Yesterday, Dwayne Riley of Palm Beach pled guilty to attempted robbery of illusionist David Copperfield. The defendant is the second of three to plead guilty. The formal charges were two counts of robbery for money taken at gunpoint from the magician's two assistants.
In addition, the teenager pleaded guilty on Monday to a single count of attempted robbery of the famed entertainer -- nothing was actually taken from David Copperfield, who credited his magical prowess for making it seem as if he had nothing in his pants (even though there was a wallet, passport and cellphone on his person)
Copperfield, 50, turned both his pockets inside out to indicate he apparently possessed nothing. Earlier that evening, he finished a Kravis Center exhibition and was returning to the tour bus with the female assistants when the crimes were committed.
Copperfield's second helper fared worse losing $100, her cell phone, and 200 Euros -- worth an undisclosed amount. The observant and quick-thinking performer saw the air gun and managed to retain his phone, which aided in the capture of the three defendants just 10 minutes later.
The charges against the last defendant, Markeith Jones, are pending. As part of the plea deal, Dwayne Riley will testify against Jones if there is a trial. He was sentenced to time already served plus two years of probation for driving the getaway vehicle, according to prosecutor Sherri Collins.
The minor had only recently moved to Florida where he met his guilty half-brother, and will be returning to native Kentucky to serve out his probation period. Re-enactment videos of this breaking story and amazing feat will undoubtedly be showing up soon on YouTube and Copperfield.net
I am hard pressed to come up with anyone in American History (or World History for that matter) who has a bigger head than Newt Gingrich. Subjectively all one has to do is listen to him pontificate upon himself for 30 seconds, while objectively remembering that his high school football coach could not find a helmet big enough for him until one was specially made in Chicago and shipped down to Georgia. It is now being used as a hot tub for the Atlanta Falcons.
The old news is his own party tossed Newt out of his job as Speaker of the House for various ethical and personal reasons that gave hypocrisy a bad name. They also gave him the boot because in just two years he managed to gain the lowest approval rating of any Speaker in American history at 28%, the same number he holds today. Newt is consistent. Of course Fox News had pity on the poor fellow and picked him up as a commentator so he wouldn’t end up picking cotton in Lowdown Hollar, GA.
I am not quite clear why the media gave him his own news cycle this Sunday, but it must be important. Perhaps he and Billy “Jackboot” Bennett ate someone and they want to brag about it on TV. Then I figured it was more about his most recent book, Rediscovering God in America, than conservative cannibalism. Catchy title that! What more does one need to sell a book in the US of DUH than having the words GOD and AMERICA as half the title? The new book was not mentioned in the interviews, but his older book from 2005 sure was! Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, which is the backbone of Newt’s new Lobby/PAC, Winning the Future. The book and the organization can be summed up by it’s DO LIST:
First and foremost, Gingrich wants to tear down any real or perceived constitutional separation of church and state, by replacing our present judiciary with a new and better one who accept God as the centerpiece of American culture, politics and government.
Secondly Newt wants to personally rewrite the First Amendment more to his liking. This mostly concerns political and religious websites he doesn’t like and wants the government to ban.
Thirdly, he wants to personally rewrite the Geneva Convention rules to reduce human rights of prisoners and do more torturing.
Not to forget his idea of totally privatizing Social Security and Health Care.
Newt is singularly rabid on wanting to destroy public television, public radio and public education by handing it over to religious indoctrination.
And last but not least, Gingrich is very HOT on eliminating all regulations concerning election finance laws and removing the tax burden from corporations and the wealthy.
With all these fine revolutionary ideas, Newt is running fourth in the GOP presidential pool, and taking the top slot in some Southern states. We like him down here, he is insane, and we like that in our leaders.
Mr Gingrich made sure we understand he is not wasting his time running for president, he is after larger things: He has been called to change the world in His own image. Though he does say that he if he is drafted into the candidacy he would not refuse.
On the bright side, perhaps the media is savvy enough that it may have given him this little news cycle as a reminder to all of us (in his own words) of just what a creepy hypocritical megalomaniac Newt Gingrich is.
