Maggie's Madness Drug War Chronicles Baja California
A continuation of events surrounding the drug war and related social issues of Baja California and Mexico. Keeping an eye on Seig Heil Trump. We are still trying to restore all blogs from 2006 which were hacked by Linton Robinson and his team, famous for supporting the Baja Trump Towers on one of his real estate sites. Highlights of Paris-Simone's favorite music !!
"I leave you gentlemen now, and you will write it. You
will interpret. That’s your right. But as I leave you I want you to
know—just think how much you’re going to be missing. You won’t have
Nixon to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, this is my last press
conference, and it will be the one in which I have welcomed the
opportunity to test wits with you. I have always respected you. I have
sometimes disagreed with you. But unlike some people, I’ve never
cancelled a subscription to a paper, and also I never will.
I believe in reading what my opponents say, and I hope that what I
have said today will at least make television, radio, and the press,
first recognize the great responsibility they have to report all the
news and, second, recognize that they have a right and responsibility,
if they’re against a candidate, give him the shaft, but also recognize
if they give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who
will report what the candidate says now and then. Thank you, gentleman,
and good day."
~~~~~
So, we have heard that song before, right? And, after that announcement as bad luck would have it, matters became even worse;....Nixon was back. (who's that moaning in the background? Paris?)
"President Donald Trump told supporters Saturday night that he will
never speak to them again if he loses the election in November.
Speaking
at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump railed
against rival Joe Biden, calling him "the worst candidate in the history
of presidential politics."
"If I lose to him, I don't know what
I'm going to do. I will never speak to you again," Trump told the
attendees at the rally. "You'll never see me again."
Neither the Trump nor Biden campaign immediately responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Biden, in yet another move to troll the president, released a 10-second ad shortly after Trump delivered his remarks, approving the message.
Trump made similar remarks in 2016 when he rivaled Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
"I don't think I'm going to lose, but if I do, I don't think you're ever going to see me again, folks," Trump said at a Maryland rally in April 2016. "I think I'll go to Turnberry and play golf or something."
Trump has signaled how he'll react if Biden wins the election. In a June interview, he refused to say whether he would accept the results.
"I
have to see, look, I have to see, I'm not just going to say yes, I'm
not going to say no, and I didn't last time either," Trump said when
asked for a clear answer on whether he'd accept this year's election
results.
Biden is leading Trump by about 6 percentage points, according to a national polling average from Real Clear Politics."
I'm not sure what else could possibly go wrong with the breaking news that Chief Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has died. Regardless of Trump's tribute to RBG (and keeping in mind you can never believe what he says),Trump and McConnell are licking their chops like vultures lying in wait, chomping at the bit - both brilliant schemers completely devoid of scruples of any kind, gleefully rubbing their hands together and plotting their next move: a most conservative appointment to fill the now empty seat in the Supreme Court. This of course will have an immense impact on the outcome of the upcoming Presidential Election, and could actually work in Trump's favor.
So we are dealing with the blow of the loss of the sweetest & smartest rose who gave us hope and courage and the probability of descending back to the hell fires of the Dark Ages with another Trump appointee on the Supreme Court.
And it's a good thing except I'm having a rough time logging in - hopefully I can get the reports to link here.So let's give it a whirl. This news will supersede Joe Biden's Town Hall. In case the report won't come up on a link, I'll paste it and save myself a trip back here to edit it.
"Cd. de México (18 septiembre 2020).- Pese
al discurso oficial, las masacres en México no han cesado. En lo que va
del año se han registrado al menos 45 casos en donde, en un mismo
hecho, han asesinado a sangre fría a cinco o más personas en 20 estados.
[Oscar Uscanga
Mexico City (September 18, 2020) .- Despite the
official discourse, the massacres in Mexico have not stopped. So far
this year there have been at least 45 cases in which, in the same act,
five or more people have been murdered in cold blood in 20 states.]
En total, las masacres en México le han quitado la vida este año a 320
personas en los estados de Guanajuato, Michoacán, Guerrero, Puebla,
Durango, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Jalisco, Baja California,
Chihuahua, Morelos, Colima, Nuevo León, Sonora, Oaxaca, Estado de
México, Chiapas, Tabasco y San Luis Potosí.
[In total, the massacres in Mexico have killed 320 people this year in
the states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Guerrero, Puebla, Durango,
Zacatecas, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Jalisco, Baja California, Chihuahua,
Morelos, Colima, Nuevo León , Sonora, Oaxaca, State of Mexico, Chiapas,
Tabasco and San Luis Potosí.]
Para el especialista en seguridad de World Justice Project en México,
Juan Salgado, estos crímenes son posibles principalmente porque la
impunidad impera en las entidades.
[For the security specialist of the World Justice Project in Mexico, Juan
Salgado, these crimes are possible mainly because impunity reigns in
the entities.]
"Creo que tiene que darse un apoyo muchísimo más fuerte al modelo
nacional de Policías, que consiste en fortalecer a las corporaciones de
los municipios porque se está dando la mayor parte de recursos a la
Guardia Nacional, pero se tiene que hacer una reforma que vaya de abajo
para arriba", consideró.
["I believe that much stronger support must be given to the national
police model, which consists of strengthening the municipal corporations
because most of the resources are being given to the National Guard,
but a reform has to be carried out that will from the bottom up, "he
considered.]
