Clarence Brandley is an exonerated death-row prisoner and a member of Witness to Innocence, a national organization of death row survivors and their loved ones. He lives in Conroe.

Week of Jan 2, 2010

City's Small Fry Criminals Taken by Relentless Desire, Especially by Desire for Electrified Tools in the Night

\Trent Fox (below), 

charged with arson in the torching of the American Legion klavern remains in jail on a $50,000 bond request. As was mentioned last week, the Legion was once the armed wing of the Ku Klux Klan, some 90 years ago. Today the AL is largely a lonely group of little old men hoisting a flag at baseball games, writing spittle- filled letters to the editor in small towns across the country and having horrible diseases named after them.

 In the last column, we speculated that Fox might just be going to a reunion of others sharing his peculiar culinary style, if he is plopped into a local jail. And now, a homeless guy, Joshua Bell (below) is also being held in the same jail for another local arson, on $50,000 bail. Monsieur Bell is a registered sex offender, which is not uncommon with arsonists, as any search of google for "arson sex offender link" will show. Psychologists have long written about the link. In Oregon, being a registered sex offender could mean you're a serial rapist, which would account for Mr. Bell's inability to find work or a place to live. But it could also mean that he peed in a place where he might have been seen by someone. Because he's homeless. It could also mean that he had sex with his high school girlfriend when she was a sophomore. In fact, the obsession of Republicans in the

Northwest with sex has made it mean so many things in Oregon that, at the end of the day, it means nothing.

It's a problem not confined to Oregon. A local cop stopped a driver from Ohio yesterday and discovered Robert Gebhardt had an outstanding warrant for 25 rapes and Gross Sexual Imposition and kidnappings. The Oregon State Police said they didn't know that the charges were about but a fourth grader using the latest law enforcement tool, called the internet, found an Ohio press release which tells the story.

Left: Robert Gebhardt

Mr. Gebhardt had sex with a middle schooler over 2 years. In Ohio, that's rape and kidnapping and Gross Sexual Imposition. He's 38 and that is Gross. And it is sexual. And it is an Imposition - Can you imagine the "pillow talk" after, with a middle schooler, sharing "life experiences"? There needs to be a special crime category for guys who are so incredibly obtuse and boring. And it needs to be an accurate category. He's a pedophile, not a kidnapper or even a rapist, in the strict sense of the word. People need to be far more aware of the presence of such men seducing innocent children by simply sweet- talking them rather than forcing themselves upon adults. You could develop a false sense of security.  Mr. Gebhardt's voluntary companion, when caught, was a 48 year old woman, listed as missing by the same Ohio cops. No worry, folks. We've found her. You'll never guess where. It isn't Cleveland, where you were looking for Mr. Gebhardt.
It seems to be an epidemic in Ohio - guys named Robert Gebhardt who are enthralled with little girls. An employee of the county Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities department named Robert Gebhardt was busted for arrested on two felony counts of kiddie porn. It may be inbreeding - he's not alone. In fact, a novice could be forgiven for concluding that all the Gebhardts in Ohio  

seem to be involved in either pedophilia or banking. Ohio has other problems too, as in the strange case of Richard Sanden, who was caught having sex today with a woman he'd met on a chat line, and had died. He had filmed the entire episode and had tapes of other women he said he'd met on the chat line. He claimed not to notice that the woman involved in his latest liason was unresponsive and unmoving. The most insensitive lover on the planet. But at least the poor woman, whose corpse he was charged with molesting, was 48. Mr. Sanden was charged with necrophilia after the videotape was recovered.

Left: Mr. Sanden. We've already had 100+ OSU women swear he could be mistaken for their boyfriends. And guys too, claiming the woman was someone they're involved with, in the present / past.

The connection between kid trafficking crimes and banking is not uncommon in this region too. For example, the pedophile Salvatore ("Sonny") Bono, the right wing Republican Congressman who picked up Cher for the duo Sonny and Cher when she was barely in her teens and he was almost 30, was never prosecuted since the couple made so much money for Phil Specter, the music producer  and banker in prison now for the murder of Lana Clarkson, actress in soft porn (below).

Bono and Cher separated when she reached adulthood. Bono later ran for Congress. When he died, his widow Mary Bono took his place and married equally right wing Connie Mack of Florida, both publicly maintaining strident anti-gay policies. But Mary Bono Mack's lesbian photos from wild parties have surfaced this week, including the one below. The woman in her arms and licking her

breast is billionaire Edna Blixseth, a major contributor to Mary Bono's campaign, at a party in the $75 million mansion of Ms. Blixseth. With her head thrown back, Bono’s plunging bra is exposed as Blixseth — who now dates Dallas actor Jack Scalia after splitting from her husband Tim in 2008 — is seen diving into the politician’s cleavage with her tongue out.  Ms. Blixseth is at the heart of a FBI 'banking investigation' into "a massive real estate scheme fuelled by greed, fraud and hundreds of millions of dollars".
But the line between crime and non-crime seems particularly thin in Ohio, which we knew from the 2004 election fraud of George Bush. And which side of that line you land on, seems to be dependent upon how much money you can throw to your friendly legislator - or President for that matter. It's not for nothing that Obama today announced his chief of staff will be a JP Morgan banker from the notorious Daley Family, of Chicago. And Family is an appropriate description of the clan. Like the Bonanno or the Gambino Family. Betcha that, looking at the photo below, you couldn't tell the Gambino Family boss from Daley. For the past 6 weeks, Obama showed some promise of what he was elected to do 2 years ago, but today: Back to Business as Usual.

The Corvallis ID thief, Mark Knapp, who charged some $50,000.00 for gold on someone else's credit card, seems to still be at large with his overdue U-Haul truck and his cat Pippy. Mr. Knapp seems to have contemplated a life of serenity in Corvallis with his stolen lucre and became upset by to find that his sleepy little Sanctuary was in reality run by a band of developers in collusion with a City Council no more representative of the citizenry than the one he had experienced in Minneapolis, and where Urban Planning is still just a euphemism for Traffic Control. He was even moved to write and post a little poem about it all:

In a landscape designed more for motors than people
It is sidewalks and bike lanes that invite so much dumping
For the worship of speed is the new paradigm
As investors seek ways to increase all the shopping ...
As the wild becomes trampled by personal buses
So much is lost that cannot be measured

The poem is preceded by what appears to be Monsieur Knapp's favorite hymn, about WWII blackouts, by Vera Lynn ( the original,#1 in 1942, was by Vaughn Monroe).

 Mr. Knapp's poetry, we're afraid, is as uninspired as his livelihood. Compare this to the excellent poetry of Corvallis poet Peter Sears (below), with what could be interpreted as a similar theme:

Left: Peter Sears

Look, if my neighbor says he heard screaming last night
coming from here, no problem, officer, I believe him.
Yes, I sit most of the day by this window that faces
his place. I can't help but see that things aren't good
for him. I'm not going into it, no—and I wouldn't
respect anyone who did—but hey, someone with lights
on all night, and that sound coming from his place.
Sure sounds like a scream to me. But, hey, what
do I know? Like I said, I like the guy, I don't want
to go into it. Just let me say, though, that you
can go out of your head and hear screaming from
somewhere—but where? Could be anywhere,
right?—when it's really coming from you, yes you,
and by the time you hear it, the scream is way out there."

Or of Corvallis poet Roger Weaver (below):

Right: Roger Weaver

"Gold coin of midnight blue sky,
how do we woo you?
To save you from the coming
frost and snow, what pocket
could hold you?"

The difference is one of Night and Day, right? Good poets, as a general rule, don't make good crooks. The exception was the great 16th century French poet Francois Villon (below), whose most famous poem he wrote while waiting to be hanged. Consider (See here for the original French) the following from Villon:

Left: Francois Villon

"Where is the learned Heloise
For whom they cut off the balls of  Pierre Abelard
And made him a monk at Saint-Denis,
For his love he bore this pain,
Likewise where is the queen
Who commanded that Buridan
Be thrown in a sack into the Seine?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

They just don't hang them like they used to, do they? Actually, he was not hanged, King Louis declaring he couldn't hang Villon because, while France had many thieves, they had too few great poets. Villon's sentence was commuted to 10 years of exile. He was never seen again. Perhaps that's an omen concerning Monsieur Knapp's disappearance. That might be regretted by his friends but not by the literary world since his poetry is as dry as that generated by the application Haikuleaks, drawing from the massive files of Wikileaks. Consider the following haiku from that source.

But it is doing
so on its own timetable,
a slow timetable.

Not exactly in the same class as Homer or Walt Whitman, is it? Despite cries from Republicans that Wikileaks has "endangered the lives of thousands" it is now apparent that's not true. Not a single case has been documented of risk to life. To reputation, yes (Things that slither can't stand the light). But to life? Not a chance. More Fox myths reported as "news". Fox has every reason to be freaked out by Wikileaks since another batch of files to be released concerns Fox owner Rupert Murdoch.

And the new Haiku site only promises them even more embarrassment, for different, literary, reasons. But for others, it's the old reasons: Mohamar Kaddafi is trying to dispel the Wikileak rumors about his finding love in the arms of a large breasted Ukrainian nurse. That's poetry, isn't it? Bank of America is rushing to pay back publicly funded institutions they ripped off before Wikileaks posts the next bunch of files - about Bank of America - and before the public outrage they expect for instituting the planned new fees on debit card holders and on those with checking accounts. But of course, that's not a crime, since Bank of America controls the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, who decide what a crime looks like.

