Officer in Freddy Gray Case Acquitted

There is bad news on the Freddy Gray front.  This is the Black guy was beaten up and severely injured by Baltimore police and ‘helped’ into the van and given a “rough ride” and died from the totality of the treatment.  It’s clearly a case of six cops murdering a Black guy.  The Court ruling today let one of the officers off saying he is not guilty.  This isn’t anything new, unfortunately.   In another case that the High Court just ruled on today- - a Black guy convicted of murder was let go because he was convicted by an all White jury.  This is because the court went through all twenty preemptary challenges weeding out all of the Black prospective jurors.  There is proof this racism was deliberate because there were notes indicating which jurors were Black and had to be gotten rid of.  And there were even priorities as to Which black jurors were worse than others as far as getting an acquittal should it come down to that.   This was a seven to one ruling of the High Court and the lone dissenter was our old friend Clarence Thomas, who is the ultimate Oreo as well as hypocrite.  And Donald Trump wants to have nine black robed Justices all just like Clarence Thomas.  Judge Thergred Marshall thirty years ago expressed a problem with these preemptary challenges, and I think lawyers have up to twenty of these challenges they can use to have any juror they want dismissed without cause.  I’m not sure how I feel about such cases in general where race was not a specific factor as it was in this case.  But the theory is that there are more whites in any given locality than there are blacks so that it’s easier to use your preemptary challenges on Black jurors to exhaust the supply of them- - than it is for whites.  It would be interesting to have Hillary Clinton weigh in on both these cases. On the Thom Hartman show there was talk about how Blackwater has gotten into the law enforcement officer training business to give it that military zing.  They changed their name several times and ended up as being the Accademy corporation- - pretty tricky, huh?  So you'll have Accademy ruling the accademy. 

Bill Clinton was the most conservative Democratic president since Grover Cleveland if you start counting back the administrations.  If Hillary is to brag about anything it’s perhaps that she’s the most liberal administration since Jimmy Carter who was elected forty years ago.  My how time flies.  Norman Goldman points out that the moneyed interests of the Democratic Party, the bosses who run the thing- - won’t care if Donald Trump is elected.  That’s just our point.  The Democratic Party doesn’t care because they’ll go on anyhow.  Donald Trump has been working hard to consolidate his victory in the Republican Party by being nice to the people he defeated.  You don’t find the same kind of treatment with Hillary.  In terms of the notion that “The Democratic Party is our only hope” which Goldman talks about, I have to ask “In who’s eyes?”  I’m sure the Catholic Church regarded its institution as the only hope for Salvation in Martin Luther’s time.  And the Founding Fathers didn’t accept the British Empire’s definition of democratic government but made their own definitions written in the Declaration of Independence.  If there are twenty percent of the voters out there who aren’t happy with either Trump or Clinton and may not vote wouldn’t it be better to give someone they can vote for, such as Bernie Sanders.  Sanders clobbers Clinton in the head to head contests with Trump, so why not go for a winner?  I believe if things continue going the way they are this superiority in the polling in head to head contests against Donald Trump will become obvious, even to the democratic delegates.  

There are doing a lot of Bernie bashing on the Stephanie Miller show today and one pro Bernie caller was tagged as a right wing troll.  I think the whole show is getting out of hand.  They criticized Bernie Sanders for saying on “This Week” that Hillary Clinton is the lesser of two evils.  Hillary has a 54% unfavorable rating and Trump has a 58% unfavorable rating so I think the phrase “the lesser of two evils” is a correct one. As to Norman Goldman's observations this afternoon he says that Bernie Sanders is trying to TURN OFF voters by calling the institution vile and corrupt and not worthy of them.  Goldman has it completely wrong.  It's Bernie who is trying to bring people INTO the system!  Nobody is talking about "doctrinal purity".  Goldman must be hanging around the Pope too long!  But there is a difference between black and white.  In 2008 you had two "conservadems" but one of them was lying about it and the other was being honest.  Given the choice between a liar and a truth teller, I'll take the truth teller.  Rush Limbaugh on his show today talked about the author of the book and mow Movie called "Clinton Cash".  Rush describes the content of this book as "non political".  Maybe I'll read it.  I do have the observation comparing Hillary and Obama in February of 2008 where I would like to side with Hillary.  This involves the comparing of their health care plans and I now say that Obama was lying through his teeth in attacking Hillary’s health care plan because this is the one Obama adopted and got passed, so all of his attacks of her are blowing smoke.  He sure used words like “hope and change” a lot.  In so many head to head comparrisons of that campaign season Hillary got the best of Obama.  She was the one who was sharp and focused and Obama had his head in the clouds.  

