We elected Deborah Bookman to Coatesville City Council. She has the persona of a drug dealer.

I think Deborah Bookman isn’t a drug dealer, that it’s a persona. 

Her black car with opaque windows. Her campaign video made by Harvey “Bitsy” Legree. Legree, an “ex drug dealer”, also made a “don’t snitch” video for convicted murderer Duron “Gotti” Peoples. 

Harvey Legree, who describes himself as an ex-drug dealer, produced a stop snitching DVD in 2005. Today he wants to create a different movie in Coatesville that depicts two guys who go to jail. One character goes back into the criminal lifestyle after jail and ultimately dies in the end. The second character turns his life around after jail and fulfills his dream of becoming successful. The movie is intended to show what life on the streets is like, Legree said. It's supposed to be positive and will take a different direction than the stop snitching moving, he said. 

The stop snitching DVD, "The Sequel," started circulating in Coatesville roughly two years ago. The movie shows drugs and guns and attempts to intimidate people from telling authorities what they know about crimes. The stop snitching campaign is national and puts up road blocks for law enforcement officials nationwide. 

MORE AT: 

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007 

"Stop Snitcing" Producer Claims New Path 

POSTED BY J.MILLER AT 11:22 AM

Deborah Bookman is probably no more connected to the drug business than other residents of Coatesville. 

I do think that some Coatesville residents want a city council that goes easy on drug sellers. I think some Chester County, public officials, attorneys and landlords profit from the illegal drug business. A bad combination for any town.

What I’m getting at is, a significant number of Coatesville voters like having the ability to make some extra cash selling drugs. They might not want to be career criminals. They see it as a way to get a nest egg to pursue creating a legal lifestyle.

In fact all across America in remote areas and big cities, almost everyone has some connection to the illegal drug business. And for many people, $100,000 to $1,000,000 a year seems like a way to get a leg up in life.  Except that most people either are in prison or dead before a year is up.

Drug selling in Coatesville is not exceptional. We’re about the national average. 

 ***

Maybe most importantly most of us have difficulty seeing a difference between legal and illegal businesses.  

Bankers make billions of dollars laundering money for drug cartels and pay an insignificant, to them, price. 

President Donald Trump, his son in law Jared Kushner, and his son Eric Trump have businesses allegedly financed by laundering money for Russian oligarchs and other criminal enterprises. If money laundering stops the Trump business model would allegedly collapse. 

“A close look at the record suggests that The Trump Organization arguably behaved a great deal like the organized crime syndicates, which have been targeted as criminal conspiracies in the past.” 

MORE AT: 

Donald Trump and Criminal Conspiracy Law - Center for American Progress

“He told the committee that he had looked at the Trump golf courses in Scotland and Ireland as part of his research. Asked whether he saw Russian money involved with them, he replied: “Well, we saw what Eric Trump [the second son of the president] said about Russian money being available for his golf – for the golf course projects, making remarks about having unlimited sums available."

MORE AT:

US Congress asks if Russian money funded Trump golf courses

"Three Purdue Pharma executives pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors and patients about OxyContin’s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused. The company settled for a record $600m. But no members of the Sackler family were charged or mentioned... 

There are rival drugs on the market, but OxyContin is widely considered to be ground zero in the US opioid epidemic. The federal agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in 2017 that 91 people are dying every day in the US from drug overdoses, 60% of which involve opioids. Deaths from prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999... 

“Purdue Pharma has no integrity, it’s the opposite, the evil manipulation of vulnerable people. It’s disgusting,” she says.“ 

MORE AT: 

“'I don’t know how they live with themselves' – artist Nan Goldin takes on the billionaire family behind OxyContin”

 So where’s the shame for some little guy selling drugs to make ends meet?

***

I don’t believe selling drugs is a way to get ahead in life. In fact the “War on Drugs” is designed to trap people, in particular Black people in a lifetime drug selling to prison cycle until they’re old men and women. 

Read:

LOCKING UP OUR OWN

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN BLACK AMERICA

JAMES FORMAN, JR.

Coatesville desperately needs to shake our reputation as a drug selling depot for Chester County.

