Prime Minister Andrew Holness is without doubt heads and shoulders above anyone that the People’s National Party (PNP) can present to the Jamaican people for leadership of the Island that most foreigners still view as representative of the Caribbean. But Mister Holness should not take much comfort in this; the bar is extremely low.
The Labor Party is still the last best hope for the country as the PNP is stuck in the cult of personality that has characterized its existence since the Manley days of the 70′.
Until the PNP can produce a bunch of new leaders that are not corrupted by the leftist gobbledygook that emanates out of that cesspool in Mona, or a new political movement emerges that understand the market economy and the need to position Jamaica for success through the rule of law, Holness remains the one-eyed King in a nation of blind men.

A prod­uct of my Parish of Saint Catherine, Andrew Holness is a young son of the soil who admirably rose to lead the Labor Party back to promi­nence. But though Holness is the head of Busta’s Conservative Party, he is taint­ed by the same left­ist pro­pa­gan­da, is from the same dirty pool from which the PNP draws water.
Holness does­n’t ful­ly under­stand the mar­ket econ­o­my dynam­ics or the effects crime has on economies.
As a con­se­quence, he arrived with pop­ulist utter­ances against Law enforce­ment befit­ting a PNP leader.
It is impor­tant to note that the suc­cess­ful Bustamante, Sangster, and the giant Hugh Lawson Shearer, were titans of law and order.
Even the taint­ed Edward Seaga, though unad­vis­ably teth­ered to the igno­ble Tivoli Gardens, ulti­mate­ly con­clud­ed that law and order were sacro­sanct; he gave up the Tivoli gang­sters to the police.
The PNP pan­ders to the lumpen­pro­lit­er­ate with promis­es of free­ness, and any­thing goes; Holness made a mis­take in believ­ing that crim­i­nals could be han­dled with white gloves, declar­ing, “police will not be kick­ing down doors if I’m elect­ed,” even as he sells a Utopian vision of pros­per­i­ty in the same breath.
Little did the brash neo­phyte know, the two were an oxymoron.
As he promised that Jamaicans would be sleep­ing with their win­dows open in a Holness admin­is­tra­tion, he was diss­ing the police by buy­ing into every­thing he heard grow­ing up in the crime-infest­ed Spanish Town environs.

Campaigning and gov­ern­ing are two sep­a­rate ani­mals, and no one is get­ting a dose of that med­i­cine more than Prime Minister Holness, whose stop-gap Zones Of Special Operations (ZOSO) & the (SOE’s)he pre­vi­ous­ly ridiculed are now the main­stays of his crime-fight­ing strategies.
Both mea­sures require huge deploy­ments of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel to affect­ed areas for extend­ed peri­ods of time. At the same time, they are [not] intel­li­gence-dri­ven oper­a­tions; they are mere­ly attempts at plug­ging the dike. However, stop­ping the leak in one area cre­ates pres­sure on anoth­er, so water begins gush­ing from anoth­er area.
When large amounts of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel are com­mit­ted to an area, crime pro­duc­ers run to oth­er areas and turn pre­vi­ous­ly pris­tine areas into havens of criminality.
In essence, crime sta­tis­tics are not dri­ven down; they go down in the areas of high police con­cen­tra­tion but go up in oth­er areas.
This hum­ble writer has rub­bished the Prime Minister’s crime ini­tia­tives, not because they do not have a pur­pose, but because they are the total­i­ty of his crime-fight­ing strate­gies. Criminals under­stand one lan­guage, and that is the lan­guage of tough laws.

The People’s National Party has nev­er seen a penal code that it does not hate. It was sup­posed to be the Labor Party that stood up for the aver­age Jamaican using the rule of law. This Labor Party of Andrew Holness and Delroy Chuck et al. is not the par­ty of Bustamante.
So Holness has been forced to con­cede that the crime sit­u­a­tion is out­side the scope of the JCF to han­dle, and worse, that the nation is now in the grips of a crime pandemic.
The finesse he and Delroy Chuck envi­sioned and tout­ed, the diss­ing of the police, the con­stant bull­shit com­ing from their mouths about how to deal with hard­ened mur­der­ers came to a big pile of shit. Because they had no idea what they were talk­ing about.
I am the first to put up my hand and say, “yes, the police high com­mand is not worth shit.” Whether or not the PM and the Services Commission act­ing on his advice, decid­ed on pur­su­ing the failed strat­e­gy of using retired sol­diers to head the JCF, or they seri­ous­ly need­ed to see if Anderson would be bet­ter than the morons at the top of the JCF, we may nev­er know.
What we know is that data mat­ters, and the data does not sup­port the con­tin­ued sup­port for Anderson from the Jamaican people.
We also know that qual­i­fied mod­ern-day police lead­ers applied for the top cop job, both from the FBI and from police depart­ments in devel­oped coun­tries. Jamaica has hired a slew of police trans­plants to the force before; the lead­er­ship decid­ed to for­go what those lead­ers had to offer and con­tin­ued with a tried and failed experiment.
I strong­ly believe that there are still a few Superintendents and Senior Superintendents who are far more capa­ble of low­er­ing the crime sta­tis­tics if they were allowed to lead.
Unfortunately, they have been side­lined for paper-push­ers who do not know their heads from their ass­es regard­ing prac­ti­cal polic­ing — prod­ucts of the same shit­ty pool.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Letitia (Tish) James absolute­ly rocks; James is eas­i­ly the most effec­tive and con­se­quen­tial Attorney General the State has had on jus­tice for the NY’s citizens.
Too bad Ms James will be run­ning for Governor as I expect­ed fol­low­ing the path of oth­ers like Andrew Coumo before her.
New York Justice will be the worse off for her depar­ture but we wish Tish James the best in her quest to becom­ing the state’s top executive.
It will be an uphill for this effec­tive and con­se­quen­tial Black sis­ter as the New York Democratic machine of white upstate men has already announced they are throw­ing their sup­port over the default place-hold­er Kathy Hochul. State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs announced his endorse­ment claim­ing, “Kathy Hochul has earned the sup­port that she is get­ting from me, at least today, and I believe every coun­ty chair ought to think the same.”
“Ok”
That pre­ma­ture endorse­ment came even as New York City pub­lic advo­cate and for­mer lieu­tenant gov­er­nor can­di­date Jumaane Williams has launched an explorato­ry com­mit­tee, and has all but announced he will be run­ning for gov­er­nor next year.
Attorney General Letitia James who has also been open­ly weigh­ing her own run, had not made a deci­sion when the endorse­ment came.. Public advo­cate Williams crit­i­cized Jacobs, say­ing endors­ing Hochul is anoth­er exam­ple of the estab­lish­ment pro­tect­ing itself. “We have the Democratic Party chair of New York state endors­ing some­one before many of us have been able to make our case,” Williams said. “And in a pri­ma­ry where he’s actu­al­ly sup­posed to be impartial.”
For the record both Williams and James are Black, Jacobs and Hochul are.……well you know!

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New York State Police troop­er Christopher Baldner was indict­ed on mur­der, manslaugh­ter, and reck­less endan­ger­ment charges on Tuesday. New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the indict­ment of Baldner after an inci­dent in December of 2020 where Baldner alleged­ly used his police vehi­cle to ram a car occu­pied by four mem­bers of the Goods fam­i­ly. The inci­dent occurred while Baldner was on patrol along the New York State Thruway in Ulster County. The inci­dent result­ed in the family’s car flip­ping over, killing 11-year-old Monica Goods.

The indict­ment also alleges that Baldner sim­i­lar­ly endan­gered the lives of three pas­sen­gers in September 2019 when he used his police vehi­cle to ram their car. Baldner was arraigned and remand­ed in Ulster County Court. According to Attorney General James, Baldner will make a bail appli­ca­tion, the hear­ing of which is set for Thursday, Nov. 4. His charge, mur­der in the sec­ond degree, car­ries a max­i­mum sen­tence of 25 years to life in prison. “Police offi­cers are entrust­ed to pro­tect and serve, but Trooper Baldner alleged­ly vio­lat­ed that trust when he used his car as a dead­ly weapon and killed a young girl,” said Attorney General James. “While noth­ing will bring Monica back, we must hold law enforce­ment to the high­est stan­dards, which is why my office is com­mit­ted to seek­ing jus­tice in this case.” The Attorney General is the pros­e­cu­tor in this matter.

The pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion that gives the pros­e­cu­tion the right to appeal in lim­it­ed cir­cum­stances must be seen as a pos­i­tive step, albeit belated.
This leg­is­la­tion is gross­ly over­due in its pas­sage, par­tic­u­lar­ly when one con­sid­ers that all across the Caribbean, pros­e­cu­tors have the right by law to appeal on behalf of the peo­ple when judges make mis­takes in judg­ment. Having not yet seen the bill, I am con­strained about what I say. Still, if the past is pro­logue, we can expect that this bill will not go near­ly far enough in address­ing the ills in the sys­tem, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it per­tains to the sen­tenc­ing actions of the nation’s judges.
In fact, Delroy Chuck, the Islands jus­tice min­is­ter and no friend of crime vic­tims, argued that the leg­is­la­tion had been mod­i­fied over the years to become “one of the most lim­it­ed rights of appeal” across the Commonwealth.
If Delroy Chuck says it is watered down to noth­ing, I will take his word for it, know­ing full well that watered-down leg­is­la­tion that does noth­ing to rem­e­dy the nation’s crime epi­dem­ic is what Delroy Chuck likes and supports.

The Opposition People’s National Party mem­bers in the upper house (the sen­ate), have not sup­port­ed the bill. Peter Bunting, a for­mer min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty under the pre­vi­ous PNP admin­is­tra­tion, and leader of the oppo­si­tion busi­ness; who said ‘the solu­tion to the coun­try’s crime prob­lem was divine inter­ven­tion’ opposed the bill argu­ing there was no evi­dence to sug­gest that “it is our judges who are the root cause for these low rates of con­vic­tion.” In fact, he cit­ed the low con­vic­tion rates of crim­i­nals in courts like the Supreme Court as a major hin­drance to address­ing Jamaica’s ongo­ing crime problem.
These are the rea­sons that I have called for con­sti­tu­tion­al reform.
“It is high time that we reform our sys­tem that allows for old washed-up losers like Peter Bunting, reject­ed by the vot­ers to be [appoint­ed] against the will of the peo­ple to make deci­sions after they have been reject­ed at the polls.
Whose idea is this of we the peo­ple government?
It would be fool-hardy to lay blame for low con­vic­tion rates at the feet of judges only, it is the entire sys­tem, police, pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and defense attor­neys. But the lib­er­al Marxist judges that populateJamaica’s tri­al courts are a large part of the problem.
They cer­tain­ly do not need Peter Bunting to run pro­tec­tion for them, but their world views make Peter Bunting and the PNP the per­fect defend­ers of their actions since they are not allowed to speak out in public.

Director Of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewelyn in hail­ing the pas­sage of the bill shot back, “Let me make it quite clear, the right of appeal for the pros­e­cu­tion doesn’t have any­thing to do with what is going to hap­pen with the pros­e­cu­tion down below, It has to do with an issue where there is judi­cial error.”
In the inter­est of crime vic­tims, I hope that “judi­cial error” also applies to the egre­gious assaults of the Marxist elit­ist judges on sen­tenc­ing. Allowing their friend’s friends out with slaps on the wrist for vio­lent offenses.
Yes, the Island’s judges are a large part of what is hap­pen­ing in our coun­try. Unelected bureau­crats, like Peter Bunting, get to impose their will on the nation with dis­as­trous consequences.
The People’s National Party was nev­er a polit­i­cal par­ty that cared about crime, in fact, the con­tin­ued esca­la­tion of vio­lent crime has always been cen­tral to its strat­e­gy of gain­ing and hold­ing on to pow­er. It comes as no sur­prise that they would oppose a bill that will give the vic­tims, (the Jamaican peo­ple) who are not crim­i­nals, a chance at justice.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

One of JAMAICA’s dai­ly pub­li­ca­tions today blared out the head­line; “Poverty Will Worsen.” The arti­cle then laid out the data that sup­ports its asser­tion; the cen­tral bank raised inter­est rates by a full per­cent­age point from 0.5 per­cent to 1.5 percent.
The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty argues the rate increase will make it dif­fi­cult for busi­ness peo­ple to secure and man­age loan pay­ments in an already dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic climate.
The Bank of Jamaica, on the oth­er hand, insists its deci­sion is “aimed at ensur­ing that the annu­al increase in the prices of con­sumer goods and ser­vices remains with­in the bank’s infla­tion tar­get of 4.0 per­cent to 6.0 percent”.
As is cus­tom­ary, you may well imag­ine that the truth lies some­where in the middle.

One does not need to be an econ­o­mist to under­stand that the nation’s econ­o­my is not sup­port­ed by any real and tan­gi­ble per­for­mance in man­u­fac­tur­ing, baux­ite, agri­cul­ture, or any oth­er export-based per­for­mance index.
Jamaica’seconomy is anchored to tourism; as we all know, tourism is sub­ject to all kinds of expo­sures that dic­tate whether peo­ple trav­el or not. Even at its best, no sin­gle sec­tor is near­ly enough to sup­port an econ­o­my with near­ly three mil­lion dependents.
And so remit­tance becomes the sec­ond high­est for­eign exchange source of rev­enue stream­ing into the Island, — again a very fick­le rev­enue stream sub­ject to eco­nom­ic and oth­er con­di­tions in the source countries.

This is where for­eign lenders come in. So the econ­o­my stum­bles along year over year, large­ly exist­ing on bor­rowed mon­ey, being sub­ject­ed to the dic­tates of lender agen­cies whose inter­ests lie in keep­ing the coun­try for­ev­er a debtor state depen­dent on them for sur­vival. This means that each year a larg­er share of the Island’s gross domes­tic prod­uct goes to debt ser­vic­ing or inter­est pay­ments, depend­ing on your preference.
Therefore, our Jamaican econ­o­my is oper­at­ing like a shop­keep­er who opens a lit­tle gro­cery shop in an area where no one lives, gets up every day, and leans on the counter expect­ing busi­ness to come through the door.

The num­ber one issue affect­ing Jamaica is “crime.” It has been this way since the ’70s. It will con­tin­ue to be this way until a crop of lead­ers emerge who under­stand that when they sup­port lax laws that enhance crim­i­nal­i­ty rather than elim­i­nate it, they are them­selves sub­ject to the neg­a­tive con­se­quences of crime.
‘Poverty will wors­en,’ but not because of a sin­gle point increase in inter­est rates by the cen­tral bank; it will increase because the lead­ers of the nation are try­ing to stand up a nation of sup­posed pros­per­i­ty that is not sus­tained and cement­ed on the strong pil­lars of the rule of law.
Because the econ­o­my encour­ages prof­i­teer­ing and graft, it dis­cour­ages inno­va­tion, for­eign invest­ment, and the return of Jamaican res­i­dents liv­ing in the diaspora.

