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Obit watch: September 23, 2024.

Monday, September 23rd, 2024

Mercury Morris, one of the great NFL players. ESPN. NYT (archived).

Morris made no secret of the fact that he was filled with pride about the 1972 Dolphins being the first — and still only — undefeated and untied team in NFL history, pulling off a truly perfect season.
He also tried to make this clear: No, the Dolphins were not rooting against the teams that came close to matching their feat of perfection or had champagne on ice waiting for the moment that the last unbeaten team in a season gets defeated.
“And for the record, we DO NOT TOAST every time an unbeaten team loses,” Morris posted on social media in 2015, when the Cam Newton-led Carolina Panthers started 14-0 before losing the next-to-last game of their regular season. “There’s no champagne in my glass, only Canada Dry Ginger ale! Ha!”

Kathryn Crosby, der Bingle’s wife who had a pretty successful career of her own. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Anatomy of a Murder”, “The Phenix City Story”, and “The Night the World Exploded”.

Tongsun Park, who was at the center of the 1970s “Koreagate” scandal.

In 1978, he was indicted on charges of conspiracy, bribery and making contributions as a foreign agent, and he fled the country. He returned with a promise of criminal immunity to testify in Congress and before a grand jury.
He said that he had passed money to 31 members of Congress — up to $273,000 in one case — and while he denied acting on behalf of the South Korean government, a former Korean intelligence officer told Congress under oath that Mr. Park was working for Korean intelligence as part of an influence-buying operation code-named Ice Mountain.
But the accusations, splashily covered in the post-Watergate period, largely fizzled out. Only three of the 31 current and former congressmen Mr. Park named were indicted, and only one, Richard T. Hanna, a California Democrat, was convicted. He served a little over a year in jail.
The House, which considered disciplinary action against 11 sitting members, ended up reprimanding just three, in what critics called an example of Congress’s inability to discipline its own members.

He later got caught doing illegal lobbying for Saddam Hussein, and served five years for that.

Shortly after I posted Friday’s obit watch, the NYT posted their Nelson DeMille obit.

KMart. Sort of. The last “full-sized” store in the United States, in Bridgehampton, New York, is closing in October. There is one store left in Miami, but it is described as being the size of a CVS, not a full-sized store. There are also other stores in places like Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Posted in Books, Law, NFL, Obits, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#130 in a series)

Wednesday, September 18th, 2024

The mayor of Atlantic City, Marty Small Sr., and his wife (the superintendent of schools) have both been officially indicted.

I thought I had written about this before, but Google doesn’t turn up a reference. I know, though, that there have been stories circulating for months. Mayor Small and his wife aren’t charged with corruption, which is unusual for an Atlantic City mayor.

They’re charged with beating the s–t out of their teenage daughter.

Prosecutors said that on Jan. 13, 2024, Marty Small Sr. hit his daughter multiple times in the head with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness.
Ten days earlier, they said, Small engaged in an argument with his daughter, grabbing her head and throwing her to the ground, and threatening to throw her down a flight of stairs.
He threatened to “smack the weave out” of her head during the incident, according to prosecutors.
The 50-year-old Democratic mayor also is accused of punching his daughter repeatedly in the legs, causing bruising.
La’Quetta Small, 47, is accused of punching her daughter multiple times on the chest, leaving bruising. In another alleged incident, she is accused of dragging her daughter by the hair and striking her with a belt on her shoulders, leaving marks.
In yet another incident, La’Quetta Small is accused of punching her daughter in the mouth during an argument.

And I wasn’t aware of this previously, but Constance Days-Chapman, the principal of Atlantic City High School, was indicted last week. Charges against her include “official misconduct” and “child endangerment”.

According to the indictment, in December the girl, who was 15 at the time, told Days-Chapman she was suffering continuous headaches from being beaten by her parents in their home.
But instead of telling authorities, Days-Chapman instead told the Smalls.

By the way:

Days-Chapman is a close friend of the Smalls; La’Quetta Smalls is her boss.