I don’t know where our new Coatesville City Council is going to take us, but they seem to be falling apart at the starting line.

DELORES ANN WILLIAMS is the obvious replacement for Marie Lawson’s Coatesville 2nd Ward Coatesville City Council seat

PRECINCT REPORT       OFFICIAL RESULTS

RUN DATE:06/01/17     PRIMARY ELECTION, MAY 16, 2017

RUN TIME:10:38 AM     CHESTER COUNTY, PA

                      STATISTICS

0080 COATESVILLE 2

                                                      VOTES  PERCENT

MEMBER OF COUNCIL COATESVILLE 2ND WARD

          VOTE FOR NOT MORE THAN  1

           DELORES ANN WILLIAMS.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     56   42.42

           INGRID W JONES.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      7    5.30

           MARIE LAWSON  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     67   50.76

           WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      2    1.52

FROM:

http://www.chesco.org/DocumentCenter/View/41718

Coatesville City Councilperson 2nd Ward Marie Lawson resigns today.

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=marie%20lawson%20coatesville%20city%20council%202nd%20ward 

TRUMP/PUTIN/REPUBLICAN SHITSTORM OF 2018 coming February: Sec 241. REPORT ON OLIGARCH AND PARASTATAL ENTITIES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

You’re going to see Trump at his batshit craziest in just a few days when Russia’s oligarchs & Putin react to H.R. 3364, the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.”

   

Or maybe Putin and his pals will have nothing to react to:

Is there a chance sanctions will not be applied? 

Last week, Trump began designating various government agencies and executive bodies to implement the law, although none has yet been charged with carrying out the provision regarding oligarchs.Two senators – Ben Cardin and John McCain – simultaneously appealed to Trump and his administration to “implement the law to the full extent.”

***

"Who’s at Risk?  

We spoke with dozens of Russians on the Forbes list. Almost all of them were aware of this provision of the law and admitted that they were doing everything possible to keep their names off the list. One individual said that it had been necessary to fly to Washington to get a clearer picture of the situation. But, the person said, the journey had not been fruitful.  

“Nothing is clear: no one is working on these sanctions and no one is drawing up the list of who will be included,” he said, adding that even local lobbyists were unable to uncover anything more about the process.  

“The sanctions will not be based on any particular criteria or sources of information.” 

Although the Act does not mention any specific names, Russia’s business community agrees that metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska is most at risk.  

His name has come up repeatedly with the U.S. authorities, especially concerning his communications with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Deripaska’s representatives did not respond to inquiries from journalists.   

The Alfa Group headed by Mikhail Fridman is also at risk. That business is mentioned in the scandalous dossier of former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that was published in BuzzFeed last year. 

It states that the Alfa Group allegedly carried out Putin’s orders and helped interfere in U.S. elections. Alfa Group is currently suing BuzzFeed and the parties that ordered the dossier, demanding that they refute the inaccuracies it contains.  

The media have often pointed to Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovich as the two businessmen with the closest ties to Vladimir Putin. Their representatives declined to comment. 

An assistant to one Russian businessman explained that not only are the people on the Forbes Top Ten are at risk, even those whose names have appeared only a single time in medias rankings of major government contractors will have trouble sleeping easily... 

Preparing for sanctions 

“This is not something you can prepare for,” sighed one Russian member of the Forbes list, although several other businesspeople said they were working closely with their lawyers. 

Law firms are even making the rounds with workshops on how to prepare for the event. However, at least one person who has attended such sessions reports that the lawyers have nothing to offer that could be of any comfort. Their best advice is for businessmen to divorce their wives and register all their assets in the names of their former spouses.  

The most high-profile example of this is the divorce of Roman Abramovich and Daria Zhukova. The pair made an official announcement of the move on Aug. 7, just five days after the signing of the U.S. law, but sources close to Abramovich claim that the couple had made the decision much earlier. 

It recently emerged that Oleg Deripaska’s wife, Polina, became the owner this month of an almost 7-percent share of Deripaska’s En+ holding company – owned by UC Rusal and energy assets – valued at $500 million to $600 million. That transaction also has no connection to sanctions, according to one Deripaska associate. It remains unknown whether it was connected with the pair’s marital status, or what that status is. 