The mon­ey spent on law enforce­ment is cal­cu­la­ble; the mon­ey lost to the nation because of the vio­lent crime rate is incal­cu­la­ble. Added togeth­er, the nation con­tin­ues to bleed resources that could have been bet­ter spent in improv­ing the lives of the Jamaican people.
Instead of strong lead­er­ship, Jamaica floun­ders along like a ship with­out a rud­der, sub­ject to the direc­tions of the wind.
The pover­ty that con­tin­ues to stran­gle Jamaicans has lit­tle to do with the sin­gle point rate increase and every­thing to do with the peo­ple and their lead­ers’ love affair with cor­rup­tion and vio­lent crime.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Let me add my voice to that of Police Commissioner Antony Anderson who had an epiphany that the light and some­times no sen­tences giv­en to seri­ous offend­ers is fuelling crime on the Island.
Let me be very clear; I sup­port Anderson’s stance because this has been the stance of pret­ty much every cop who served in the JCF, includ­ing this writer.
My prob­lem with Anderson’s state­ments is that they are years late, and still, he pars­es words argu­ing that he is not point­ing fin­gers at any judges or the jus­tice sys­tem; who the hell are you speak­ing to then?
What a lame-ass thing to say; it just goes to show that these offi­cials val­ue their posi­tions more than they do the sur­vival of our nation.
Seriously, do you care that much that you will not be invit­ed to any more of their lit­tle func­tions were they down cock­tails and nib­ble on del­i­ca­cies as they con­verse in fake accents?
Mister Commissioner, as I am sure you know, I have repeat­ed­ly called for harsh­er sen­tences for vio­lent offend­ers and peo­ple arrest­ed with guns. One of my issues with your appoint­ment is that [you] should have only accept­ed the job of com­mis­sion­er of police under the guar­an­tee that the issue of appro­pri­ate sen­tenc­ing would be imme­di­ate­ly addressed.
Speaking out, now that almost a thou­sand (991) have again been mur­dered this year, smacks of you try­ing to deflect blame from yourself.

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I believe that you are not respon­si­ble for the killings, and I also believe that you are doing your best, but that is exact­ly the prob­lem. Commissioner Antony Anderson was also the nation’s first National Security Adviser. A post cre­at­ed by the Holness Administration seem­ing­ly for Anderson should have advised his boss as an advis­er that this issue is a nation­al secu­ri­ty threat.
But in real­i­ty, Commissioner Anderson did not, and could not, because you see,- mis­ter Anderson was nev­er a cop, so even though he was advis­ing the Prime Minister on National Security, one of the bur­geon­ing threats was out­side his under­stand­ing because as he had no train­ing or expe­ri­ence in law enforcement.

Anderson spoke to spe­cif­ic issues; rough­ly 1,000 peo­ple were released from prison each year, between 430 to 480 of them became re-offend­ers with­in two and a half years“In an envi­ron­ment where 92 per­cent of our peo­ple killed last week were killed with a gun, it can­not be ade­quate. When I reviewed 16 cas­es from the begin­ning of the year, none of those cas­es of ille­gal pos­ses­sion were the per­sons required to go to jail. It was either a fine, a sus­pend­ed sen­tence, or pro­ba­tion. This is real, and I am not blam­ing any­one, but it is just how our sys­tem works, and the rea­son it has­n’t been effec­tive in deter­ring is that it does­n’t deter.”In anoth­er case involv­ing three women, two from Westmoreland and the oth­er from St Elizabeth, the com­mis­sion­er said they were robbed and wound­ed but still man­aged to help inves­ti­ga­tors build a strong case. He said they went to court and tes­ti­fied, only to see the men walk­ing around the fol­low­ing day, even though they were convicted.
“The very next day after these per­sons were con­vict­ed, those per­pe­tra­tors are walk­ing past the same women in the com­mu­ni­ty. Something is wrong, and I have a prob­lem with that. That is not a nice process. You have to keep reliv­ing and talk­ing about the thing that impact­ed you. What about that will deter that crim­i­nal from offend­ing or give these women con­fi­dence that the State is fair and just. These peo­ple I am talk­ing about are peo­ple who were convicted.”
“What we see as a fea­ture of these con­flicts is that gang­sters are more will­ing now; if they can’t get the per­sons, they are after to go after the fam­i­ly and asso­ciates of these gang­sters and go after all of them col­lec­tive­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the low­er part of St Andrew, Kingston, and Clarendon, and more recent­ly Westmoreland and ear­li­er in the year in St James.”The Commissioner lamented.

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Here is where the rub­ber meets the road; Jamaica has a severe crime prob­lem. Even though judges are not whol­ly to be blamed, their harm to the coun­try as unelect­ed offi­cials is incalculable.
The issue is exac­er­bat­ed by those who ben­e­fit from it and those who would shut down any­one who would do any­thing about it. Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson does not want to speak out against these robed char­la­tans because he fears they will gang up on him and do a work stop­page; yes, they did it before.
But I am nei­ther afraid of them, nei­ther do I care what they have to say; no one elect­ed them, yet they are a thorn in the side of the coun­try’s efforts to rid the streets of the most dan­ger­ous criminals.
Therefore, the peo­ple’s elect­ed offi­cials, the leg­is­la­tors [must] do what the peo­ple elect­ed them to do to pro­tect them from the vicious mon­sters who prey on the innocent.
That means doing what I have called for many times. (a)Passing laws that have teeth. (b) Passing laws with manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences for vio­lent offend­ers. © Truth in sen­tenc­ing, mean­ing that statu­to­ri­ly ten years in prison means ten years in prison.
There is a cri­sis of crit­i­cal think­ing. Those who claim to be edu­cat­ed got the edu­ca­tion to gain access to pow­er- pow­er they then use for their own nefar­i­ous purposes.
The issue of Jamaica’s unelect­ed crim­i­nal-lov­ing judges is a sore one that has caused many crime fight­ers to step aside. Officers walk away because their efforts con­tin­ue to be thwart­ed by igno­rant opin­ion­at­ed judges who use the sys­tem to act out their lib­er­al crim­i­nal-lov­ing agen­das, agen­das they were indoc­tri­nat­ed into from their affil­i­a­tion with the left­ist insti­tu­tions in which they were brainwashed.

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Commissioner Anderson’s state­ments are a day late and a dol­lar short. Even though he made fac­tu­al state­ments years lat­er than he should, he still refus­es to stand up to the morons who sit in judg­ment of these vicious killers and shooters.
Regardless of the bull­shit, they try to feed the peo­ple about sen­tenc­ing guide­lines and time spent in jail; these unelect­ed shit­heads are car­ry­ing out an anti­thet­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy to the Jamaican peo­ple’s interest.
The peo­ple must demand that the Legislature pass laws that pro­tect them from the gun-tot­ing crim­i­nals and their asso­ciates on the bench.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Over the years, I have heard many peo­ple com­plain about the Democrat Party; some allege that the par­ty is no dif­fer­ent than the Republican Party.
Whether or not this is true is not for me to decide; suf­fic­ing to say that the Democrat par­ty also has a lot of white peo­ple in it, and we have to sim­ply come to terms with the fact that what looks like a major­i­ty of white peo­ple seem to have a seri­ous sense of inse­cu­ri­ty about who they are; hence they tell them­selves that they are some­how supe­ri­or to others.
So racism is cer­tain­ly not reserved only for the nean­derthals that have opt­ed to join that cult.
One notable point of inter­est is the lack of vis­i­ble action and the sense of non­cha­lance Senate Democrats have in the face of the barn-burn­ing urgency around vot­ing rights and a wom­an’s right to choose.
Shaping the infra­struc­ture putting America back into the dark ages is the Roberts Supreme court, which destroyed the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2013 in its infa­mous and dis­grace­ful Shelby County, Alabama Vs. Holder dur­ing Barack Obama’s Presidency; and It’s a loud and clear deci­sion not to respond to sev­er­al appeals against the oner­ous Texas Law that makes it a crime for doc­tors to per­form an abor­tion on a woman after six weeks.

Whether one agrees with abor­tions in prin­ci­ple or not is hard­ly the point. The cen­tral issue is whether or not a woman has a right to make deci­sions regard­ing her own body. A ques­tion that has been set­tled law since the land­mark deci­sion of Roe Vs. Wade was hand­ed down by an ear­li­er supreme court on January 22, 1973.
The Roberts Court of 9 jus­tices is tilt­ed 6 – 3 in favor of Republicans, which brings up the oth­er ques­tion of why are Democrats afraid to use pow­er when they have it to save the coun­try from return­ing to the dark ages by appoint­ing at least three more asso­ciate jus­tices to the court?
The Roberts’ court, which con­sists of Republicans John Roberts, Uncle Clarence Tom-Ass, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amey Coney Barrett, has no respect for prece­dent stare deci­sis be damned.

Liberal jus­tice Sonia Sotomayor has been rel­e­gat­ed to writ­ing scathing dis­sents to their regres­sive deci­sions; deci­sions aimed at return­ing the coun­try to the 1950s era before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the rights women fought for to have con­trol over their own bod­ies. The Robert’s court is work­ing to over­turn Roe v Wade, and it will suc­ceed in undo­ing almost five decades of set­tled law. This court has no respect for prece­dent, no respect for stare deci­sis. It is a right-wing workaround the will of the peo­ple. Since Republicans can­not win elec­tions fair­ly, they have stacked the courts and all but cre­at­ed an instru­ment of minor­i­ty rule in the court.
For all intents and pur­pos­es, the coun­try is now being run by a cabal of unelect­ed judges who are obliv­i­ous to the major­i­ty’s will and the intent of the constitution.
They upend­ed the 56-year-old long-set­tled Voting Rights Act dur­ing Obama’s pres­i­den­cy, and now, by refus­ing to pro­tect Roe V Wade, the 48-year-old prece­dent, they have allowed Texas to start the process of dis­man­tling the rights and pro­tec­tions that every woman has been giv­en by God, one that no gov­ern­ment should have the pow­er to inter­fere in.
With regards to the 5 – 4 deci­sion not to block the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al attack on wom­en’s rights, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued anoth­er scathing opin­ion after the right-wing major­i­ty of Clarence Tom-Ass, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amey Coney-Barrett, decid­ed to aid Texas, by not step­ping in to pro­tect a wom­an’s right to chose.
John Roberts, in this instance, sided with the court’s lib­er­al minority.

Siad Justice Sotomayor; “The Court’s order is stun­ning.” “Presented with an appli­ca­tion to enjoin a fla­grant­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al law engi­neered to pro­hib­it women from exer­cis­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and evade judi­cial scruti­ny, a major­i­ty of Justices have opt­ed to bury their heads in the sand. … The Court’s fail­ure to act rewards tac­tics designed to avoid judi­cial review and inflicts sig­nif­i­cant harm on the appli­cants and on women seek­ing abor­tions in Texas.”
Said Justice Stephen Breyer; “The new law’s reliance on pri­vate indi­vid­u­als rather than pros­e­cu­tors to han­dle enforce­ment, which would come through civ­il suits, should not immu­nize it from lit­i­ga­tion in the courts.”
“I rec­og­nize that Texas’s law del­e­gates the State’s pow­er to pre­vent abor­tions not to one per­son (such as a dis­trict attor­ney) or to a few per­sons (such as a group of gov­ern­ment offi­cials or pri­vate cit­i­zens), but to any per­son. But I do not see why that fact should make a crit­i­cal legal dif­fer­ence.”
[Politico] opined that Justice Elena Kagan devot­ed much of her dis­sent to crit­i­ciz­ing the court for its increas­ing reliance on its emer­gency dock­et to make deci­sions of great sig­nif­i­cance to the coun­try, with­out the ben­e­fit of full brief­ing or oral arguments.
Said Justice Elena Kagan, “Today’s rul­ing illus­trates just how far the Court’s ‘shad­ow-dock­et’ deci­sions may depart from the usu­al prin­ci­ples of the appel­late process.” “The majority’s deci­sion is emblem­at­ic of too much of this Court’s shad­ow-dock­et deci­sion-mak­ing — which every day becomes more unrea­soned, incon­sis­tent, and impos­si­ble to defend.”

Seems to me, as I often say, the very court that ought to be the pro­tec­tor of the Constitution is the very insti­tu­tion that is the great­est vio­la­tor of said con­sti­tu­tion out of polit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal considerations.
However, here is a bit of irony in Chief Justice John Roberts’ dis­sent­ing opinion.
Roberts called the Texas leg­is­la­tion “not only unusu­al but unprece­dent­ed.” His dis­sent was more reserved than that of the lib­er­als, but he expressed con­cern that bless­ing a scheme like the one adopt­ed in the Lone Star State could cre­ate a mod­el for oth­er states seek­ing to have laws of dubi­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty kick in for some peri­od of time.
That is exact­ly the point, but the right-wing robed idiots on the court have fall­en in lockstep.
However, the great­est irony is reserved for Roberts him­self, who worked assid­u­ous­ly to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act using the most dubi­ous and ridicu­lous argu­ments, which opened up the flood­gates allow­ing States to pass a pha­lanx of anti-vot­ing rights laws across the country.
Of course, this bit of irony is lost on Chief Justice John Roberts.
The ene­mies of Democracy and Human Rights are get­ting what they want, and that’s a direct result of what Mitch McConnell pulled off on the coun­try when he unlaw­ful­ly blocked Merrick Garland from being ele­vat­ed to the US Supreme Court.
By doing so, the most cor­rupt, vile racist to become pres­i­dent in our life­time was able to appoint Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amey Coney-Barrett to the high­est court to turn America back to a time when white men made all of the deci­sions, includ­ing whether oth­er peo­ple are allowed to vote, or whether a woman who is raped can flush the seed of her rapist from her body and soul.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Pillow mogul turned elec­tion con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist Mike Lindell is fac­ing mul­ti­ple dif­fi­cul­ties in his two-pronged quest to prove that China stole the 2020 elec­tion — and to fend off a colos­sal law­suit by Dominion Voting Systems, which claims that Lindell and many oth­ers defamed the com­pa­ny and did enor­mous dam­age to its busi­ness and reputation.

With Dominion’s $1.3 bil­lion law­suits hang­ing over his head, records indi­cate that Lindell is mak­ing major per­son­al con­ces­sions in prepa­ra­tion for a sig­nif­i­cant legal battle.

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records reviewed by Salon, Lindell (through his com­pa­ny MyPillow) has recent­ly sold off at least one of his pri­vate planes. FAA records indi­cate that an air­craft reg­is­tered to MyPillow — a 1993 Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50 with tail num­ber N497SP — was trans­ferred to Clyde Air LLC on July 26 for an undis­closed pur­chase amount. (A sim­i­lar­ly-con­fig­ured 1993 Falcon 50 pri­vate jet cur­rent­ly on the mar­ket has a $2.5 mil­lion price tag.)
Read the full sto­ry here: https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​2​1​/​0​9​/​0​1​/​m​i​k​e​-​l​i​n​d​e​l​l​s​-​m​e​l​t​d​o​w​n​-​b​e​g​i​n​s​-​h​e​-​r​e​c​e​n​t​l​y​-​s​o​l​d​-​a​-​m​y​p​i​l​l​o​w​-​p​l​a​n​e​-​t​o​-​f​u​n​d​-​d​o​m​i​n​i​o​n​-​l​a​w​s​u​it/

While serv­ing in office or before depart­ing office, a Governor or President can grant clemen­cy, com­mute a con­vict­ed per­son­’s sen­tence, par­don a con­vict­ed felon or take oth­er mea­sures as is their right under the law.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has been no excep­tion. Before leav­ing office due to alle­ga­tions of improp­er behav­ior towards women, the Governor, Monday, grant­ed clemen­cy to six per­sons as is his right. Governor Cuomo’s office says all six demon­strat­ed sub­stan­tial evi­dence of reha­bil­i­ta­tion and a com­mit­ment to their communities.

