Sharpton gets his dead cop

Israel went off of Daylight Saving Time yesterday (Sunday 2 AM).

Meanwhile, the rainy season is now upon us (there are only 2 seasons here, the rainy season and the dry season).  It was sunny this morning, when I went into Tel Aviv.  The rain started in the early afternoon during the bus ride home.

Back in the States, looks as though Al Sharpton has gotten what his people asked for.  Recall, last December, the marchers in New York City who were inspired by Sharpton's demagoguery were chanting "What do we want?  Dead Cops!  When do we want it?  Now!"

Seems that by the time you read this, Sharpton may already have  spoken at the funeral of fallen NYPD Officer Randolph Holder.  Queries (May already be answered by the time you read this):  Why is Officer Holder's family acquiescing in Sharpton's eulogism?  And will the NYPD rank and file, who, no doubt, will show up in force at the funeral, turn their backs on Sharpton as they did on Mayor de Blasio last December at the funerals of NYPD officers (posthumously promoted to Detectives)  Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos?  Just wondering.

De Blasio is still de Blasio: Res Ipsa Loquitur

Less than one hour after this posting is posted, New York City's alleged Mayor Bill de Blasio is scheduled to hit the stage in Harlem, at Al Sharpton's National Action Network for the annual tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

Put another way, Mayor Sharpton has invited his sock puppet de Blazio to help him stir up racial tensions and disharmony.  Because if racial harmony were ever to break out, and people were to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, then Sharpton would fall behind on his car and mortgage and credit card payments, be evicted from his luxury condo, and be sleeping in the lower corridors of Penn Station with the other homeless who have been attracted by New York City's welfare magnet, but who would rather not knuckle under to the extortionist gangs that effectively run the City's official homeless shelters.

I WAS on Trayon Christian's Side (sort of)

As is now making the rounds, Trayon Christian is now suing Barneys and the New York Police Department for what he claims to be an improper arrest.  Trayon, according to the story, purchased a $300+ Ferragamo belt at Barneys in Manhattan using his debit card, without incident.  After he left the store, some NYPD detectives allegedly collared him, took him in, questioned how he was able to afford a belt with such a price tag, and detained him for 2 hours before letting him go (the NYPD claims he was held for only about 40 minutes).  Trayon (or is it his lawyer?) claims that Barneys people fingered him in the first place, and then the NYPD cops made the arrest.

When the story first broke, I was willing to hear Trayon out. Yes, I do tend to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt, but, professionally and personally, I know of instances where NYPDers have had occasion to carry matters way past acceptable extremes.  Police forces, for all the good they do society, do need to have checks and balances placed upon them, just as any other governmental function.

[As for this "Stop and Frisk" controversy now hitting the headlines in the New York papers, I do believe that S&F does have its uses, and that some reasonable guidelines can be worked out if (and this "if" may be a bit presumptuous) the parties on both sides get reasonable.].

Never mind that most whiners of the "Racial Profiling" song do not have clean hands.  Never mind the matter of the culture of gang violence over high-end designer clothing and accessories.  And never mind the question of whether and to what extent Trayon did or did not cooperate with the detectives in their inquiry.  I WAS willing to reserve judgment and hear him out.

But now, I am greater than 99% sure that there is a NYPD/Barneys side to the story, and that Trayon has lots of filthy laundry that will be aired.  I know because Al Sharpton has entered the picture, and has been welcomed by Trayon and his family.

I am still interested in hearing Trayon tell his story, but I am even more interested in hearing what Barneys and the NYPD will say.  And by "tell his story," I do not refer to the statements and stories and palabra hyped in the press; I mean pleadings and evidence in a court of law.

Something is highly likely to come out which will leave Trayon looking like something less than the innocent hard-working college student who saved his nickels and dimes to purchase the Ferragamo belt of his dreams.  Al Sharpton, by his insinuation into the case, has all but assured me of this.

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Blanket Condemnation:

I have been (and still am) inordinately busy, what with the holidays, the out-of-town excursions, dealing with Dad's estate and helping Mom cope with her new condition of widowhood, deadline, deadlines and more deadlines, plus my normal teaching and law practice routine. Accordingly, I have not, until now, had the opportunity to wish all of my friends a Happy Passover or Easter, as the case may be, and so that is now done herewith.

Pesach [Hebrew for Passover] for us was uneventful. My wife's Cousin Shira had to cancel what has become her annual Pesach visit. We did miss her, but we enjoyed the privacy and intimacy which our respective schedules have, of late, denied us (our son being preoccupied with his own Pesach schedule this year).