I’m sure this is going to be one of my more controversial and divisive opinions, but:

Fark these people. Fark any parent who thinks it is okay to do their kids this way. Fark anybody who’s a mandated reporter that goes to the parents instead of Child Protective Services when a kid tells them their parents are beating them.

Sorry. A bit grumpy today.

Posted in Law, Politics | 2 Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#129 in a series)

Monday, September 16th, 2024

This is still breaking. Two chiefs with the New York Fire Department have been arrested on bribery charges.

The six-count indictment accuses them of soliciting and receiving bribes in that role from 2021 to 2023 for projects underway in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
“For nearly two years, Saccavino and Cordasco misused this authority for their own financial gain,” the indictment charges. The men were also charged with lying to the F.B.I. in February about their involvement in the scheme.

These, by the way, are the same two chiefs whose homes and offices were raided by the FBI in February.

A retired firefighter who expedited building projects, Henry J. Santiago Jr., was identified by federal prosecutors as a co-conspirator who solicited and accepted bribes, but he was not named or charged in the indictment. The New York Times had previously reported his involvement, and he was identified by name by the authorities at a news conference about the case on Monday.

I’m going out on a limb here and saying: they flipped him.

According to the indictment, the two chiefs steered potential clients who wanted to expedite approval of their building projects to Mr. Santiago, and then ordered that those projects receive preferential treatment. Among the projects they fast-tracked were a high-end restaurant in Manhattan, a Brooklyn apartment building and two hotels near Kennedy Airport in Queens.
After getting paid by his clients, Mr. Santiago delivered bribes to Mr. Saccavino and Mr. Cordasco in cash and by check in face-to-face meetings at Fire Department offices in Brooklyn and steakhouse dinners in Manhattan, prosecutors said.
Mr. Saccavino funneled the illicit payments through a company started by his wife, while Mr. Cordasco received them through a company he had created and claimed was an entertainment business, prosecutors said.

Just in case you were wondering…

There is no indication that the case is related to any of the four separate federal corruption investigations swirling around Mayor Eric Adams, his campaign and some of his most senior aides. The inquiry focused on the mayor is being conducted by the same agencies that investigated the chiefs, however, and also relates in part to fire safety inspections, according to several people with knowledge of the matter said.

Posted in Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#128 in a series)

Thursday, September 5th, 2024

This may not the five-alarm fire I thought it was at first, but it is still pretty significant to say the least.

Federal agents on Wednesday zeroed in on the highest ranks of Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, searching a home and seizing the phones of the New York City police commissioner, the first deputy mayor, the schools chancellor and others, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The police commissioner. They seized the police commissioner’s phones. Wow.

Among the other officials the federal investigators sought information from were the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior adviser to the mayor who is one of his closest confidants, the people said. Both men have had other legal challenges.
The agents also searched the home and seized the phone of a consultant who is the brother of both the schools chancellor and one of the deputy mayors, the people said.
The nature of the investigations is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior City Hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, the people said.

…

Representatives of the City Hall officials — the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson — could not be reached or declined to comment.
The consultant, Terence Banks, a brother of Philip Banks and David Banks, recently opened a government and community relations firm aimed at closing a gap “between New York’s intricate infrastructure and political landscape.” He, too, could not be reached for comment.
Several of the officials had their phones seized or records of their communications subpoenaed.

…

In addition to the police commissioner, Edward A. Caban, several other department officials, including Mr. Caban’s chief of staff and two Queens precinct commanders, also had their phones taken by federal agents, two of the people said.

…

In 2013, Ms. Wright and David and Philip Banks were involved in an incident that raised ethical questions. Ms. Wright and Gregg Walker, her then husband, had a dispute that led to mutual allegations of domestic abuse and the arrest of both people. The City reported that David Banks called his brother Philip, then a high-ranking police official. The charges were dropped.
Ms. Wright has denied any wrongdoing in the case, telling The New York Times in 2022 that she “never asked anyone to make any phone calls” on her behalf and that she was released “almost immediately not because of any outside influence, but because the facts of the case were so obvious.”