People have a bad taste in their mouth about impeachment these days. In our lifetime we have had two. The first concerned covering up a bungled little burglary and the President resigned before the impeachment began, and the other for lying about a BJ.
In comparison, our present President and Vice President have told thousands of lies about the reasons they went to war which has caused the deaths of 3000 Americans (more than 911) and about 60,000 civilians. They have usurped the constitution by listening in to our phone calls, took away the most basic right of Habeas Corpus and voided the Geneva Convention so they could torture people. All far far more serious than BJs or Burgling.
So with impeachment out of the question because we just don’t like it anymore, perhaps a little of their own medicine is in order. Arrest them without cause, send them down to Guantanamo Bay in orange jump suits where they can sit in their underwear with a Bible and go water boarding each day. Then after a few years, quietly ship them off to Shitkickistan to be disappeared.
The big issue this week from the Right-wing media is the removal of nine Christmas trees from the Seattle airport. Just like the evil little penguins the week before, they were successful in getting the mainstream media to pick it up with videos of the actual dismantling and flashes of the evil Rabbi who instigated it all with his request asking that a Menorah also be presented.
You think the people in Seattle care if there is a Menorah in their airport? Of course not. And the Rabbi only asked. But the Seattle port authority legal team rightly found that it meant not only could a Menorah go up, but also Vishnu on an elephant, Buddha under an unChristmas tree, and above all, it would allow a representation of Islam declaring Allah is Great.
Holy Shit! Imagine that! They would have to call back the 101st Airborne from Iraq just to guard it from being defaced, burned, and bombed by the followers of Jesus Christ.
You remember Jesus Christ? The Prince of Peace and Lord of Love? I can’t recall that version of Christ in our culture any longer either. He has somehow become the God of tax breaks for the wealthy, supply side economics, destruction of social programs for the least of us, hater of gays, birth control, sex education, abortion, liberals, an advocate of executions, war, torture and of course, a life member in the NRA. Our American Talibanies have so corrupted Christ and Christianity that I would guess sooner or later some brave soul will have the balls to express it by putting his image a jar of pee. And then we could put that in every airport all year round.
“God is dead.” That was Bubba’s eulogy when we had him over for dinner the other night. After his third wife left him, he hasn’t been eating well and Flower has been having him over often.
“You mean Freidman, Bubba?”
“Of course, the God of Economics. What a sad day, we will never be the same.”
“You mean like 911?”
“Worse.”
“Worse than 911? Wow Bubba.”
“Friedman was behind Reganomics which changed America!”
“Indeed it did Bubba, it tripled our national debt in eight years, which has caused each of us to pay 20% of our tax bill on Friedman’s bad idea. It created higher poverty among children, reduced wages and was the precursor of moving tens of millions of jobs offshore. Bill Clinton jumped the Friedman ship, eliminated the deficit, and was witling down the debt when George began the Friedman thing again and tripled the deficit and doubled the debt again! What’s good about that?”
“My taxes went down! Friedman wanted to initiate a fixed overall tax rate at 10% instead of the 50% it is now.”
It isn’t 50% Bubba, its 30%, the lowest in the world. Federal taxes are about 10% of our income.”
“That’s a lie! I work until October paying off the federal government!”
“Come on Bubba.”
“I suppose you got that bogus information from that computer of yours.”
“Indeed, in fact it was from who I would guess you consider the Son of God. “Our overall average individual federal tax rate is about 10%.” Rush Limbaugh.
“Never happened!”
"I heard him say it Bubba. And then I looked it up and printed it. Here it is.” I handed it over. I carry it, along with my THIS MAN HAS SWALLOWED HIS NOSE cartoon around with me. “But that’s neither here nor there, thing is Bubba, everyone in America in the early Spring puts their gross income on the top line of a form and their taxes owed on the bottom line. All they have to do is divide the top line by the bottom line and out comes the answer, about 10%. Year after year after year they see it right in their hand. So everyone knows this 50% tax rate you and the Right-wing media push ad nausem is crap. Everyone knows it. So just give it up.”
"The best economy in Latin America is in Chile, where Alfonso Pinochet, a student and friend of Friedman’s enacted all of his economic policies!"
"Well Bubba, I will give you that as the last word. Friedman, the father of murdering totalitarian economics!"