	Left: Hedge fund banker Vince McCrudden. If the Wikileak files on Bank of America are anything like those released today in McCrudden's arrest, you can't blame them for panicking. According to the cops, McCrudden sent regulatory officials this note:
"You fucking corrupt piece of sh*t! I have let so many of you fucking corrupt mother fuckckers off the hook for doing this to my life. You my friend are not getting away with this. I am going to do this my way now and you, your corrupt mother fucking piece of shit are first on my list! Laugh motherfucker.... I am going to make you a test case! Hand cuff, arrest me, make this as high profile as you want. This has been personal since that other corrupt piece of sh*t [D.D] and the NFA started this crap in 1997. You can tell that fucking corrupt piece of Goldman Sachs sh*t! [D.D.] I am coming after him as well. Oh, and your "ban"... shove them up your fucking ass you corrupt mother fucker!!!!" Mr. McCrudden's note went on. He is charged with threattening to kill 47 regulatory officials.

This week's crime beat: Police, alongside a 66 year old woman, appear to have surmised that the person trying to enter her apartment was a lovestruck 27 year old residing in the apartment complex, after a note had been slipped in her door: "If your beautifull body wants some fun tell the tall guy in (apartment number), hope to see you soon ... your HOT no joke xoxoxxx." The guy who lived in the apartment denied knowing anything about the note (And who wouldn't deny it ,with spelling and grammatical errors so glaring? ) It may have been a prank or a case of mad love not involving the apartment dweller at all.
But stranger tales can be told. This week, for example, we learned that it's not only the elders of the Mormon church who interrupt their readings of the pedophile prophet Joseph Smith and rantings against gay marriage to molest children. It's their wives too. And their daughters. Susan Brock (below), a realtor and the wife of right

Left: Susan Brock

wing Republican politician and Mormon Fulton Brock was arrested for giving an eighth grader oral sex over a period of time.

Left: Christine Weems

Her best friend, Christine Weems (above) was also arrested in connection with the case. Susan used the alias of Timmy Turner, the cartoon star of the Nickelodeon show, "Fairly Odd Parents" in cell phone messages. In the show, Timmy has a fairy godfather. Weems is a Mormon, a land developer and also an outspoken Teabag Republican Party activist (that should have triggered the "3 Strikes and You're Out?" imprisonment legislation).

"I am stunned", claimed Fulton Brock. ""My children are flabbergasted", he said. Until yesterday. That was when one of his children, 21 year old Rachel, was arrested. It seems she also had been giving the eighth grader oral sex. Mother's Little Helper. She and her mother both say they didn't know about the other's crimes. A witness who attended an eighth-grade football camp with the victim said he saw nude photos and a video of Rachel Brock masturbating on the boy's cell phone. The reports say she also engaged in other sex acts with the boy, including oral sex. Fulton Brock has close relations with Arizona's highest Republican officials, including Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer (below). Brewer became famous for her embarrassing impersonation of the silent comic Harpo Marx in the gubernatorial race.

She has championed anti- immigrant legislation. "Brewer stood up for the kind of racial profiling that other politicians wouldn't, and under any circumstances shouldn't, have the guts to support. Refusing to bow down to sense or reason, Brewer also made it possible for citizens to sue police officers who fail to carry out the troublingly vague terms of the new law, no matter how much it might tie up the state's court system—a bold stance the federal government simply couldn't be bothered with.
And shouldn't be bothered with, because it's a really, really awful idea."
A local micro-biologist has made the brilliant suggestion that pedophiles be sentenced to wear Catholic priest costumes so we can know them when we see them. We could also stipulate, in light of all the recent revelations, that they all be sentenced to wear Mormon underpants beneath the costumes, so when they removed the outer costume for sex (as even non-criminal priests seem to do; witness the report today that even the priests at Oregon's Mount Angel Abbey are suing the Abbey over the issue) their true avocation would still be evident to any innocent passersby.
But that's an easy explanation. The desire of Mormons to exploit children isn't confined  to sex. Today, the new senator from Utah claimed that laws prohibiting children from being worked in the coalmines are "un-Constitutional. He was giving a lecture, just like a real professor of not understanding the Constitution. Even Antonin Scalia doesn’t agree with this narrow definition of the Commerce Clause (that it more or less means nothing), Think Progress says, and the decision he cites was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court after the Great Depression, which, coincidentally, showed commerce restrictions were sort of necessary, kind of, you know. Not that any of this matters. The Constitution doesn’t matter. The only thing the government should do is force women to carry fetuses in their bodies until they’re babies and give rich people money. As the founders, of Godfathers Pizza, wanted.

Elsewhere, we were inundated by compulsive shoplifters this week. Some people, upon spotting a bauble, just can't help themselves.  They even stole a couple of power tools from Habitat for Humanity this week. You know it's not the money since such things fetch but very little in the market when they've been used. They'd be better off adapting Monsieur Knapp's technique (see above). Electronic baubles and small appliances seem especially hypnotic for male kleptos, who apparently have a deep- seated need for some used tool in the dark, an electric one. The cheapest form of insurance might therefore be to leave out for them a vibrating dildo, a used one, along with a pack of batteries. Likely, they couldn't take their eyes off of it and would leave all else alone. It would be a lot cheaper than trying to round up the entire lot of them. That, of course, assumes there are such things left after the poisoning today of the "sex toy goddess" Jacqueline Gold (below; Gold's autobiography was called Good Vibrations) by her nanny.

Right: Jacqueline Gold

It's not been a great week for "sex goddesses" of any kind. Corvallis (formerly, sometimes) rock star Courtney Love was tossed off Twitter after fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir who calls herself the "Boudoir Queen complained and sued. It seems like Dawn is a little overly sensitive. The only thing Ms. Love said for the whole world to see was that Ms. Simorangkir is "a drug-pushing prostitute with a history of assault and battery who lost custody of her own child and capitalized on Love's fame before stealing from her. She has received a VAST amount of money from me over 40,000 dollars and I do not make people famous and get raped TOO!" Oh ,and there was that one misspelled liner too, something about ""oi vey don't f--k with my wardrobe or you will end up in a circle of corched earth hunted til your dead. as one of her many bullied victims smashes her face soon as she's an assault addict herself (there's  apparently prostitution in her record too. i promise you, within a few weeks, Madeoff will seem warm and fuzzy. I can't afford this sh-t 2 lifes too short for mean girls/ homophobes/ racists/untrained women who attach a piece of chiffon to an d dress and call it worth thousand of dollars!," OK, so, Courtney overstepped the Pale there, but Ms. Simorangkir's lawyers were mean to Ms. Love, too: "Whether caused by drug-induced psychosis, a warped understanding of reality, or the belief that money and fame allow her to disregard the law, Love has embarked on what is nothing short of an obsessive and delusional crusade to destroy Simorangkir's reputation and her livelihood,"  Whoa, let's try a Time Out, Mesdames!

Left: Courtney Love

But back to the kleptos locally. The enthusiasm mentioned above among kleptos in Corvallis for late night appliances has become an epidemic in our beloved Cascadia, one extending to mid sized appliances. Like scooters. Police were called to an apartment building earlier this week after a man came home to find a threesome having sex in his carport.
A police report says the man came home to his apartment building on around 7:15pm, and saw two half-naked women and a half-naked man in the carport next to his apartment.

The half-naked man was having sex with one of the women, while the other female was "naked and messing with the victim's scooter."
The victim confronted the three half-naked suspects, and the woman who was mid-coitus got angry, ripped down a cigarette ashtray attached to the apartment building, and threw it at the victim, striking him in the shoulder.
The woman then told the victim she was going to have her cousin shoot him. The report doesn't clearly indicate where the woman's cousin was during the altercation. But let your imagination run wild.
The half-naked woman on the scooter apologized to the victim for the other woman's actions—the report indicates the two women are sisters—and all three suspects left after getting dressed. The cops are still looking for them. Even for the apologetic woman, riding someone else's parked scooter naked is a crime, and under Oregon's bizarre laws, will mean you register as a sex offender the rest of your life. Same with having sex outside of your own place. No wonder that, as of today, about 1 in 30 Oregonians is in the state's correctional system.

Oregon spends a greater percentage (11%) of its general fund on prisons than any other state, and that's in a country which has more prisoners than the rest of the world combined. Oregon is one of only 4 states in the country which spends more on prisons than on higher education and has between 33% and 100% more people in prison than any state of similar population density. These are especially remarkable statistics when you consider the state's relative ethnic homogeneity, whereas 50% of the prison population in the country as a whole is black. Other noteworthy statistics: half the prisoners in Oregon for sexual crimes are veterans. Half of those in U.S. prisons have mental illness, a direct result of the dismantling of the nation's mental health care system under Ronald Reagan. Reagan's son today attributed Reagan's flawed policies to Reagan's own mental illness, which he said was evident during the Reagan presidency, and eventually killed him, Alzheimer's.
Even the state of Arkansas has plans to spend money more productively. This week, a "Working Committee composed of cops, and all 3 branches of government proposed:• • Improving supervision of offenders on probation and parole;
• Launching pilot programs that couple random drug testing with swift, certain sanctions;
• Holding offenders accountable by improving victim restitution and raising probation fees;
• Developing uniform eligibility criteria and performance measures for drug courts;
• Concentrating prison space on violent and career criminals;
• Revising drug and property statutes to distinguish between drug users and career criminals;
• Accelerating electronic monitoring for low-level offenders; and,
• Expanding medical parole for criminals with terminal illnesses. The plan is expected to save the state $100 million a year.

But it's not ONLY appliances hypnotizing our small time perps, at least not in the daytime. 2 eighth grade girls were popped for shoplifting sexy brassieres. In the eighth grade, that's still called wishful thinking.

Finally, Ronald Francis Brennan was busted for shoplifting $105.00 worth of beer from Market of Choice.

That's roughly 8-15 six packs of high quality micro brew. How in the world do you slip those inside your jacket? Mr. Brennan must be a magician and may have been in need of the beer. 2 months ago, he tried running from the cops after being pulled over. He was tasered but fell over a fence and ran to hide in the bushes. In time a dog named Joeri (below) 

outed him to the cops and he was arrested. The humiliation of being snitched by "man's best friend" might have driven him to drink. But maybe his crime was just genetic, or at least inherited. In fact, a brilliant local character, an English immigrant by the way, holds fast to the theory that we all come to resemble certain traits associated with our names. His strongest argument is our local osteopathic and bone adjustment star, Harry OxenHandler.