…

After taking office in 2022, Mr. Adams selected Philip Banks as his top aide overseeing public safety, though Mr. Banks himself had previously been ensnared in a federal criminal investigation.
Years earlier, the same federal prosecutors’ office conducting the current investigations named him an unindicted co-conspirator in an expansive corruption case that led to prison time for Mr. Banks’s then close friend Norman Seabrook, at the time a leader of the city’s correction officers’ union, among others.
Over the course of two years, prosecutors scrutinized Mr. Banks’s acceptance of gifts in 2013 and 2014 while he was chief of department, the city’s top uniformed police official. The gifts included paid vacations to the Dominican Republic and Los Angeles, cigars and a ring worn by Muhammad Ali. He received gifts from and socialized with two businessmen who were trying to curry favor with city leaders. One later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, cooperating with prosecutors, while the other was convicted at trial.
But prosecutors did not charge Mr. Banks, concluding that they did not have sufficient evidence to prove that he had taken official action in exchange for the gifts he received, people familiar with the case have said.

Nobody will go on the record as knowing what’s going on, but there’s speculation that it is tied to that whole weird Turkish consolate thing.

Or it could be something else. It sounds like the whole Adams administration is so packed with corruption, they can’t even keep the lid screwed on. Of course, all suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And to be fair, none of the subjects of the raids have been charged with any crimes.

Yet.

Posted in Cops, Law, NYPD, Politics | 1 Comment »

Flaming hyena update.

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

I wrote a while back about Robert Telles, the former public administrator of Clark County, who was charged with murdering Jeff German. Mr. German was a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had been covering Mr. Telles management of the office, and discovered all sorts of problems: hostile work environment, affairs with subordinates, those kind of things.

Mr. Telles went on trial a couple of weeks ago.

He was convicted yesterday of first degree murder. He’s already been sentenced to life in prison, though he can apply for parole in 20 years.

Coverage from the R-J by way of archive.is. Since it is close to the end of the month, I’m going to burn a NYT gift link to their coverage of the story.

Posted in Law, Media, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#125, #126, and #127 in a series)

Friday, August 23rd, 2024

Quel fromage!

Mike the Musicologist sent over a link from the Department of Justice: Trayon White Sr., who is a member of the DC City Council, was arrested Monday on bribery charges. (I know, a little old, but I missed this until MtM called it out.)

A corrupt DC city council member? What are the odds?

More from the WP (archived) which describes him as “a Marion Barry protege”.

Barry, for all his legal issues, never faced charges that he sought to enrich himself, although his associates were convicted of public corruption, including Ivanhoe Donaldson, a senior adviser who pleaded guilty to embezzling $190,000 in city funds.
“People looked at Marion’s issues as human frailties,” said Ron Lester, a veteran D.C. pollster whose clients included Barry. “Whether you liked or disliked him, Marion wasn’t someone accused of taking bribes. If these allegations prove to be true, Trayon doesn’t have a political future. It’s more clear-cut than anything Marion faced.”

The complaint alleges that, beginning in June 2024, White corruptly agreed to accept $156,000 in cash payments in exchange for using his position as a D.C. Councilmember to pressure government employees at Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE) and DYRS to extend several D.C. contracts. The contracts at issue were valued at $5.2 million and were for two companies to provide Violence Intervention services in D.C. As alleged, the $156,000 White agreed to accept in exchange for using his official position to pressure renewal of those contracts to particular companies was three percent of the total contract value. According to the complaint, White’s agreement with a confidential human source (the owner of the companies) – including the source’s payments to White of $35,000 in cash on four separate occasions (June 26, July 17, July 25, and August 9, 2024) and the source showing White a document reflecting how White’s three-percent cut was calculated based on those contracts – was captured on video.

In other news:

A grand jury on Friday indicted [name and age deleted – DB] who used to be AISD’s Executive Director of Compensation and Benefits, with stealing between $30,000 and $150,000 from the district using gift cards. Austin ISD and police haven’t specified the exact amount believed to be stolen.

According to KXAN, she resigned from the district in March of last year, and went to work for…the City of Austin.

Bond records list [name deleted – DB], another former AISD employee who worked in her department, as [name deleted – DB] co-defendant. City of Austin officials said in a statement to KXAN that [name deleted – DB] was also recently indicted in connection with her previous employment with AISD.

