit from behind on Interstate 290, police said. At around 7:15 a.m., a 24-year-old Lowell man driving a 2016 Subaru Impreza rear-ended a 2011 Ford Escape on I-290 eastbound near Exit 26, State Police said in a statement. This caused the Ford Escape, driven by 55-year-old Lee Johnson of Oakdale, Conn., to enter the median and rollover. Marlborough fire, Emergency Medical Services, State Police, and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation responded to the scene, police said. Johnson and his two passengers, a 14-year-old boy and a 22-year-old woman, were taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Johnson was pronounced dead at the hospital, and the passengers sustained minor injuries, police said. The driver of the Subaru also sustained minor injuries and was taken to Marlborough Hospital, police said. The Lowell man was the only person in the Subaru at the time of the crash, Trooper Dustin Fitch, a State Police spokesman, said. The cause of the crash is under investigation by the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, the State Police Crime Scene Services Section, and troopers assigned to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office, police said. No charges had been filed as of Tuesday afternoon."

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

"FBI offering $20,000 reward in probe of fires at Chabad centers in Arlington and Needham" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff, August 6, 2019

The FBI is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons who set fire to Jewish centers in Arlington and Needham in May, in a crime wave that shocked both towns and prompted a massive solidarity rally in response to the anti-Semitic attacks.

More mind-manipulating, self-inflicted false flags for public perception purposes, pushing the narrative of the besieged and set-upon Jew. Scares those that are not hardcore Zionist into the camp, and gets 'em to open their wallets, too.

In a statement Tuesday, the FBI announced the reward and released surveillance footage of a hooded man, who the bureau said “may have information relevant to the investigation into several arsons at Chabad Centers in Massachusetts.” The Anti-Defamation League is offering an additional $15,000 reward, a spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

They are just wasting our time. They aren't ever going to catch anybody, and if they do it will be some Jew.

Anyone with information relevant to the ongoing probe should call the FBI Boston Division.

I never print phone numbers or addresses, ever, and that was where my brief ended.

The FBI provided a recap of the incidents.

“On May 11, 2019, at approximately 11:00 p.m., authorities were alerted to a fire at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life of Arlington-Belmont in Arlington, Massachusetts,” according to the release. “Five days later, on May 16, 2019, at approximately 8:50 p.m., authorities were alerted to another fire at the same Chabad Center. Later that evening, just before 10:00 p.m., authorities responded to a fire at the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Center in Needham, Massachusetts.”

No one was hurt in any of the fires.

Yeah, the self-infliction is a a cheap price to pay and yet it reaps so many rewards.

“At the time of the incidents, surveillance footage captured an unknown male, approximately 5’11”, slowly walking to and from the locations where the fires were set,” according to the statement. “The man appears to be wearing a dark North Face jacket with the hood pulled over his head and khaki pants. He is also seen carrying unknown items in each hand.”

In the Arlington video, the FBI said, “three different cameras show the unknown male walking down Lake Street in the immediate vicinity of the Chabad Center at the time of the fire. In the Needham video, the same man walks in front of the Chabad Center towards the area where the fire was set. Approximately one minute and forty seconds later, he turns abruptly, looks back in the direction of the fire, and walks towards the street and down the sidewalk.”

State Fire Marshal Peter J. Ostroskey’s office in May described the Arlington fires as “arson fires” and said the Needham blaze was “intentionally set.” All three fires were quickly put out.

Supporters of the targeted centers packed a solidarity gathering in May at Arlington Town Hall. In a Twitter message, Arlington police posted photos of the capacity crowd.

“There is a full room at Arlington Town Hall tonight, showing the strength and unity of the community, in response to the recent fires at the home of a Rabbi,” police tweeted at the time.

The Police Department’s comments were echoed by Robert Trestan, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Boston office, who spoke at the rally and later tweeted out a defiant message against bigotry.

“In [the] aftermath of three arson attacks on the Jewish community in #Arlington & #Needham,” he wrote, “we will not back down. We will not be silenced. We will not go away. We will not be intimidated. #antisemitism will never defeat us.”

Cue the cellos.

Anti-Semitic violence has been rising sharply over the past several years, a disturbing trend that includes the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the United States ever, the October shooting at a temple in Pittsburgh that killed 11 worshipers. The ADL recently released its Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, which counted 144 incidents in Massachusetts in 2018. That’s the second highest on record, surpassed only by 2017 when there were 177.