Above: hairy oxen and their handler. See also McCrudden, above. And Reince Priebus, likewise. The Republican National Committee has voted for change: It has voted for people making fun of their chairman’s name. On the 864th ballot, which was sponsored by a Lockheed Martin jet, the RNC finally selected Reince Priebus as its new chairman. You just new a guy named that would have to fall into televangelism, methamphetamine or the Republican Party, didn't you? Yes we know Haggard was all of the above - that "3 Strikes And You're Out" stuff again. With a name like Haggard too. He didn't have a chance.

Searching online for Ronald Francis Drennan, the most remarkable coincidences arise, all criminal in scope. In 1915, for example, 2 guys from Brooklyn were arrested for fraud, in connection with mutual funds. One was Ronald Francis Brennan. Last year,  95 years later, 2 guys were sent to prison were sent to prison for defrauding title companies. Name? Ronald Francis Brennan. Location? Brooklyn. (Cue up the spooky background music). And there are other Ronalds in trouble with the police  appointed to look after the public welfare. It's not for nothing that this fast food star's shirt has convict stripes.

McDonald's, along with Microsoft, Mazda, CBS and a corporation called Interclick which tracks, illegally, a user's internet sites were all hauled into court today for the unauthorized stalking. Of you.
These 4, along with the above mentioned Bank of America, could be a model for the city's small time crooks and public barbeque enthusiasts. Why snatch somebody else's used power saw, when you can snatch their entire home? (although a Massachusetts court today dealt the banks a huge blow in their attempt to seize homes) And when you've have that much money, you can pay politicians to make it all legit, in the eyes of the Sheriff. In fact, if you're the billionaire Koch (below) Bros.,  known as "the secret dirty

Right: David Koch, Puppet Master of the Tea Party minions

 energy kings" who bankrolled much of the Oregon Republican Party efforts the past year, you can even violate the law and have nothing happen. Their front group, Americans for Prosperity, has tried to cast doubts, trying to stop efforts to curtail global warming, to cutting education to sabotaging efforts to make the rich pay taxes at least on the same par as working Oregonians, They are a prominent force in the Corvallis Teabag Party. and in the Teabag Party nationally. The tea baggers are continuing to have problems with their book keeping. Today, it was revealed that their coffers have been taking in cash from a dead woman. "Generally, the dead aren't supposed to give", said a D.C. attorney humorously. Like they're not supposed to vote, either.

Left: One of the Teabag Party Whackos in Corvallis. Click here for photos of others.

 The 2 brothers, whose father founded the whacked- out right wing

extremist John Birch Society, have pushed their agenda in Oregon through a local stooge, Jeff Kropf. And, in today's news, they've been sending their thugs to try smearing the reporter who exposed them. They'll probably have your name for reading this. They could get it from Interclick, like Ronald McDonald has been doing all along. Or Google, which is wanted in South Korea and Connecticut because all those drive bys at your house for Google Maps have been slurping up emails, passwords and other data from nearby wi-fi networks. And South Korea wants to punish them. Except they won't be arrested for it. These corporations love selling their data on you but tremble at the thought of you sharing likewise, whether on Wikileaks or elsewhere. Bank of America has financed a special "War Room" in preparation for anticipated documents about their shenanigans. In Wikileaks. An attorney for Toyota has been fined several million dollars for disclosing "criminal wrongdoing including fraud" that occurred during his employment. He is "permanently barred from discussing the company'." And if the Republicans have their way, you may be arrested, for reading this. It's not for nothing that the Republicans have changed "the name of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties to the "Constitution Subcommittee." Goodbye Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. You've had a long run but the Teabaggers are pushing you out the door today. The Constitution is scheduled for retirement next and we'll just have "the Committee".

Right: Teabag candidate for Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin let it slip today. She says she misunderstood the oath, when swearing to "support, obey and offend the Constitution"

  In future, you'll find yourself arrested for most anything and your picture will be displayed prominently - sympathetically but prominently - in this column. In fact, Tennessee Teabaggers are pushing to outlaw even mentioning that early Americans were ever  "intruding on the Indians or having slaves".

              (YOUR PICTURE HERE)

Even Twitter has been subpoened this week by the Obama administration for the records of several, including an Icelandic artist and government official, Birgitta Jonsdottir (below),

Left: artist and Iceland MP Birgitta  Jonsdottir, from her web page

 who has supported Wikileaks. So be careful what you tweet.  And the U.S. government is not the only regime freaking out about the embarrassing revelations from Wikileaks. The government of Zimbabwe this week threatened any newspaper which published information from Wikileaks. Wikileaks exposed the President's wife as having made millions from "Blood Diamonds". The Tunisian government cut off the internet for many following publication of the Wikileaks revelations, triggering a retaliation by the world wide group of heroic youths calling themselves Anonymous who have stepped in to defend the Wikileaks sites.

The Tunisian government's own website was hacked by Anonymous this week, with a pirate ship and "Payback is a Bitch, ain't it?" showing on the site. There's even a special site now, called Tunileaks.  As a consequence the leaks and subsequent demonstrations over unemployment, the Tunisian government shut the schools down, imprisoned bloggers who mentioned them as well as rappers such as Hamdi Ben-Amor . Mr. Ben-Amor (below) has simply disappeared. Be careful what you sing about, too, it seems. (Update: the Tunisian government melted down today in the wake of the massive youth protests) and the internet was restored.
But Chapter Two has opened in Hungary, which has always had the quaint habit of resorting to authoritarian buffoons (they were, more than Italy perhaps Hitler's closest ally; would you expect more from a nation which counts Attila the Hun as its greatest statesman ever?), is the scene tonight of tens of thousands organizing to repeal a law which might result in bloggers going to jail for criticising the government. And in Libya. Libya's "Brother Leader" Muammar Qaddafi went on television to say he is "very pained" to see another strongman fall. He's probably also upset over reports of riots breaking out in Libya."Tunisia now lives in fear .Families could be raided and slaughtered in their bedrooms and the citizens in the street killed as if it was the Bolshevik or the American revolution," Qaddafi said in a heartfelt plea to his people yesterday, obviously hoping he doesn't get the Ben Ali treatment. He went on to blame "WikiLeaks".

	Left: The cyber activists of Anonymous have declared Jan. 15 a Day of Action for the defense of Free Speech rights. Bank of America was taken down today but the bank sayssays it was just a "computer glitch".

Despite the retaliation by the Obama administration, things are not as bad as the days of George Bush, who just ordered the assassination of reporters whose stories he did not like. In between the annual celebrations of World Press Freedom Day. That sort of thing seems to be in the Republicans' Contract on America. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Congress woman who - along with a judge,3 70+ year olds, a 9 year old and at least 12 others - was shot outside a Tucson Safeway by Teabagger Jared Loughner, who

Left: Teabagger Jared Loughner. The troubled man, among many troubled Arizonans, lacked access to mental health care. Pima County, in line with state Republicans, had slashed mental health care by 45%.

Right: The cops were searching for the identity of this middle aged man - he turned out to be the cab driver - who they say maybe was nobody or maybe was the get away driver for the kid who did the shooting. It could be the guy on the stage below or any of the Teabaggers in his Tucson audience, although he lacks the general obesity.
Above: Loughner's latest video a tour of his "genocide college". Like most Teabaggers, his "suffering" made him a martyr in his own eyes, referring to his "torture" because he got a ,B' in a biology class.The video is full of quotes that might be drawn from the episode of the Mad Hatter at the Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland: "`What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear. Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.’ `Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. `I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare."

called out their names, was featured on Sarah Palin's infamous 'gun crosshairs' map, which targeted legislators for supporting health care legislation. Remember? The map that was criticized as an incitement to violence?  But the Republican chief, John Boner said very cavalierly after the shooting that being in Congress "comes with a risk" ,after all. Ms. Giffords was the first Jewish woman to be elected to Congress and her assassin has been linked to the anti-Semitic American Renaissance. Teabage Party candidate Nick Popaditch and other teabaggers surrounded Jewish candidate Bob Filner , Shouting "Jew!" and spitting on him. The nation's kids have taken up the theme. 34 kids are to be suspended for "Kick a Jew" day in Binghampton.

Ms. Gifford's Teabagger opponent's campaign slogan was "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."  That's not unusual - Teabagger Tim D'Annunzio's fundraiser was a machine gun shoot and Teabagger Dean Allen followed suit. with a raffle for one of the weapons. Tea bagger Robert Lowry used the initials of his opponent  Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz as a target. Tea bag Senator Joe Manchin did the same with an environmental law. It was in Arizona that one of these whackos carried an automatic assault rifle into a speech by President Obama. It's very tempting to attribute such shenanigans to the classic psychiatric explanation of these men trying to compensate for what they believe to be problematic small penises (they're actually safer and more comfortable than penis weights), but to do so you'd have to include publicly gun firing female Teabaggers like nutty Michelle Bachmann who, by definition, have the smallest penises of all.  Is that an issue? Apparently, and bizarrely, for some women, it is. A few have taken too seriously the old Marine Corps hymn of "This is my rifle; this is my gun. One is for shooting; the other's for fun!" Some "girls" just take that literally as life advice..