Businesspeople also have the option of selling off their assets, as Onexim owner Mikhail Prokhorov has been doing since last year. He sold a seven-percent stake in UC RusAl in August — eight days after Trump signed the sanctions act — and recently decided to prune it back a little more. Prokhorov did not respond to a request for comment. 

Is there a chance sanctions will not be applied? 

Last week, Trump began designating various government agencies and executive bodies to implement the law, although none has yet been charged with carrying out the provision regarding oligarchs.
Two senators – Ben Cardin and John McCain – simultaneously appealed to Trump and his administration to 'implement the law to the full extent.”

MORE AT:

The Moscow Times

The Oligarchs Are Next: Russian Businessmen Prepare for U.S. Sanctions

Russia’s wealthiest individuals are busy hiring lawyers and searching for lobbyists in Washington

Oct 27, 2017

By Irina Malkova and Svetlana Reiter

***

“Congress hit a nerve in Moscow last summer when it passed (and President Donald Trump signed) H.R. 3364, the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.” Beyond the law’s many sanctions, its Section 241 requires the administration to submit to Congress a detailed report identifying “the most significant senior foreign political figures and oligarchs in the Russian Federation, as determined by their closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth” within 180 days. (Underline JP)

Judging by the decibel level in Moscow, and intense activity by Washington lobbyists on behalf of Russian clients, many in the Russian elite would hate to be fingered as being creatures of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s clear why: Being named in this report could lead to future U.S. sanctions, and the threat of being cut off from the dollar and American banking system can be crippling; even without sanctions, being listed would make it harder to do business in the West. In their anxiety lies our opportunity, if we use it wisely. 

The purpose of sanctions is to change behavior. First, the prospect of being named in the “Kremlin Report” (as we have called it) can incentivize the more independent of the Russian elite to keep some distance from Putin. Second, it can suggest to the elite that Putin’s aggression — against his neighbors and the West — can have bad consequences for them personally and should be avoided. Finally, the report may subject those named to increased scrutiny by the administration for corrupt behavior such as money laundering, helping the U.S. protect the American financial system from bad actors. The Kremlin Report thus can drive a wedge between the Kremlin and some in the wider Russian elite. 

How can the U.S. get this Kremlin Report right? In an Atlantic Council policy brief we wrote with our Russian colleagues Andrei Illarionov and Andrei Piontkovsky, we urged the U.S. government to apply three criteria: a person’s closeness to the Russian regime, whether the person made a fortune through corrupt commercial operations with the Putin regime or whether the person held or channeled assets for the Russian leader in a seemingly corrupt fashion. 

The Kremlin Report should not just list Russia’s wealthy in an indiscriminate fashion. 

Applying these criteria, we identified seven categories of people and enterprises for inclusion in the report: (1) those responsible for aggressive, corrupt or criminal operations within or outside the Russia; (2) Putin’s close circle of contemporary friends from St. Petersburg, with whom he has done business since the early 1990s, known as his “cronies;” (3) “golden children” of the rich who have become very wealthy top executives at a tender age; (4) personal friends of Putin who, to shield the president from scrutiny, hold considerable wealth for him; (5) so-called oligarchs: Big businessmen profiting greatly from direct business with the Kremlin; (6) corrupt state enterprise managers who owe their positions to their close personal relations with Putin and utilize their positions for gross larceny; and; (7) the relevant companies owned by these people.” 

MORE AT: 

The list that’s freaking out everyone in Moscow

Congress ordered the Trump administration to submit a roster of Russians tied closely to the Kremlin. Used wisely, it can be a powerful tool.

By ANDERS ÅSLUND AND DANIEL FRIED

12/18/17, 12:51 PM CET

 

Updated 12/19/17, 1:31 PM CET

*** 

ALSO SEE:

The US sanctions bill is a timebomb for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin | Natalie Nougayrède

Natalie NougayrèdeTue 28 Nov 2017 01.00 EST

***

H.R. 3364, “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.” 

***

STOCK UP ON POPCORN

The White guy down the street with all the AR-15 style rifles might be a potential terrorist. But you can’t call him that.