So just to be clear, that’s two former AISD employees, who seem to have worked in the same department, that have been indicted.

Yeah, the names are in the KXAN article, but I’m avoiding using them here. Why avoid using them, while at the same time naming Trayon White Sr.? Given the previous mess with an AISD employee, I’m not sure the district can be trusted to get it right, so I’m erring on the side of caution here.

Posted in Austin, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Something’s happening here…

Friday, August 16th, 2024

…and what it is, ain’t exactly clear.

The former CFO of the Austin Independent School District, who was previously charged with insurance fraud in Williamson County, had the charges dropped yesterday by the WillCo DA’s office.

Austin ISD officials said on Thursday they received a letter from the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office declining to prosecute the insurance fraud charge. The Williamson County District Attorney has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

More from KVUE (archived, because they’ve become really bad about ad blockers):

KVUE obtained the arrest warrant for Ramos from the Round Rock Police Department to investigate allegations of fraud, which authorities determined was not directly related to his work with the district.
According to the warrant, Ramos was accused of insurance fraud regarding a claim of $5,422.64.
However, the district said Thursday evening it would reinstate Ramos after learning the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office would not prosecute any charges related to his personal affairs.

According to KVUE, he has been re-instated by the district, but his previously scheduled resignation takes effect today. He apparently does not plan to return to the district, but he leaves “in good standing”.

I feel like I should apologize to the former CFO for including him in the “flaming hyenas” watch. But I was very scrupulous about not including his name (even though it was in the linked press reports) because this seemed like a situation that had the potential to be a tempest in a teapot, and I wanted to wait and see how it shook out. I’m glad I did.

Meanwhile, the evidence tampering trial of former WillCo Sheriff Robert Chody and former WillCo prosecutor Jason Nassour was going on this week.

Emphasis on the “was”. The judge has placed the trial on hold.

Why? Well, it looks like the prosecution’s case is completely borked, and they’ve asked for a hold.

“The state has been looking forward to having a full and fair trial… [However], the state can’t continue at this time,” a state prosecutor said Thursday.
The filing indicates the state cannot prosecute parts of the indictment due to it being “preempted by federal law.”

More from Fox 7:

A Live PD crew was with Williamson County deputies when Javier Ambler was taken into custody for a traffic violation. The chase had ended in Austin and with Ambler dying from a heart attack.
Austin police, who were in charge of the scene, never got a warrant to seize the Live PD camera equipment, and the court has ruled federal law allowed the production team to leave with their gear.
Judge Sage, on several occasions, pointed out to prosecutors that because of the law, it didn’t matter who allowed the crew to leave with the equipment because the officer on scene never got a warrant.

…

Prosecutors are trying to show the loss of the video is a violation of the Michael Morton act which requires prosecutors to keep and provide evidence to defense attorneys.
But defense attorneys, during cross-examination, showed the jury a section of the contract which also hurt that argument. It was noted Live PD was required to retain and turn over any video, if ordered to do so by a court.

So if I’m understanding this right (and I Am Not A Lawyer), the prosecution’s argument is that the loss of the footage constitutes evidence tampering. But they’ve been precluded from making that argument in court because of 1) the contract which specified that “Live PD” had to turn over any video if a court order was obtained, and nobody could be arsed to get a court order until it was too late, and 2) Federal law, which states that law enforcement can’t confiscate gear and footage without a warrant, and APD (who was in charge at the scene) didn’t get a warrant.

I guess the WillCo DA’s office is fighting inflation by running a BOGO special…on nothing-burgers.

(Edited to add: technically, the evidence tampering trial is taking place in Travis County. But since former WillCo officials are involved, I’m letting the nothing-burger comment stand.)

Posted in IANAL, Law, Politics, WillCo | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 13, 2024.

Tuesday, August 13th, 2024

Captain Paul Bucha (United States Army – ret.).