Un recuento similar de masacres fue realizado por la organización Causa
en Común, que entre enero y agosto contabilizó 479 casos, en los que
tomó en cuenta hechos donde asesinaron a tres personas o más.
[A similar count of massacres was carried out by the Causa en Común
organization, which between January and August counted 479 cases, in
which it took into account events where three or more people were
murdered.]
El primero de septiembre, en su mensaje por el Segundo Informe de
Gobierno, el Presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador manifestó que en
México ya no había desapariciones ni masacres.
[ On September 1, in his message for the Second Government Report,
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated that in Mexico there were
no longer disappearances or massacres.]
"Ya no hay torturas, desapariciones ni masacres; se respetan los
derechos humanos y se castiga al culpable sea quien sea", afirmó en
Palacio Nacional."
["There is no longer torture, disappearances or massacres; human rights
are respected and the guilty is punished whoever he is," he said in the
National Palace.]
~~~~
Aha...and then he laughed..link includes the video:
""Let's see, put the first of the Reformation, in one of those we found it. There it is, look. There are the massacres! Heh, heh, heh. They are predictable, very obvious ”, said this Friday, September 18, while laughing, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The
newspaper Reforma published this same day, in its main article, that
“despite the official discourse, the massacres in Mexico have not
stopped. So far this year
there have been at least 45 cases in which, in the same act, five or
more people have been murdered in cold blood in 20 states ”.
According
to the same newspaper, in total, the massacres in Mexico have
registered 320 deaths, in the states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Guerrero,
Puebla, Durango, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Jalisco, Baja
California, Chihuahua, Morelos, Colima, Nuevo León, Sonora, Oaxaca,
State of Mexico, Chiapas, Tabasco and San Luis Potosí.
The
newspaper recalled that on September 1, in his message for the Second
Government Report, López Obrador stated that in Mexico “there is no
longer torture, disappearance or massacres; human rights are respected and the guilty is punished whoever he is ”.
We could not watch the entire ABC Trump Town Hall because of our reception here, but picked up bits and pieces watching Don Lemon; plus I was cooking and in fact I now have a billion things to do including making a new recipe for broccoli salad for tonight. I stayed up way too late last night watching clips of the Town Hall from You Tube which drove me crazy. I came away rattled - wondering how is it that we are all still here - how is it that the impulsive extrovert mentally unstable Trump hasn't pushed the red buttons yet? Well, he still might especially if he is deposed, or can finally accept the reality that he will be. Am I being too generous? Because this report from today gave me the heeby jeebies.
UPDATE/edit: Wow. Here's the latest on Redfield, wearing masks and the elusive vaccine. Trump is pissed off - he says Redfield was mistaken, but I don't think so. Maybe Redfield finally was fed up from being pushed around ...we'll find out tomorrow. You have to scroll down to see the coverage, included is Collinson's knock em dead report.
Have to run, this recipe calls for Balsamic vinegar, I'll let you know how it goes. Heck let's unravel our little minds and do another Willie Nelson...seems to help. Stay Safe Y'all !
P.S. The salad was great ,the balsamic vinegar was not overpowering. Have to go up to the states and get a flu shot, be back in a few days. Stay Safe Everyone.
I should have added (but I thought the title was getting kind of long) he might even reveal that he thinks Joe Biden is taking drugs.
Of course, he won't be speaking about the Republicans who are blocking the Virus Aide and millions of Americans are unemployed, broke, hungry, losing their homes or rentals and scared to death. But then again he could mention he received the Bay of Pigs award.
One thing we know for certain, people will be crammed in like sardines to the inside event, most not wearing masks and not a soul practising social distancing.
This BTW was from last week, and if you listened to the Trump speech, comparing himself to FDR and Churchhill as we did, you probably were astounded-left speechless as we were to say the least. Goes to show Trump knows nothing about history, not one thing, bombastic !
So, here we are with the West ablazedue to climate change (which BTW is really not being covered here locally...nor have I heard any television weather reporter in San Diego [ with the exception of PBS] even mention "climate change" and the fires. Not a peep ! That to me is just dern-right irresponsible and stupid.
~ From Informed Comment: (with video hit the link)
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is astonishing to me that we still
have 287 million gasoline vehicles on our roads and that 20 percent of
our electricity comes from burning dirty coal. We just go on blithely
pumping over 5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, a powerful and
dangerous heat-trapping gas, into the atmosphere annually. It is like
setting off atomic bombs in the atmosphere. We know this. And yet as a
society we are virtually paralyzed. Our Neanderthal-in-chief actually
promotes coal burning, and the Republican Party is a Siamese twin with
Big Oil.
The presidential candidates aren’t even talking about it much, and it
was an issue largely excluded by the corporate press and the party
machines from the primary debates.
While individuals with the resources can cut down on their carbon
footprints with solar panels and electric cars (they are a good
combination), the problem can’t be tackled effectively without
government action. And there, the United States has failed. It has been
made to fail by Big Carbon and greedy politicians and ignorant
journalists and an apathetic public that apparently doesn’t care if
their children or grandchildren face a choice of being burned up or
drowning.