"Call them “The Terrorist Next Door” or “The Enemies Within”. The last one of note here in the Coatesville area was David Wayne Hull; the self declared Imperial Wizard of the Pennsylvania chapter White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He intended to blow up the Peach Bottom Power Plant. The attention to detail by Coatesville PD Detective Martin Quinn led to the infiltration of his organization by PA State Police and his arrest and conviction."

MORE AT:

You may walk by them at the mall, on the street or at a "Tea Party"..

Saturday, April 18, 2009

"WASHINGTON ― Every time a white man tries to kill Americans en masse, people ask law enforcement officers, politicians and journalists the same question: Why isn’t this terrorism? 

The question came up last year when a young neo-Nazi in a muscle car mowed down a crowd of anti-racist demonstrators. It was asked after an abusive young white man decked out in tactical gear killed 26 churchgoers, and when a white supremacist stabbed two men to death because they intervened as he berated a woman in a hijab. People wondered about the answer when a left-wing zealot who railed against Republicans opened fire on GOP congressmen practicing softball, and when a wealthy white man unloaded an arsenal on an outdoor concert, slaughtering 58 and injuring more than 500. 

All of the attacks certainly looked like acts of terrorism. Most of them even meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism. So why wouldn’t federal law enforcement officials use that term? Where are the federal terrorism charges against the suspects who survived?"

“In many instances, the government is going to be constrained, to a certain degree, from stepping in front of a podium and saying, ‘Ladies and gentleman, we’re revealing domestic terrorism here.’ Thomas Brzozowski, DOJ counsel for domestic terrorism matters

MORE AT:

There’s A Good Reason Feds Don’t Call White Guys Terrorists, Says DOJ Domestic Terror Chief

Federal law doesn’t make domestic terrorism a stand-alone crime. As a result, law enforcement is “somewhat reluctant” to call domestic extremists “terrorists.”

Ryan J. Reilly

The “Populist” or racist White wing of the Republican voters are their only dependable voter base.

"Bannon supporters wonder whether his populist wing of the Republican Party has already run out of time to maintain influence in this year’s midterm elections."

Bannon finds his regrets aren’t good enough for Trump 

By ANNIE KARNI 01/07/2018 08:01 PM EST

The “Populist” or racist old Whites wing of the Republican voters are their only dependable voter base. 

Bannon/Trump electrified them & gave the GOP the possibility of winning elections.

Run on the old "Reaganomics" "establishment" Republican Party thing. Tell Republican voters that Wall St. bankers will piss down some of their wealth on them. See what happens.

No “Populist wing” no Republican Party.

Keep in mind that the smart people in Beltway politics believed it was impossible for Trump to win the election. They tried not to lose "bigly"

Trump & Bannon are racist fascists. Trump won by making old whites believe establishment politicians would allow brown people to take over the USA. Racist voters are the only thing keeping the Republican Party alive. 

The SS Reaganomics went down in the Wall Street investment bank storm of 2007.

Run on the old "Reaganomics" "establishment" Republican Party thing. Tell Republican voters that Wall St. bankers will piss down some of their wealth on them. See what happens.

The Koch brothers "American's for Prosperity" made a white supremacist bed for the Republican Party. Republicans, all of them, racist or not sleep in that bed. There's no turnaround from that.

Maybe this would help "establishment" Republicans understand 2018 politics:

2018 could be the last year before a 10 year long nuclear night, but maybe not.

The thing I remember about 1st grade in 1949 is our air raid drill. I was sitting on the floor in the basement basketball court of Gordon Jr High School. Benner Elementary School was next door. I asked the principal or maybe he was the superintendent if we were there because the bomb couldn’t get all the way through the floors above. I can see his smile when he replied, “Yes that’s about it.”

I'm reading,  “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.”  by Daniel Ellsberg 

Daniel Ellsberg is known for the “Pentagon Papers” but they were a fraction of the documents in his safe. One of Mr. Ellsberg’s jobs was informing presidents of our nuclear war plans. He planned to release our nuclear plans after the “Pentagon Papers” were completely published but fate intervened. Now most of those war plans are in the public domain. Since Mr. Ellsberg collaborated in creating those nuclear war plans he has intimate knowledge of them. 