Anyway, about that shooting rampage in Tulsa last Friday (Good Friday for those of the Christian faith):

If, arguendo, the news media stories are to be taken at face value, this would be a case of a white person indiscriminately killing black people because one or more persons who happened to have been black killed his father.

[I know, I know: Jake England, the prime suspect, does seem to have racial features and lifestyle habits and attributes characteristic of Native Americans, but for the sake of argument, we're now going along with the mainstream media story line.].

Imprimis, Jake England is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and this posting does not purpose to prove his guilt by the familiar "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. But if the reported evidence plays out any manner near the way I expect it to play out, he will likely be found guilty of some offense, at which point the presumption would no longer pertain. For now, his guilt is purely speculative. In the real world, England is hardly an exemplar of class or social grace.

But back to the news media story line: A white man went and indiscriminately shot up black people at random, in retaliation for his father's death, which was caused by one or more persons who happened to have been black.

On that score, I will note that the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and their ilk (including, perhaps, Barack Hussein Obama), have all spewed venom indiscriminately blaming the entire white race for past wrongs done to black people by individuals who happened to have been white. Never mind that many, many white people, including Abraham Lincoln, William Wilberforce, John Jay, Thomas Paine, et cetera, contributed heavily to the abolitionist effort, without which there still might be slavery in America today.

But if so many Black leaders and followers habitually tweet the line of blanket condemnation of the entire white race for all of the black people's problems, then why should it come as a surprise that a white person would indiscriminately take out his anger on the entire black race for what a few specific black people did to his father?

Color Us Angry

During the past few weeks, various incidents of local, national and/or international proportions have implicated the topic of Black-Jewish relationships. I do not now purport to try to solve the strained relations between the two communities, and indeed, the observations set forth in this post will (at least in the short run) likely cause some degree of discomfort on either or both sides. Just for the record, however, let my disapproval of certain straight-up racist comments that have emanated from certain quarters be noted.

And now, to stir up the hornet's nets, I will suggest that within the Jewish community there is a significant amount of anger towards the Black community. It is an anger which neither side is comfortable acknowledging; indeed, many if not most in the Jewish community are oblivious to their own anger in this regard. Consider the following:

A. Jews stood with the Blacks in the Civil Rights Marches of the 1950's and 1960's. Some even gave their lives in the fight against racial segregation in America. The incident near Philadelphia, Mississippi on 21 June 1964 is a case in point. Three civil rights workers disappeared, and their bodies were later recovered from an earthen dam. The three were James Chaney (Black), Michael Schwerner (Jewish) and Andrew Goodman (Jewish). The incident cost the Jewish community more -- both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of its membership -- than the Black community. After we did so much to end the legalized discrimination against the Blacks, they have turned upon us and support our enemies.


B. In the 1950's and 1960's, Israel sent its best and brightest to aid the developing African nations, and took the best and brightest of these developing African nations in to its colleges and universities for training. Every one of these African nations sided with the Arabs to vote against Israel!

C. We see and hear Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and all of these others spouting off their anti-Jewish garbage. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that thousands of Blacks fawn over these bigots, day and night, savoring and cheering their every word.

D. We are subjected to Black speakers who deliver venomous anti-Jewish speeches on the various college campuses, and whose speaking engagements are planned, organized and sponsored by the various Black student organizations on campus.

E. And, of course, there are the bad experiences in locales such as East New York, Mattapan, Parkside, Lawndale, Dexter-Linwood, Mt. Airy, Forest Park and other once-vibrant Jewish neighborhoods where the Blacks moved in, displaced the Jews, and made life dangerous for those Jews who remained.


In short, the Black community has too often showed gross ingratitude towards the Jewish community.


So if some Jewish youth, with the assistance of a few beers, spout off some racist anti-Black comments, then by all means condemn those racist comments (just as the anti-Jewish comments by Blacks, intoxicated or otherwise, ought be roundly condemned). But understand that the Jewish community has some real and valid gripes against the Black community in America and elsewhere, on account of the ingratitude we have been receiving.


Postscript: Some white supremacist nutjob killed Stephen T. Johns, an African-American security guard at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Officer Johns was, by all accounts, a very worthy man. The American Jewish Committee has set up a fund to help Johns's family.

There is no denying the nagging notion of the possibility that Johns's son might one day follow Black community precedent and turn against the Jewish people. But if I don't do at least something for Officer Johns's young son, then I will be no better than the Blacks who have ungratefully turned against the Jews.

And so, notwithstanding my reservations over the whole thing (including reservations about the American Jewish Committee itself), I have joined what surely will be many in the Jewish community, and have cut a check to the AJC to be used to help Officer Johns's family.