If you go back and look at the predictions of climate scientists
about 2020, you’ll see that they gave a range, of best- and worst-case
scenarios. In every instance, it is the worst case scenario that has
come to pass. Even the most jaded and alarmed scientists in 2000 were
not pessimistic enough.
Mother Nature is trying to tell us something but we are not listening.
Diana Leonard and Andrew Freedman at WaPo
write, “These wildfires are what is known as a compound disaster, in
which more than one extreme event takes place at the same time, across a
varied geography. While climate scientists have been warning that
compound disasters are an inevitable result of human-caused climate
change, a spate of simultaneously burning, rapidly expanding fires
spanning the entire West Coast was not expected for several more decades
if greenhouse gas emissions remain high.”
1. 3.1 million acres of California have been scorched this year by
wildfires, the largest number in recorded history, and thousands of
homes have been destroyed. Some 200,000 are going without electricity in
a bid to stop more fires. Christina Walker at CNN reports that California wildfires have increased 8x in size since 1970, and the number of acres burned is up 500%.
CNN quotes Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National
Center for Atmospheric Research: “climate change has not just made the
extreme heat waves that coincided with the fires worse. The bigger
effect is the more subtle, long-term warming,” he said. “That couple of
degrees of (average) warming over decades … you don’t notice it as much,
but it’s still there lurking in the background, sucking extra moisture
out of the vegetation and the soil.”
A study
has just demonstrated that the number of extreme-danger fire days has
doubled since 1980 in California because of global heating.
2. Wildfires have burned a million acres in Oregon, and Timothy Bella, Marisa Iati and Hannah Knowles at WaPo
report that state officials are worried about a “mass fatality
incident” that will overwhelm local health care facilities. Fully 10
percent of the state’s population, some 500,000 people, have been
ordered evacuated.
3. Joseph O’Sullivan reports at the Seattle Times
that Washington state has seen over 600,000 acres burned. It is also
part of the expanding Compound Disaster. This is the most acreage burnt
in recorded history except for 2015. Governor Jay Inslee, in keeping
with the spirit of Compound Disaster, is trying to provide shelter to
some of the 500,000 fleeing Oregonians.
4. Nature is not disconnected from human society or from the economy, as Trump and his ilk imagine. Jeff Dukes writes in the Chicago Tribune about the effect of global heating on the Midwest:
“In the Midwest, we regularly see crops ruined by droughts or
floods. We expect wetter springs, bigger downpours and more variable
precipitation during hotter summers to crash yields more often. The
agricultural banks that many farmers depend on for credit are typically
small and disproportionately exposed to these regional extreme weather
events.”
The Midwest is facing the opposite problem from the West, of
increased downpours and crop damage. What we seldom stop to think about
is the rolling farm bankruptcies it will produce and hence the rolling
bank failures.
5. Hurricane Laura visited devastation on Louisiana and struck up to
Arkansas. It landed as nearly a Category 4 Hurricane, and if it had hit
more populous areas it would have been an even bigger disaster. Sarah Gibbons at National Geographic
lays out the dangers of such enormous storms. They are causing coastal
erosion, literally just taking away the state’s land. As the icecaps
melt, the Gulf of Mexico is rising (and the water is heating, so it
expands). That sea level rise is exacerbating the sinking of the Delta
because levees no longer let the Mississippi lay down silt.
Hot sea water and extra moisture in the air from heat-driven
evaporation is fueling super-hurricanes in the Gulf that are more
powerful and cause more downpours than anything in recorded history.
This heating is from us driving our cars and burning our coal and other
ways we generate heat-trapping gases."
~~~~~
Local Drug War & COVID Stats:
Before I get so far behind, here are some stats:
Tijuana:
58 executions so far this month of September in Tijuana, leaving a YTD total of 1,412 dead. Check out Noticias del Dia for more reports on all of these.
"From 5 a.m. on Saturday, September 12 to noon this Sunday, in Tijuana there were ten homicides. With this, they add 58 murders so far in September, and in the accumulated of 2020, 1,412.
In
the most recent violent events, the multi-homicide of three men stands
out during the early hours of this September 13, when in the first
minutes of the day, officials of the State Investigation Agency located
the three bodies on the old highway to Tecate, on one side from number
105, in the Colonia Vivienda Magisterial 37, in the Los Pinos
delegation. The victims - who remain unidentified - have gunshot wounds.
At
noon today, in the same district of Los Pinos, a man was shot to death
while walking on the main avenue of the Puerta Plata subdivision,
located on one side of Bulevard 2000.
Municipal
police officers and Red Cross rescuers arrived at the scene and
attended to the victim, but the victim no longer had vital signs and the
man was declared dead at the scene. The area was cordoned off waiting for agents of the State Attorney General's Office to carry out the corresponding proceedings.
Regarding
the homicides reported on Saturday, September 12, at the stroke of
midnight, Valentín Reyes Rosa and Alberto Audeves Mercado were found
dead inside a house in the private San Jorge, in the Villa del Álamo
subdivision, in the delegation The pines. Both bodies show traces of strangulation.
At 11:40 p.m. yesterday, the assassination of J. Nicolás Martínez Monroy, 55, was reported. The
corpse of the man -which showed gunshots- was found inside a green and
cream public transport vehicle on Mixtla street, in front of number
14912, in the Sánchez Taboada Produtsa neighborhood, in the Sánchez
Taboada delegation .