Captain Bucha received the Medal of Honor for actions between March 16 and 19th, 1968. His citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Capt. Bucha distinguished himself while serving as commanding officer, Company D, on a reconnaissance-in-force mission against enemy forces near Phuoc Vinh. The company was inserted by helicopter into the suspected enemy stronghold to locate and destroy the enemy. During this period Capt. Bucha aggressively and courageously led his men in the destruction of enemy fortifications and base areas and eliminated scattered resistance impeding the advance of the company. On 18 March while advancing to contact, the lead elements of the company became engaged by the heavy automatic-weapon, heavy machine-gun, rocket-propelled-grenade, claymore-mine and small-arms fire of an estimated battalion-size force. Capt. Bucha, with complete disregard for his safety, moved to the threatened area to direct the defense and ordered reinforcements to the aid of the lead element. Seeing that his men were pinned down by heavy machine-gun fire from a concealed bunker located some 40 meters to the front of the positions, Capt. Bucha crawled through the hail of fire to singlehandedly destroy the bunker with grenades. During this heroic action Capt. Bucha received a painful shrapnel wound. Returning to the perimeter, he observed that his unit could not hold its positions and repel the human wave assaults launched by the determined enemy. Capt. Bucha ordered the withdrawal of the unit elements and covered the withdrawal to positions of a company perimeter from which he could direct fire upon the charging enemy. When one friendly element retrieving casualties was ambushed and cut off from the perimeter, Capt. Bucha ordered them to feign death and he directed artillery fire around them. During the night Capt. Bucha moved throughout the position, distributing ammunition, providing encouragement, and insuring the integrity of the defense. He directed artillery, helicopter-gunship and Air Force-gunship fire on the enemy strong points and attacking forces, marking the positions with smoke grenades. Using flashlights in complete view of enemy snipers, he directed the medical evacuation of three air-ambulance loads of seriously wounded personnel and the helicopter supply of his company. At daybreak Capt. Bucha led a rescue party to recover the dead and wounded members of the ambushed element. During the period of intensive combat, Capt. Bucha, by his extraordinary heroism, inspirational example, outstanding leadership, and professional competence, led his company in the decimation of a superior enemy force which left 156 dead on the battlefield. His bravery and gallantry at the risk of his life are in the highest traditions of the military service. Capt. Bucha has reflected great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

He was a West Point graduate:

He was soon appointed commander of the last rifle company to be formed during an Army expansion — one that left him with a collection of the least coveted recruits: men who had flunked basic infantry tasks, former prisoners and “guys with master’s degrees in Elizabethan literature,” Mr. Bucha later recalled to the National Purple Heart Honor Mission, a veterans group.

…

In April 1970, around the time his tour of duty ended, Mr. Bucha returned to West Point to teach social science. But in 1972, he was one of 33 highly qualified young officers teaching at the military academy to resign over 18 months. Their resignations, to seek other professional opportunities, were reported on the front page of The New York Times.

Ross Perot hired him.

Mr. Bucha rose to become the executive in charge of foreign operations for Mr. Perot’s best-known company, Electronic Data Systems, which provided information technology services.

…

Mr. Bucha later openly criticized Mr. Perot for exaggerating stories about his career and traveled around the country on behalf of President George H.W. Bush’s campaign for a second term. In 2008, Mr. Bucha was a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
There was a point of consistency across his political stances, Ms. Whaley, his daughter, said: “He was a person who valued character and integrity.”

He served as president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society from 1995 to 1999.

Though Mr. Bucha became well known for his Medal of Honor, he often appeared publicly without it.
“I never wear it if I’m giving a speech that might get political,” he told the Purple Heart Mission. The medal, he said, belonged not principally to him but to the men he had fought alongside, and he did not want to say anything while wearing it that they might have disagreed with.

Statement from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. According to the society, there are 60 surviving recipients.

Posted in Heroism, History, Obits, Politics | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#124 in a series)

Tuesday, August 6th, 2024

I think this may be marginal, since the person in question is not an elected official. But they were still a high-ranking official in a position of trust locally.

The chief financial officer for the Austin Independent School District was arrested yesterday.

Technically, he’s the former CFO: according to the article, he submitted his resignation July 23rd, it was scheduled to be effective August 16th, and he was placed on leave immediately after his arrest.