Chabad houses are the center of religious and social life of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement. The Chabad Center for Jewish Life Arlington-Belmont describes itself on its website as “a place where Judaism is celebrated joyfully and meaningfully, where Judaism sheds relevant perspective to our daily lives.”

Oh, God, they are the Zionist Jew supremacists I'm always typing about, the ones you can never raise or question as they wield enormous power over us all. 

The Chabad Jewish Center in Needham has worshipers from suburban communities including Needham, Dedham, Dover, and Westwood, and says on its website that it is “dedicated to serving the Jewish community with Ahavas Yisroel — an unconditional love and concern for every Jew, regardless of age, background, affiliation, or level of observance.”

What about the rest of us?

Now take the words Jewish out and put in the word white. 

Pre$$ has a different reaction.

--more--"

Related:

"ABC has picked up a limited series that is based on a book written by a former Globe reporter and professor of journalism at Boston University. In April, Deadline reported that Lionsgate Television Group and 3 Arts planned to mount a limited series based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s “Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11,” a book that had yet to come out. Now, the book is a bestseller and ABC plans to make the series a reality. Zuckoff, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his investigative reporting with the Globe, wrote the story that ran on the front page of the paper the day after the deadly attacks. Both his and ABC’s goal is to debut the series in 2021, in time for the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. To Zuckoff, there is a direct line between his experience writing about the attacks for the Globe and his decision to write this new book. The book follows the lives of 24 people whose lives were changed by the attacks. Readers get a minute-by-minute retelling of each person’s experience, something that Zuckoff believes is crucial to the documentation of 9/11’s history....."

So what we get there is more mythological narrative and official story with an emotional appeal, along with some $elf-$erving pimping. 

"Robert Kraft has a knack for making friends with famous musicians, from Meek Mill to Snoop Dogg. So it’s not surprising that the Patriots owner found himself onstage with celebs like Jamie Foxx, Dave Matthews, and longtime pal Jon Bon Jovi over the weekend. Kraft was at the Apollo in the Hamptons partying on Saturday night, an annual concert and fund-raiser held at billionaire Ronald Perelman’s massive estate that raises money for the legendary Harlem theater and youth education programs. Page Six reports that Kraft, 78, was accompanied to the gala by his new girlfriend, New York City doctor Dana Blumberg, 45. The pair were also spotted holding hands in June at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, and were in the stands in Paris in July at the Women’s World Cup when Team USA beat the Netherlands, 2-0, in soccer. In a video shared by singer-songwriter Marques Anthony on Instagram on Monday, Kraft fist-bumps Bon Jovi onstage as the pair sing “Livin’ on a Prayer” along with Foxx, Matthews, the Black Eyed Peas, actor Woody Harrelson, and others. Other notable names at the event included comedian Jerry Seinfeld, director Spike Lee, and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. Other A-list musicians to perform included Mark Ronson, Maggie Rogers, Pharrell Williams, the Isley Brothers, Patti LaBelle, and Run-DMC. According to Page Six, Kraft has been discussing teaming up with Infor CEO Charles Phillips to plan future editions of Apollo in the Hamptons, with Perelman planning to stop hosting the concert after this year."

Why? Was it cover for an Epstein-type situation?

Readers, I am flabbergasted by the Names section that is the back page of the second Globe section. It's all the important people, the people in the club, and life is one big party. 

Also see:

Spike Lee, Michael B. Jordan among stars at Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival

Spike must be winging in from the Hamptons while Jordan transcends race, right?

Casey Affleck addresses past sexual misconduct allegations: ‘The best thing to do was to just be quiet.’

Florida didn't come up in the Kraft brief, and I wonder if they have talked about it.

Why Mark Wahlberg says Patriots-Cowboys Super Bowl matchup would be a ‘win-win’

Better place your bets now.

"Three big Boston teaching hospitals are launching an initiative to help families facing eviction, collectively acknowledging the strong connection between stable housing and good health....."

So when do they head to the West Bank?

I'm sorry, readers. I had intended to post more today; however, I have been here all day adding on and updating, and am tired and hungry so I must say good night. Sorry.