Friday, July 8, 2011

Texas, lead on.

JULY 8, 2011
BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND
The news as I see it and the views as I want them.
July 8 is … Video Games Day

And, speaking of video games, Johnny Depp, who has pocketed $35 million dollars as his cut of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies has decided to do a fifth one. Wonder what the rea$on is? Mr. Depp will have to wait a little while before doing that movie. He is currently involved in the filming of a Lone Ranger movie in which he plays Tonto.

I was off on the Casey Anthony sentencing by six days. She was sentenced to one year in prison on each of the four convictions, to be served consecutively; meaning she serves one and then the other. She was given credit for 1,043 days served in jail, reducing her time until July 13, 2011, at which time she will be released from jail/prison. She was also fined $4,000.00. Let the media feeding frenzy begin. It has been estimated her first interview will get her close to one million dollars. Many parents may think of killing a child for a million bucks.

The Supreme Court ruled Texas could execute a convicted rapist and murderer regardless of President Obama’s work to prevent it. Texas executed the criminal, who had raped the sixteen year-old with a tree branch either before or after killing her, by lethal injection Thursday night. Obama may think twice before criticizing the Supremes in front of them and the nation again.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan a man killed seven people in two locations and after a police chase, the former prison inmate did probably the only good thing he did in his life, he killed himself. Thank God for small miracles.

Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, somebody has to work hard and quickly to stop the hacking that has been exploding in recent months. It is not the small-time or individual user using the internet that we should be concerned with. Several banks and credit card companies have been hacked recently. They all have issued the same initial lie, saying cutomer information was not compromised or at risk. Within three weeks the truth comes out. FOX News was hacked. NBC was hacked. The CIA was hacked. The Department of Defense was hacked. Now President Obama’s campaign has been hacked and of course they deny it. If someone within the organization scheduled events for “Commy Obama” they need to screen their hires more closely.

If the hacking continues, it is going to drive people away from the internet and online monetary transactions. That would be a shame but constantly being told of hacking jobs and I am sure the public only hears about twenty per cent of the real hacks is a shame also. Big business lies to the citizens, politicians lie to the citizens and our government lies to its citizens. Enough is enough. I will just pay in cash. Once I have a receipt it is hard to lie about it.

I wrote about this story several months ago. It is still big news in Liberty and Cleveland Texas. Now, as before, the race card is taking center stage. More than a dozen men accused of taking part in a series of sexual assaults on an 11-year-old girl are expected in court Wednesday, July 8, 2011 in a case that has divided and horrified their southeast Texas town.

The 14 men, who along with five juvenile boys are facing charges, are scheduled to be in a state district courtroom in Liberty for status updates. The investigation began in December, after one of the girl's friends told a teacher he had seen a lurid cell phone video that showed the girl being raped in an abandoned trailer. Authorities say the girl was assaulted on at least five occasions, sometimes by as many as seven or eight young men or boys at a time, from mid-September to early December in Cleveland, a small city about 45 miles northeast of Houston. The suspects range in age from a middle-school student to a 27-year-old, and include two star athletes at the local high school as well as adults with criminal records.

Most of the adult suspects face charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, while four face a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child. Most have pleaded not guilty and are free on bond, while one, 26-year-old Marcus Porchia, was charged after his arrest with sexually assaulting another girl in an unrelated case. If I were a Co-Defendant I would ask for a severance of that guys case right away.

The case shined a sometimes unflattering spotlight on Cleveland after some in the town of about 9,000 residents suggested the girl was culpable in part for what happened, claiming she wore makeup and looked older. Some also accused her parents, immigrants from Mexico, of not watching her more closely. Those suggestions were sharply criticized by many Cleveland residents and by community and religious groups outside the city. Also complicating the case was a belief by many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black, while the girl is Hispanic.

The girl, now 12, remains in foster care as her parents, who have health problems and moved out of Cleveland after receiving threatening phone calls, work with state child welfare authorities to get her back. A gag order is preventing those connected to the case from commenting. Authorities began investigating after the girl's friend told a teacher he had seen a video that had been passed around among classmates that showed the girl being attacked. Police determined it was recorded inside a mobile home on the city's northern outskirts.

Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too.
BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2011

VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.
Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book should be available later this year, in late 2011. More information will be forthcoming.

www.ebookmall.com (Do search by my name or book Title)
www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)
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Book Titles:

Holmes the Ripper

A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction

"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts." - Charles Darwin