I turned on KNX radio and listened to President Obama discuss this new Overtime pay bill.  They about doubled the wage threshold for being guaranteed overtime pay by the federal government from $23,000 to 47,000 and then they are going to index the rate to the rate of inflation from now on, which the Republicans won’t like one bit.  (later on)  President Obama last week issued another of those executive orders.  This one involved the allowing of people earning under $47,000 a year to get time and a half for more than forty hours.  This is to make up for a loss in wages over the years due to inflation.  There were howels of protest both by Pat Buchannon and also that British guy about how this arbitrary move would wreck the economy and there would be loss of jobs.  The Black guy responded that with a rise in wages so overdue that this loss would not be noticed, if it occurred at all.   This is one of those issues I wish Hillary Clinton would weigh in on, in case there are any doubts on how she stands.  I cam be pretty sure that Paul and Judy would give a thumbs down to this.  Even though the law as first passed decades ago has been way muted by inflation, they don't care- - any more than the doctor's mal practice limitation bill of $250,000 passed in 1978.  We don't live in 1978 dollars these days.  Since I've been on SSI we've had inflation over the past twenty years so a two thousand dollar limitation on cash reserves (which I haven't always stuck to) is more stringent now than whenever this particular law was originally passed.  There are certain laws where it only makes sense to index the limitation rates to the rate of inflation.  

Last night the Billboard Awards were held live at five o clock.  I only felt like watching scantily clad women for only so long.  I switched to KNBC news, which went on till seven o clock.  There were only two people in line ahead of me for medication.  I watched Sixty Minutes.  The first segment was a favorite of Morley Safer with that Italian wine making family.  They are now letting the three daughters into the business.  The next segment was on insider trading.  The final segment for that hour was on Valerie Jered, who is wedded to the hip with Barock Obama.  Some people find this close connection troubling.  She’s way closer than any other White House aid he’s had.  Some find this close connection troubling. Channel seven repeated the whole Billboard Awards thing at eight, seemingly.  Then I watched the Simpson’s episode.  Then they had a thing on art fraud- - and a whole gallery did only business dealing in counterfeit art.  Then there was a thing on those fish in the Gulf of California which the Mexican government is trying to save.  

 I had a disturbing dream last night.  There was some elaborate plot for my family to disown me and arrange for me to die in a mysterious manner and then all traces of my life would be eliminated.  I was taken and drowned in the ocean.  But then I thought I had survived death.  I walked around some hospital and the nurses there were talking about me and they described me as a “Remulan”  (as opposed to Romulan)  But they could not see me but some kids who looked like zombies or something- -they recognized me.  Prior to this I had seem some soap opera plot where there was elaborate talk about a family free and kept secrets and how the same thing was destined to happen to one of the characters on the show.  Actually I had obtained evidence Mom and Dad were planning on having me eliminated but I dared not confront them with it because I didn’t want to be accused of being paranoid.  But when the evidence mounted up they were planning it they could no longer deny it.  In one scene I had taken a couple of valiums and had other valiums with me and was wandering through the streets as it was getting dark.  I went to the family church where they had just installed a new younger pastor I barely knew and I wanted to council with him.  But he was offended by the fact I was wearing shorts (even though it was cooling off) and there was a group of youths fresh from a baseball outing or something and they were wearing shorts and the church officials were offended at their dress.  A church service was starting and you had to wear suits.