One of the per­sons to whom the gov­er­nor showed mer­cy is David Gilbert, a 76-year-old Black man. In 1981 Gilbert was the get­away dri­ver of what was then labeled a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed $1.6 mil­lion rob­bery at the Nanuet Mall that killed two police offi­cers and a Brinks secu­ri­ty guard.
Despite being unarmed, Gilbert was con­vict­ed of three counts of sec­ond-degree mur­der and four counts of first-degree rob­bery in 1983. Gilbert has been serv­ing time at Shawangunk Correctional Facility.
“He has served 40 years of a 75-years-to-life sen­tence, relat­ed to an inci­dent in which he was the dri­ver, not the mur­der­er. While incar­cer­at­ed, Mr. Gilbert has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to AIDS edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion pro­grams; he has also worked as a stu­dent tutor, law library clerk, para­le­gal assis­tant, teacher’s aide, and an aide for var­i­ous addi­tion­al facil­i­ty pro­grams. At this time, Mr. Gilbert is the only indi­vid­ual still incar­cer­at­ed, with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole in his life­time,” Cuomo’s office said in a press release.
Gilbert will be referred to the Parole Board for poten­tial release.

This was the tweet from Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, who loves to go to Black Churches and quote scrip­tures to try and fool reli­gious black church folk.

“Another act of betray­al by a cor­rupt­ed Governor. He once again betrays the vic­tims of a hor­ren­dous crime and the brave men and women of law enforce­ment while under­min­ing pub­lic safe­ty and giv­ing com­fort to a terrorist.” 

Hey Marc, am I the only Black per­son who knew that you were a fraud? I mean, as one per­son of faith to anoth­er, I under­stand the pol­i­tics behind your deci­sion to speak.
But this has so many lay­ers to it. You pro­fess to be a man of faith man, I have seen you come to my church and chew bible leaves to the delight of those who are enam­ored by you, man .…but look dude, as a for­mer detec­tive, I can spot a pho­ny a mile out man.
Where is your Christianity giv­en the facts of this spe­cif­ic case that you con­demn the now-for­mer gov­er­nor for?
Do you think for a moment that the sen­tence met­ed out to mis­ter Gilbert was a fair and just sen­tence? And if so, do you think that it was just only because he is black, or because cop’s lives are more impor­tant than the lives of oth­ers, or both?
And oh, while we are on the sub­ject of com­mu­ta­tions and par­dons, mis­ter County Executive, no one heard Jack s**t from you while the most cor­rupt insect to occu­py the pres­i­den­cy was giv­ing pass­es to his crim­i­nal cabal.

Here is a short list of the crim­i­nals Donald Trump par­doned on his way out the door, and oh by the way,.….….that was before he went ahead and incit­ed an insur­rec­tion against the United States.

Alex Adjmi: Adjmi was grant­ed a full par­don. The White House said Adjmi was con­vict­ed of a finan­cial crime in 1996 and served 5 years in prison.

Fred Keith Alford: Alford received a full par­don. The White House said he was con­vict­ed in 1977 for a firearm vio­la­tion and served one year’s unsu­per­vised probation.

Michael Ashley: Ashley was con­vict­ed for bank fraud over the 2009 col­lapse of mort­gage com­pa­ny Lend America and sen­tenced to 3 years in prison in 2019. He was the exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and chief busi­ness strate­gist with the com­pa­ny. Ashley was ordered to pay $49 mil­lion in resti­tu­tion and $800,000 in for­fei­ture. His sen­tence was commuted.

Stephen K. Bannon: Trump’s for­mer chief strate­gist in the White House was in charge of the final months of his 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and was indict­ed in August along with three oth­ers on wire fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing con­spir­a­cy charges. Prosecutors alleged that Bannon’s crowd­fund­ing “We Build the Wall” cam­paign raised more than $25 mil­lion from Trump sup­port­ers and used hun­dreds of thou­sands for per­son­al expens­es. He was tak­en into cus­tody by U.S. Postal Inspection Service agents while on board the yacht of Chinese bil­lion­aire Guo Wengui. Bannon received a full par­don and now will not have to face a trial.

Lynn Barney: Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Lynn Barney, who was sen­tenced to 35 months in prison for pos­sess­ing a firearm as a pre­vi­ous­ly con­vict­ed felon, after hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been con­vict­ed for dis­trib­ut­ing a small amount of mar­i­jua­na, accord­ing to the White House.

David Barren: Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of David Barren, who was sen­tenced to life in prison in addi­tion to 20 years for a drug con­spir­a­cy charge. In 2017, President Barack Obama com­mut­ed his life term to a 30-year sen­tence. The White House said Barren is a father of six chil­dren and has main­tained an exem­plary prison record. A peti­tion advo­cat­ing for fur­ther clemen­cy for Barren’s release has gar­nered near­ly 20,000 signatures.

Dr. Faustino Bernadett: Bernadett, a retired anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, was sen­tenced last year to 15 months in fed­er­al prison for tak­ing part in a long-run­ning health care fraud scheme where he autho­rized sham con­tracts that con­cealed over $30 mil­lion in ille­gal kick­back pay­ments to physi­cians, accord­ing to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The over­all scheme result­ed in more than $900 mil­lion in fraud­u­lent bills being sub­mit­ted, the office said. The White House said Bernadett has spent the past year “devot­ed to help­ing pro­tect his com­mu­ni­ty from Covid-19.” He received a full pardon.

Carl Andrews Boggs: Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Carl Andrews Boggs. In 2014, Boggs plead­ed guilty to fed­er­al charges stem­ming from a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the ille­gal use of a dis­ad­van­taged busi­ness enter­prise to obtain gov­ern­ment-fund­ed con­struc­tion con­tracts. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he plead­ed guilty to one count of con­spir­a­cy to defraud the depart­ment of trans­porta­tion and one count of mon­ey laun­der­ing conspiracy.

Kristina Bohnenkamp: Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Kristina Bohnenkamp. According to the White House, she has served more than 10 years of a 24-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense.

Todd Boulanger: Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Todd Boulanger, who is a for­mer deputy to dis­graced lob­by­ist Jack Abramoff. In 2009, he plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing with oth­ers to com­mit hon­est ser­vices fraud, accord­ing to the Department of Justice. Boulanger, Abramoff and oth­er lob­by­ists work­ing with them sought to advance the inter­ests of groups and com­pa­nies they rep­re­sent­ed by lob­by­ing fed­er­al leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive branch offi­cials, the depart­ment said.

Jonathon Braun: Braun import­ed mar­i­jua­na worth approx­i­mate­ly $1.76 bil­lion, from 2008 to 2010, accord­ing to Customs and Border Protection doc­u­ments, includ­ing 2,200 pounds in a sin­gle inci­dent. He plead­ed guilty in 2011 and served five years of a 10-year sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to import mar­i­jua­na and to com­mit mon­ey laun­der­ing. Trump com­mut­ed his sentence.

Elliott Broidy: Broidy, a for­mer Republican National Committee finance chair and one of Trump’s top fundrais­ers, was par­doned. Broidy plead­ed guilty in October to con­spir­ing to vio­late for­eign lob­by­ing laws. Prosecutors said that the scheme aimed to have the Trump admin­is­tra­tion sink an inves­ti­ga­tion into the multi­bil­lion-dol­lar loot­ing of a Malaysian state invest­ment fund.

Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.: Carter, a rap­per who per­forms as Lil Wayne, was also grant­ed a par­don. He plead­ed guilty in December to a fed­er­al weapons charge after he car­ried a hand­gun from California to Florida on his pri­vate jet. Due to past felony con­vic­tions, he is barred under fed­er­al law from pos­sess­ing firearms. The charge car­ries a max­i­mum prison sen­tence of 10 years. Carter has fre­quent­ly expressed sup­port for Trump and recent­ly met with the pres­i­dent on crim­i­nal jus­tice issues.

Randall “Duke” Cunningham: Another ex-mem­ber of Congress, the California Republican was sen­tenced to 8 years in prison for bribery and was released in 2013. He received a con­di­tion­al pardon.

Paul Erickson: Erickson, a con­ser­v­a­tive oper­a­tive with ties to the NRA, came under scruti­ny dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into Russian elec­tion inter­fer­ence. He plead­ed guilty to wire fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing in an unre­lat­ed case.

Rodney Nakia Gibson: Convicted of drug traf­fick­ing in 2009, Gibson served more than 11 years in cus­tody, accord­ing to the White House. His com­mu­ta­tion was sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. The details of his con­vic­tion couldn’t be inde­pen­dent­ly verified.

George Gilmore: This for­mer local GOP chair­man was con­vict­ed in April 2019 of fail­ing to pay pay­roll tax­es and for mak­ing false state­ments on a bank loan appli­ca­tion. In an appeal, Gilmore claimed that a “hoard­ing” dis­or­der made him spend lav­ish­ly on per­son­al expens­es rather than make time­ly pay­ments to the IRS. His par­don was sup­port­ed by for­mer New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie among others.

Deborah, Gregory and Martin Jorgensen: In the 1980s, the Jorgensens mar­ket­ed and sold processed beef as heart-healthy, antibi­ot­ic-free and hor­mone-free. When demand out­stripped their sup­ply of beef, they mixed in com­mer­cial beef trim that usu­al­ly used to make ham­burg­ers, with­out telling their cus­tomers. They were con­vict­ed in 1996 of sev­er­al counts, includ­ing con­spir­a­cy and fraud­u­lent sale of mis­brand­ed meat. Martin Jorgensen passed away in 2019, and was mar­ried to Deborah Jorgensen. Gregory Jorgensen is their son.

Bill K. Kapri: Kodak Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was sen­tenced to 46 months in prison on fed­er­al weapons charges in 2019 after admit­ting that he fal­si­fied infor­ma­tion on fed­er­al forms to buy four firearms. The rap­per obtained three guns: a 9mm hand­gun, a .380-cal­iber hand­gun and a semi-auto­mat­ic Mini Draco weapon. He received a pardon.

Kwame Kilpatrick: The for­mer may­or of Detroit had his 28-year sen­tence com­mut­ed. He plead­ed guilty to obstruc­tion of jus­tice and resigned from office as part of a plea deal in 2008 fol­low­ing a pay-to-play scheme in which Kilpatrick and his father took kick­backs and bribes to steer city busi­ness to cer­tain con­trac­tors. He ini­tial­ly served 99 days in prison but then served an addi­tion­al year for vio­lat­ing his pro­ba­tion and was released in 2011.

Kenneth Kurson: Trump grant­ed clemen­cy to Kurson, the for­mer edi­tor of the New York Observer and friend of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner who was charged last October with cyber­stalk­ing dur­ing a heat­ed divorce.

Anthony Levandowski: Levandowski, a for­mer Google engi­neer who was sen­tenced for steal­ing a trade secret on self-dri­ving cars months before he briefly head­ed Uber Technologies Inc’s rival unit, was also pardoned.

Salomon Melgen: Trump com­mut­ed the prison sen­tence of Melgen, an eye doc­tor and major Democratic donor con­vict­ed of defraud­ing Medicare patients. He stood tri­al with New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, who lob­bied Trump for Melgen’s case.

Desiree Perez: Perez was arrest­ed in 1994 for drug pos­ses­sion and in 1998 for grand lar­ce­ny and pos­ses­sion of a firearm. In 2019, she was named CEO of Roc Nation, the enter­tain­ment com­pa­ny found­ed by rap­per-turned-mogul Jay‑Z.

Albert J. Pirro, Jr.: With less than an hour to go before Biden is sworn in, Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Albert J. Pirro, Jr. Pirro, Jr., the ex-hus­band of Fox News host and Trump ally Jeanine Pirro, was con­vict­ed on con­spir­a­cy and tax eva­sion charges in 2000.

Rick Renzi: Former U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R‑Ariz., was grant­ed a full par­don. In 2013, he was sen­tenced to three years in prison for extor­tion, bribery, insur­ance fraud, mon­ey laun­der­ing and rack­e­teer­ing in a pub­lic cor­rup­tion case. He had served three terms in the House.

Aviem Sella: An Israeli cit­i­zen, Sella was indict­ed in March 1987 on charges he recruit­ed con­vict­ed American spy Jonathan Jay Pollard to col­lect U.S. mil­i­tary secrets for Israel. Trump grant­ed him a full par­don and his request was sup­port­ed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli ambas­sador to the U.S. and the U.S. ambas­sador to Israel.

Brian Simmons: Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Brian Simmons, who has served 5 years of a 15-year sen­tence for non­vi­o­lent con­spir­a­cy to man­u­fac­ture and dis­trib­ute marijuana.

Syrita Steib-Martin: Syrita Steib of New Orleans, received a full par­don after being con­vict­ed at the age of 19 of using fire to com­mit a felony. Steib now serves as exec­u­tive direc­tor and co-founder of Operation Restoration, which works to cre­ate edu­ca­tion and work oppor­tu­ni­ties for for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed women.

Patrick Lee Swisher: Patrick Swisher of Charlotte, North Carolina, was grant­ed a full par­don after being con­vict­ed in 2002 of tax fraud and false state­ments and serv­ing 18 months in prison. Previous to this, the Securities and Exchange Commission had charged his com­pa­ny with account­ing fraud in 2001. Swisher now works as CEO of a com­pa­ny at which he employs more than 1,000 indi­vid­u­als, accord­ing to the White House.

David Tamman: Trump grant­ed a full par­don to David Tamman, who was a part­ner at a law firm when he doc­tored finan­cial doc­u­ments at the behest of a client who was per­pe­trat­ing a Ponzi scheme. According to the Department of Justice, the scheme ulti­mate­ly took $22 mil­lion from vic­tims. Tamman was found guilty of 10 counts that includ­ed obstruc­tion of jus­tice, alter­ing records in a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion, and being an acces­so­ry after the fact to the fraud scheme. He was con­vict­ed in 2013 and com­plet­ed his sev­en-year sen­tence in 2019.

Casey Urlacher: Urlacher was par­doned after being named in a grand jury indict­ment in 2020 and being accused of help­ing to run an ille­gal off­shore gam­bling busi­ness. Urlacher faced two counts in the case, each of which had car­ried a poten­tial prison sen­tence of five years. He cur­rent­ly serves as the may­or of Mettawa, Illinois and is the broth­er of for­mer Chicago Bears line­backer Brian Urlacher.

Monstsho Eugene Vernon: Vernon had his sen­tence com­mut­ed after serv­ing 19 years in prison. Vernon com­mit­ted numer­ous armed bank rob­beries in Greenville, South Carolina. The White House said that some of these offens­es involved Vernon car­ry­ing BB guns as opposed to gen­uine firearms.

Blanca Virgen: Blanca Virgen was con­vict­ed of drug charges, and has served 12 years of a 30-year sen­tence. Virgen fea­tured on the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers tri­al penal­ty clemen­cy project which described her as “a mod­el pris­on­er” and high­light­ed her desire to return to Mexico to care for her children.

Jerry Donnell Walden: Convicted in 1998 of con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute and to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute five kilo­grams or more of cocaine, Walden was sen­tenced to 40 years in prison. President Trump has com­mut­ed Walden’s sen­tence, 23 years into his incarceration.

John Harold Wall: Wall was grant­ed a full par­don after being con­vict­ed of aid­ing and abet­ting pos­ses­sion with intent to dis­trib­ute metham­phet­a­mine in 1992. According to the White House, he com­plet­ed a 60 month prison sen­tence with 4 years’ super­vised release.

William Walters: A retired pro­fes­sion­al gam­bler, Las Vegas-based William Walters had been sen­tenced to prison for five years in 2017 for con­spir­ing to com­mit insid­er trad­ing from at least 2008 through 2014. Walters, who was 70 at the time of his con­vic­tion, was also ordered to pay a $10 mil­lion fine. Trump’s com­mu­ta­tion of the sen­tence was sup­port­ed by for­mer Majority Leader Harry Reid and golfer Phil Mickelson, among oth­ers. The New York Times report­edthat this par­don was bro­kered by John Dowd, Trump’s for­mer per­son­al lawyer, who was hired by Walters to exert his influ­ence on Trump

Eliyahu Weinstein: Weinstein, from Lakewood, New Jersey, has been par­doned whilst serv­ing his eighth year of a 24-year sen­tence for a real estate invest­ment fraud as well as mon­ey laun­der­ing charges. His com­mu­ta­tion was sup­port­ed by for­mer U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, for­mer Representative Bob Barr, and Alan Dershowitz, among others.

