We sat in the living room of our home on Black Horse Hill in Coatesville. After ½ of a 100 foot high tree just missed the small porch where our collie dog sat. My dad let her stay inside for the first time. Hurricane Hazel took down 3 more apple trees

 My family sat in the living room of our home on Black Horse Hill in Coatesville. After ½ of a 100 foot high tree just missed the small porch where our collie dog sat.  My dad let her stay inside for the first time. 

Later I surmised that if the tree hit our home square on it would have gone as far as the second story of our 3 story home.

We listened as Hurricane Hazel took down 3 more apple trees. 

Later I saw a National Guard helicopter land in Central Park bringing medical supplies. 

Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second-costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before it struck the United States near the border between North and South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane. After causing 95 fatalities in the US, Hazel struck Canada as an extratropical storm, which raised the death toll by 81 people, mostly in Toronto. As a result of the high death toll and the damage caused by Hazel, its name was retired from use for North Atlantic hurricanes. 

MORE AT:

Hurricane Hazel

I put CLIME on my iPhone so I can track hurricanes. 

Get Clime® for an all-in-one weather assistant right on your device! Stay prepared for upcoming weather with real-time radar images, insightful precipitation forecasts, severe weather warnings, hurricane and lightning trackers, and accurate daily weather data.

MORE AT:

https://climeradar.com/

"Something like this was bound to happen,” Michael Mann, director of Philadelphia’s Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, told me, as he noted that the Pacific Ocean near Acapulco was unusually warm for this time of year, the result of both record temperatures linked to fossil-fuel pollution as well as the El Niño weather pattern. “It’s going to happen to Miami. It’s going to happen to Tampa,” Mann said."

I'm concerned it's going to happen again in Coatesville PA. 

“Nearly a week after Hurricane Otis blew up like an atomic bomb and then slammed into Mexico’s iconic Pacific resort city of Acapulco with 165-mile-per-hour winds, grief-stricken residents are still pulling dead bodies from the city’s main harbor.

“It was really horrible,” Luis Alberto Medina, a fisherman, told the Reuters news service. “We’ve already found the bodies of others.” But six other people that Medina knew or worked with on the waterfront are still lost, as authorities now concede the toll of the dead or missing on the Mexican coast is nearing 100 and could go higher, as thousands continue to suffer without power or provisions.

In normal times, such death and destruction in a North American city that’s long been a hugely popular tourist destination for U.S. citizens would be a Page 1, top-of-the-hour story. But in a crazy, mixed-up world from Maine to the Middle East to Capitol Hill, Hurricane Otis barely dented American news media. And that’s a shame — not only because of the human tragedy getting ignored, but because the massive storm may have been nature’s most powerful warning yet that climate change has quickly shifted from a scientific theory to a five-alarm emergency.

Less than a day out, weather forecasters were describing Otis as a tropical storm that might bring heavy rain to Acapulco, but little more. But in the course of 12 hours over the overheated Pacific waters — in what some meteorologists are calling the most extreme example of “rapid intensification” they’ve ever seen — Otis gained an astonishing 115 mph in wind speed to become a major hurricane, in what National Hurricane Center forecaster Eric Blake called “a nightmare scenario.”

“Something like this was bound to happen,” Michael Mann, director of Philadelphia’s Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, told me, as he noted that the Pacific Ocean near Acapulco was unusually warm for this time of year, the result of both record temperatures linked to fossil-fuel pollution as well as the El Niño weather pattern. “It’s going to happen to Miami. It’s going to happen to Tampa,” Mann said."

MORE AT:

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A Category 5 hurricane in Mexico revealed the dangers of climate change. Nobody noticed.

Will Bunch. Oct. 31, 2023, 11:03 a.m. ET

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia was overwhelmed and off line for some time. Every attorney on earth wanted to know if Trump is going to jail. “Judge HITS Trump with 9 PAGES of DOOM to MUZZLE his THREATS”

 

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258148/gov.uscourts.dcd.258148.124.0.pdf

Trump might not run. But Trump chipped away the wall that hid the Republican Party’s obsession with monarchy & fascism. Accused criminal defendant Trump not running for president will not change the fascism now imbedded into the Republican Party.