Odds & Ends:

1. Timoshenko Update: This continuing saga of the killing of NYPD Detective Russel Timoshenko was commented about in Blog postings of 16 November 2008, and two on 15 July 2007 (here and here). Dexter Bostic, the gunman who actually fired the bullets at Timoshenko, was sentenced to life without parole on the murder conviction and some consecutive sentences for the attempted murder and weapons violations. Bostic's accomplice, Robert Ellis, was convicted on the weapons charge, and got the 15 year maximum. Accomplice Lee Woods got a mistrial; his retrial has started.

Bostic is still whining about the injustice of the system. The only thing that is missing is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton complaining about how the system is biased against b-l-a-c-k people. But I really didn't expect them to show up. After all, the judge who heard the case and imposed the sentence, Hon. Plummer Lott, is also an African-American.


2. Yesterday I went to a Continuing Legal Education seminar, in order to fulfill my CLE requirements for my license to practice law. As with any other CLE course, price and timing were my primary factors in the selection. It could have been any topic, but in this case the topic related to diversity in the workplace. I fully expected all of the usual leftist liberal crap about affirmative action, and I expected a full deck of race cards to be played out.

Surprise! Diversity in the workplace was touted by most of the panelists as being the economically optimal choice (as opposed to the good progressive liberal thing to do). This is the message I have been delivering to my students for many, many years. And one African-American attorney came out point blank and stated that new associates in a law firm will not succeed if they carry around an attitude of entitlement! Much welcome evidence that Fat Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the rest of them do not necessarily represent the views of the African-American community at large.


3. Speaking of Fat Al, he's now making a big stink about a cartoon that appeared in the New York Post. I personally don't see what is so racist about it. Comparing Barack Hussein Obama to a chimpanzee? Hey, they did it to George W. Bush! I don't have the time or the inclination, but someone ought to go through all of the cartoons that have appeared in the Amsterdam News, the NYC newspaper whose target audience is the b-l-a-c-k community. If the Amsterdam News is held to the same standard to which Sharpton and the NAACP now seek to hold the N.Y. Post, then I would have no objection!

Close Down the City on Sharpton!

The news headlines here and here are that Al Sharpton was arrested for disorderly conduct. For the past week or two, Fat Al has stated his intention to shut down New York City. To be sure, Sharpton's arrest was relatively peaceable, and he was released after about 4 hours.

My comment: They ought to grant Sharpton his wish! The next time he and his followers engage in "civil disobedience" and get arrested, they should be taken to the precinct house or such other facility as can hold them. And then, the NYPD should shut down!! Before Fat Al and his boys and girls can be processed!! And before they can be provided food or water during what would have to be a very long wait in the holding cells!

If Sharpton wants to shut down New York City, then give the man his wish and shut down the city on him and his followers!!!

Bell, Sharpton & Obama

On account of the Passover religious holiday, I have been incommunicado for the past 2 days. Actually, our Passover was relatively quiet and uneventful for a change. The main event was that my wife's leftist moonbat cousin stayed with us for the seder, so we got into some interesting political discussions as we always do.

The thermometer went up a few degrees when I referred to the Junior Senator from Illinois who now aspires to the White House by his first, middle and last names, and then, upon Cousin Shira's vehement protestations that "he's not a Muslim" (I didn't say that he was), questioned her double standard with respect to the use of the proper noun "Rodham" in referring to the Junior Senator from New York, also a White House wannabe.

But we enjoy her company anyway, and there are no personal hard feelings.

Well, anyway, Passover has passed over, and, for the first time in over a week, I had a beer (in fact, I used the beer to make havdalah, the ceremony to mark the passing of the holiday (or, more often, the Sabbath) into the ordinary week). After I post this, I intend to have my first shot of whiskey (specifically, Jack Daniel's) since before Pesach. For the uninitiated, any form of wheat, oats, rye, barley or spelt which has been left to ferment or leaven is verboten on Passover, which puts beer and whiskey off limits. But don't feel too bad for us! We did quite well with wines, Carmel 777 Brandy and some Jelinek Slivovitz.


During the time of these last days of Passover, the big news item is the Sean Bell story, or rather, the Fat Al Sharpton story regarding the shooting of Sean Bell by some NYPD officers. I actually was on the side of Sean Bell's family -- at first! But as soon as it became clear that Fat Al would be welcomed with open arms by the family, I knew that the NYPDers merited my empathy.

My take on it:

A. Two of the three NYPDers who shot Sean Bell are b-l-a-c-k. This isn't a racial thing, it's a NYPD thing.

B. As Judge Cooperman made clear, the issue was strictly one of criminal liability under the New York criminal statutes. The civil trial will probably cost the NYPD some bucks (as, perhaps, it should).