Shalom Weiss: Weiss was par­doned 18 years into an 835-year sen­tence — believed to be the longest-ever white-col­lar prison sen­tence — for his role in set­ting up an insur­ance fraud scheme. He received sup­port from Alan Dershowitz and Jay Sekulow, who sent let­ters to Trump.

Tom Leroy Whitehurst: The White House has said that Whitehurst was serv­ing a life sen­tence in prison for lead­ing a con­spir­a­cy to man­u­fac­ture at least 16.7 kilo­grams of metham­phet­a­mine and pos­sess­ing numer­ous firearms dur­ing the course of the con­spir­a­cy. His sen­tence has been com­mut­ed to 30 years, of which he’s served 24.

Caroline Yeats: The White House has said that Yeats’s 20-year sen­tence has been com­mut­ed. She has served almost 7 years of it and is a first-time, non-vio­lent drug offender.

Chris Young: Young was par­doned for his non-vio­lent drug offense in a con­spir­a­cy case and had served over 10 years of the sen­tence. He has ini­tial­ly been giv­en a life sen­tence. Kim Kardashian West had been advo­cat­ing for his release.

Robert “Bob” Zangrillo: Robert Zangrillo was par­doned for his role in the 2019 col­lege admis­sions scan­dal. Zangrillo, the CEO of a pri­vate invest­ment firm in Miami, FL, was accused of brib­ing employ­ees from the University of Southern California’s ath­let­ics depart­ment to secure his daughter’s col­lege place. He was charged with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mail fraud and hon­est ser­vices mail fraud.

Here is the full list, as pro­vid­ed by the White House:

Abel Holtz — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Abel Holtz. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and friends and busi­ness col­leagues in his com­mu­ni­ty. Mr. Holtz is cur­rent­ly 86 years old. In 1995, he pled guilty to one count of imped­ing a grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion and was sen­tenced to 45 days in prison. Before his con­vic­tion, Mr. Holtz, who was the Chairman of a local bank, nev­er had any legal issues and has had no oth­er legal issues since his con­vic­tion. Mr. Holtz has devot­ed exten­sive time and resources to sup­port­ing char­i­ta­ble caus­es in South Florida, includ­ing sub­stan­tial dona­tions to the City of Miami Beach.

Jaime A. Davidson — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Jaime A. Davidson. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Mr. Davidson’s fam­i­ly and friends, Alice Johnson, and numer­ous oth­ers. In 1993, Mr. Davidson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment in rela­tion to the mur­der of an under­cov­er offi­cer. Notably, wit­ness­es who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Davidson lat­er recant­ed their tes­ti­mo­ny in sworn affi­davits and fur­ther attest­ed that Mr. Davidson had no involve­ment. Although Mr. Davidson has been incar­cer­at­ed for near­ly 29 years, the admit­ted shoot­er has already been released from prison. Following the com­mu­ta­tion of his sen­tence, Mr. Davidson will con­tin­ue legal efforts to clear his name. In addi­tion, while incar­cer­at­ed, Mr. Davidson men­tored and tutored over 1,000 pris­on­ers to help them achieve their GED cer­tifi­cates. Mr. Davidson has earned praise from prison offi­cials for his ded­i­ca­tion to help­ing others.

James E. Johnson, Jr. — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to James E. Johnson, Jr. In 2008, Mr. Johnson pled guilty to charges relat­ed to migra­to­ry birds. Mr. Johnson received 1 year pro­ba­tion, was barred from hunt­ing dur­ing that peri­od, and a $7,500 fine was imposed. Throughout his life, Mr. Johnson has made numer­ous con­tri­bu­tions for the con­ser­va­tion of wildlife.

Tommaso Buti — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Tommaso Buti. Mr. Buti is an Italian cit­i­zen and a respect­ed busi­ness­man. He is the Chief Operating Officer of a large Italian com­pa­ny and has start­ed a suc­cess­ful char­i­ta­ble ini­tia­tive to raise funds for UNICEF. More than 20 years ago, Mr. Buti was charged with finan­cial fraud involv­ing a chain of restau­rants. He has not, how­ev­er, been con­vict­ed in the United States.

Jawad A. Musa — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Jawad A. Musa. In 1991, Mr. Musa was sen­tence to life impris­on­ment for a non-vio­lent, drug-relat­ed offense. Mr. Musa’s sen­tenc­ing judge and the pros­e­cu­tor on the case have both request­ed clemen­cy on his behalf. He is cur­rent­ly 56-years old. During his time in prison, Mr. Musa has strength­ened his faith and tak­en dozens of edu­ca­tion­al cours­es. Mr. Musa is blessed with a strong sup­port­ive net­work in Baltimore, Maryland and has numer­ous offers of employment.

Adriana Shayota — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Adriana Shayota. Ms. Shayota has served more than half of her 24 month sen­tence. The Deputy Mayor of Chula Vista, California, John McCann, sup­ports this com­mu­ta­tion, among oth­er com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers. Ms. Shayota is a moth­er and a deeply reli­gious woman who had no pri­or con­vic­tions. She was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to traf­fic in coun­ter­feit goods, com­mit copy­right infringe­ment, and intro­duce mis­brand­ed food into inter­state com­merce. During her time in prison, Ms. Shayota men­tored those who want­ed to improve their lives and demon­strat­ed an extra­or­di­nary com­mit­ment to rehabilitation.

Glen Moss — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Glen Moss. After plead­ing guilty in 1998, Mr. Moss has been a vital mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty. Mr. Moss has been com­mit­ted to numer­ous phil­an­thropic efforts at the nation­al lev­el, includ­ing St Jude’s Hospital for Children, Breast Cancer Awareness, and the Colon Cancer Foundation. Within his com­mu­ni­ty, he has con­tributed to Danbury Hospital and Ann’s Place, a com­mu­ni­ty-based can­cer sup­port center.

Michael Liberty — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Michael Liberty. Mr. Liberty’s request for clemen­cy is sup­port­ed by Representative Susan Austin, Matthew E. Sturgis, and Anthony Fratianne. In 2016 Mr. Liberty was con­vict­ed for cam­paign finance vio­la­tions and lat­er was indict­ed for relat­ed offens­es. Mr. Liberty is the father of 7 chil­dren and has been involved in numer­ous phil­an­thropic efforts.

Greg Reyes — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Greg Reyes. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Shon Hopwood, for­mer United States Attorney Brett Tolman, and numer­ous oth­ers. Mr. Reyes was the for­mer CEO of Brocade Communications. Mr. Reyes was con­vict­ed of secu­ri­ties fraud. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, how­ev­er, threw out his con­vic­tions, find­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. He was lat­er retried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to 18 months in Federal prison. Mr. Reyes has accept­ed full respon­si­bil­i­ty for his actions and has been out of prison for more than 8 years.

Ferrell Damon Scott — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Ferrell Damon Scott. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by for­mer Acting United States Attorney Sam Sheldon, who pros­e­cut­ed his case and wrote that he “… strong­ly does not believe that [Mr. Scott] deserves a manda­to­ry life sen­tence.” Ms. Alice Johnson, the CAN-DO Foundation, and numer­ous oth­ers also sup­port clemen­cy for Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott has served near­ly 9 years of a life impris­on­ment sen­tence for pos­ses­sion with intent to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Under today’s sen­tenc­ing guide­lines, it is like­ly that Mr. Scott would not have received such a harsh sentence.

Jeffrey Alan Conway — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Jeffrey Alan Conway. Mr. Conway’s par­don is strong­ly sup­port­ed by his busi­ness part­ners Gary N. Solomon and Ely Hurwitz, mem­bers of law enforce­ment, and numer­ous oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. Since his release from prison, Mr. Conway has led a suc­cess­ful life and cur­rent­ly runs 10 restau­rant busi­ness­es that employ near­ly 500 peo­ple. Mr. Conway is active in his com­mu­ni­ty and in var­i­ous phil­an­thropic efforts.

Benedict Olberding — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Benedict Olberding. Mr. Olberding was con­vict­ed on one count of bank fraud. Mr. Olberding is an upstand­ing mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty who has paid his debt to soci­ety. After com­plet­ing his sen­tence, he pur­chased two aquar­i­um stores, as well as a con­sult­ing busi­ness to train prospec­tive mort­gage brokers.

Lou Hobbs — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Lou Hobbs. Mr. Hobbs has served 24 years of his life sen­tence. While incar­cer­at­ed, Mr. Hobbs com­plet­ed his GED as well as var­i­ous oth­er edu­ca­tion class­es. Mr. Hobbs is ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing his life and is focused on his fam­i­ly and friends who have assist­ed him dur­ing dif­fi­cult times.

Matthew Antoine Canady — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Matthew Antoine Canady. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Canady had an unsta­ble child­hood and all of his pri­or drug-relat­ed con­vic­tions occurred dur­ing his teenage years. Mr. Canady worked hard to move beyond his chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances and has demon­strat­ed extra­or­di­nary reha­bil­i­ta­tion while in cus­tody. He has main­tained clear con­duct while incar­cer­at­ed and has notably tak­en advan­tage of sig­nif­i­cant voca­tion­al pro­grams, includ­ing an elec­tri­cal appren­tice­ship. He receives “out­stand­ing” work reports and is described as “hard­work­ing” and “respect­ful” by the Bureau of Prisons staff. Mr. Canady takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty for his crim­i­nal actions and would like to find gain­ful employ­ment to help sup­port his children.

Mario Claiborne — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Mario Claiborne. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Claiborne is serv­ing life impris­on­ment and has already served more than 28 years in prison. For more than 20 years, Mr. Claiborne has main­tained clear con­duct. Mr. Claiborne cur­rent­ly works for a UNICOR facil­i­ty and has com­plet­ed reha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­gram­ming, includ­ing drug education.

Luis Fernando Sicard — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Luis Fernando Sicard. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Sicard was sen­tenced in 2000 for con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute cocaine and pos­ses­sion of a firearm dur­ing and in fur­ther­ance of a drug traf­fick­ing crime. He has served 20 years with clear con­duct. Mr. Sicard has par­tic­i­pat­ed in sub­stan­tial pro­gram­ming, includ­ing a num­ber of voca­tion­al cours­es. Currently, Mr. Sicard works in the camp vehic­u­lar fac­to­ry and pre­vi­ous­ly worked in UNICOR earn­ing “out­stand­ing” work reports, and he also vol­un­teers in the inmate pup­py pro­gram. Importantly, Mr. Sicard takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty for his crim­i­nal actions. Mr. Sicard is a for­mer Marine and father of two girls.

DeWayne Phelps — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of DeWayne Phelps. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Phelps has served 11 years in prison for con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute metham­phet­a­mine. He has served over a decade in prison with clear con­duct, has trained as a den­tal appren­tice, par­tic­i­pat­ed in UNICOR, and is not­ed as being a reli­able inmate capa­ble of being assigned addi­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ties. Most notably, Mr. Phelps’s sen­tence would unques­tion­ably be low­er today under the First Step Act.

Isaac Nelson — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Isaac Nelson. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Nelson is serv­ing a manda­to­ry 20 year sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute and dis­tri­b­u­tion of 5 kilo­grams or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. Following the First Step Act’s changes to the def­i­n­i­tion of seri­ous drug felony, Mr. Nelson would no longer receive a manda­to­ry min­i­mum term of 20 years’ impris­on­ment. Instead, he would like­ly face a 10-year sen­tence. He has already served more than 11 years in prison. Throughout his incar­cer­a­tion, he appears to have demon­strat­ed com­mend­able adjust­ment to custody.

Traie Tavares Kelly — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Traie Tavares Kelly. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Kelly was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute and to dis­trib­ute 50 grams or more of cocaine base and 5 kilo­grams or more of cocaine. He has served over 14 years in prison, but if he were sen­tenced today, he would like­ly be sub­ject only to 10-year manda­to­ry min­i­mum. Moreover, Mr. Kelly has sub­stan­tial work his­to­ry while incar­cer­at­ed and his notable accom­plish­ments in edu­ca­tion and pro­gram­ming demon­strate that he has used his time to max­i­mize his chance at being a pro­duc­tive cit­i­zen upon release.

Javier Gonzales — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Javier Gonzales. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Gonzales was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute metham­phet­a­mine and dis­tri­b­u­tion of metham­phet­a­mine in 2005. He has served over 14 years in prison, which is 4 years longer than the 10-year sen­tence he would like­ly receive today. He has a demon­strat­ed record of reha­bil­i­ta­tion dur­ing his incar­cer­a­tion, includ­ing steady employ­ment, with sub­stan­tial UNCIOR expe­ri­ence, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in voca­tion­al pro­gram­ming and train­ing to facil­i­tate his suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion into the work­force upon release. He also has no his­to­ry of vio­lent con­duct. Mr. Gonzales has active­ly addressed his admit­ted sub­stance abuse issues with non­res­i­den­tial drug treat­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the res­i­den­tial program.

Eric Wesley Patton — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Eric Wesley Patton. This par­don is sup­port­ed by for­mer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Patton was con­vict­ed of mak­ing a false state­ment on a mort­gage appli­ca­tion in 1999. In the 20 years since his con­vic­tion, Mr. Patton has worked hard to build a ster­ling rep­u­ta­tion, been a devot­ed par­ent, and made sol­id con­tri­bu­tions to his com­mu­ni­ty by qui­et­ly per­form­ing good deeds for friends, neigh­bors, and mem­bers of his church.

Robert William Cawthon — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Robert William Cawthon. His par­don is sup­port­ed by for­mer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Cawthon was con­vict­ed in 1992 for mak­ing a false state­ment on a bank loan appli­ca­tion and was sen­tenced to 3 years’ pro­ba­tion, con­di­tioned upon 180 days’ home con­fine­ment. Mr. Cawthon has accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for his offense, served his sen­tence with­out inci­dent, and ful­filled his resti­tu­tion oblig­a­tion. His atone­ment has been excep­tion­al, and since his con­vic­tion he has led an unblem­ished life while engag­ing in exten­sive, praise­wor­thy com­mu­ni­ty service.

Hal Knudson Mergler — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Hal Knudson Mergler. This par­don is sup­port­ed by for­mer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Mergler was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute and dis­tri­b­u­tion of lyser­gic acid diethy­lamide (LSD) in 1992. He received 1 month impris­on­ment, 3 years super­vised release, and ordered to pay resti­tu­tion. Since his con­vic­tion, Mr. Mergler has lived a pro­duc­tive and law-abid­ing life, includ­ing by earn­ing a col­lege degree, cre­at­ing a suc­cess­ful busi­ness career, and start­ing a fam­i­ly. He has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to his com­mu­ni­ty and has helped to build a new school for a non-prof­it char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion. He is uni­form­ly praised as a hard­work­ing and eth­i­cal busi­ness­man and a car­ing father.