He’s charged with insurance fraud, though the reports say the case against him has nothing to do with AISD.

In a statement, Ramos told KXAN, “We have a judicial process. I ask that everyone let the process run its course before rushing to judgment.”

…

According to the district’s website, Ramos oversaw Austin ISD finances, including the budget, purchasing, state and federal grants, and the Historically Utilized Business program. His district biography stated he worked in school finance for 27 years, including as chief of finance and operations in Pflugerville ISD and deputy superintendent of finance and operations in Hutto ISD.

Posted in Austin, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#123 in a series)

Friday, August 2nd, 2024

Misty Roberts, the mayor of DeRidder, Louisiana, resigned her position on July 27th.

She was arrested yesterday.

Surprisngly, the charges against her are not the usual Louisiana politician charges: bribery or some other form of corruption.

Ms. Roberts is accused of raping a minor.

Louisiana State Police Special Victims Unit says it conducted interviews with two juveniles, one of which was the victim, both of whom told detectives that Roberts had sexual intercourse with the victim while Roberts was mayor.

…

Adam Johnson, Roberts’ attorney, released the following statement:

“It is my honor to represent Misty Roberts. My client learned late last night of a warrant, despite not being contacted to be interviewed prior to investigators obtaining the warrant. My client maintains her innocence and, as it stands, she is in fact innocent. She has not been charged with a crime and/or convicted of any crime. And we trust the public will respect her constitutional presumption of innocence which is fundamental to our system of justice. Misty and her family are very grateful for the support they have received from their friends and neighbors and we look forward to putting this unfortunate situation behind them.”

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 21, 2024.

Sunday, July 21st, 2024

Sheila Jackson Lee (D – Houston). Fox 26 Houston. McThag.

Whitney Rydbeck, actor. Other credits include “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island”, “Battle Beyond the Stars”, “Switch”, and one of the spin-offs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Politics, Texas, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 19, 2024.

Friday, July 19th, 2024

Bob Newhart. THR. Tributes. Appreciation. Variety.

Something very sick makes me laugh. My wife says to me, “If people ever found out what you find humorous, they’d stop showing up.” I said to her: “That’s our little secret.

…

“I tend to find humor in the macabre. I would say 85 percent of me is what you see on the show. And the other 15 percent is a very sick man with a very deranged mind,” he said during a 1990 interview with Los Angeles magazine.

…

What do you think happens on the other side?

I think if you lived a good life, some people say it is rapture. You spend the rest of your life in a state of rapture. That’d be nice. What I’m actually hoping is there’s the Pearly Gates and God’s there and he says to me, “What did you do in life?” And I say, “I was a stand-up comedian.” And he says: “Get in that real short line over there.”

Ha!

God has an incredible sense of humor, an unimaginable sense of humor. Just look around.

I’ve had this discussion – God is a punster and has a sense of humor – with people at my church, too. I think it it worth noting that he was a faithful Catholic, and was married to the same woman for 60 years. (Ginny Newhart passed away in 2023.)

One of the less-reputable over the air networks used to run “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart” back to back in the afternoons, and I’d have both on while I worked. I think “TBNS” is just about perfect as a show, but, oddly, I didn’t like “Newhart” so much. I do remember watching and enjoying it first run, but not so much as an adult. My dislike for it now is mostly because I felt the show shifted focus away from Dick to Michael and Stephanie, and I really didn’t like those two characters. But when Bob was dominating the screen, it was a pretty good show.

It turns out one of my favorite “Newhart” episodes is available on the ‘Tube (until someone files a copyright strike): “Dick the Kid”, season 5, episode 3.

Dick has a case of writer’s block, so he goes off to work as a cowboy on a ranch. The comic element of this episode isn’t Dick’s ineptitude as a cowboy. Just the opposite: he’s so good at being a cowboy, he wins the respect of everyone. Even the toughest most macho of the cowboys breaks down when Dick goes back to the inn.

The world is a lesser place today.

Edited to add: per THR, CBS will be airing a tribute to Bob Newhart on July 22nd, but I don’t have a specific time yet.

Lou Dobbs.