Hours
before, at 6:30 p.m., officials of the State Investigation Agency
located a gray truck, parked on Constitución avenue, between Second and
Third streets, in front of number 616, in the Zona Centro neighborhood,
in the Centro delegation .
In the passenger seat was Geovany Zepeda, 32, whose body had gunshot wounds to the neck and chest.
Minutes
earlier, on Avenida Ferrocarril -on one side of the train tracks-, in
the Zermeño Mérida neighborhood, in the Los Pinos delegation, the body
of a man, between 20 and 25 years old, was found. The body had a head wound and 3 more to the thorax produced by a firearm projectile. So far the identity of the victim is unknown.
In
the early hours of Saturday, at 5:25 a.m., the body of a man, between
45 and 50 years old, was found on the free highway Mexicali-Tijuana, at
kilometer 159 + 100, in the Presa Rural delegation The body had two
injuries to the head and one more to the thorax, caused by a firearm."
~~~~~
UPDATE/edit 09/14:
The execution numbers according to Zeta have increased. I'm adding this because maybe you might be thinking, well, it is just more people being shot. No, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as cruelty Is concerned...and it happens all of time, it is savage here up and down the coast:
"The violence in Tijuana continues. This
morning of Monday, September 14, the severed head of a person was found
inside a plastic bucket, a body inside a tambo, as well as a drug
message. The discovery occurred in the vicinity of the Altamira neighborhood.
With this fact, the number of intentional homicides rises to 63 victims in September, and 1,416 so far in 2020.
Information
obtained by ZETA, refers that around 06:29 hours it was reported that
in Lucrecia Toriz Street and Second Street at the height of the stairs
that lead to a private university there was a black and white plastic
drum, which was he managed to appreciate the lower extremities, which
were tied with a piece of black cloth, wrapped in a brown and beige
blanket.
In addition, 20 meters from the first site, a white plastic bucket was found, and inside a human head. On one side was a piece of canvas with a legend that read: “ALINIENSE BALL OF DOGS FROM INDEPE TO VAN A RODAR CHOMPAS. YOU FOLLOW YOUR LUIZ GÁMEZ OR THE (LUISILLO) ATORALE BY DAY CRISTALON IN ONE. ATT EL KINDER NG ”.
In other violent events, four murders were recorded on Sunday, September 13.
The
first occurred at 6:10 a.m. at an address at number 96 Lázaro Cárdenas
street, Alfonso Garzón neighborhood, where a 20-year-old male who went
by the name of Yamil Ramos Ramírez was murdered.
Later,
another young man identified, Gerardo García Mora, 24, was found dead
on Titanio Street in the Puerta de Plata neighborhood. The victim had reddish-brown spots.
Also
on Sunday on Abedul Street in front of the address of Lot 11, Block 27,
Valle Imperial neighborhood, a male was found dead with visible traces
of violence, until now unidentified. Two casings were found at the site.
Finally,
at 9:40 p.m., a young man between the ages of 25 and 30 was shot to
death when he was on Hacienda las Arboledas Street, in the Terrazas del
Valle II section.
In none of the cases are detained persons reported."
end edit.
~~~~~
Ensenada:
You wouldn't know Ensenada is more or less a battleground, not only in the drug war related deaths but the COVID debacle by reading the reports of tourists flocking to the Municipality. Marco Flores writes that a YTD tally would exceed 265 deaths in Ensenada by execution. Here is the link to Ensenada from Zeta; you can scroll through - don't miss the two gringos down in San Quintin at El Socorro. Back in the early 80's Socorro used to be one of our favorite places to camp & surf.
"The
State Attorney General's Office (FGE) suspects that the North American
couple who is missing in Baja California are inside a grave in the town
of El Socorrito in San Quintín, south of Ensenada.
They
are a retired couple identified by the media from San Diego,
California, as Ian Hirschsohn, 78, of Solana Beach and Kathy Harvey, 73,
of Tierrasanta.
Both
traveled frequently to the area where they rented a home, although they
intended to return to the United States on August 31. Relatives of the couple had no further news of them so they notified the police corporations.
The
San Diego Police Department confirmed on Friday that the bodies were
found, however, according to Ensenada officials working on the case,
they reported that they are not sure because they have three days trying
to extract the remains from a grave, or well, six meters deep.
Since
the discovery last Thursday, September 3, a delegation was formed
between agents and rescue elements from the Civil Protection
Directorate, as well as volunteers.
On
Saturday night the rescuers deserted the operation due to the risk, on
Saturday morning they began the work but so far they have not been able
to extract the remains.
El
Socorrito is located about four kilometers from the Transpeninsular
highway, and the closest to the place of the discovery is a
rehabilitation center for addicts."
"The
number of deaths caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) amounted to
3,330 in Baja California, with which the entity remains in fifth place
nationally. More than half
of the deaths (58.8%) from March to September 12, 2020 were registered
with the Mexican Institute of Social Security.
While
37.4% in the hospitals of the Ministry of Health and 3.75% in the rest
of institutions, said the Secretary of Health, Alonso Pérez Rico, this
Sunday during the message of Governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez, on Facebook.
In
the last report (of September 12) the entity reported 20 new deaths: 12
in Tijuana, 3 in Ensenada, 3 in Mexicali, and 2 in Tecate.