We now know that Republicans can only choose a fascist for president or almost any public office.

“Authoritarians do not stir people up against establishment elites. They use or co-opt those elites. By contrast, fascists galvanize public rage at presumed (or imaginary) cultural elites to gain and maintain power.”

“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas. “Today, I add I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

How do we describe what Trump wants for America?

“Authoritarianism” isn’t adequate. It is fascism. Fascism stands for a coherent set of ideas different from – and more dangerous than – authoritarianism.

To fight those ideas, it’s necessary to be aware of what they are and how they fit together.

Borrowing from the cultural theorist Umberto Eco, the historians Emilio Gentile and Ian Kershaw, the political scientist Roger Griffin, and the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, I offer five elements that distinguish fascism from authoritarianism.

MORE AT:

The 

Guardian

Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism | Robert Reich

The Washington Post calls Donald Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian”.

Robert Reich

Sat 17 Jun 2023 06.05 EDT

That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce. Charging leakers.

Trump is an accused criminal. 

You’d think that would disqualify him but this is American democracy. Americans like criminals who fight against authority:

In the 1930s the battle of machine gun toting bank robbers like Bonnie & Clyde & John Dillinger vs the law had admirers on both sides.

"John Herbert Dillinger (/ˈdɪlɪndʒər/; June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He commanded the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer, who shot Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide.

Dillinger courted publicity. The media printed exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, and described him as a Robin Hood.[1][2][3] In response, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), used Dillinger as a rationale to evolve the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, developing more sophisticated investigative techniques as weapons against organized crime.[1]

After evading police in four states for almost a year, Dillinger was wounded and went to his father's home to recover. He returned to Chicago in July 1934 and sought refuge in a brothel owned by Ana Cumpănaș, who later informed authorities of his whereabouts. On July 22, 1934, local and federal law-enforcement officers closed in on the Biograph Theater.[4] When BOI agents moved to arrest Dillinger as he exited the theater, he tried to flee, but was shot; the deadly shot was ruled justifiable homicide.[5][6]"

From:

John Dillinger

 

 

“Every third purchase, he said, was an AR-15." The question I would ask of AR-15 buyers at gun shops in Maine is how many AR-15s do you already own? A SW Snub Nose 38 is a logical self defense weapon. An AR-15 is not a self defense weapon.

“Every third purchase, he said, was an AR-15, the gun that has become well-known for its popularity among mass shooters, ease of use and devastating capabilities.”

FROM:

The Washington Post

‘We’re seeing the fear’: Maine killings prompt spike in gun purchases

Gun stores in Maine opened for business despite a shelter-in-place order, and customers rushed to buy new weapons

Robert Klemko

Updated October 28, 2023 at 11:35 a.m. EDT|Published October 28, 2023 at 10:22 a.m. EDT

When my dad & brother lived in the house I live in now there were several SW-Snub Nose 38 pistols around the house. My brother & dad carried them. There was always a 38 in my brother’s truck. 

 

It’s a logical self defense weapon. An AR-15 is not a self defense weapon.

“Professor Metzl, for his part, said that the simplicity of the weapon that makes it a favourite of enthusiasts also makes it a preferred option for would-be mass murderers.

‘If you're trying to kill a lot of people. They're just very effective. You can fire that many bullets per second and at that velocity, it's a perfect killing machine," 

MORE AT:

BBC NEWS

AR-15: The lethal weapon at heart of US gun debate

15 April. 2023

By Bernd Debusmann Jr

BBC News, Washington

When it comes to America's vast gun culture, no weapon has become as ubiquitous - or controversial - as the AR-15, a gun that is both lauded as "America's Rifle" and vilified as the weapon of choice for mass shooters.

Thursday is Eric Trump’s day in Judge Engoron’s court. Friday is Ivanka Trump’s day in Judge Engoron’s court. And ln Judge Engoron’s court, DONALD TRUMP DISCOMBOBULATES IN A FURIOUS RAGE UNDER OATH ON MONDAY

 “Kevin Wallace of the AG's office said they plan on calling Donald Trump Jr. to the stand on Wednesday, Eric Trump on Thursday and Ivanka Trump on Friday, and then their father on Monday, Nov. 6. Wallace said the AG's office will rest their case following Trump's testimony.”