Gary Evan Hendler — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Gary Evan Hendler. This par­don is sup­port­ed by for­mer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. In 1984, Mr. Hendler was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute and dis­pense con­trolled sub­stances and served 3 years’ pro­ba­tion for his crime. He is remorse­ful and has tak­en full respon­si­bil­i­ty for his crim­i­nal actions. In the 40 years since his con­vic­tion, Mr. Hendler has lived a law-abid­ing life and has pos­i­tive­ly con­tributed to his com­mu­ni­ty. He is finan­cial­ly sta­ble and owns a suc­cess­ful real estate busi­ness. Most notably, he has helped oth­ers recov­er from addic­tion. Since 1982, he has orga­nized and led week­ly AA meet­ings. He also has men­tored many indi­vid­u­als on their jour­ney to sobri­ety with his radio broad­casts. His for­mer pro­ba­tion offi­cer not­ed that Mr. Hendler had become “inte­gral” in the lives of many mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty who were deal­ing with sub­stance abuse issues. Further, his efforts in addic­tion and recov­ery have been rec­og­nized by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, who recent­ly appoint­ed him to a state advi­so­ry coun­cil on drug and alco­hol abuse.

Steven Samuel Grantham — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Steven Samuel Grantham. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Mr. Grantham’s friends and fam­i­ly who praise his moral char­ac­ter, Acting Attorney Jeffrey Rosen, for­mer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Grantham was con­vict­ed in 1967 for steal­ing a vehi­cle. He received 18-months impris­on­ment, and 2 years’ pro­ba­tion. Since his con­vic­tion and release from prison, he has demon­strat­ed remorse and accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for his crime, which he com­mit­ted approx­i­mate­ly 50 years ago when he was just 19 years old. Mr. Grantham has lived a law-abid­ing and sta­ble life. Most notably, he stepped in and assumed cus­tody of his grand­child when the child’s par­ents were unable to care for him. He now seeks a par­don for for­give­ness and to restore his gun rights.

Clarence Olin Freeman — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Clarence Olin Freeman. This par­don is sup­port­ed by for­mer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Freeman was con­vict­ed in 1965 for oper­at­ing an ille­gal whiskey still. He received 9 months impris­on­ment and 5 years’ pro­ba­tion. Since his con­vic­tion and release from prison, Mr. Freeman has led a law-abid­ing life. He has expressed sin­cere remorse for his ille­gal activ­i­ty and remains mind­ful of the valu­able les­son his con­vic­tion taught him. In the approx­i­mate­ly 55 years since his con­vic­tion, he has built a sta­ble mar­riage, found­ed a thriv­ing busi­ness, and con­tributed pos­i­tive­ly to his com­mu­ni­ty. He has earned a rep­u­ta­tion for hon­esty, hard work, and generosity.

John Knock — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of John Knock. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by his fam­i­ly. Mr. Knock is a 73 year-old man, a first-time, non-vio­lent mar­i­jua­na only offend­er, who has served 24 years of a life sen­tence. Mr. Knock has an exem­plary prison his­to­ry, dur­ing which he com­plet­ed col­lege account­ing class­es and has had zero inci­dent reports.

Kenneth Charles Fragoso — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Kenneth Charles Fragoso. Mr. Fragoso is a 66 year-old United States Navy vet­er­an who has served more than 30 years of a life sen­tence for a non­vi­o­lent drug offense. Mr. Fragoso has an exem­plary prison his­to­ry and has worked for UNICOR for over 20 years, learned new trades, and has men­tored fel­low inmates.

Luis Gonzalez — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Luis Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez is a 78 year-old non-vio­lent drug offend­er who has served more than 27 years of a life sen­tence. Under the First Step Act, Mr. Fragoso would not have been sub­ject to a manda­to­ry life sen­tence. Mr. Gonzalez has an upstand­ing prison record and has worked for UNICOR for over 20 years pro­duc­ing mil­i­tary uniforms.

Anthony DeJohn — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Anthony DeJohn. Mr. DeJohn has served more than 13 years of a life sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Mr. DeJohn has main­tained a clear dis­ci­pli­nary record and has been rec­og­nized for his out­stand­ing work eth­ic while incar­cer­at­ed. Mr. DeJohn has employ­ment and hous­ing avail­able to him upon release.

Corvain Cooper — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Mr. Corvain Cooper. Mr. Cooper is a 41-year-old father of two girls who has served more than 7 years of a life sen­tence for his non-vio­lent par­tic­i­pa­tion in a con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute marijuana.

Way Quoe Long — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Way Quoe Long. Mr. Long is a 58-year-old who has served near­ly half of a 50-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent con­vic­tion for con­spir­a­cy to man­u­fac­ture and dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Mr. Long has spent his incar­cer­a­tion striv­ing to bet­ter him­self through English pro­fi­cien­cy class­es and by obtain­ing his GED. Upon release, Mr. Long will reunite with his fam­i­ly and will be strong­ly sup­port­ed as he inte­grates back into the community.

Michael Pelletier — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Michael Pelletier. Mr. Pelletier is a 64-year-old who has served 12 years of a 30-year sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Mr. Pelletier has main­tained a clear dis­ci­pli­nary record, has thrived as an artist work­ing with oil paints on can­vas, and has tak­en sev­er­al cours­es to per­fect his skill while incar­cer­at­ed. Upon his release, Mr. Pelletier will have a mean­ing­ful place of employ­ment and hous­ing with his brother.

Craig Cesal — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Craig Cesal. Mr. Cesal is a father of two, one of whom unfor­tu­nate­ly passed away while he was serv­ing his life sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Mr. Cesal has had an exem­plary dis­ci­pli­nary record and has become a para­le­gal assis­tant and a Eucharistic Minister in the Catholic Church to assist and guide oth­er pris­on­ers. Upon his release, Mr. Cesal looks for­ward to rein­te­grat­ing back into soci­ety and to con­tribut­ing to his com­mu­ni­ty while liv­ing with his daugh­ter with whom he has remained close. Mr. Cesal hopes to be a part of her upcom­ing wedding.

Darrell Frazier — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Darrell Frazier. Mr. Frazier is a 60-year-old who has served 29 years of a life sen­tence for non-vio­lent con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute and pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute cocaine. Mr. Frazier has had an exem­plary dis­ci­pli­nary record in prison and has spent his time cre­at­ing the Joe Johnson Tennis Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that pro­vides free ten­nis lessons to hun­dreds of chil­dren in under­served com­mu­ni­ties. Upon his release, Mr. Frazier will have a mean­ing­ful place of employ­ment and hous­ing with his mother.

Lavonne Roach — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Lavonne Roach. Ms. Roach has served 23 years of a 30-year sen­tence for non-vio­lent drug charges. She has had an exem­plary prison record and has tutored and men­tored oth­er pris­on­ers. Ms. Roach has a strong fam­i­ly sup­port sys­tem to help her tran­si­tion back into the community.

Robert Francis — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Robert Francis. Mr. Francis has served 18 years of a life sen­tence for non-vio­lent drug con­spir­a­cy charges. Mr. Francis has a spot­less dis­ci­pli­nary record in prison and has been active in his efforts toward reha­bil­i­ta­tion. Upon release, Mr. Francis, a father of 3, will live with his sis­ter in Houston, Texas

Derrick Smith — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Derrick Smith. Mr. Smith is a 53-year-old who has served more than 20 years of a near­ly 30-year sen­tence for dis­tri­b­u­tion of drugs to a com­pan­ion who passed away. Mr. Smith is deeply remorse­ful for his role in this trag­ic death and has had an exem­plary record while incar­cer­at­ed. Mr. Smith intends to secure a con­struc­tion job, care for his moth­er and his son, and rebuild his rela­tion­ship with his two oth­er children.

Raymond Hersman — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Raymond Hersman. Mr. Hersman is a 55-year-old father of two who has served more than 9 years of a 20-year sen­tence. While incar­cer­at­ed, Mr. Hersman has main­tained a spot­less dis­ci­pli­nary record, worked steadi­ly, and par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al pro­gram­ming and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties. Upon release, he looks for­ward to tran­si­tion­ing back into the com­mu­ni­ty and lead­ing a pro­duc­tive life with strong fam­i­ly support.

James Romans — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of James Romans. Mr. Romans is a father and a grand­fa­ther who received a life sen­tence with­out parole for his involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Mr. Romans has had an exem­plary dis­ci­pli­nary record for the more than 10 years he has served, and has com­plet­ed a long list of cours­es. He has already secured job oppor­tu­ni­ties that will help him suc­cess­ful­ly re-enter society.

Michael Harris — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Michael Harris. Mr. Harris is a 59 year old who has served 30 years of a 25 year to life sen­tence for con­spir­a­cy to com­mit first-degree mur­der. Mr. Harris has had an exem­plary prison record for three decades. He is a for­mer entre­pre­neur and has men­tored and taught fel­low pris­on­ers how to start and run busi­ness­es. He has com­plet­ed cours­es towards busi­ness and jour­nal­ism degrees. Upon his release, Mr. Harris will have a mean­ing­ful place of employ­ment and hous­ing with the sup­port of his family.

Kyle Kimoto — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Kyle Kimoto. Mr. Kimoto is a father of six who has served 12 years of his 29-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent tele­mar­ket­ing fraud scheme. Mr. Kimoto has been an exem­plary pris­on­er, has held numer­ous jobs, shown remorse, and men­tored oth­er inmates in faith. Upon his release, he has a job offer and will help care for his six chil­dren and three grandchildren.

Chalana McFarland – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Chalana McFarland. Ms. McFarland has served 15 years of a 30-year sen­tence. Though she went to tri­al, Ms. McFarland actu­al­ly coop­er­at­ed with author­i­ties by inform­ing them of a poten­tial attack on the United States Attorney. Her co-defen­dants who pled guilty, how­ev­er, received less­er sen­tences rang­ing from 5 to 87 months. Ms. McFarland was a mod­el inmate and is now under home confinement.

John Estin Davis – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of John Estin Davis. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Caroline Bryan, Luke Bryan, Ellen Boyer, Amy Davis, Kim Davis, Brandon McWherter, Sheila McWherter, Dr. Jeff Hall, Dr. Brad Maltz, Brent Ford, Mark Lotito, Keri Rowland, Mark Rowland, and Stephen Stock. Mr. Davis has spent the last 4 months incar­cer­at­ed for serv­ing as Chief Executive Office of a health­care com­pa­ny with a finan­cial con­flict of inter­est. Notably, no one suf­fered finan­cial­ly as a result of his crime and he has no oth­er crim­i­nal record. Prior to his con­vic­tion, Mr. Davis was well known in his com­mu­ni­ty as an active sup­port­er of local char­i­ties. He is described as hard­work­ing and deeply com­mit­ted to his fam­i­ly and coun­try. Mr. Davis and his wife have been mar­ried for 15 years, and he is the father of three young children.

Douglas Jemal – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Douglas Jemal. Mr. Jemal is an American busi­ness­man and phil­an­thropist cred­it­ed with rebuild­ing many urban inner cities in the United States. In 2008, Mr. Jemal was con­vict­ed of fraud. In addi­tion, Mr. Jemal was instru­men­tal to var­i­ous oth­er char­i­ta­ble caus­es, includ­ing the rebuild­ing of church­es pri­or to his con­vic­tion. Notably, at his tri­al the pre­sid­ing judge told pros­e­cu­tors that he thought it “incon­ceiv­able” to send Mr. Jemal to prison.

Noah Kleinman – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Noah Kleinman. Mr. Kleinman is a 45-year old father of two chil­dren. The moth­er of his chil­dren unfor­tu­nate­ly passed away dur­ing Mr. Kleinman’s incar­cer­a­tion. Mr. Kleinman has served 6 years of a near­ly 20 year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent crime to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na. Mr. Kleinman has had an exem­plary prison his­to­ry and has worked to remain close to his chil­dren and his father. Upon release, he looks for­ward to liv­ing with his father, work­ing for the fam­i­ly busi­ness, and car­ing for his children.

Dr. Scott Harkonen – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don Dr. Scott Harkonen. Dr. Harkonen was con­vict­ed of fraud based on a mis­lead­ing cap­tion in a press release with respect to a treat­ment for a dis­ease. Dr. Harkonen is world renowned for his dis­cov­ery of a new kid­ney dis­ease, as well as its cause and treat­ment. Dr. Harkonen looks for­ward to return­ing to medicine.

Johnny D. Phillips, Jr. – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Johnny D. Phillips, Jr. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Senator Rand Paul, the for­mer United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, and numer­ous mem­bers of his com­mu­ni­ty. In 2016, Mr. Phillips was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit wire fraud and mail fraud. Mr. Phillips is known as an upstand­ing cit­i­zen and is a val­ued mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty. He ded­i­cates his time to his three young chil­dren and is an advo­cate for Type 1 dia­betes research.

Dr. Mahmoud Reza Banki – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Dr. Mahmoud Reza Banki. This par­don is sup­port­ed by many elect­ed offi­cials of stature, includ­ing the late Representative John Lewis, Senator Diane Feinstein, and oth­er Members of Congress. Dr. Banki is an Iranian American cit­i­zen who came to the United States when he was 18 years old. He grad­u­at­ed from the University of California, Berkeley, before obtain­ing a PhD from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2010 Dr. Banki was charged with mon­e­tary vio­la­tions of Iranian sanc­tions and mak­ing false state­ments. The charges relat­ed to sanc­tions vio­la­tions were sub­se­quent­ly over­turned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. However, the felony charges for mak­ing false state­ments have pre­vent­ed Dr. Banki from resum­ing a full life. In the years since his con­vic­tion, Dr. Banki has ded­i­cat­ed him­self to his com­mu­ni­ty and main­tained a sin­cere love and respect for the United States.

Tena Logan – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Tena Logan. Ms. Logan has served 8 years of a 14-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. She had an exem­plary prison record with exten­sive work and pro­gram­ming, and has assumed sev­er­al lead­er­ship posi­tions. In addi­tion, Ms. Logan was autho­rized to work out­side the perime­ter of the prison, and was grant­ed home con­fine­ment under the CARES Act last sum­mer. Today, Ms. Logan lives with her hus­band and works full­time at a major retail store.

MaryAnne Locke – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of MaryAnne Locke. Ms. Locke has served rough­ly 11 years of a near­ly 20-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. Despite the dif­fi­cul­ties of begin­ning her sen­tence just 6 weeks after hav­ing a Caesarean sec­tion, her prison record has been exem­plary, with exten­sive pro­gram­ming and work. Ms. Locke was autho­rized to work out­side the perime­ter of the prison, and was grant­ed home con­fine­ment under the CARES Act last sum­mer. Today, she lives with her father, is build­ing a rela­tion­ship with her chil­dren, and works full­time at a major retail store.

April Coots – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of April Coots. Ms. Coots has served more than 10 years of her 20-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. Throughout her incar­cer­a­tion, she has been an exem­plary inmate, obtained an HVAC license, and com­plet­ed the PAWS appren­tice­ship pro­gram. During the 18 months before the tri­al, Ms. Coots start­ed a busi­ness, com­plet­ed her GED, and took two semes­ters of com­mu­ni­ty col­lege class­es. Importantly, Ms. Coots has a sup­port­ive fam­i­ly and church com­mu­ni­ty that will help her tran­si­tion and cre­ate a sta­ble net­work for her post-incarceration

Jodi Lynn Richter – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Jodi Lynn Richter. Ms. Richter has served 10 years of a 15-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. Ms. Richter has an exem­plary prison record, and spends her time train­ing ser­vice dogs in the PAWS pro­gram, tutor­ing oth­er inmates in pur­suit of their GED, and learn­ing to oper­ate a range of heavy machin­ery. Her par­ents have con­tin­ued to sup­port her and she has var­i­ous employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties available.

Mary Roberts – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Mary Roberts. Ms. Roberts has served 10 years of a 19-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. She has main­tained an exem­plary dis­ci­pli­nary record, and a strong pro­gram­ming and work his­to­ry, includ­ing as a part of the PAWS pro­gram, UNICOR and food ser­vice, and she is autho­rized to work out­side the prison perime­ter. Upon her release, Ms. Roberts plans to spend time with her daugh­ter and enjoys strong sup­port from her fam­i­ly. In addi­tion, she has var­i­ous employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties available.