I wonder if this brouhaha is a sample of where conservative talk is going since the election. Into Telly Tubby mode. Gee, I hope so.
I noticed a few telling tales in all this. First the list of the conservative propagandists in moving their crap into mainstream attention has grown. It is not just Limbaugh and Hannity any longer, it now includes Michael Medved, Bill O’Reilly, Neil Caputo, Glen Beck and all of Fox News. A well rounded GOP propaganda machine with radio now taking a back seat to television.
The issue itself is hard to phantom. Especially in regard to Medved who has been driven to the edge of insanity over this movie. How could anyone get so angry to make clowns of themselves condemning an animated movie that tells children its best we stop crapping in our own nest. I mean, even real animals know that. Are these creeps all paid by the Oil, Timber and Fishery industries? Yes they are, through the advertising that supports them. Do they believe global warning is a lie concocted by liberal socialists to destroy capitalism? Yes they do! Are they so shallow that they can’t look forward far enough to see what environmental degradation will cause generations to come? Yes, they are! Or is it just that they hate liberals so much that they would rather see the world come to an end than admit a liberal cause is correct. Damn right they would.
Listen to them for a few minutes on the radio, its what they are most about. If you are not sure, or have lost track as to just how horrible they are, next time you are in the car give it a listen. Every time they use the terms Liberal, liberal Democrat, Marxist liberal, Democrat Socialists or Hollywood elitists, substitute the words JEW or JUDEN. And there you have it. Just as they have always been throughout all of history.
And to add insult to injury, that very same group of reactionary pissants have created a news cycle decrying propaganda in an hour and a half movie, while they do nothing other than push their own propaganda 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through the very air we breath.
If anyone could be said to be the father of the Libertarian Party, it would be Milton Friedman. Many men have had many bad ideas, but few have had the opportunity of putting them to such universal use.
Father of supply side economics, Friedman is responsible for each of us paying 20% of our federal tax bill for interest on the Reagan and Bush debt. Friedman’s philosophy puts the bill for greed now – pay later on the backs of our children and grandchildren.
While the rest of the civilized world has an overall average tax of about 40%, we have the lowest at 30% (we are the least taxed nation who complains the most), which Friedman has said should be fixed below 10%. One can well imagine the chaos and ponder how we would deal with it. The answer is quite simple, just follow the man’s overall philosophy; bigger guns and more methamphetamines. How cool is that? Where do I sign up! Here’s a place to begin: http://freerepublic.com
He is also most responsible for creating our all-volunteer Army. During the Vietnam War the officer corps was about 65% Republicans with the enlisted personal at about 55%. Today 96% of officers and 70% of enlisted men are beholden to the GOP. If the mathematical projection holds, in less than ten years both will settle in at 99%.
If we still had the draft we would not be in Iraq now. Our decision makers would not want Senator’s Sons and President’s daughters chancing into flag draped coffins. The streets would be pounding with less connected draft age sons and daughters burning draft cards and chanting Hell No We Won't Go. And this war would not now be fought primarily by weekend warriors from Walmartville, USA.
Friedman is also one of the central figures in destroying the public school system through vouchers. To not only further racial and class segregation, but to hand over the education of our children to our American Taliban.
There is nothing good about this guy atall other than he is dead.
I am hard pressed to come up with anyone in American History (or World History for that matter) who has a bigger head than Newt Gingrich. Subjectively all one has to do is listen to him pontificate upon himself for 30 seconds, while objectively remembering that his high school football coach could not find a helmet big enough for him until one was specially made in Chicago and shipped down to Georgia. It is now being used as a hot tub for the Atlanta Falcons.
People have a bad taste in their mouth about impeachment these days. In our lifetime we have had two. The first concerned covering up a bungled little burglary and the President resigned before the impeachment began, and the other for lying about a BJ. 
“God is dead.” That was Bubba’s eulogy when we had him over for dinner the other night. After his third wife left him, he hasn’t been eating well and Flower has been having him over often. 
If anyone could be said to be the father of the Libertarian Party, it would be Milton Friedman. Many men have had many bad ideas, but few have had the opportunity of putting them to such universal use. 
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