MORE AT:

Judge orders Ivanka Trump to testify in $250 million fraud case

Judge Arthur Engoron handed down the order shortly before the N.Y. attorney general's office said it planned on calling the former president to testify on Nov. 6.

Oct. 27, 2023, 11:02 AM EDT

By Dareh Gregorian and Erica Byfield

COWARDLY Ivanka IS TOAST, Judge CLOBBERS Her in Ruling:

Prosecutors CHECKMATE Trump in NY Trial, COLLAPSE IMMINENT

Paparazzi followed New York Mob Boss “Dapper Don” John Gotti. Trump & Gotti had the media in their palm. Both attracted “stick it to the man” press. Gotti used his own men to kill. Trump cajoled people who follow his orders with religious zeal to kill.

When John Gotti went down the entire Italian Mafia in the United States eventually went down. 

“John Gotti and his big mouth and his use of the media turned a secret society into a national spectacle. So, I think that If anybody is responsible for the downfall of the mob, it’s not me, it’s not the FBI, it’s not the other prosecutors, it’s John Gotti." Laura A. Ward Federal Prosecutor.

When Donald Trump goes down the entire Republican Party will go down. 

Trump’s New York buildings were built with Gotti Organization concrete with a 20% protection surcharge going to Gotti.

The Trump Organization used Michael Cohen as his consigliere to sue and threaten people and businesses. 

The primary difference between Gotti & Trump is most of Trump's threats (according to Michael Cohen) were carried out in court. 

But Gotti used murder or worse as a threat.  "Hits" of John Gotti were done by men in his Mafia organization. . Many of them by Sammy the bull Gravano. 

Once Trump became president actual murders were carried out by Trump's publicly advertised threats done in Mafia style. Trump’s “hits" are carried out by ordinary people who follow Trump's orders as though God himself told them to murder the enemies of Trump. 

"The trial was a travesty -- they could have convicted the Pope," Michael Strippoli, a 49-year-old retired jewelry salesman from Queens, said angrily outside Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where John Gotti had just been sentenced to spend the rest of life in jail.

"There is something dangerous going on in America," he said. "Look at what they got away with in the Rodney King thing. We Italians are a minority too, and we have to stand up and say this is wrong."

That anger erupted yesterday outside the courthouse in downtown Brooklyn as a chanting crowd of supporters of Mr. Gotti -- the police estimated the group at 800 to 1,000 -- rushed barricades and scuffled with the police. A handful of demonstrators, who arrived in 12 chartered buses, smashed car windows and flipped a gray Pontiac onto its hood on the sidewalk of Cadman Plaza East.

At one point, demonstrators jumped on top of the cars and pounded the roofs, yelling "Free John! Free John!"

Seven protesters were arrested and charged with felony riot counts. Eight police officers were taken to Long Island College Hospital with bruises and other minor injuries. One officer's nose was broken.

Many demonstrators called Mr. Gotti, convicted of racketeering and murder for his role as head of the Gambino crime family, a hero and a victim of a justice system run amok.

FROM:

New York Times

For Gotti's Supporters, Disbelief and Anger

June 24, 1992

Trump’s New York trials attracted a tiny number of his followers. 

"On June 23, 1992, Mafia boss John Gotti, who was nicknamed the “Teflon Don” after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. Moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, hundreds of Gotti’s supporters stormed the building and overturned and smashed cars before being forced back by police reinforcements…

Gotti rapidly expanded his criminal empire, and his family grew into the nation’s most powerful Mafia family. Despite wide publicity of his criminal activities, Gotti managed to avoid conviction several times, usually through witness intimidation. In 1990, however, he was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Paul Castellano, and Gravano agreed to testify against him in a federal district court in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.

On April 2, 1992, John Gotti was found guilty on all counts and on June 23 was sentenced to multiple life terms without the possibility of parole."

FROM:

This Day in History, 1992

Get Gotti - Trailer - Netflix

FULL MOVIE GET GOTTI:

 

Full Cast of Get Gotti: Meet the Real People In Netflix's 2023 Series

Aeron Mer Eclarinal  October 25, 2023