Cassandra Ann Kasowski – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Cassandra Ann Kasowski. Notably, her war­den rec­om­mend­ed her for home con­fine­ment under the CARES Act. Ms. Kasowski has served more than 7 years of a 17-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. She has been an exem­plary inmate and has worked exten­sive­ly, includ­ing as a part of the PAWS pro­gram and in UNICOR. Upon her release, she plans to spend time with her son and seek employment.

Lerna Lea Paulson – President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Lerna Lea Paulson. Notably, Ms. Paulson’s war­den rec­om­mend­ed her for home con­fine­ment under the CARES Act. Ms. Paulson has served near­ly 7 years of a 17-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. During her time in prison, she has main­tained an exem­plary dis­ci­pli­nary record, has worked full-time in UNICOR, and served as a men­tal health coun­selor. In addi­tion, she has served an inmate com­pan­ion as well as a sui­cide watch com­pan­ion. She is also autho­rized to work out­side the prison perime­ter. Upon her release, she plans on spend­ing time with her fam­i­ly and seek employment.

Ann Butler — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Ann Butler. Ms. Butler has served more than 10 years of a near­ly 20-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent offense. She has an exem­plary prison record, with exten­sive pro­gram­ming and work his­to­ry and has gar­nered out­stand­ing eval­u­a­tions. In addi­tion, she is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly devot­ed to her faith. At the time of her arrest, Ms. Butler was car­ing for five chil­dren and held two min­i­mum-wage jobs. Upon her release, Ms. Butler wish­es to reunite with her fam­i­ly and seek employment.

Sydney Navarro — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Sydney Navarro. Ms. Navarro has served near­ly 8 years of a 27-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. She has an exem­plary prison record. In addi­tion, Ms. Navarro obtained her GED, par­tic­i­pat­ed in exten­sive pro­gram work, and earned excel­lent work eval­u­a­tions. Notably, Ms. Navarro was cho­sen to speak to at-risk youth in the com­mu­ni­ty through the SHARE pro­gram. Upon her release, Ms. Navarro wish­es to reunite with her daugh­ter and seek employment.

Tara Perry — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Tara Perry. Ms. Perry has served near­ly 7 years of a 16-year sen­tence for a non-vio­lent drug offense. She has main­tained an exem­plary prison record and has obtained her nurs­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Ms. Perry also enjoys singing dur­ing the prison reli­gious ser­vices. Upon her release, Ms. Perry plans to spend time with her moth­er and seek employment.

John Nystrom – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to John Nystrom, who, oth­er than this con­vic­tion, was described by his sen­tenc­ing judge as a “mod­el cit­i­zen.” His clemen­cy is sup­port­ed by Governor Kristi Noem and Senator Michael Rounds. Over 10 years ago, while work­ing as a con­trac­tor on a school recon­struc­tion project, Mr. Nystrom failed to alert the prop­er author­i­ties when he learned that a sub­con­trac­tor was receiv­ing dou­ble pay­ments for work per­formed. Mr. Nystrom took full respon­si­bil­i­ty for this over­sight and even tried to pay the Crowe Creek Tribe, who was pay­ing for the work, resti­tu­tion before he pled guilty. Mr. Nystrom has since paid his resti­tu­tion in full. Mr. Nystrom teach­es Sunday school and vol­un­teers for the Knights of Columbus and Habitat for Humanity, among oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, and has pre­vi­ous­ly served as County Commissioner.

Jessica Frease — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Jessica Frease. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Governor Kristi Noem, South Dakota State Senator Lynne Hix-DiSanto, the United States Probation Officer respon­si­ble for Ms. Frease’s super­vi­sion, and many in her com­mu­ni­ty. Ms. Frease was 20 years old when she was con­vict­ed after con­vert­ing stolen checks and nego­ti­at­ing them through the bank where she worked as a teller. Upon her arrest, how­ev­er, she imme­di­ate­ly relin­quished the stolen funds to the author­i­ties. After serv­ing her two year sen­tence, she was grant­ed ear­ly ter­mi­na­tion of her super­vised release due to her com­mend­able con­duct. Currently, Ms. Frease is study­ing to become an Emergency Medical Technician and devotes her time and ener­gy to rais­ing funds for can­cer patients.

Robert Cannon “Robin” Hayes — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Robert Cannon “Robin” Hayes. The for­mer North Carolina Congressman is serv­ing a 1‑year term of pro­ba­tion for mak­ing a false state­ment in the course of a Federal inves­ti­ga­tion. In addi­tion to his years in Congress, Mr. Hayes has served as Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and Chair of the National Council of Republican Party Chairs. Senator Thom Tillis and sev­er­al mem­bers of the North Carolina Congressional del­e­ga­tion strong­ly sup­port clemen­cy for Mr. Hayes.

Thomas Kenton “Ken” Ford — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Ken Ford, a 38-year vet­er­an of the coal indus­try and cur­rent­ly the General Manager of a coal com­pa­ny. Mr. Ford’s par­don is sup­port­ed by mem­bers of the coal min­ing com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing those with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in min­ing oper­a­tions, safe­ty, and engi­neer­ing, who describe Mr. Ford as a “mod­el man­ag­er” who con­ducts him­self with the utmost pro­fes­sion­al­ism and integri­ty. Twenty years ago, Mr. Ford made a mate­r­i­al mis­state­ment to Federal min­ing offi­cials. Mr. Ford pled guilty and served a sen­tence of 30 years’ pro­ba­tion. In the decades since, Mr. Ford has been an upstand­ing mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty and has used this expe­ri­ence and his decades of exper­tise to keep min­ers safe, includ­ing pro­mot­ing truth­ful­ness and integri­ty with Federal min­ing offi­cials, for whom Mr. Ford states that he has the “utmost respect.”

Jon Harder — President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tence of Jon Harder, for­mer President and CEO of Sunwest Management Inc., who has served near­ly 5 years of a 15-year prison sen­tence. Notable fig­ures, includ­ing the Honorable Michael Hogan who served as the Federal judge over­see­ing Sunwest’s bank­rupt­cy and receiver­ship, Ford Elsaesser who served as coun­sel to Sunwest’s cred­i­tors in receiver­ship, and mul­ti­ple oth­er indi­vid­u­als involved in the lit­i­ga­tion sup­port Mr. Harder’s com­mu­ta­tion. Mr. Harder was serv­ing as pres­i­dent and CEO of Sunwest Management Inc., a large man­age­ment com­pa­ny over­see­ing res­i­den­tial senior care facil­i­ties, when he mis­used invest­ment funds dur­ing the real estate cri­sis. Mr. Harder ful­ly accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty, pled guilty, and coop­er­at­ed with the government’s civ­il and crim­i­nal actions against him at great per­son­al cost. According to for­mer Chief Judge Hogan, Mr. Harder’s full coöper­a­tion “against his sub­stan­tial finan­cial and penal inter­ests” helped secure the sale of the company’s assets, ensur­ing that Sunwest’s investors recov­ered more of their invest­ment, seniors could con­tin­ue liv­ing in their facil­i­ties, and employ­ees could retain their liveli­hoods. Mr. Elsaesser stat­ed that “of all the finan­cial wrong­do­ers that [the court and the Government] dealt with dur­ing the real estate crash of 2008, Mr. Harder act­ed more respon­si­bly than any of his ‘peers.’” President Trump com­mends Mr. Harder for choos­ing to put his employ­ees, investors, and the senior cit­i­zens resid­ing in Sunwest’s homes above himself.

Scott Conor Crosby — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Scott Conor Crosby. Mr. Crosby is sup­port­ed by Senator Martha McSally, the Mayor and Vice Mayor of Mesa, Arizona, and the Bishop of his church, all of whom attest to Mr. Crosby’s ser­vice to his com­mu­ni­ty and upstand­ing char­ac­ter. In 1992, Mr. Crosby made a “‘spur of the moment’ poor deci­sion” to par­tic­i­pate in a co-worker’s plan to com­mit a bank rob­bery. Mr. Crosby was arrest­ed the same day and coop­er­at­ed with the author­i­ties. Since his release from prison, he has spent sig­nif­i­cant time vol­un­teer­ing at his church, men­tor­ing youth, and has earned a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as an Emergency Medical Technician. Mr. Crosby’s civ­il rights were restored by the State of Arizona in 2003, and this action restores his Federal civ­il rights.

Adrianne Miller – President Trump com­mut­ed the remain­ing sen­tence of Adrianne Miller. This com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by for­mer U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman and the Clemency for All Non-Violent Drug Offenders (CAN-DO) Foundation. Ms. Miller has served 6 years of a 15-year sen­tence after plead­ing guilty to con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute metham­phet­a­mine and pos­ses­sion of a list I chem­i­cal. Ms. Miller, who has strug­gled with drug addic­tion, has ful­ly com­mit­ted to reha­bil­i­ta­tion while in prison. In addi­tion, she has tak­en numer­ous cours­es includ­ing drug edu­ca­tion, life man­age­ment, and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Life Connections Program, an inten­sive, mul­ti-phase re-entry pro­gram offered by the Bureau of Prisons. She is extreme­ly remorse­ful, regrets her “destruc­tive choic­es” and has tak­en full respon­si­bil­i­ty for her actions.

Joshua J. Smith — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Joshua J. Smith. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Representative Tim Burchett, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Corrections Tony Parker, Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation David Rausch, and numer­ous oth­er com­mu­ni­ty and faith lead­ers sup­port the par­don of Mr. Smith. Since his release from prison in 2003 for con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess drugs with intent to dis­trib­ute, Mr. Smith has ded­i­cat­ed his life to his faith and to his com­mu­ni­ty. He is now a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man and has used his finan­cial suc­cess to estab­lish Fourth Purpose, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to mak­ing prison “a place of trans­for­ma­tion.” He has men­tored incar­cer­at­ed indi­vid­u­als and taught busi­ness class­es to those in prison — includ­ing at the prison where he was incar­cer­at­ed. Mr. Smith has also been heav­i­ly involved in mis­sion trips through­out Latin America.

Amy Povah – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Amy Povah, the founder of the CAN-DO (Clemency for All Non-vio­lent Drug Offenders) Foundation. In the 1990s, Ms. Povah served 9 years of a 24 year sen­tence for a drug offense before President Clinton com­mut­ed her remain­ing prison sen­tence in 2000. Since her release, she has become a voice for the incar­cer­at­ed, a cham­pi­on for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, and was a strong advo­cate for the pas­sage of the First Step Act. Those assist­ed by Ms. Povah’s orga­ni­za­tion include Ms. Adrianne Miller, whose remain­ing prison sen­tence the President commuted.

Dr. Frederick Nahas – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Frederick Nahas. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Representative Jeff Van Drew. Dr. Nahas is a tal­ent­ed sur­geon with a prac­tice in New Jersey. In the 1990s, Dr. Nahas became aware of a Federal inves­ti­ga­tion into his billing prac­tices. Although the 6‑year inves­ti­ga­tion uncov­ered no under­ly­ing billing fraud, Dr. Nahas did not ful­ly coöper­ate and ulti­mate­ly pled guilty to one count of obstruct­ing jus­tice in a health care inves­ti­ga­tion. Dr. Nahas spent 1 month in prison in 2003 and has spent the sub­se­quent 18 years work­ing tire­less­ly to regain the trust and admi­ra­tion of his patients, col­leagues, and community.

Fred “Dave” Clark — President Trump com­mut­ed Dave Clark’s remain­ing term of incar­cer­a­tion after serv­ing over 6 years in Federal prison for a first-time, non-vio­lent offense. Mr. Clark’s com­mu­ta­tion is sup­port­ed by Professor Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr, the Aleph Institute, his fam­i­ly of sev­en chil­dren, and for­mer busi­ness col­leagues and investors, among oth­ers. While in prison, Mr. Clark has lead Bible Study and devel­oped a “Promising People” pro­gram to teach inmates tech­ni­cal skills and con­nect them with faith-based support.

Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, Peter Clay — President Trump grant­ed full par­dons to Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, and Peter Clay, for­mer exec­u­tives of a health­care main­te­nance orga­ni­za­tion. Widely cit­ed as a case study in over­crim­i­nal­iza­tion, these men have attract­ed a broad range of sup­port, includ­ing from the CATO Institute, the Reason Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and var­i­ous schol­ars and law pro­fes­sors. In 2008, Messrs. Farha, Bereday, Kale, Behrens, and Clay were crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed for a state reg­u­la­to­ry mat­ter involv­ing the report­ing of expen­di­tures to a state health agency. The expen­di­tures report­ed were based on actu­al monies spent, and the report­ing method­ol­o­gy was reviewed and endorsed by those with exper­tise in the state reg­u­la­to­ry scheme. Notably, there was no evi­dence that any of the indi­vid­u­als were moti­vat­ed by greed. And in fact, the sen­tenc­ing judge called the like­li­hood that there was any per­son­al finan­cial moti­va­tion “infin­i­tes­i­mal.” The judge imposed a range of sen­tences from pro­ba­tion to 3 years’ impris­on­ment, reflect­ing the con­duct as an aber­ra­tion from these indi­vid­u­als’ oth­er­wise law-abid­ing lives. Messrs. Farha, Bereday, Kale, Behrens, and Clay are described as devot­ed to their fam­i­ly and their com­mu­ni­ties, and have weath­ered their con­vic­tions with­out complaint

David Rowland — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to David Rowland. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Senator Lindsey Graham. Mr. Rowland’s asbestos removal license had lapsed when he agreed to remove asbestos found in an ele­men­tary school. He com­plet­ed the work in com­pli­ance with all oth­er reg­u­la­tions, but received 2 years’ pro­ba­tion for a vio­la­tion of the Clean Air Act. Mr. Rowland accepts respon­si­bil­i­ty and is remorse­ful. In addi­tion, he has giv­en back to his com­mu­ni­ty by con­tin­u­ing to work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation after the com­ple­tion of his manda­to­ry com­mu­ni­ty service.

Stephen Odzer — President Trump grant­ed a con­di­tion­al par­don to Stephen Odzer. This par­don is sup­port­ed by for­mer Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, Sigmund “Sig” Rogich, Jason Greenblatt, Michael Steinhardt, Wayne Allyn Root, Salvador Moran, the Aleph Institute, and numer­ous mem­bers of Mr. Odzer’s reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty. Mr. Odzer pled guilty to con­spir­a­cy and bank fraud, for which he was sen­tenced to 18 months in prison. Numerous indi­vid­u­als tes­ti­fy to his sub­stan­tial phil­an­thropic and vol­un­teer activ­i­ties. His phil­an­thropic endeav­ors include pro­vid­ing per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment to front-line work­ers in New York City hos­pi­tals; vis­it­ing sick chil­dren in hos­pi­tals; and donat­ing reli­gious mate­ri­als to prison inmates and U.S. Service Members around the world. He has also ded­i­cat­ed resources to sup­port and build syn­a­gogues in mem­o­ry of his late cousin who was kid­napped and killed by Muslim ter­ror­ists while in Israel. The par­don requires Mr. Odzer to pay the remain­der of his resti­tu­tion order.