Cheng Pei-pei, Chinese actress. IMDB.

Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnamese Communist leader.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Politics, Religion, TV | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#122 in a series)

Tuesday, July 16th, 2024

This just in: Senator Robert “Gold Bar Bob” Menendez convicted on all counts. (Previously.)

The NYT coverage is probably better, but it is also being constantly updated and is paywalled. I may possibly throw up a link to their story later today or tomorrow.

Edited to add 7/17: here’s the second day NYT story.

A Manhattan jury returned the verdict after deliberating for about 13 hours over three days in Federal District Court. Mr. Menendez was found guilty on all 16 counts he faced, including bribery, honest services wire fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and acting as an agent for Egypt.

That seems relatively short.

He was charged with 16 different felonies, including bribery, extortion, obstructing justice and acting as an illegal foreign agent, with the top counts carrying a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Posted in Law, Politics | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: July 11, 2024.

Thursday, July 11th, 2024

Shelley Duvall. This is breaking, and the NYT is in “full obit to come” mode. I’ll link to that later.

Edited to add: NYT obit.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. As noted, they own Redbox. They also own the Crackle streaming service.

Fun fact:

In April 2021, Chicken Soup for the Soul acquired the film and television catalogue of Sonar Entertainment. In return, Sonar will hold a 5 percent stake in a new AVOD network featuring its library. Through the acquisition, Chicken Soup now currently owns the North American rights to a majority of the Laurel & Hardy films and shorts, and most of the Our Gang library, as well as the holdings of the former RHI/Hallmark/Cabin Fever/Sonar outputs, and a majority of the Hal Roach library, all via their Halcyon Studios division.

They had filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition (which would have allowed them to re-organize) but yesterday it was converted into a Chapter 7 petition, which is total liquidation. And it sounds like there was some sleazy stuff going on.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment had failed to pay employees and vendors for at least four weeks prior to its Chapter 11 filing. In court documents, HPS, the company’s top lender, had alleged gross mismanagement by the company. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment chairman and CEO Bill Rouhana Jr., in a declaration supporting the bankruptcy petition, claimed that the company’s financial straits were in part due to “refusals” by its lenders “to live up to their obligations, resulting in asserted defaults and/or contractual terminations across critical content and service providers.”

I have seen reports that they were pocketing employee health insurance premiums, but not actually paying the insurers. Those are just reports, and the executives are entitled to the presumption of innocence. But if it is true that they weren’t paying employees, and weren’t paying employee health insurance…the kind side of me thinks those people should be in jail. The unkind side of me thinks that rope and lampposts are in order.

Edited to add: more from THR, concentrating on the RedBox part of the business, but including the accusations of financial mismanagement.

Benji Gregory. Other credits include “Amazing Stories”, “The Twilight Zone” (the 1985-1986 revival), and “T.J. Hooker”.

Playing catch-up:

Joe Bonsall, of the Oak Ridge Boys.

James M. Inhofe, Republican senator from Oklahoma and former mayor of Tulsa.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#121 in a series)

Friday, June 28th, 2024

Celeste Murphy used to be the police chief in Chattanooga. (The one in Tennessee, in case you were wondering.)

She resigned on Wednesday.

She turned herself in on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the Hamilton County Grand Jury returned a 17-count indictment, charging Murphy with one count of Illegal Voter Registration, one count of False Entries on Official Registration or Election Documents, three counts of False Entries in Governmental Records, three counts of Forgery, three counts of Perjury, and six counts of Official Misconduct. This morning, Murphy surrendered to agents at the Hamilton County Jail, where authorities booked her and subsequently released her after Murphy posted an aggregate $19,000 bond.

This sounds like more of that voter fraud that never happens. Or it could be someone trying desperately to hold onto a position that requires residence in the area:

We looked into her residency information, and found that she is listed as a homeowner in Atlanta on the Fulton County Property Records website.
She is listed as having purchased a home in September 2020, and still being one of two primary homeowners.
Property tax logs show that taxes were still paid on the home.
Meanwhile, a look at Hamilton County Property Records shows that she is not listed as a homeowner in Chattanooga.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

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