Nuclear deterrence to survive a 1st. strike by another nation is pure propaganda. The abundance of nuclear weapons is for surviving retaliation after a U.S. 1st strike.

“In 1959, Ellsberg became a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. In 1961 he drafted the guidance from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the operational plans for general nuclear war. He was a member of two of the three working groups reporting to the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM) during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.”

The book is easy to read and hard to put down.

Mr Ellsberg is optimistic:

“The human race would not go extinct from a nuclear winter,” he says. “One or two per cent of us would survive, living on mollusks in places like Australia and New Zealand. Civilization would certainly disappear. But we would survive as a species.””

Just my humble opinion, I don’t see a nuclear war with North Korea that doesn’t involve the Russian Pacific Fleet 100 miles away. (Sonbong North Korea to Vladivostok & the Russian Pacific Fleet is under 100 miles) 

Russia has that “Dead Hand” signal thing if a Russian base is attacked. 

“The Pacific Fleet is slowly but steadily gaining critical mass. The pride of the fleet are two Borei-class submarines – the Alexander Nevsky and the Vladimir Monomakh – which are counted among the deadliest submarines in the world. 

An improved version of the Borei will be capable of launching between 72 and 200 hypersonic, independently maneuverable warheads on the sidewinding Bulava missile. In theory, a single Borei volley could render any country in the world unfit for human life.”
FROM: 

Russian Pacific Fleet’s resurgence sets off alarm bells in Washington 

SCIENCE & TECH 

FEB 06, 2017

RAKESH KRISHNAN SIMHA, SPECIAL TO RBTH

Full scale nuclear war means about 1 billion immediate deaths. Most of the Northern Hemisphere. Russian subs are about 14 minutes away from anywhere in the USA.

“Ellsberg then turns to North Korea. He believes Trump has largely created the crisis by saying North Korea will not become a nuclear weapons state on his watch. “‘I won’t let it happen,’ according to Trump,” says Ellsberg. “But it already did happen before he took office.” 

The result is that the US is now, for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, threatening to attack a country equipped with nuclear weapons. “We are talking openly about assassination teams, about full-scale invasion exercises, about the decapitation of North Korea’s leadership. This is insanity. HR McMaster [Trump’s national security adviser] says we’re moving closer to nuclear war every day. It’s crazy.” 

The result of Trump’s words is to accelerate Kim Jong Un’s missile programme. Trump has convinced Kim that North Korea’s ability to obliterate South Korea and parts of Japan would not deter the US. Only the capability of hitting the US mainland would suffice. As a result, North Korea has stepped up its intercontinental ballistic missile development. It is only a matter of time — “perhaps weeks” — before Kim tests a hydrogen bomb in the atmosphere, which he needs to do for his ICBMs to be credible. At which point, all bets are off, says Ellsberg. “Trump is at least pretending to be unstable and crazy,” he says. “At the moment he’s fooling me.” 

By this point I am drinking an espresso, although profoundly regretting not having ordered a large cognac. Ellsberg is back on the chamomile and honey. Does anything give him cause for optimism? He mentions Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela and others who improved the world, but keeps returning to his abiding theme: humans control nuclear weapons and they are fallible. Leaders in the US and Russia have delegated the authority to use them to underlings. The US alone possesses an arsenal large enough to destroy the world hundreds of times over. Barack Obama could not cut America’s nuclear capacity in spite of wanting to. Instead the Pentagon persuaded him to spend another $1tn modernising America’s arsenal.  

“The chances that we can get off the Titanic are vanishing,” says Ellsberg. “But in spite of all this I am an optimist,” he adds. My ears prick up. It sounds like Ellsberg is going to end on an upbeat note.  

“The human race would not go extinct from a nuclear winter,” he says. “One or two per cent of us would survive, living on mollusks in places like Australia and New Zealand. Civilization would certainly disappear. But we would survive as a species.””

MORE AT:

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Trump and North Korea

The former cold war hawk talks about Snowden, Nixon and the chances of avoiding a nuclear catastrophe

December 8, 2017