James Brian Cruz — President Trump com­mut­ed the remain­ing sen­tence of James Brian Cruz. Mr. Cruz’s many sup­port­ers include Alice Johnson, Dr. Robert Jeffress, Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, Kelly Shackelford of the First Liberty Institute, sev­er­al for­mer inmates who Mr. Cruz men­tored or min­is­tered, Mr. Cruz’s work super­vi­sor, and sev­er­al busi­ness own­ers and man­agers. Mr. Cruz, who has served approx­i­mate­ly half of a 40-year sen­tence for a drug crime, has tru­ly reformed and has worked to bet­ter his life and the lives of oth­er inmates while in prison. Several for­mer inmates cred­it Mr. Cruz, whom they met while incar­cer­at­ed, as some­one who helped changed their life, as “a great source of com­fort” for many, and one who helps oth­ers with­out look­ing for any­thing in return. Mr. Cruz’s work super­vi­sor describes him as a depend­able and hard-work­ing employ­ee, who has “gained the respect of many staff work­ers and inmates alike” and who helps argu­ing inmates “make peace.” Mr. Cruz writes that he rec­og­nizes the effect drugs have on peo­ple, fam­i­lies, and the com­mu­ni­ty, and desires a sec­ond chance to “live life as one who upholds the law, and lives to help others.”

Steven Benjamin Floyd — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Steven Benjamin Floyd. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Representative Mark Green. Mr. Floyd joined the United States Marines Corps at age 17 and earned a com­bat action rib­bon in Iraq. He pled guilty to one count of bank rob­bery by extor­tion. Since his release from prison in 2009, Mr. Floyd has exem­pli­fied the pow­er of sec­ond chances, and is rais­ing a fam­i­ly and owns a suc­cess­ful car repair busi­ness. Mr. Floyd’s ded­i­ca­tion to ser­vice includes help­ing extin­guish fires set dur­ing the recent unrest and repair­ing wid­ows and dis­abled vet­er­ans’ cars free of charge. President Trump thanks Mr. Floyd for his past mil­i­tary ser­vice and for his com­mit­ment to his community.

Joey Hancock — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Joey Hancock. Senator Roger Wicker, and Mr. Hancock’s employ­er, pas­tor, and oth­er mem­bers of his com­mu­ni­ty all sup­port this par­don. Mr. Hancock was con­vict­ed for con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with intent to dis­trib­ute a con­trolled sub­stance. Following his release from prison, Mr. Hancock has been a hard-work­ing employ­ee and active in his church and community.

David E. Miller — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to David E. Miller. Governor Bill Lee, Mr. Miller’s employ­er, and numer­ous col­leagues sup­port this par­don. In 2015, Mr. Miller pled guilty to one count of mak­ing a false state­ment to a bank. Today, Mr. Miller is the devel­op­ment direc­tor for the char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion Men of Valor, where he helps pre­vi­ous­ly incar­cer­at­ed men rebuild rela­tion­ships with their faith, fam­i­ly, and soci­ety. Governor Lee describes Mr. Miller as hav­ing “embraced the ministry’s work and [has] com­mit­ted him­self to doing right and serv­ing others.”

James Austin Hayes – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to James Austin Hayes. Mr. Hayes’s par­don is sup­port­ed by Paula White, Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports, and NASCAR leg­end Jeff Gordon. Nearly 10 years ago, Mr. Hayes was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit insid­er trad­ing. Mr. Hayes coop­er­at­ed imme­di­ate­ly and exten­sive­ly and dis­gorged all prof­its he earned in a relat­ed civ­il action. Since his con­vic­tion, Mr. Hayes has been active in his church and his community.

Drew Brownstein — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Drew Brownstein, who, oth­er than this con­vic­tion, was described by his sen­tenc­ing judge as some­one who “goes out of his way to help peo­ple that are less for­tu­nate.” This par­don is sup­port­ed by the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, and sev­er­al of Mr. Brownstein’s friends and fam­i­ly. Mr. Brownstein was con­vict­ed of insid­er trad­ing and has since paid his fines and for­fei­tures in full. Both before and after his con­vic­tion, Mr. Brownstein has vol­un­teered exten­sive­ly as a youth coach with the Boys & Girls club in Denver and the Jewish Family Services of Colorado.

Robert Bowker – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Robert Bowker. Mr. Bowker’s par­don is sup­port­ed by Ann Marie Pallan, Sherriff Butch Anderson, and the late Robert Trump. Nearly 30 years ago, Mr. Bowker pled guilty to a vio­la­tion the Lacey Act, which pro­hibits traf­fick­ing in wildlife, when he arranged for 22 snakes owned by Rudy “Cobra King” Komarek to be trans­port­ed to the Miami Serpentarium. Although he did not ask for any ani­mals in return, he was offered 22 American alli­ga­tors. After plead­ing guilty, Mr. Bowker was sen­tenced to pro­ba­tion. Mr. Bowker has ded­i­cat­ed resources to ani­mal con­ser­va­tion efforts in the inter­ven­ing decades, includ­ing as a mem­ber of the Humane Society of the United States, World Wildlife Fund, and Wildlife Conservation Society.

Amir Khan – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Amir Khan. This par­don is sup­port­ed by his adult chil­dren and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. Mr. Khan pled guilty to wire fraud. Notably, he imme­di­ate­ly paid back the vic­tim more than in full and has demon­strat­ed remorse for his con­duct. Prior to the pan­dem­ic, Mr. Khan vol­un­teered at the orga­ni­za­tion 3 Square Meals, and has reg­u­lar­ly donat­ed to char­i­ties includ­ing St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Boys Town, Covenant House, Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and the Salvation Army.

Robert Sherrill – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Robert Sherrill. Mr. Sherrill was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute and pos­ses­sion with intent to dis­trib­ute cocaine. Mr. Sherrill has tak­en full respon­si­bil­i­ty for his crim­i­nal past and received treat­ment for his drug addic­tion. He start­ed a com­mer­cial clean­ing busi­ness as well as a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that men­tors at-risk youth.

Dr. Robert S. Corkern — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Robert S. Corkern. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, Governor Phil Bryant, and Dr. Michael Mansour. Dr. Corkern was con­vict­ed of Federal pro­gram bribery. This par­don will help Dr. Corkern prac­tice med­i­cine in his com­mu­ni­ty, which is in dire need of more doc­tors as it has strug­gled to keep up with demand for emer­gency ser­vices. Dr. Corkern served in the Mississippi Army National Guard and has gen­er­ous­ly pro­vid­ed his ser­vices to low-income patients.

David Lamar Clanton – President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to David Lamar Clanton. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Senator Roger Wicker, Alton Shaw, Mark Galtelli, and Terri Rielley. Mr. Clanton was con­vict­ed of false state­ments and relat­ed charges. Mr. Clanton’s sup­port­ers tes­ti­fy to his con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly with respect to issues sur­round­ing rur­al health­care. Mr. Clanton has been active with 4‑H Clubs and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions in his community.

Hillel Nahmad — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to Hillel Nahmad. This par­don is sup­port­ed by mem­bers of his com­mu­ni­ty. Mr. Nahmad was con­vict­ed of a sports gam­bling offense. Since his con­vic­tion, he has lived an exem­plary life and has been ded­i­cat­ed to the well-being of his community.

Brian McSwain — The President grant­ed a full par­don to Brian McSwain. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Senator Lindsey Graham, two for­mer United States Attorneys for the District of South Carolina, and oth­er for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cers. Since serv­ing his 18 month sen­tence for a drug crime com­mit­ted in the ear­ly 1990s, Mr. McSwain has been gain­ful­ly employed and has been passed over for sev­er­al pro­mo­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties due to his felony conviction.

John Duncan Fordham — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to John Duncan Fordham. Mr. Fordham was con­vict­ed on one count of health care fraud. A judge lat­er dis­missed the con­spir­a­cy charge against him.

William “Ed” Henry — President Trump grant­ed a full par­don to William “Ed” Henry of Alabama. This par­don is sup­port­ed by Senator Tommy Tuberville. Mr. Henry was sen­tenced to 2 years’ pro­ba­tion for aid­ing and abet­ting the theft of gov­ern­ment prop­er­ty and paid a $4,000 fine.

In addi­tion, President Trump com­mut­ed the sen­tences to time served for the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als: Jeff Cheney, Marquis Dargon, Jennings Gilbert, Dwayne L. Harrison, Reginald Dinez Johnson, Sharon King, and Hector Madrigal, Sr.

List cour­tesy of NBC NEWS

I have long argued that there are no good Republicans. Some peo­ple are fooled by local Republicans who come around pre­tend­ing to care about Black people.
Certainly not this guy.
Molinaro should be ashamed of him­self for try­ing to use the just com­mu­ta­tion of an egre­gious­ly unjust sen­tence and the one hand and for a man who has cer­tain­ly paid the price and deserves a sec­ond chance.
But for Republicans like Molinaro and oth­er wolves in sheep cloth­ing, cops’ lives are far more valu­able than the lives of others.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

‘This Case Was Never About Fraud’: Federal Judge Refers ‘Kraken’ Attorneys, Including Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, for ‘Possible Suspension or Disbarment.

A fed­er­al judge sent a strong mes­sage to each of the so-called “Kraken” lawyers behind lit­i­ga­tion to upend the 2020 elec­tion, order­ing that they be referred for a pro­fes­sion­al con­duct inves­ti­ga­tion and “pos­si­ble sus­pen­sion or dis­bar­ment.” The attor­neys include pro-Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell.“This law­suit rep­re­sents a his­toric and pro­found abuse of the judi­cial process,” Judge Parker wrote in her opin­ion and order. “It is one thing to take on the charge of vin­di­cat­ing rights asso­ci­at­ed with an alleged­ly fraud­u­lent elec­tion. It is anoth­er to take on the charge of deceiv­ing a fed­er­al court and the American peo­ple into believ­ing that rights were infringed, with­out regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated.
Read the full sto­ry here. https://​lawand​crime​.com/​2​0​2​0​-​e​l​e​c​t​i​o​n​/​t​h​i​s​-​c​a​s​e​-​w​a​s​-​n​e​v​e​r​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​f​r​a​u​d​-​f​e​d​e​r​a​l​-​j​u​d​g​e​-​r​e​f​e​r​s​-​k​r​a​k​e​n​-​a​t​t​o​r​n​e​y​s​-​i​n​c​l​u​d​i​n​g​-​l​i​n​-​w​o​o​d​-​a​n​d​-​s​i​d​n​e​y​-​p​o​w​e​l​l​-​f​o​r​-​p​o​s​s​i​b​l​e​-​s​u​s​p​e​n​s​i​o​n​-​o​r​-​d​i​s​b​a​r​m​e​n​t​/​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​2​h​R​f​t​G​-​D​5​A​u​F​y​I​d​G​M​P​O​R​z​W​P​5​i​w​y​Z​e​1​_​E​a​L​a​J​P​O​n​R​Q​H​h​-​6​j​F​L​W​W​P​Y​_​P​RLM

Four Months After Viral Video, U.S. Army Sergeant Convicted of Assault for Shoving Black Man in Neighborhood Confrontation

http://Four Months After Viral Video, U.S. Army Sergeant Convicted of Assault for Shoving Black Man in Neighborhood Confrontation

A judge con­vict­ed a U.S. Army sergeant of assault for shov­ing a Black man in a heat­ed April con­fronta­tion in South Carolina, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple reports. As seen on a viral video, 42-year-old Jonathan Pentland shoved 22-year-old Deandre Williams in a res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty in Richland County. The footage, post­ed by a bystander on Twitter, quick­ly racked up tens of thou­sands of retweets and 2.6 mil­lion views after being first pub­lished in April.
“I went for a walk yes­ter­day evening and I encoun­tered a young man (Deandre)in dis­tress,” the bystander tweet­ed. “I decid­ed to record the inci­dent in order to pro­tect this black man from pos­si­bly becom­ing a statistic.”Pentland tes­ti­fied he was just pro­tect­ing his fam­i­ly, and the defense said the inci­dent fol­lowed Williams’s con­fronta­tions with local women. Authorities dis­missed that, say­ing Pentland was being a bul­ly. Williams’ father report­ed­ly took the stand to say that his son pre­vi­ous­ly suf­fered cog­ni­tive dam­age from cancer.

Pentland received a sen­tence of either 30 days in prison or a fine of $1,087. Attorney Ben Stitely said his client would go with the fine, but he sig­naled that they plan to appeal. He main­tains Pentland is innocent.
Read the entire sto­ry here.https://​lawand​crime​.com/​c​r​i​m​e​/​f​o​u​r​-​m​o​n​t​h​s​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​v​i​r​a​l​-​v​i​d​e​o​-​u​-​s​-​a​r​m​y​-​s​e​r​g​e​a​n​t​-​c​o​n​v​i​c​t​e​d​-​o​f​-​a​s​s​a​u​l​t​-​f​o​r​-​s​h​o​v​i​n​g​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​i​n​-​n​e​i​g​h​b​o​r​h​o​o​d​-​c​o​n​f​r​o​n​t​a​t​i​o​n​/​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​3​U​Z​M​a​r​9​W​E​8​L​T​b​w​v​U​6​a​5​K​1​q​G​z​3​w​U​J​7​9​M​t​b​b​3​x​H​V​u​H​l​M​f​c​Y​R​g​V​T​w​D​a​8​P​DNo

Tourist Fatally Shot While Eating with Family at Florida Café, Suspect Seen Dancing over Victim’s Body

Dustin Wakefield, 21, was din­ing with his wife and son on vaca­tion when he was shot to death in an unpro­voked attack.
A tourist was fatal­ly shot in Florida Tuesday evening after a stranger approached his fam­i­ly and opened fire.
Dustin Wakefield, 21, of Colorado, was din­ing at an out­door Miami Beach café with his wife and 1‑year-old son when he was shot mul­ti­ple times.
First respon­ders ren­dered first aid to Wakefield and trans­port­ed him to a hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead short­ly after, accord­ing to a police report obtained by PEOPLE.
A Miami Beach park ranger said he wit­nessed the moments lead­ing up to Tuesday’s shoot­ing, accord­ing to the police report. The ranger alleged that before approach­ing Wakefield, the sus­pect was chas­ing anoth­er man. The sus­pect began fir­ing his gun, and at some point dur­ing the chaos, aimed it at Wakefield.
The oth­er man was not harmed, police confirm.
Read the full sto­ry here. https://people.com/crime/young-father-fatally-shot-eating-with-family-at-florida-beach-café/

Whether the deci­sion to pull out of Afghanistan by President Joe Biden was the cor­rect one, par­tic­u­lar­ly when we see the images com­ing out of that coun­try, I will leave it up to the experts. This deci­sion, how­ev­er, will be debat­ed pure­ly from a polit­i­cal stand­point, with Republicans for­get­ting that Trump intend­ed to pull troops out as well.
On Monday, Biden told the nation, he stands square­ly behind his deci­sion to pull troops from Afghanistan even as he admit­ted in his speech that the coun­try’s fall hap­pened faster than he anticipated.

Biden argued that after two decades in that coun­try and over a tril­lion dol­lars spent in that coun­try: train­ing their mil­i­tary, cre­at­ing an air force, equip­ping that air force, and even pay­ing the salaries of the Afghan mil­i­tary — a force he said rivals NATO part­ners in size. America, he said, could not give them the will to fight for their coun­try. That is up to them.
I concur!!!

America may have been jus­ti­fied in going into Afghanistan after September 11^th, 2001; what hap­pened after­ward will for­ev­er be debat­ed for cen­turies long after we are gone.
The jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for going inside was the pol­i­cy of George Bush, Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfeld admin­is­tra­tion. Fed by neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl guid­ed America’s deci­sions in Afghanistan and its mis­guid­ed deci­sion to enter a sov­er­eign Iraq under the lie that Saddam Hussien, that nation’s pres­i­dent had weapons of mass destruc­tion. Therefore America, as the world’s de fac­to police, was jus­ti­fied in going in to take them away from him.