Of course the question that begs to be answered is how someone marked repeatedly in Arizona as insane was allowed to purchase the semi- automatic weapon. The answer is that half the state of Arizona is insane. "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," said Sheriff Dupnik of Pima County. where the shooting took place.  "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." The Tucson newspaper pointed directly at the Republican Party.  The 63 year old disabled veteran, Eric Fuller, was shot by Loughner too and said "It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target". The investigating sheriff was also pointed: "The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is

Above: The sign posted in Tucson by the right wing ClearChannel to advertise the Rush Limbaugh Show, 4 days after the shooting of Congress woman Giffords

 irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information."  The pastor of the whacked Westboro Baptists Church, on the other hand, justified the murders: ""Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson." The founder of the Teabag Party in Tucson says Ms. Giffords was herself to blame, since she and those around her including the 9 year old presumably - should all have been packing firearms. He was threatened today by one of the shooting victims and the victim was arrested. The nation's leading satire magazine wondered why Loughner is even being held - since, under Arizona laws, no statute was violated unless he's Hispanic.

Above: the anti-Moslem video of Jared Loughner, who shot a judge, and an Arizona Congresswoman identified as a "target" on Sara Palin's notorious gunsight page, and 17 others. Of course anyone who thinks that the current wave of Islamophobia can be traced to 9/11 or even Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck isn't old enough to remember the panic spread by the right wing during the days of Malcolm X , Muhammad Ali. and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

	Left: On the topic of Islamophobia the cops locally are looking for this guy who grabbed local resident and smashed at the complete stranger, yelling "You Arab! I know your kind!". 503-823-3761 Detective Kevin Warren

The gun manufacturers know: the anti-immigrant Republican Congressman's health care-era "you lie" screaming in Congress, directed at President Obama, is now reportedly being commemorated with a place on a new, limited edition line of assault rifle components. A New York Congressman, Gary Ackerman, himself in the headlines after the arrest of a man harassing him, has introduced a bill to close a "loophole" allowing "fire sale" guns, which lets gun dealers sell arms to anyone at gun shows. Ackerman said “I think we are witnessing the wedding of the mentally ill with the gun culture, at a time when we have troubling mood music.”
But Loughner actually bought his gun legally in Arizona, where even the insane are permitted to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Republicans in Arizona are trying to pass laws making it easier for deranged kids like Loughner to carry guns. Even Arizona Republican officials are afraid of their party, and 4 resigned today, citing a fear of violence from Teabaggers.. Arizona Legislative District 20 Republican Chairman Anthony Miller said, for example, that "verbal attacks and blog posts from members of the tea party had him fearing for the safety of his family".  And astonishingly, Oregon's Clackamas County, usually regarded as among the most corrupt and reactionary in Oregon, is planning to ban personal attacks and factionalism at public meetings. Read the federal charges against Mr. Loughner  here.

In April, Ms. Giffords supported Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) after he had to close two offices, including one in Tucson, when he and his staff received threats due to his opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law. The Tucson Tea Party had organized demos against Ms. Giffords. Too, her husband Mark is an astronaut as is his twin Scott, and the 2 are expected to meet in space in Mark's next trip. "Beam me up Scotty", may therefore be the next command from the U.S.

Starship Endeavor. The shuttle Mark commands is expected to be the last and maybe that upset the tin-foil wearing wing of the Republicans.

The judge gunned down had received death threats for ruling that immigrants can sue. That idea freaks out employers, and there are many, especially in Arizona who make people work overtime for free or pay substandard wages. Undocumented immigrants are a favorite source of employees for them.. For example... McDonald's. Again.

Right: Judge John Roll

They think the government's role is to give them a good living at other people's expense. It's called the Al Capone Creed. So be careful who you work for. If you see a Teabag Party bumper sticker, leave quickly. Or don't complain about how you're treated. They can always find a kid to bump you off.
There has been no word on what the third grader did to merit the Teabag Party's ire and being shot. Maybe just being a third grader. At a grocery store. And the shooter took literally a Tea Party license plate.

Above: A Teabag Republican Party solution to the school budget problem.

Left: Christine Greene, born on 9/11. She had just been elected president of the student council at the Mesa Verde Elementary School and wanted to be a vet. Like most 9 year old girls do.

The 70+ year olds (including a 79 year old) killed just needed Healthcare. That would have triggered the Teabaggers although ironically most Teabaggers are already on Medicare themselves.
How did this guy get to buy a gun when he was a known nut? But in the case of our own local right wing Turnidge Bros., court testimony showed there were more than 50 instances of the 2 uttering threats before building the bomb that killed 2 police officers. In the case of Mr. Loughner, utterance after utterance, and youtube videos after letters and online statements, begged for the same sort of FBI sting that was directed at a local kid who is the son of Somali immigrants in Oregon. Rupert Murdoch's Fox and WSJ are pretending with headlines that Loughner "Slipped Under the Radar". Another lie. But we can't be too harsh on them. Fox's "hate-radio" and "hate-TV" are being accused of

Left: The website of Fox's grinning Glenn Beck AFTER the shooting of Congress woman Giffords. When you're Rupert Murdoch, you seem to be special enough to avoid the full weight of the law for what seems clearly to be one of your stooge's threats. Money talks.

 fomenting violence. Bill Clinton has characterized them as "fact free news". But they're just trying to cover any tracks that lead to them, just as most culprits do. And calling everyone irresponsible who dares to hold them accountable for their culpability. Sara Palin complained and the response of the House Minority leader was "intellectually, she seems not to be able to understand what's going on"  Her use of the phrase "blood libel" in her angry retort (see below) to charges lodged against her brought an equally angry reaction from the Jewish community: "The blood libel is something anti-Semites have historically used in Europe as an excuse to murder Jews – the comparison is stupid. Jews and rational people will find it objectionable". The National Jewish Democratic Council condemned Palin’s use of the term "Instead of dialing down the rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the meaning of this tragedy of somehow engaging in a “blood libel” against her and others. This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries".

Below: Some challenged people hang on Palin's every breath and one made a video for his or her fellow fans. It might be itled like the band Police's hit, "Every Breath You Take". Sort of the opposite of Godard's classic film, "Breathless".

Palin, however is taking it all in stride, and today will be at a gunshow with an Elvis impersonator and Larry the Cable Guy.

If you think this Elvis guy is scary, you're not from Japan watching Whitney Houston impersonators (below). And the Japanese government is wondering why young Japanese men have lost interest in sex?! That's not amazing. We'll tell you amazing - it's that American women continue to have ANY interest in sex after the cops today said they found photo Mr. Loughner had taken of himself in a g-string with his gun where most men hide their "junk". And guys too, on a day when the papers were trumpeting a story of a journalist  who "was choked and stomped and had his head slammed into a TV monitor before his testicles were cut off with a corkscrew". And another of a guy who worked as a nude houseboy for rentboy.com who was acquitted of murder after confessing to a panic attack on learning that the men who hire nude houseboys are gay.  He declares now that the ordeal had made him decide he needs "to give up nude housecleaning", that  "this has made me rethink that."

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Palin's attacks. But now even Paul Kanjorski, the Republican Congressman who called for the governor to "be shot", is trying to cover his tracks by calling for "civility". 
Jared Loughner was not a secret. He was suspended from a community college after 5 instances of disruptions in class or the library so severe that cops were called. One student in a class with him emailed another that "Hopefully he will be out of class very soon, and not come back with an automatic weapon."  His favorite online complaint was the Teabag line that the Constitution was being ignored. His favorite youtube videos echoed Teabagger rhetoric about currency and "thought control". and the focus on "grammar" reflects the right wing "sovereign citizen" scams of David Miller. Like most Teabaggers, he loved to call the Constitution by name but couldn't cite any of it to support his claims.

This massacre might have been avoided. But right wing assassins seem to be given a free pass. The FBI seems to give them winks, and turn their backs. In other countries, such as Columbia or Pakistan, this is considered sign of either  criminals running the government, or of rogue government agencies. But it can just be incompetence or simply naïveté on the part of the policing agency involved. Naïveté is not the case here. The FBI is aware of the threat, and has even issued a report predicting the violence. They simply lacks the political will. And honestly, does anyone trust the FBI to go spying in the midst of political groupings like the Teabaggers? We don't. We all know what that looks like. It's ugly. But if it's good enough for the Moslem kids of Oregon, it's good enough for the Christian kids of Orange County and of Arizona. In related news, the web guy at Wikileaks called for "charges against high-profile Republicans Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee for "incitements to kill. No organisation anywhere in the world is a more devoted advocate of free speech than WikiLeaks but when senior politicians and attention seeking media commentators call for specific individuals or groups of people to be killed they should be charged with incitement -- to murder", said Julian Assange. No doubt he's right. Huckabee has called for the "execution" of Assange, while Palin has urged authorities to pursue him "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders." Both are as freaked out about Wikileaks as Hillary Clinton, who is still smarting from the secrets of her husband's sexual activities when in the White House. And they've got help from the crazies: a Florida man is suing for millions because he says his blood pressure rose, he was more stressed and depressed, because the leaks left him "in fear of being on the brink of Nuclear WAR"

---

Week of 1/21/2011

 City's small fry criminals tagging, assaulting each other, and girlfriends, wives, kids

 

Update from last week's Horrible Local Crimes Column: 

Right: A federal court today kicked out the last prop under the U.S. legal system by ruling that a billionaire can't be tried because he's addicted to drugs - drugs he's been allowed to consume in jail.
Allen Stanford is accused of running "the most high-profile fraud since Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff was charged in a $50-billion Ponzi scheme." Nearly ALL of Benton County inmates could plead similarly, without success of course since they aren't billionaires and didn't donate more than $2 million to the political parties last year.

The 2 guys who cops have said torched vacant local buildings have been joined by a third, Jebediah Ferrell (below). Trent Fox and Joshua Bell now need only another to be able to play full- fledged pinochle games while they're stewing in a local jail. A fourth, Daniel Quast, saw the grand jury refuse to indict him for the arsons. Meantime, the odd culinary instincts of the Three Amigos can be put to good use in the kitchen. There's a marketing opportunity here for local TV producer wannabees. Somebody needs to let Mr. Ferrell know he's made a poor choice in tattoos unless he wants to spend the rest of his life alone. There's nothing that makes a girl - or guy - feel warmer and fuzzier than seeing a spider creeping up the neck of the person across the table.