Regarding
the number of accumulated cases of coronavirus, in Baja California
there are 18 thousand 324. Of which, the Ministry of Health registered 7
thousand 108; IMSS, 9,753; IMSS Wellbeing 209; ISSSTE, 440; ISSSTECALI, 662; Sedena, 37; Semar, 47 and private hospitals, 68.
According to the official, 24 new cases were reported on September 12. Fifteen in Ensenada, to add 2 thousand 905. Eight in Mexicali, bringing the total to 8 thousand 778 accumulated. Five in Tijuana, to reach 5,841 accumulated cases of coronavirus. Rosarito one, with a total of 323. While Tecate had no new cases, although it registers 477 accumulated cases.
As
of yesterday's cut, active cases in the entity decreased from 675 to
601. Tijuana went from having 317 cases to 278, which left the top 20
municipalities with the most active cases, ranking 25th.
Mexicali
also decreased the number of active cases, from 144 to 125. Ensenada,
went from 162 to 157. Tecate dropped 10 active cases, from 26 to 16.
Rosarito also reduced one active case, bringing it to 25.
Pérez Rico added that hospital occupancy is 28.16% in the SSA; 73.68% in Social Security; 87% in the ISSSTE; 63.82% in the ISSSTECALI; and 21.36% in Sedena."
"The
city of Tijuana in Baja California reported 229 active cases of
COVID-19, on the morning of Monday, September 14, the highest figure in
the five municipalities, which together accumulate 501 patients with the
active SARS-CoV-2 virus . Of
the accumulated cases since the beginning of the pandemic, there are 18
thousand 341 and three thousand 319 deaths, reported the head of the
Ministry of Health (SS), Alonso Pérez Rico.
Although
active cases decreased by 100 cases compared to the previous day, the
state remains above 500 patients with the active virus. Tijuana
reports 229, Mexicali 103, Ensenada 100, Playas de Rosarito 24, Tecate
11 and the towns of San Quintín and San Felipe have 32 and two cases
respectively.
In contrast to the more than 100 new cases to COVID-19 registered in recent days, this Monday there were only 17 new cases. Tijuana (5,851 confirmed) accumulated 10 cases; Ensenada (2 thousand 364) added three cases; Mexicali (8 thousand 484) accumulated two cases; Tecate (478) had a new case as well as the town of San Quintín (545). Only Playas de Rosarito (323) and the town of San Felipe (296) remained without incident.
Of
the confirmed accumulated, 387 are people ranging from 0 to 20 years
old, but the group with the most cases is that of people 30 to 34 years
old who report 2,274 COVID patients. Of the patients that are still alive, 14,848 have been outpatients and 173 have been hospitalized, 3,319 have lost their lives.
Pérez Rico reported that of the 15 recent deaths, Tijuana had the highest number, with 7 deaths reaching 1,352 deaths; Mexicali accumulated 1,498 with five deceased persons; Tecate with two reached 103 deaths and Ensenada with one case rose to 327 deaths. The
localities without increases are Playas de Rosarito, which maintains 18
deaths, the town of San Quintín has 19 and San Felipe has two.
By age groups, the highest number of deaths has occurred in people aged 64 to 69, 427 to date; It is followed by the groups of 60 to 64 years that register 414 deaths and that of 55 to 59 years has 413 deaths. Those recovered are 10,380 in the entire state.
In the SS, hospital occupancy is 28 percent with 110 beds occupied and 60 ventilators in use. The General Hospital of Mexicali is at 29 percent occupancy; the General de Tijuana at 32 percent and the General Hospital of Ensenada at 24 percent occupancy.
The
Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) is 74 percent occupied in
the state with 149 hospitalized patients and 29 connected to a
ventilator. Mexicali has an occupation of 78 percent in the General Hospital of Zone 30; Tijuana is 73 percent in the Regional Hospital 1 and Ensenada works at 73 percent occupancy in the General Hospital of Zone 8."
end edit.
~~~~
I saw this report a few days back and thought it might work on the blog...but I was torn, especially after viewing the Ensenada report from Zeta (above) and of course the drug violence which surrounds us in Tijuana.
However , I am a Jimmy Carter fan... and I needed a tune for the blog.
Here then,
~ From the Hill via MSN:
"Jimmy Carter Says His Son Smoked Pot With Willie Nelson On White House Roof"
By, John Bowden - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jimmy-carter-says-his-son-smoked-pot-with-willie-nelson-on-white-house-roof/ar-BB18ZURH
"Former President Jimmy Carter reveals in a new documentary that his
son James Earl "Chip" Carter sat on the roof of the White House and
smoked marijuana with country music legend Willie Nelson.
People magazine
reports that Carter made the admission in a new documentary, "Jimmy
Carter: Rock & Roll President." Carter confirmed the anecdote
described in Nelson's autobiography, though Nelson had hid the identity
of Carter's son in the book in which he referred to his companion as a
"servant" in the White House.
"When Willie Nelson wrote his
autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the White House one
night when he was spending the night with me," Carter says, according to
People. "And he says that his companion that shared the pot with him
was one of the servants in the White House. That is not exactly true -
it actually was one of my sons, which he didn't want to categorize as a
pot-smoker like him."