They nev­er both­ered telling the nation at the time. Today, the US con­cedes that George Bush’s father, Herbert Walker Bush, US pres­i­dent #41, allowed Saddam Hussien to acquire those bio­log­i­cal weapons because the cal­cu­lus was that Iran was a more sig­nif­i­cant threat. In their minds, Saddam offered a coun­ter­bal­ance to the Islamic régime in Iran that had over­thrown the Shah and tak­en American hostages dur­ing the Carter presidency.
The authors wrote in a 2002 arti­cle writ­ten by Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas, which now forms part of the Congress’ per­ma­nent record.

It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s, 
     America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission 
     to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build 
     biological weapons. But it happened.

America's past stumbles, while embarrassing, are not an 
     argument for inaction in the future. Saddam probably is the 
     "grave and gathering danger" described by President Bush in 
     his speech to the United Nations last week. It may also be 
     true that "whoever replaces Saddam is not going to be 
     worse," as a senior administration official put it to 
     Newsweek. But the story of how America helped create a 
     Frankenstein monster it now wishes to strangle is sobering. 
     It illustrates the power of wishful thinking, as well as the 
     iron law of unintended consequences.

The United States learned noth­ing from its incur­sion in South Asia, and as we recall the rout in Saigon, it seems that there is a sense of déjà vu.

I was shocked to learn that anoth­er earth­quake had hit Haiti ear­ly Saturday morn­ing. My first thought was, Oh my God, not again; how much more can these poor peo­ple take?
Throughout the day Saturday, I stayed glued to the news hop­ing that there would be no loss of life. As the day pro­gressed and the death toll start­ed com­ing in, I remind­ed myself that pray­ing for some­thing not to hap­pen after they had already hap­pened was a sure-fire way not to have your prayers answered. As that thought ran through my mind, I prayed a quick prayer that there would be no loss of life.
By Sunday evening, I believe the full extent of what occurred in Haiti began dawn­ing on the rest of the world; news report­ing agen­cies report­ed that 1’300 peo­ple were con­firmed dead and many more miss­ing. The Haitian peo­ple were again fac­ing a tragedy as they did just over a decade ago, when a mas­sive earth­quake hit, killing hun­dreds of thou­sands, injur­ing untold num­bers, and leav­ing the cap­i­tal of Port-au-Prince almost leveled.

Reuters new Agency reports that Haitian author­i­ties say the quake reduced church­es, hotels, schools, and homes to rub­ble in the lat­est tragedy to hit the impov­er­ished Caribbean nation.
The 7.2‑magnitude quake, fol­lowed by a series of after­shocks, struck 8 km (5 miles) from Petit Trou de Nippes, about 150 km west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 10 km, the United States Geological Survey said. That made the tremors felt as far away as Cuba and Jamaica, poten­tial­ly more severe than the mag­ni­tude 7 earth­quake 11 years ago that killed tens of thou­sands on the island.
As we are once again thrust into mourn­ing for our broth­ers and sis­ters in Haiti, we must remain focused on some of the root caus­es of the Haitian peo­ple’s plight.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Audio Recording On Rasta trim­ming and Maroon’s nonsense.

Maroons were no heroes to enslaved Jamaicans; they were com­plic­it in pro­long­ing slav­ery on the Island by col­lud­ing with the slavers to return run­away enslaved people.
It is time that we stop white­wash­ing history.

Audio on the plans Donald Trump & Republicans have for America.

Apart from the gross bone­head­ed­ness that seems to be sweep­ing the world where facts are treat­ed as fic­tion and fic­tion facts, there are two dis­tinct groups of peo­ple in our country.
(1) The so-called edu­cated, you know the ones who turned “tap­pa­naris”, in par­tic­u­lar, the ones who attend the left-wing UWI University Of The West Indies, oth­er­wise knows as the intel­lec­tu­al ghet­to à la the late Mutty Perkins, they are prob­a­bly the worst of the lot, they are so stush, you know the lot who refers to their uni­ver­si­ty as up by (u wi) ‘in my stush voice’, hahaha.
Those folks earn a degree in one dis­ci­pline, and there­after you can’t tell them any­thing because they auto­mat­i­cal­ly become an author­i­ty on everything.
So a med­ical Doctor gets to tell fire­men, Farmers, Teachers, Police offi­cers, and every­one else how to do their jobs because they earned their degree.….….. say it with me.….…” up by u wi.” ha aah.
Don’t leave off the fake accent either, please, dwl.
Then, of course, there is the not so edu­cat­ed, notice that I said “not so edu­cat­ed,” I did so because I’m at least enlight­ened enough to under­stand that being edu­cat­ed does not mean hav­ing to set foot on a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus but hav­ing spent time hon­ing one’s spe­cif­ic craft in one’s indi­vid­ual field of endeavor.
If, of course, one is edu­cat­ed in noth­ing, then that per­son has no claim to edu­ca­tion, but for this #1 class of peo­ple, earn­ing an under­grad­u­ate or grad­u­ate degree is not about self-improve­ment; it is about talk­ing and look­ing down on their con­tem­po­raries who were lucky not to be indoc­tri­nat­ed into their left­ist ideologies…

The # (2) group, the not so edu­cat­ed, gen­er­al­ly know every­thing with­out know­ing any­thing. They recite every trope, lie, and old wives’ tales as if they are facts and no amount of data will change their minds because (dem born an liv a Jumeka and nu one can tel dem nut­ten).
Therein lies the problem.
And so the up by u wi crowd per­pet­u­al­ly speaks down on the can’t tel mi nut­ten crowds.
If there is a third group between the tap­pa­naris and the know-noth­ings, they need to speak up now to be identified.
The recent pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign being waged by the two class­es of Jamaicans sur­round­ing the infan­tile claim laid by the so-called Maroon peo­ple as to their per­ceived right to self-auton­o­my is noth­ing more than a cam­paign by the oppo­si­tion People’s National Party and its sur­ro­gates as they have learned to do since the ear­ly 70’s to desta­bi­lize our coun­try using the same tired old sub­ver­sive tac­tics Michael Manley and his acolytes used.
For those old enough to recall, those tac­tics were learned from Cuba, which was a satel­lite of the Soviet Empire.
These sub­ver­sive tac­tics have noth­ing to do with truth or data; they are what the Republican par­ty in the United States has resort­ed to as white suprema­cy is threat­ened by chang­ing racial demo­graph­ic data.

It is impor­tant to rec­on­cile that the Maroons in Jamaica have enjoyed Lion sta­tus born out of how our his­to­ry has been taught to us from grade school.
We believed that the Maroons were heroes who fought and defeat­ed the British planters and British colo­nial­ist mil­i­tary on the Island.
In fact, though the Maroons them­selves were enslaved run­aways who became thorns in the side of the white slavers, the planters devised a plan which made them par­ty to the brutish prac­tice of slav­ery on their own broth­ers and sisters.
Their ori­gins as dis­tinct from the rest of the Jamaican pop­u­la­tion can be traced to the pre-British era of Jamaican his­to­ry. Most schol­ars placed their incep­tion in 1655 when the British took con­trol of Jamaica from the Spanish. They are report­ed to have fled with their Spanish mas­ters; these for­mer slaves took to the moun­tain­ous inte­ri­or and formed groups that sur­vived British colonization.
So the idea that they have some insu­la­tion from inde­pen­dent Jamaican laws is based more on fan­ta­sy than real­i­ty. Sure they were not slaves to the British, But they were slaves to the Spaniards.
Neither of which makes a dif­fer­ence in the greater scheme of things.

According to (aareg​istry​.org (Before 1700, men who had been born in Africa gen­er­al­ly led the Maroon pop­u­la­tion; many claimed they had been Kings in their home­land. After 1700, Maroon lead­ers were often Creoles famil­iar with the ways of Whites and with African meth­ods. The leader of the Maroon com­mu­ni­ty in Jamaica was Captain Cudjoe (Kojo). During the 18^th cen­tu­ry, the Maroons became more pow­er­ful and set­tled in, among oth­er places, the moun­tains of Jamaica. Carving out a sig­nif­i­cant area of influ­ence, their threat to the sys­tem of slav­ery was clear; hence, the white planters signed a treaty with the Maroons in 1738. This treaty was an unlike­ly con­ces­sion dur­ing the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, giv­en the dom­i­nance of the British class across the Caribbean. The treaty did not exclu­sive­ly serve White inter­ests. Article three of the treaty stat­ed that the Maroons were giv­en 1,500 acres of Crown land.

Article eight of the treaty stat­ed: “that if any white man does any man­ner of injury to Cudjoe, his suc­ces­sors or any of his or their peo­ple shall apply to any com­mand­ing offi­cer or mag­is­trate in the neigh­bor­hood for jus­tice.” This showed some equi­ty under the law between the Maroons and White plan­ta­tion own­ers. In brief, the British were will­ing to divide them­selves equal­ly among the Maroons. In gen­er­al, the arti­cles of paci­fi­ca­tion also attempt­ed to lim­it Maroon attacks against the sys­tem of slav­ery. Article thir­teen required that the Maroons con­tin­ue to help clear roads from Trelawny Town to Westmoreland and, if pos­si­ble, from St. James to St. Elizabeth. This was biased because, as free men, the Maroons were not required to labor for the planters show­ing a White view that the Maroons were infe­ri­or.

Another bias in the treaty includes arti­cle four­teen, which affirms that two White men shall live with the Maroons “to main­tain a friend­ly cor­re­spon­dence with the inhab­i­tants of this island.” This was to encour­age a friend­ly rela­tion­ship between the two but gave Whites first-hand knowl­edge of the state of affairs in the Maroon com­mu­ni­ty. Most impor­tant­ly, the treaty also required the Maroons to act as a police force for the planters, return­ing future run­aways to the plan­ta­tions and draft­ing them to fight against future rebellions.
Overall, this treaty rec­og­nized the Maroons and their needs and revealed that the British feared the Maroons’ capa­bil­i­ties and ever-ris­ing pow­er. (Reference:Harvard​.edu)

As part of the peace treaties, one signed with Cudjoe in the west and anoth­er sub­se­quent­ly signed with Quao in the east, Maroons agreed to hunt and return future run­away slaves and, amongst oth­er things, aid the sup­pres­sion of inter­nal and exter­nal threats. In return, the British rec­og­nized Maroon free­dom, grant­ed the com­mu­ni­ties land in the inte­ri­or, and allowed Maroons to sus­tain them­selves through small-scale trad­ing at mar­kets sup­ple­ment­ed by wild boar hunting.
This sug­gests that many colonists were very much aware of this and came to rely on the Maroons for security.
In essence, the British colonist came to rely on the Maroons for pro­tec­tion as mutu­al recog­ni­tion of the ben­e­fits of an alliance emerged.
And so, I ask the Jamaican peo­ple who have long lion­ized and adored the Maroons, and even bestowed hero sta­tus on Maroon lead­ers like Nanny and Cudjoe and made them nation­al heroes; how have these facts lined up with the rest of you whose ances­tors have been forced to endure slav­ery at the hands of the white slavers and their Maroon allies?

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

While attend­ing a func­tion for Tennesse Republicans, the California Trump syco­phant told the gath­er­ing at the clown show quote, “I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gav­el … It’ll be hard not to hit her with it.”
Of course, this is the same ‘moron’ speak­er Pelosi recent­ly called such a ‘moron’ for oppos­ing new mask man­dates at the U.S. Capitol amid ris­ing COVID-19 case numbers.

At a time when polit­i­cal vio­lence is of great con­cern, a mere 7 months after his insur­rec­tion tried to pull off a coup de grâce and failed, here is one of the chief insur­rec­tion sup­port­ers and Trump lap­dog advo­cat­ing vio­lence while pre­tend­ing to be joking.
These dan­ger­ous peo­ple need to be removed from office and should nev­er have access to pow­er; they are dangerous.
Right here in New York, we have oth­er Trump lap­dogs, Elise Stefanik, R‑N.Y, chair of the House GOP cau­cus, she will do and say any­thing to cur­ry favor for the one-term, twice impeached abysmal fail­ure who should have already been sit­ting in a prison cell for incit­ing an over­throw of the government.

Where are the Democrats who should be lin­ing up to remove this teg-reg from office? These are the seats that the Democratic Party should be tar­get­ing with an all-out, take no pris­on­ers blitz to remove these dan­ger­ous racists from office and let them crawl back under the rocks from which they crawled.

CONGRATULATIONS LADIES

The lat­est brouha­ha sur­round­ing peo­ple mak­ing out­bursts at pub­lic fig­ures, par­tic­u­lar­ly the prime min­is­ter, should be met with laugh­ter, skep­ti­cism, and ridicule.
Laughter because Jamaican peo­ple have nev­er been shy about express­ing them­selves with a few choice pieces of dirty or bloody fab­ric, so what’s new?
Skepticism because peo­ple vow that the police are doing what­ev­er they do to embar­rass the prime min­is­ter. As such, there is this grand con­spir­a­cy to embar­rass Brogad), real­ly my people?
Is the Prime Minister embar­rassed by all the good work that the police do? Think about what you are think­ing and say­ing because of your politics.
Ridicule, because a few stu­pid police offi­cers who do not know their role or what their pow­ers are, decid­ed to inter­act with mem­bers of the pub­lic out­side the bounds of their author­i­ty, does that tar and feath­er the entire force?

The right to free­dom of speech is not grant­ed by any gov­ern­ment; it is a right bestowed upon all of us by our cre­ator. Notwithstanding, that right comes with some stip­u­la­tions. That is where human laws come in to offer guardrails.
For exam­ple, shout­ing bomb on a crowd­ed air­plane or in a crowd­ed the­ater or oth­er pub­lic spaces can lead to a stam­pede, result­ing in injuries and death. That is the rea­son that in some coun­tries, there are laws against such behavior.
So let us exam­ine the lat­est iter­a­tion that gen­er­at­ed this new out­rage at the prime min­is­ter. To begin with, I hard­ly believe the poor prime min­is­ter had any idea that some sil­ly police offi­cers were about to stu­pid­ly remove Shaquille Higgins from his home in Moneague Saint Ann, arrest and coerce an apol­o­gy out of him aimed at appeas­ing the prime min­is­ter or worse to embar­rass him.
Full dis­clo­sure, I have not heard the con­tent of the video in which mis­ter Higgins alleged­ly berat­ed the PM using some unseem­ly language.
‘If’ mis­ter Higgins uttered threats at the prime min­is­ter, the police had every right to inter­vene to warn mis­ter Higgins not to car­ry out those threats, as well as to inves­ti­gate whether he had the means to deliv­er on what­ev­er threats he may have made.
On the oth­er hand, it would be inter­est­ing to hear the side of the offi­cers who went to his home, took him into cus­tody and had him do a mean cul­pa to the prime minister.
At the same time, the offi­cers should explain what laws they used to appre­hend and force an apol­o­gy out of mis­ter Higgins.
There is no doubt that we Jamaicans are often rude, uncouth, coarse, and undu­ly dis­re­spect­ful. Still, unless those dis­re­spect­ful and uncouth actions play out in pub­lic, in which case the police have a role in enforc­ing the dis­or­der­ly con­duct statutes, offi­cers have no role.
If they are uttered on social media sites, it is up to those plat­forms to [police] those vio­la­tions by cen­sor­ing those kinds of speech. Unless, of course, there are direct threats in them aimed at someone.
As much as I despise the undu­ly coarse lan­guage, I believe more in the right to free speech. We do not need police to be enter­ing peo­ple’s homes to arrest them because they say things about politi­cians that are not nice.
Jamaica emerged from a dark peri­od where peo­ple’s doors would be bro­ken down by polit­i­cal thugs who would mur­der them for say­ing things against the oth­er party.
Thankfully those days are behind us.….….….….….… somewhat.
We do not need the police to take over and con­tin­ue those practices.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.