Mr. Ferrell previously served time for attempted murder. At the time of the attempted murder almost 10 years ago,, Mr. Ferrell was staying in a house owned by the notorious Matland family of  Albany, who run the "Signs of Victory Ministry", according to a post on KEZI's web page. That house was also the target of arsonists last November. (cont. below)

	Left: Sex trafficking activist Daryl Hannah is patrolling with local cops looking for strip clubs and areas known for hookers. A recent Oregonian analysis of statistics shows the reports of
Oregon as a world trafficking hub are a myth. Ms. Hannah says "I was shocked at what I learned. Most of the girls in these strip clubs are not just girls looking to make cash; a majority are represented by pimps."  Actually, the greater number of trafficking cases locally are domestic laborers, not sex slaves. Ms. Hannah might have better luck patrolling with a mop.
Right: A Northwest woman suspected of having been kidnapped into the sex trade, Jennifer Dussaud, surfaced locally this week on a violation of a parole for drugs, which she's been serving in Salem.
Anyone looking for the hub of child sex trafficking needn't look to Oregon any more. Today's news would suggest that it is the presidential palace in Italy, where Sylvio Berlusconi's (above) crudeness, often involving minors (below) has long been passed off as "sexuality" by his backers.  Berlusconi occupies the same position, with the same views, as Rupert Murdoch (below) of Fox News in the U.S. Murdoch's Fox "News" is now the most untrusted news source among the American public. President Bill Clinton has humorously referred to it as "fact-free news". The only network nearly as untrusted is CBS. The latter is accentuated by the revelation today that CBS knew President Ronald Reagan was diagnostably insane and jabbering nonsense and CBS covered it up in 1986.
	Left: 80 year old Fox owner Rupert Murdoch and his young Asian wife. Along with Murdoch, Mexican drug lords have been importing beauty queens from abroad, and the cops
are using their Facebook entries to track down their narco- boyfriends. The latest is Juliana Sossa (below).

The Matlands are the subject of a string of posts on the web, accusing them of a wide variety of crimes ranging from child trafficking to performing marriages illegally to robbing the homeless and disabled veterans. Their accusers have ranged from the homeless to in- laws.

On a sadder note, The 2 local Teabagger/ Christian terrorists (below) whose bomb killed a police chief and a state trooper, are due to be sentenced to death by a judge Monday.

Also this week, the Mormon Teabagger/realtor mother and daughter (above) who, separately and unknown to one another - were having sex with an eighth grade boy have disproved the old adage that the Family Which Preys Together, Stays Together. Now Daddy Brock, a Teabag Party County official, has filed for divorce from Mommy Brock: "I have filed to divorce my wife. I cannot divorce my daughter." But  he should have kept quiet - despite the rumors, no one really knew Mormons like Glenn Beck also married their daughters. Now it's officially confirmed.  (cont. below)

Right: 400 rabbis today spent $100,000.00 for a full page ad in the NY Times calling for advertisers to drop "hate TV" show Glenn Beck for his "Nazi
imagery" and attacks on George Soros.
In related news, a local legislator who called for an end to advertising for Rush Limbaugh after Mr. Limbaugh's attacks on Asian people has been threatened by Teabaggers.

And as you can see from this video of court proceedings, the 'loyal dad/ husband' is nowhere to be found. He's just one more Teabagger who pompously proclaims his family loyalty while practicing the Absentee Father/ Husband/ Whatever theory of child raising. On the subject of Arizona, a new study by scientists at Los Alamos shows Phoenix to have been behind the curb for the past 40 years, while the same study showed Corvallis to be leading the curve.
Meanwhile, the epidemic of sexually dysfunctional young men breaking windows to seize power tools in the night, which - as noted last week - has  graduated from vibrators to over-sexed scooters has now evolved to include buses. Banker Fred Berg has been arrested (cont. below)

	Left: Fred Berg illustrated once more,  this week, the thin line between banking and crime. If his victims had not been wealthy, he likely would have skated. The wealthy make the laws.
Right: In other news of the link between local crime and banking, local and national individuals and corporations are sweating the news that Wikileaks has been given documents detailing the use of Swiss banks  for tax evasion.
	Left: in Russia, Mr. Putin regrets saying Wikileaks deserves the Nobel Prize, after the site published photos of Mr. Putin's $$ 1 BILLION Palace. The Wiki site is now under cyber attack by the Russian government.
That love affair didn't last long. That would account for the $400 tea pot Putin gave Obama. A bribe or a thank you gift for the collusion in suppressing Wikileaks. But the extent of Putin's embarrassment doesn't compare with that of Italy's Sylvio Berlusconi, apparently. He sent a crystal table ($6,000.00), gold watch ($6,400.00),book and crystal($14,445.00),designer jackets($3071.00), Leonardo repros ($1,000.00), 26 designer neckties ($1,820.00), and 4 designer scarves($1,170.00). All of these belong to the U.S. and will no doubt find their way to Goodwill. But you gotta ask: what did Berlusconi think Obama was going to do for him, exactly? Who was the least embarrassed? That would be Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, whose gift, a "bottle of olive oil," is valued at $75. Olive oil! Any schmuck can buy that stuff at the supermarket. How will this revelation damage the American government's relationship with Palestinians? Trick question—there isn't any relationship. We do nothing for starving Palestinians. But maybe if they gave our president campy, garish desert landscapes, we would! Okay, we probably wouldn't. But it's not because we're cheap. We'd still give the Israelis the $10,000.00 in welfare we hand every man, woman and child there - most of it ending up in conservative ultra-Orthodox communities. It's a problem here too, with 25% of the welfare budget going to Haredic Jews in Orange County, N.Y., for example. It's an issue even for Teabaggers with Rand Paul calling for an end of welfare for Israel.

for swindling investors so he could build a luxury bus line. Berg was arrested at the University 30 years ago for stealing from his fraternity so he could own a charter bus service. But he could be even dumber. 2 teens elsewhere broke into a woman's home and snorted what they thought was cocaine but turned out to be the ashes of her dad and 2 dogs.
In other news from last week's crime column, many of the nation's bloggers have signed up to expose the 2 billionaire Koch brothers, "the secret dirty energy kings" , on the same day that the tomb of the legendary emperor of Rome, Caligula was uncovered. The front group of the 2 Koch brothers' (cont. here)

	Left: David Koch, whose father founded the whacko John Birch Society, is the real power behind local and national Teabaggers. A citizens' lobby, Common Cause, today filed suit, producing evidence that Mr. Koch owns
the Republican- appointed Supreme Court Justices Antonio Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and plotted with them about producing the ruling which claimed that corporations are human beings, with the free speech rights, and thus gun rights and voting rights of humans. That means they can even get married, unlike some of our "fake" humans. And Vice President Cheney's Halliburton is arguing that they even have the right to lie to, and defraud investors. That ruling allowed the billionaires to pour money into elections, subject to no laws governing corporate donations. And today, the Republicans are at it again, trying to further expand corporate heft in the elections they already run. Where are all the Tunisians when you need 'em? Oh yeah, they're watching TV of the events in Egypt where Nobel Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei says the dynasty is on its last legs., where both Twitter and Facebook have been shut down by the government. The heroic little band of youth calling themselves Anonymous and devoting themselves to the defence of Liberty on the internet, have called for action directed at the latest dynasty of Pharaohs in Egypt, as a result of the censorship. Those of the group in Egypt are relying upon fax machines since the internet has been cut off. At least one major U.S. phone company has been assisting the government in shutting down the 'net. Above: internet traffic in Egypt, including the government's cutoff. The country is, says the Nobel laureate, one big prison.   Governments the world over including the Obama administration have desperately tried to suppress the embarrassing information from Wikileaks. The FBI today raided 100 homes over the issue. The FBI, of course, have themselves been the subject of leaks about agents, ranging from sex-related misconduct to felonies involving the abuse of power and classified information. One employee gave sensitive information to his girlfriend, who was a journalist, and later threatened to release a sex tape of the two after they had broken up. The employee lied under oath during the inquiry. Another employee became obsessed with a co-worker and continued to press for a closer relationship despite "clear indications" that the colleague wasn't interested and persisted even after receiving orders to cease contact. A third FBI employee shoplifted two ties from a local store.In another instance, an employee obtained FISA-derived information from over 1,500 unauthorized searches of the FBI database and shared it with a non-FBI employee.  AT & T today said that  the Supreme Court ruling means it also has the privacy rights of humans, and is subject to no laws governing embarrassing government release of information concerning corporate malfeasance. Last year, Mr. Obama called out the court for selling the country's elections to international corporations. If you’re downtown on Friday and see nine U.S. Supreme Court justice lookalikes roaming the sidewalks, don’t be alarmed. They’re just part of the Alliance for Democracy marking the anniversary of that sell out of elections to international corporations. The “Judges’ Ramble” will take place on Friday, Jan. 21  and goes to Portland at SW 4th and Oak at 11:15 am then will wind its way to Pioneer Courthouse Square, City Hall and the federal courthouse. Scalia will be holding a closed door session Monday with Teabagger legislators, headed by Michele Bachmann (below)..     Left: Michele Bachmann Mr. Scalia's confab partner, has been designated the most dishonest member of Congress by PolitiFact, which regularly checks claims of   politicians of all parties against the facts. When PolitiFact last checked the congresswoman, they gave her a "Pants on fire" rating "She is unusual in that regard that she has never gotten a rating higher than false." "We have checked her 13 times, and found seven of her claims to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false," PolitiFact editor Bill Adair said. Ms Bachmann has been chosen by the Teabag Party to give their "State of the Union" rebuttal. The speech was previewed today, and in it Ms Bachmann praised the "founding fathers" for their successful and "tireless" fight to end slavery, which of course only occurred "four score" - nearly 100 years later under Abe Lincoln. And the fight with the Teabaggers who opposed Mr. Lincoln is called the Civil War. Ms Bachmann missed her true calling. Students in a history class taught by her would love it. They could just make sh-t up on exams and get great grades. Ms Bachmann wouldn't know the difference. In related news, Oregon Republicans are calling for an end to any new regulatory restrictions on lead paint, carcinogens, child labor, and kid sex trafficking discovered in Oregon, claiming it's bad for Business. In D.C., the Republicans are doing the same, trying to rule out the possibility of any attempts to curb global warming. All of this as the EPA is reporting that BP oil - benzene - is showing up in human samples on the Gulf - And on the issue of moneyed people commanding gangs of thugs to rig court decisions and the Law, Haiti - whom hundreds of kids in Corvallis have spent their evenings and vacations raising money for - now has to deal with the return of "Baby Doc" Duvalier ti try to get back the Presidency. "Baby Doc" and his father "Papa Doc" ruthless ruled Haiti with armed gangs prior o their overthrow in 1986. Now, Amnesty International a demandé aux autorités haïtiennes de déférer à la justice "BabyDoc". Haiti, like France, has outlawed the guillotine. Duvalier's PR man is the Republican who "managed" the campaign against President Clinton for having oral sex in the White House.
The disclosure is the 2nd recent embarrassment in weeks for Mr. Thomas, as his ex- testified that Anita Hill (right), a Yale law graduate, was
telling the truth 20 years ago when she said Mr. Thomas was porn - obsessed and harassed women employees, like always and forever. Ms Hill said then that Mr. Thomas "spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals, and films showing group sex or rape scenes". He bragged to her that
he watched the films of "Long Dong Silver' (above) whose 18 inch long penis was featured in porn films, beginning with Sex Freaks in 1979.She also testified "He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises, or large breasts, individuals in various sex acts...On other occasions he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex. "   Mr. Thomas rarely speaks in Court, as though he is usually preoccupied with something out of sight under the bench. A watchdog group is today reporting that Thomas has been chiseling the public for the past 5 years, failing to report half a million dollars that the right wing extremist group "Heritage Foundation" has funnelled to Thomas through his wife. That's what they sent Al Capone to Alcatraz Prison for.