Carter famously made political alliances with many well-known
musicians during his White House tenure, including Nelson and the Allman
Brothers. In the documentary, he reportedly also dismissed criticism of
his meetings with musical groups, pointing to the influence such groups
had over their fans.
"I was doing what I really believed, and the
response I think from the followers of those musicians was much more
influential than the people who thought [of] that being inappropriate
for a president," Carter says, according to People.
Nelson is an outspoken advocate for left-leaning causes and in 2018 supported former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D) in his Senate bid against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)."
~~~~~
Rolling Stone covered this same material back in 2019:
"Sixty-five years after
he smoked his first joint, Willie Nelson is America’s most legendary
stoner and a walking testament to the power of weed. It may have even
saved his life"
Jeez, even Proceso is covering this. I'll give y'all some links and blowback from Woodward's latest. First off, we are not receiving high winds here at all, just a breeze off the ocean, but still the air quality is bad & as far as I know,** the Alpine-Jamul fire is not contained (current info below); so far we are okay sort of. Second, before someone who is supposed to be a genius says something really stupid, I'll say this: No, the Woodward expose is NOT propaganda and neither was Jeffrey Goldberg's report from The Atlantic.
All reports are smashing and must reads, hit the links:
So, in other words, Trump is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths in the United States. He on purpose built a wall of containment of life saving information from the American people, he sat back and let people needlessly suffer and die. No amount of spin from the White House or Mitch McConnell can ever fix this one. We were all sucked into the vortex of his insanity. I guess my question is, how much did AMLO know and when did he know it ? Panic my ass.
* UPDATE/edit: 09/11/20 - The Alpine-Jamul Fire known as "The Valley Fire" is not contained. KPBS is reporting 39% containment, Mike heard the containment was at 55%, Cal Fire is reporting 55% containment.
We were just really lucky here on the coast - it was 85 degrees outside with a mild and refreshing breeze continuously off the ocean, so both Paris and I survived. Tomorrow may be another story.
It seems to me that John McCain did some organizing with Saint Peter and the scores of U.S. Marines up there in Heaven, and Trump is finally getting his comeuppance.
Marines at the Battle of Belleau Woods: ' And when he gets to Heaven to St. Peter he shall tell: One more soldier reporting Sir, I have served my time in Hell.'
A History lesson for y'all - BTW, I just found out Juan Cole is battling cancer...light a little candle for him if you can:
~ From Informed Comment - 09/03/20 With video go to the link, original & full Atlantic Report
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jeffrey Goldberg
at the Atlantic reported yesterday on what he was told by four members
of Trump’s entourage about the president’s 2018 visit to France. He had
been scheduled to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris,
but it was raining and he made excuses.
Goldberg’s sources told him that Trump asked of World War I, “Who were the good guys in this war?”
He added that Trump said of the cemetery visit, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
He later called the more than 1,800 marines killed at Belleau Wood “suckers” for having sacrificed their lives.
Social media is aflame with Marines and relatives and friends of
Marines reacting angrily to the revelations. Belleau Woods or in French
Bois Belleau is a storied battle in the history of the Marine Corps.
Being a historian, I thought I would underline its importance with a
couple of accounts. One is from interviews with a veteran who had fought
there. The second is by a war correspondent who saw the first day of
the campaign with his own eyes.
“On 27 May 1918, German Gen. Erich F. W. Ludendorff, bolstered by
the massive flux of troops from the Eastern Front where Russia had been
knocked out of the war by revolution, launched a devastating offensive.”
He explained that the Germans reached the outskirts of Paris in only four days.
Gen. John Pershing had been pressed to just put the US Marines under
French command, but insisted on them retaining their independence. The
US Marines stopped the German advance and then went on the offensive
against them on June 6, 1918.
Howard explains,
“More Marines were killed in action and wounded this first day (1,087) than in all previous Marine Corps engagements combined.”
That June, the Germans deployed mustard gas against the Marines, with
devastating health effects for those who survived. Howard briefly
tells the story of Cecil Key, who was blinded and suffered burns from
mustard gas, but eventually recovered his sight and lived into the
1990s.
In the article, “MARINES CONTINUE DRIVING ENEMY BACK,” The Associated
Press reported on June 7 about the Marines’ offensive on the previous
day, the costliest for the Corps up until that point in history.
“The one point where the objective was not reached was on the right
of the attack in the Belleau Wood. The fiercest fighting was continuing
there . . .”
“The marines in their forward sweep took strong ground on either side
of Belleau Wood and cleared out the ravine south of Torcy, which linked
up the line with Hill 142, which was taken yesterday morning. This
gave them a strong and dominating position for a continuation of their
attack. Their total advance was approximately two miles on a three-mile
front.”
The captured German soldiers displayed poor morale, saying they were
glad to be out of the fighting. But they had nevertheless fought
determinedly, AP reported:
“the marines dashed into them yelling like Indians and plying
bayonet and rifle. One marine who was taking back a prisoner ran into
two German officers and 10 men. He tackled them single-handed with his
rifle and bayonet, killed both the officers and wounded seven of the men
. . .”