C. Fat Al is up to his usual civil disturbance tactics. And others are doing his bidding for him by going further. Judge Cooperman's home is now under 24-hour surveillance, and the NYPD has already received a semi-credible threat that cops would be targeted by drive-by shooters. There may be some significant trouble yet!

D. If I were a White House wannabe other than Barack Hussein Obama, I would want there to be a full-blown race riot in New York City, so that I could connect the dots between Bell and Sharpton and Barack Hussein. Similarly, if I were an aspirant to the New York City Mayor's chair or the New York State Governorship, I would want to see Mike Bloomberg get his face smeared with poop from a New York City race riot.

Query: Has Fat Al Sharpton taken a retainer fee from any of the following:

1. John McCain?
2. Hillary Rodham Clinton?
3. Andrew Cuomo?
4. Thomas Suozzi?
5. Thomas Gulotta?
6. Christine Quinn?
7. Michael Balboni?

Fat Al for a Pal

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There are a number of individuals who oppose racial harmony. The Reverend Al Sharpton is one of them.

Can you blame him? If racial harmony were to break out, then Sharpton would be out of a job. Racial strife is Fat Al's meal ticket. [N.B. This isn't just an African-American thing. Plenty of people from diverse other groups would be similarly challenged in their livelihood if there were racial, religious and ethnic concord in America.].

Fat Al was on Long Island yesterday, fomenting trouble in the John White case. John White is an African-American resident of Long Island. It seems that on 9 August 2006, some white youths whose blood alcohol content was not necessarily zero showed up in front of White's house, apparently angry with White's son Aaron. John White went out and confronted them. John White's gun discharged, killing Daniel Cicciaro Jr. John White was convicted of manslaughter and now awaits sentencing.

White's defense was that he is a product of the segregated South during the era of Jim Crow laws, and he instinctively reacted to the white youths outside his home as though they were a lynch mob, and therefore had not formed the mens rea to commit the crime. Shades of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

I consider Fred Brewington, who was one of White's attorneys, to be a very able counsel (though he does push towards the left of the political spectrum). Many of Brewington's cases are employment discrimination cases, and his clients are not all necessarily African-American. I attached no negativity to White's case on account of Brewington's handling it; as contrasted with all of Lynne Stewart's clients. Throughout the trial I kept an open mind, and even after White's conviction, was waiting to see how matters developed on the promised appeal before passing any judgment of my own.

But Sharpton's involvement in the case (and, more specifically, John White's embrace of Sharpton) has put to rest all doubts I had heretofore been willing to tentatively accord John White.

The right to keep and bear arms carries the responsibility to discharge those arms prudently and justly. John White did not do this. John White could have called the police when the gang appeared at his door, but did not. This may well have been a factor in the jury's deliberations.

Another undeveloped theme in the trial was the white youths' dispute with John White's son Aaron. He supposedly had threatened to rape a white girl (other than color, how does this really differ from his father's claim of a lynch mob?). He arrived to testify in court under escort by bodyguards, and wearing a bulletproof vest. Query: Was he any better than his father's defense painted the white youth gang?

My take on it: This case exemplifies the worst of Long Island. Cicciaro and his surviving cronies are nothing to write home about, and certainly do not make the roads any safer with their ethanol-powered temperaments. Though Cicciaro's death was tragic and unnecessary, it cannot be said that he was not cruising for a bruising. Aaron White's presence in society is not a particularly stabilizing force. And John White got a little too trigger happy.

And on this latter score, the verdict, I believe, was appropriate.

Miscellaneous Briefs

Got some papers to grade and work to catch up on, but here are some miscellaneous briefs, in no particular order:


A. The Dishonorable Gerald Garson was released on bail a few hours after he was led away from his sentencing in handcuffs. See prior post.

My speculation: On account of his health issues, perhaps Garson wants to figure out a way to not have to die while he is incarcerated. Brooklyn DA Hynes is continuing his investigation of corruption in the courts. Perhaps Garson and his attorneys are looking into ways for Garson to sing for his freedom.



B. On account of severe financial and budgetary problems, the NAACP is going into retrenchment mode, and will cut back on its staff and close some of its offices.

Hey, isn't this racist? Shouldn't Jesse and Fat Al and Barack Hussein Obama be leading the protest march?



C. Christopher Woods, of Harlem, is suing Novartis, claiming that after drinking Novartis's dietary supplement "Boost," he was afflicted with a persistent erection.

So, pray tell, just what is he complaining about?

If I were Novartis's CEO, I would litigate the case to its fullest, and charge the legal costs to advertising expenses. It would be money well spent!