 Americans for Prosperity, is the power behind Corvallis Teabaggers and the state Republican Party. Caligula, on the other hand, was famed for sleeping with his sisters, killing for pleasure and seeking to appoint his horse as an official. Just your average Republican, really. His tomb has long been sought.
This week's crimes:
The town's mentally challenged seem to have followed the advice of this column, following revelations that Arizona Teabagger Jared Loughner got weird after giving up booze and drugs, that they go get loaded rather than shoot Congress. Unfortunately, a few didn't do so in a reasonable fashion. Dustin Schollenberg (below) was sent to jail for selling Xstasy pills next to Lincoln School. Mr. Schollenberg has also found himself in trouble, in Lincoln County.

On the other hand, Damon Allen Gomez (above right) seems to have just let things get a little out of hand and was stopped by the cops for driving recklessly. Then the cops say, he resisted arrest. The cops usually say that and you should file that away before driving drunk: if the cops stop me and I don't go with them docilely, I will be charged with Resisting Arrest. (cont. below)

	Left: A new study by researchers shows that drunken monkeys and drunk Corvallis males behave pretty similarly.
1.Monkeys who are introduced to alcohol in their adolescence are more likely to drink more alcohol when they get older than those who stay dry. 2.Monkeys will drink more heavily when in a stressful situation. 3.Monkeys' lips droop and their speech patterns are impaired by alcohol use. 4.Monkeys can fall into different patterns of drinking, including abstinence, social drinking, heavy drinking, and abusive drinking. 5. Monkeys can be genetically predisposed to alcoholism. 6.Monkeys get hangovers and those who drink constantly can develop liver disease. 7.Monkeys aren't above stealing alcohol - even from humans - when they want to get their drink on.

 Mr. Gomez 's error in judgment cost him 60 days in the local clink. But no one accused either of these guys of being ahead of the Game. Most of those arrested for DUII or being high while driving this week allowed their MENSA memberships, and subscriptions to Brilliant Thinkers magazine, to lapse long ago.
Beyond a host of drug and alcohol infractions this week, the city also saw a revival of tagging. That's been a problem since developers tore down the graffiti wall to make way for the grim ugliness along the Riverfront. Somebody tagged a law firm with the word "graffiti", and a beauty salon (cont. here)

Above: Corvallis's "small fry criminals" also describes our taggers and their lack of imagination compared to elsewhere. But it could be worse. In Orange County ("Arizona West"), taggers have gone Teabagger. "We gonna kill Gov. Brown 2 14 11" read the tag yesterday. Then, spray-painted in red, '27 more days 4 Brown' and included a swastika, and someone today painted over the red '7'. with a '6' as though a countdown is occurring.

 and rug store like wise. Somebody spray painted "North Side territory Gang very very active on the side of the Tunison Ave. fire station." Yeah, right, kid, VERY active... very active at spray painting. On the SOUTH side of town. More MENSA dropouts. But if the past is any indicator of events, the cops will mobilize a huge task force and the SWAT team to watch the city for taggers. Especially since someone also keyed a cop car with "Suck it!!". This is not going to end well.

	Left: It's been a while since a Corvallis cop has been in the news for having sex on the job. Others are making up for it. 2 highly decorated Chhattisgarh Specialists who spend their nights
secluded in the station have been suspended for having sex while patrolling. Both had puppies. The unfairness of being a female cop - they'd have skated if the evidence wasn't so convincing. If they were guys and it was a neighborhood dog who had pups.
Right: Scientists in Oregon have no evidence that any native owls have joined in the global crime wave by the birds. Following the attempted kidnap
of a chihuahua (above), so traumatized that he now refuses to venture outdoors, the cops have arrested an owl for commandeering a highway, "staggering around with drooping eyelids". As further evidence of the owl's drunkenness, two small bottles of Schnapps were found near the bird. The global non-human crime wave is generally related to drugs or booze, the cops say. Bears elsewhere are reported as hoarding fermented apples for the "high" (see below). In Australia, puzzling "crop circles" have been found to be the work of kangaroos so loaded on opium poppies that they can't hop straight. We are fortunate that Oregon's owls, bears and kangaroos, by contrast, remain clean and sober. Otherwise, the wildlife might combine with taggers, human drunks and Republicans to push the resources for law enforcement to the breaking point. The county budget has, like, forty cents allocated for animal control.

It could be even worse now, with the cops on edge. 11 of them were shot across the country in the past 24 hours. The level of violence in the U.S., increasingly attributed to the general rudeness of the Tea bagger Party, has spilled over into domestic life, and it has come back to bite the right wing locally. Teabagger , church choir star and original staff member of Fox Radio's KYKN in Salem, (cont. here)

	Left: Lisa Zielinski, one of the founding staff of Fox Radio KYKN locally, shot dead by her husband. The Teabaggers' romantic view of violence
has come back to haunt them and the nation as a whole in other ways. The son of a man who made his child (below left) dress in the Nazi uniforms favored by Teabagger Congressman Rich Iott (below right) has turned to domestic jihadism and was arrested today for pulling a
pistol on 2 FBI agents. Emerson Begolly composed hymns to Osama bin Ladin , a Swedish suicide bomber and Winnie the Pooh. His mom is a PSU professor and is said to have been having an affair with one of the FBI agents. The young man posted as Asadullah Alshishani and "Goat Lee". Right: a photo Mr. Begolly uploaded of his fantasy world of Goat Lee Mr. Begolly had the same "death porn" fantasies as other violent Teabaggers have expressed.  "When i wake up in the morning...the first thing i think about is killing...seriously... i think about killing all the time", he wrote. He majored in religion at PSU. although he told others his Moslem leanings sprang from being molested by a Christian preacher. Likely his violence sprang from his home life: "I heard my stepmoms overies burst...i think it was cause...my dad kicked her." The gun fetish is not confined to Nazis and their kids. Florida wants to take it to new levels, making it illegal for a psychiatrist to EVEN DISCUSS gun obsessions with patients. "We do stupid like Nebraska does corn" writes the Orlando Sentinel. And in California today, a student accidentally set off a gun in his backpack, shooting a girl through the head and wounding another.

Lisa Zielinski, was murdered by her husband after he decided to spy on her emails and discovered she was having an affair. Corvallis, too, has not been immune to the increase in violence, documented by the Oregonian for our region. That's true of road rage but it's especially true of domestic violence. Even southward, the rise is marked, with UO football star LaMichael James guilty. In Corvallis, it has varied from strangling a woman in the heat of an argument to throwing her cell phone in her face. And it's become almost routine in police reports the past week. Jonathon Appelt (below), in a case not involving a mate is accused of using a pipe to send another resident to the emergency room. (cont. below)

	Left: Jonathon Appelt doesn't seem to be capable of learning. He was accused a year ago in beating and robbing homeless people and the judge said then "If he
engages in violent conduct again, it would be presumptive prison"
Right: On the other hand, Abram John Mantle seems like a nice enough fellow whom the cops say punched his girlfriend,
threw her by her hair and caused her to bleed with his fingernails. "Love Gone Bad" would be an understatement. This photo is from the mySpace page for Abram John Mantle of Corvallis. His mood is listed as "lonely", which is likely if you've bashed your girlfriend and been hauled off to the clink by the cops. He writes: "and sometimes I'm frightened by the sheer debauchery... "
Right: Be careful, folks. This abuse coupled with social networks can get nightmarish pretty quickly.
Amanda Bennett's online quarrels with her hubby led to a train of public goading and then her death and those of her 3 kids today likely by her own hand. "you got what u wanted no wife no kids"... you can be a LOT lonelier. Worse yet, you could be a lot LESS lonely, entertaining Mr. Ferrel in the pokey. Besides, every one has to learn to handle a little rejection in life. As the Republican whacko, Mr. Cantor, who is their leader in the House of Representatives found out today, when Nancy Pelosi rejected his request for a date saying she had other plans for the evening. Translation: "I wouldn't sit with you if you were the last man on earth!" Cantor: "Is that a yes or a no?"