“The marines advancing in the Belleau Wood region went forward in
four waves in open formation. The men in the first wave were for the
most part armed with rifles and bombs, while the rear waves were
equipped with automatic rifles. With them came squads of machine
gunners lugging their collapsible guns. They crossed the open space and
toiled up the slope bent over like gnomes. The trenches the marines
passed over were clearly visible from below but they hardly deserved the
name, for they were simply lines of little holes, big enough to hold a
man, while barbed wire was lacking. There was some, however, interlaced
among the trees of Belleau Wood but the marines pushed their way
through it . . .”
“On all sides the guns were flashing, some of them stationed right in
the field, while others were hidden in the woods. Looking down into the
valley only a mile away, the village of Busseires could be seen on
fire. As the correspondent watched the scene the clouds of white
shrapnel smoke over the village of Torcy also became brownish and flames
appeared in that town.
The artillery fire that preceded the attack lasted an hour and was of
especial intensity for five minutes preceding the time when the marines
went over the top . . .
It appears that the marines in going in forestalled an attack the Germans had planned . . .”
This was only the beginning. As with most battles in that horrible
war, the campaign ground on for months. It wasn’t until October 29 that
American newspapers proclaimed that the Marines had all of Belleau
Woods (“for the sixth time”). The New York Times headline on Nov. 2
was, “TIME BOMBS LEFT TO KILL AMERICANS: Infernal Machines Ingenious,
Some Exploding Long After Germans Have Gone.” The improvised explosive
devices or IEDs in Iraq were not exactly a new technology.
Goldberg quotes a general close to former chief of staff John Kelly,
who said that Kelly became convinced that Trump could not understand
actions that were not transactional. People who lose their lives
fighting for others are in his lexicon “losers.” Non-losers are out for
themselves and get rich, apparently.
The White House is denying Goldberg’s story. But Goldberg was a
cheerleader for the Iraq War and a defender of far-right Israeli prime
minister Binyamin Netanyahu, so he isn’t exactly a bleeding heart
liberal. If even he is pursuing leads on a story that reflects so badly
on Trump, it is because the story is true.
Long-time readers know that my father served for two decades in US
army, mostly in the Signal Corps, and I grew up on military bases. GIs
were my friends and mentors. They were in a potentially dangerous
occupation, and their eyes were open. They were successors of Cecil Key
at Belleau Woods, who suffered mustard gas burns there for his country.
The only one short-changed is Trump, who cannot imagine self-sacrifice
for a cause greater than oneself. It is a stain on the escutcheon of
the presidency that Trump occupies that position."
Note: Trump is such a coward, he would never say it to their faces.
~~~~~
Oddly, we were just talking about this this morning:
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even before some whistleblowers among
the generals went to the Atlantic magazine with their complaints that
Trump disrespected US war dead, the president was in trouble with the
military.
I suspect that yesterday’s news will have caused Trump’s standing with the military to plummet further.
A new opinion poll from the Military Times
earlier this week reported that Trump’s favorability rating among US
military personnel had fallen to only 38 percent. It had been 42
percent last year this time, and stood at 46 when he was first
inaugurated. I made a little chart (read right to left) to show the
shrinking blue approval and the ever heightening orange disapproval.
I don’t show it here, but the new poll actually found that 42 percent strongly disapprove of Trump, so the fifty percent disapproval is mostly hard disapproval.
Biden wins the military vote 41 to 37 if the election were held today, according to the projections in this poll.
Trump won the military vote 2 to 1 against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The bias of the military toward Republicans is not an eternal fact of life. I wrote way back in 2004,
“let us take the officers in our military services, who have grown
increasingly rightwing in the past thirty years. Polling data show that
in 1976 only one third of military officers said they were Republicans.
By 1996 two-thirds of officers identified with the GOP, and only ten
percent were Democrats. This development is truly worrisome. Would
President Bush have been so successful in pushing his joint chiefs of
staff to put away their objections to an Iraq campaign last summer if he
knew two thirds of his officers had voted against him? Did not the open
contempt many in the armed services expressed for Bill Clinton weaken
our democracy?”
Back in 1994, the execrable Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina warned
President Bill Clinton that he “better watch out” for his safety if he
were to visit one of the then six military bases in that state.
It is kind of cute that many Republicans a quarter a century ago were
embarrassed by Helms’ outburst and were afraid this sort of talk would
make them look like extremists. That was before the GOP became the
bastard child of Frankenstein’s monster and Medusa.
I call Helms execrable for many reasons. One is that Camel brand
cigarettes put advertisements at the back of Thai school notebooks,
trying to hook K-12 students on cancer-causing tobacco. When the Thai
government intervened to stop the ads, Helms threatened Bangkok with US
sanctions.
But I digress.
That Trump may be reversing the long-term trend toward a Republican
military is heartening, and the revulsion in the officer corps is even
greater than among enlisted men.
Some 59 percent of officers have a poor opinion of Trump, and 50
percent have a very, very, very poor opinion of him. That statistic
tracks with his unfavorability rating among the general public.
Why the military dislikes Trump so much is not hard to guess. Many in
the military really hated his decision in October of last year to pull
US troops from the Kurdish regions of Syria and then to feed to Turkey’s
megalomaniacal Tayyip Erdogan the Syrian Kurds that had been US allies
against ISIL and fought side by side with US special forces to Turkey’s
Tayyip Erdogan.
Likewise, when Trump erratically just blew away the Iranian Gen.
Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport on Jan. 3, the Iranians
struck back at Iraqi bases hosting US troops with missiles, something
CIA director Gina Haspel had predicted to Trump.