There were other incidents too, with even women doing the violence. Jennifer Ann Cole and her stepdaughter beat a guy until he had 2 black eyes, say the cops. It may be an after-effect. Jennifer Cole and her "17-year-old stepdaughter" are listed as having gotten swine flu along with at least 30 at a Christian Young Life camp. H1N1 is known to have lingering symptoms. As are Christian youth camps (below).

 Nor has it all been female-male violence, with guys head- butting and smashing beer bottles on one another.  At some point, we as a community would do well to recalibrate. To start anew, perhaps by asking the Teabag Party members we know if they wouldn't be happier moving back to some community more attuned to their crude idea of sport and physical exercise, in, say, Arkansas or Arizona. Maybe Azerbaijan. Or Albany. Any of the states beginning with the letter "A". It would provide us with a "cordon sanitaire" to prevent infection of our own. Some sort of Leper Colony for right wing extremists (below).

Above: A Teabagger Paradise

We could offer to buy them a bus ticket and still save money by not having to incarcerate their offspring. Or their spouses. And they'd be happier, governed by Arizona laws that let them beat and shoot each other and everybody else at will, unless the shooter and beater is Hispanic. Too, that might also eliminate the relevance of the last bit of local bad news we have to share with you - the number of houses arising without indoor plumbing locally has increased 33% over the past 10 years.

---

Week of Jan. 27
Update from last week's Horrible Local Crimes Column: 
There has been a new development in the case against  Susan Brock, the wife of the Mormon Teabag politician

Above: Susan Brock, Christine Weems

Fulton Brock. A new police report shows that the couple met with a Mormon official and the parents of the eighth grader she is accused of molesting a year before she was arrested. The church claims no knowledge that sex was involved but believed the confrontation was over "improper gifts and influence".. However, the report also says that Ms. Brock paid the kid $100 for sex on at least 20 occasions and promised to give him $300,000.00 in her will. She also threatened to tell his eighth grade girlfriend if he quit letting her abuse him. Susan Brock also said she would tell the boy’s parents that he was a liar, that he was cheating on his high school girlfriend and that he was addicted to pornography. She also gave the 2 kids a place and a vibrator for sex, as well as birth control. The girl's parents did not permit her to see the boy.  The child says " I was a robot during that, I was told what to say and do and if I didn't I feared loosing [his girlfriend] which I lost in the end anyways." The police in Arizona have plea bargained with her and she could be out in a couple of years. The arrest of her daughter for sex with the same boy, after the parents of a teammate on the eighth grade football team saw pictures of her masturbating on the kid's cell phone, has ended with no charges. The same is true of her friend Christine Weems, who was arrested for (cont. below)

Above: the recorded jailhouse conversation between Ms Weems and Ms Brock, with Ms Weems trying to discuss getting the password to Ms Brock's account without it being apparent to deputies.

 destroying evidence. There is one set of laws for some, another for others, it seems. During the investigation, the cops confiscated Susan Brock's iphone from her husband who "admitted to police that the phone was his wife’s and that he had taken it from her". Mr. Brock was never charged for trying to hid e or destroy the evidence. He claimed to have no knowledge of the abuse but As always,  complaining Teabaggers are the first to claim special consideration for themselves. Fulton Brock says he has been dealing with the headlines by hanging out in parks, without specifying what he does in the park. That maybe should be a red flag for the cops where this family is concerned.

Left: Sex trafficking activist Daryl Hannah, touring the strip clubs of Oregon last week, likely would have found better hunting grounds among the politicians in the area's Mormon churches.

Evidence has emerged that Sylvio Berlusconi, last week's star child trafficker has actually made a habit of the offense. And Italians are finally wearying of the reputation their country has gotten choosing a bunch of skanks for leaders. Today, Mr. Berlusconi referred to Egypt's President Mubarak as the wisest man. Tony Soprano would say the same - that Mr. Mubarak is a Wise Guy. Mr. Berlusconi may not be able to speak tomorrow, when tens of thousands of Italian women are expected to be throwing soiled condoms and panties over the fence onto his lawn.

	Left: A woman wears a sign saying " I'm not his niece. a sign that refers to the lie Berlusconi told to Italian policemen who had arrested one of his underage prostitutes for petty theft. In order to have her released, Berlusconi said the girl was the niece of Egyptian president Mubarak.

Meantime Berlusconi's pal Rupert Murdoch owner of Fox News and most other right wing newspapers in the world continues to sweat over Wikileaks' revelation of possessing damning information on Murdoch and continues assaulting the web informational site with the collaboration of Hillary Clinton. Ms Clinton has her own axe to grind about embarrassing leaks with her husband's sex affairs. But in England, Murdoch has been caught illegally hacking government  and celebrity phones for information. The only newspaper in the country not owned by Murdoch, it seems - the Independent - has headlined the buffoonery as "Rupert Murdoch - UK Like Berlusconi Without the Whores". On the heels of a report showing Fox to be the least trusted news source in the United States and another showing Fox viewers believe anything, comes another leaked email showing Fox producers directed their news staffs to begin an Obama Equals Socialism campaign, whether or not it accorded with reality. That of course led Bill Clinton to joke about  Fox being "fact-free" news.

	Left: Murdoch- Berlusconi fellow traveller David Koch, whose father founded the whacko John Birch Society, is the real power behind local and national Teabaggers.
A citizens' lobby, Common Cause, today filed suit, producing evidence that Mr. Koch ownsthe Republican- appointed Supreme Court Justices Antonio Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and plotted with them about producing the ruling which claimed that corporations are human beings, with the free speech rights, and thus gun rights and voting rights of humans. That means they can even get married, unlike some of our "fake" humans. And Vice President Cheney's Halliburton is arguing that they even have the right to lie to, and defraud investors. That ruling allowed the billionaires to pour money into elections, subject to no laws governing corporate donations. Their "Americans for Prosperity", with its own local sleazy operator, runs the Teabaggers in Benton County. News reports today have identified Koch and his Americans for Prosperity as the "deciders" behind a Republican push to wipe out Social Security and Medicare for the aged.
	Left: the Greenpeace Blimp floated over the latest klavern of the Koch Bros, with a "Dirty Money" sign

As for the 2 billionaire "dirty energy kings" who pull the strings with the Teabag Party, Charles and David Koch, Greenpeace this week released a report detailing how the 2 brothers have funded, with some $50 million, the entire campaign attacking measures to control global warming..

	Left: Courtney Love, busy this week defending Wikileaks

And while all this has been going on bad-girl Corvallis rocker Courtney Love continues to stir things up with this week's very strong defence of Wikileaks at Oxford University. Wikileaks has, of course, been busy itself, with Egyptian members of the group doing their best to keep the public informed of the pharaohonic dynasty's shenanigans despite the government's shutting down the entire internet and wireless phones. Twitter has come to Wikileaks' defence too, since the government has also shut Tweeting down. The heroic little group of youths defending liberty who call themselves Anonymous have declared what they know of as war on the Egyptian government for doing so. The youths have focused on using fax machines to get information across the country.

 The wave of young male kleptos enthralled with vibrating dildoes and other electric devices in the night seems to have eased off, perhaps due to the ridicule of the community over their silly little fetish. In the past week, there have been new developments in the case against the nanny accused of poisoning the "queen of dildoes", Jacqueline Gold.

Above: Jacqueline Gold and Allison Cox, nanny to Ms Gold

The cops are claiming the nanny first used salt and then sugar before finally settling upon windshield wiper fluid.

Back to the original thread of ridiculous adolescent boys enthralled with night- time electrical devices, there were a mere couple of incidents although another could be related. A silver Audi was stolen. A laptop and ipad were stolen.  Somebody was entranced by some 10 foot pieces of pipe were stolen from Searing Electric. American pipe as a sexual innuendo has long been noted around the world (see below)

Above: Alina Kabaeva and Vladimir Putin

The lover of last week's Crime Beat newsmaker, Vladimir Putin, gave an interview this week and said the child everyone was hearing -- via the New York Post - was his, is actually her nephew. Alina Kabaeva is an Olympic gymnastics champion and a member of Russia's Parliament who believes she can be President one day herself.

	But Monsiuer's troubles aren't over: has anyone seen a military satellite? Because the Russians just launched one, and it's not where it's supposed to be. (Check behind the couch?)
It was supposed to map the earth—in order to "help the Russian military to locate the precise positions of various targets"—from about 600 miles up in space. Only it didn't quite get there. Where did it go? (Maybe in the pants Russia wore yesterday?) "Space monitoring services" in the U.S. (so helpful!) found the little bastard around 205 miles up, orbiting in a way that, according to "Russian space industry" sources (the best kind of sources), makes it unlikely that its course can be corrected. And the thing is, Roscosmos lost three navigational satellites last year (a rocket went off course—way off course—and ended up in the Pacific). What's the deal, guys? Is Putin going to have to launch these damn satellites himself? With his bare hands? Shirtless? From a horse?

Above: Jebediah Ferrell, Uno des Tres Amigos

The 3 Amigos charged with arson in local torchings remain locked away. Jeb Ferrell, Josh Bell and Trent Fox are awaiting trial yet for arson , including that of a building once owned by the controversial Matland family who have run the "Signs of Victory Ministry" accused of crimes ranging from child trafficking to performing marriages illegally to robbing the homeless and disabled veterans.