The missile strikes caused concussions for about 100 US service
personnel. Concussions can be severe and can have severe health
consequences. Trump dismissed this injuries as “light,” clearly because
he was afraid people would blame him for provoking the Iranian strikes.
The US military is well trained in geopolitics, strategy and
logistics, and considers China and Russia much, much greater challenges
than they do dinky Iran. Trump does not share their priorities.
As for his increases in the military budget, that is mostly corporate
welfare for the arms firms. US military personnel are still poorly
paid under Trump, just as they have been all along. But, as Trump
obviously does not understand, a lot of people in the military aren’t
all about money."
~~~~~
Bravo Juan Cole.
Update/edit 09/06/20:
Let's see if I can do this because it is 97 degrees here, we're dealing with ancient electric lines, have had one black out and the computer is sketchy - it went down for hours and hours. However Governor Bonilla has some very good news regarding solar power, I'll be back with that. One battle at a time.
First off, here is where the famous saying "Retreat Hell! We just got here!" comes from:
Trump Lashes Out at Pentagon Following Report He Called U.S. Soldiers “Losers” and “Suckers”
Headline Sep 08, 2020
"In the U.S., fallout continued over reports last week that Trump
referred to U.S. soldiers who died in war as “losers” and “suckers.” On
Monday, Trump told reporters top Pentagon officials don’t like him
because he wants to get the U.S. out of “endless wars” that benefit
weapons manufacturers. Last year, Trump bypassed Congress so he could
sell $8 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Recently the U.S. said it could start selling F-35 jets to the UAE following the normalization agreement it reached with Israel. According to a former DHS
official, Trump berated a marine general in the Oval Office, demanding
he award a contract to a particular company building the wall on the
southern border."
- Note: This is very scary, and maybe we need to start asking ourselves what exactly are we going to do should Trump secure the election by urging people to vote twice? Him being a gangster we shouldn't be surprised...remember how the Mob would buy Judges and use the names of dead people to vote to insure their candidate would win? Same thing, same method.
"A week after President Trump
suggested that voters in North Carolina should cast two ballots — one
by mail and another at the polls — the authorities in Georgia are
threatening criminal action against 1,000 Georgia voters who did just
that.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, announced at a news
conference on Tuesday that investigations were underway in 100 of the
state’s 159 counties after the discovery of 1,000 instances of double
voting in the state’s June primary and August runoff elections.
“We will prosecute,” said Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, noting
that double voting in Georgia, considered a serious felony, carries a
penalty of one to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. While
calling attention to the double votes could add fuel to Mr. Trump’s
unfounded claim that mail voting opens the door to fraud, Mr.
Raffensperger noted that double voting hadn’t changed the outcome of any
races.
The scenario Mr. Raffensperger described appeared to be identical to the one suggested by Mr. Trump
last Wednesday, when he told reporters in Wilmington, N.C., that voters
should test the integrity of the state’s election system by voting by
mail and then subsequently appearing at the polls in person.
Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the nation’s voting system by suggesting it is insecure and riddled with fraud — contentions that experts reject — endorsed Mr. Raffensperger in the 2018 election for Georgia secretary of state.
There
is little evidence supporting the president’s contention that mail-in
voting is prone to voter fraud — in fact, a number of studies have
concluded that in the United States, all types of voter fraud are rare.
Elections officials nationwide have said that Mr. Trump’s suggestion to check the integrity of the system by voting twice created confusion among voters
in an already stressful election year. It was the most recent of many
statements he has made suggesting that the integrity of the country’s
elections is threatened by voter fraud, accelerated by mail voting
during the pandemic.
It was not clear how many of the 1,000
instances of double voting under investigation in Georgia involved
intentional efforts to vote twice, or whether those cases involved
people who, unsure of whether their absentee ballot had been counted,
voted again.
Mr. Raffensperger said that was part of the ongoing
investigation, but added that proving “intentionality” is not required
under the state law.
“At the end of the day, the voter was
responsible and the voters know what they were doing,” Mr. Raffensperger
said. “A double voter knows exactly what they were doing, diluting the
votes of each and every voter that follows the law.”
Mr.
Raffensperger said he knew of one voter, in rural Long County, Ga., who
had been “bragging” about having voted twice. The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution had reported multiple irregularities there.
Elections
officials in Georgia and elsewhere say there are systems in place to
prevent a second vote, with votes immediately recorded in poll books and
voters flagged if they have already cast a ballot.
Mr. Raffensperger said that, despite safeguards, 1,000 voters slipped through the cracks in an election that was plagued by a shortage of poll workers, long lines and problems with adjusting to new machines.
Mr.
Raffensperger insisted Tuesday that the “system worked.” He did not
explain exactly how the double voters managed to slip through but blamed
“the human element” and said he would work to improve training of poll
workers.
Mr. Raffensperger is also fighting efforts
by public interest organizations to extend the deadline for delivery of
mail ballots to county elections officials, saying an extension would
make it impossible to certify the election by the Nov. 20 deadline."
~ Note:Christ, send in the Marines.
Another black out yesterday for hours which made Paris sick, she didn't have her fans or A/C. We're supposed to be getting high Santa Ana winds today, but at around 3:00pm, nada. So if we get them, it means more black outs.