In related news, it was forecast that when Ronald Reagan threw mentally ill people onto the streets, that many would simply end up in jail.
The Republicans didn't care, since local jails are largely supported by the property taxes of the middle class and not income tax from corporations, which is who the Republicans are bent on serving loyally. Now comes the news that a huge proportion of the monies allotted local jails are eaten up with the costs of caring for the mentally ill. And of course the $$ formerly spent on it went just where the Republicans intended it to go, as we see with today's news that almost a third of a trillion dollars went , the Pentagon says - to contractors defrauding the public during the Bush years. You can read the entire report here.
Above:Jonathon Appelt, above the poster boy for "I do Stupid like Nebraska Does Corn", and Muntz, from the Simpsons. Notice the resemblance?

The
Jonathon Appelt, featured last week after sending one guy to the Emergency room with a pipe, following a sentence the previous year when a judge promised him prison time for future offenses, is in trouble again. He beat up a tenth grader and took his wallet say the cops. This guy is a wannabee Muntz the school ground ape on the Simpsons. Except he's 19. A little old for middle school bully but with this guy, you never know. He's struggling.
The town's taggers seem to have largely found other avenues for their creativity. Maybe they've gravitated toward collage as an art form instead - there was a wave of stolen signs this week. Maybe the potential consequences of someone keying of the cop car with "Suck it" scared them.
Maybe fear that things are getting out of control is why domestic assaults are down too, after a week of terror among former sweethearts.
This week's Crimebeat:
This week saw one incident with hints of Love Gone Bad.

	Left: Kevin Ward

Above: Kevin Ward was busted for using 911 when he called the number to report that the staff "had kidnapped his child by not releasing the child to him in a timely manner." Mr. Ward was also arrested in December for criminal mischief, with a note reading "Clackamas County Only". Presumably that means a warrant from Clackamas County, which means he may not have done anything really. Clackamas County cops are well known in Oregon as thugs in all but name. But for the sake of edification, we remind our readers about 911 rules:
Inappropriate Uses for 911
* School officials are not summoning your child in a fashion you consider as very timely
* A romantic rival has posted a nude photograph of you to Facebook
* Your boyfriend has not proposed to you
* You need business cards
* Your dad cooked a gross dinner
* You need a ride to the liquor store
* There is traffic in Philomath
* You're lonely and need a hooker to drop by... even if it is North Carolina
* Oh, and it is NOT appropriate to use 911 to call when the guy at your local teen Christian outreach enter is counselling you and pulls down his pants and underwear. Use the regular phone line.

	Left: Christian outreach counsellor and attorney Tom Walkley. Mr. Walkley said today that exposing himself is part of a mentoring program he has developed to help in his work to assist ''at-risk boys.''
	Left: In other Christian Teabagger nut news, a West Coast man who idolizes Emmanuel  Swedenborg the guy who said he was told what to do by angels 400 years
ago, has been arrested with a trunk full of powerful firecrackers and plans to blow up a huge mosque with them. Roger Stockham is an active member of the VFW, having enlisted for the ill- fated US Army in Vietnam.

As far as the self- medication of the county's lunatics, so they don't go off like the guy who shot an Arizona Congress woman after going into a teetotalling phase, that all seems to be going on privately. Very little of it in the news, relatively. One Beaverton guy decided to get bombed and parked in a bike lane, with his stereo blaring while he yakked on his cell phone. Some people can't help themselves. The should just turn themselves in rather than wear signs saying "Arrest me before I hurt myself. I can't help it . I'm a dumb-ss". A Portland guy parked his car at an automotive shop, calling attention to himself the cops say, because he was "dishonest" about what he was doing. Portlanders beware: dishonesty here will get you arrested. We have those infamous Chinese "tiger moms" here but we don't let them near kids. They train our cops instead. An OSU student decided to get bombed and drive the wrong way down Van Buren St., which was bad enough but then, the cops say, he nearly smashed into a Sheriff's car. Uh oh. Here comes those expensive Alcohol Abuse classes. There goes that beloved Jeep to pay for them.
Mr. Piercy won't be able to afford the insurance anyhow. Not now.
And  Iain Coolen was popped for driving under the influence of intoxicants, possession of alcohol by a minor and two counts of reckless driving at a fast food restaurant . Mr. Coolen called the cops to report that he was being "disturbed" by two of his friends. Police said he was being very "emotional" and didn't know why his friends were mad at him. Upon arrival, Mr. Coolen's friends told police that he had chugged two of the now- controversial Four Loko malt beverages and then drove them part of the way to the fast food restaurant. Once the men arrived at the restaurant, Mr. Coolen caused a disturbance and his friends had to remove him from the building. One of his friends was holding a little pot and was busted for that. And Mr. Coolen was upset because his friends weren't talking to him BEFORE this?!
Otherwise, our petty criminals seem to have suddenly become very practical people. One guy was popped for shoplifting a pencil and some tape. Another was arrested after taking a winter scarf and a cap. Shoes and clothes were heisted. A grocery cart full of food was involved in another case.
Cash was the target in a bank bag theft. And a purse snatching. Cigarettes in another. A Reuben sandwich in another case. It would pay for stores to advertise: "Please don't steal the Reuben sandwiches. We'll give you one if you're hungry and can't pay. It will save us the money we pay out for wages in paperwork." And it would save the taxpayers the wages of the cops, clerks attorneys,  judges and probation officers involved.
The trend with berserk or drunken animals noted last week also dropped off. Maybe they slid by under the same defence billionaire Allen Stanford used to skate this week.

Right: A federal court today kicked out the last prop under the U.S. legal system by ruling that a billionaire can't be tried because he's addicted to drugs - drugs he's been allowed to consume in jail.
Allen Stanford is accused of running "the most high-profile fraud since Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff was charged in a $50-billion Ponzi scheme." Nearly ALL of Benton County inmates could plead similarly, without success of course since they aren't billionaires and didn't donate more than $2 million to the political parties last year.

There were a couple of instances of concern this week. We had an instance of a couple of bulldogs trespassing and biting a kid. The 2 dogs are under house arrest for 10 days. And a couple of terrified and 3 angry cows at the local livestock auction decided to stage rebellion and killed a local rancher by tossing him and watching him land head first, without any attempt on the cows' part to assist the guy.
A Stayton minor was cited after tossing a beer can and screaming for more beer.
Frat boys seem to have upset a certain subset of our population. Several were targets of theft while the boys were gone. A frat sign was stolen - that would indicate an inside job. And in another case, a laptop was stolen at a frat binge by a guy "acting suspiciously" - wearing a red hat. It looks like a now- unemployed Santa Claus is Suspect Number One.
A curious theft of 1,000 feet of coaxis cable from Tunnel Radio occurred on Highway 20. Tunnel Radio provides communications for mines and railway tunnels. We have neither. Maybe they are confused about where they should have been. And maybe an angry Comcast customer confused them with confused them with the cable company. New data this week shows Comcast is one of the lowest quality providers in the world, worsted only by the Elbonian Cable Wireless.

Above: new data from Netflix shows Comcast Cable to have one of the worst performance records.

Trisha Pimm, who has also been identified also as Trisha Dahlinger Pimm is serving her 35 day sentence for robbing Duerksen & Associates, major landlord (either 800 or 1000 depending upon which news article you read) of students in Corvallis.

Left: Trisha Dahlinger Pimm on the 'net

 Duerksen, of course, is the landlord who wrote an incensed letter to a toadying local gazette after the newspaper finally did a story on the notorious landlords, Kip and Michelle Schoening and their most recent front, Bula Enterprises.

Left: Michelle Schoening

An ex-tenant of Duerksen, Dennis Dugan, wrote back:
"The situation, at least for this seven-year Corvallis renter, is not the rosy picture Mr. Duerksen points out. A few years ago, I lived in one of the properties managed by his company. When I turned on the exterior water faucet, water leaked into the floor in my house, right where the baseboard heater was. Repeated letters to Duerksen and Associates got no response whatsoever, even when I cc’d them to the actual owner of the property. Needless to say, I didn’t stay long, and I’ll never rent from Duerksen again." Lest there be some impression that this was the result of tenant- landlord acrimony, Duerksen admits that Mr. Dugan was
"an excellent tenant".
Ms Pimm also seems to be an exemplary citizen. She is identified by the LBCC commuter as president of Storybook Land, the Christmas event that helps to stock our local food pantries. She is involved in fund raising for local schools. Her home is a modest one. It's tempting to deduce that she was one more victim of the bank frauds foisted on homeowners the past decade. She was one of thousands who filed suit in federal court under the Truth in Lending Act.  And finally, she wrote checks to pay her mortgage, for 8 months, out of Duerksen's account, say the cops. That may give Mr. Dugan some satisfaction. But if true, then then it's just one more way the banks are soaking it to the public, providing the expensive housing of Ms Pimm in the local clink. And for the sake of Duerksen & Associates, whose sense of community responsibility is poor by Mr. Dugan's account. A decent judge would have levied fines to pay for her incarceration on the bank and Duerksen, if a decent D.A and cops had even bothered to charge her. But of course, the banks and the landlords make the laws. Cops do not, nor D.A.s nor judges.
Finally, we are starting to see a smarter class of people committing crimes. A guy robbed a bank with a pocket knife down the street from the jail and police/sheriff's offices. Maybe he was just pissed off at the banks for the robbery of the nation of the last couple of years. That wouldn't wash with the fact that he chose US bank instead of Bank of America. More likely, his broken glasses accounted for it. He needed new ones and knew that the bank wouldn't extend him a loan for one since he isn't a developer trying to hawk sketchy real estate.
The bank robber is described as overweight, middle aged and gray short hair. That could be any of a dozen aging movie stars. It could be Charlie Sheen, who is in the news this week for hookers and cocaine again.
A disturbing new trend is occurring. After 3 decades of Republicans appointing most judges, we are seeing not only corporations taking control of elections but also a return to a male patriarchy which is permissive of rape, even child rape. Especially child rape.

	Left: Swede Holdorf walked on a charge that he raped a disabled woman. Republican- appointed judges have made it impossible for obvious reasons, to pursue rape
charges when a child or the disabled are involved. The Teabaggers will get Swede's vote.