Thursday 13 August 2020

Final Post

To the readers of Dahn Batchelor's Opinions, it is with the greatest regret that we inform you that our father and author of this blog passed away peacefully July 17, 2020.  

He was quite delighted to share his opinions with you and posted regularly over the last 13 years. 

Those who knew him, will never forget him.  For those that only knew him from his blog, I hope he always made you think critically about the many world events and subjects he blogged about. 

Wednesday 15 July 2020



 EXECUTIONS WELL DESERVED


If you click your mouse on the Uderlined words, you will get more information.

The first federal execution in the United States for more than 17 years was set to go ahead in Indiana on last Monday  following a ruling by an appeal court. The US murderer Daniel Lewis Lee had been put to death, hours after the Supreme Court allowed the first execution of the federal inmate to proceed.

Several other executions were initially delayed when a judge ruled on Monday Luly 13th that there were still unresolved legal challenges.

The condemned prisoners had argued that lethal injections constitute "cruel and unusual punishments" 
In the United States, there are four kinds of executions. They are hangings, shootings, gassings, electrocutions and by lethal injections.   Gassings were slow and in death by lethal injections in the past if the condemned was still conscious when the other drugs did their thing.  That doesn’t happen anymore since only one drug is used. It puts the condemned into a deep sleep and while or she is in that state, the drug stops the heart from beating.


Last year, the Trump administration said it would resume federal executions.
Lee was executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, early on Monday morning.(July 13th  2020.

Daniel Lewis Lee and his accomplice were convicted of killing three members of the same family in Kansas in 1996 and threw their bodies into a nearby  lake.

Earlene Peterson, 81, whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were killed by Lee, said that she wanted the 47-year-old accomplice who was be given life in jail, to get the same sentence as Lee got. It is possible that he was offered the opportunity t0 testify against Lee  in order to have his life saved from the death penalty.

Lee’s execution was postponed in December. His s execution had been rescheduled for four in the afternoon GMT) on 13th of July, but was blocked by a ruling from District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The judge said, "The court finds that the likely harm that plaintiffs would suffer if the court does not grant injunctive relief far outweighs any potential harm to the defendants.”

Her ruling was consequently overruled by the Supreme Court, which said: "The plaintiff in this case has not made the showing required to justify last-minute intervention by a Federal Court." But the ruling means the execution by lethal injection could then  proceed.

Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts at a national level or in state courts, at a regional level.

Some of the victims' relatives oppose his execution and sought to have it delayed, saying attending it could expose them to coronavirus.   That is utter nonsense. They can wear masks and be seated apart.

The appeal court overturned a decision by a lower court that put the execution of 47-year-old Lee on hold, saying no federal statute or regulation gave the victims the right to attend the execution.

In its ruling, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said the family's claim "lacks any arguable legal basis and is therefore frivolous".

The relatives are going to appeal to the Supreme Court. It will have to act before four in the afternoon,  Monday local time (20:00 GMT) to stop the execution, the New York Times reports.

Lee, who tortured and killed a family of three before dumping their bodies in a lake, had originally been scheduled for execution in last December. His case was delayed after the courts blocked the death sentence from being carried out.

While he lay on the death gurney, hc cried out, “You are executing an innocent man.”

Earlene Peterson, 81, whose daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law were killed by Lee, has opposed the execution.
She instead says she wants Lee to be given life in jail, the same sentence as Lee's accomplice.


“She said,” , Daniel Lee damaged my life, but I can’t believe taking his life is going to change any of that.”


Lee's planned execution is one of four that had been scheduled for July and August. All four men were convicted of killing children. Killing children is a sure way to be executed in the United States,

The Trump administration said it would resume federal executions after a long hiatus last year.

In a statement at the time, Attorney General William Barr said: "Under administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals.

"The Justice Department upholds the rule of law - and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system."

The move has been criticised as a political decision, with campaigners also expressing concern about cases being rushed.

The last inmate executed by the federal death penalty was Louis Jones Jr, a 53-year-old Gulf War veteran who murdered 19-year-old soldier Tracie Joy McBride.

Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts - at a national level - or state courts, at a regional level.

Certain crimes, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level, as are cases in which the United States is a party or those which involve constitutional violations. Others can be tried in federal courts based on the severity of the crimes.

In the past, I addressed the United Nations while speaking  on the subject of the death penalty and I spoke on a national television  show and prepared a report on executions for the Canadian parliament.  I have stated that there are times when murderers should  be executed. I said that terrorists, mass and serial killers and criminals who torture their victims to death and those who kill children should be executed. I haven’t changed my mind.

In Canada, capital punishment is abolished because of the fear that innocent persons may be executed.  Many people who were convicted of murder in Canada were later declared innocent. It would have been a shame on Canada if these innocent persons were executed


Texas remains the strictest applicant of the US death penalty but its increasing reluctance to put criminals to death reflects a national trend.



Kent Whitaker supported the death penalty until his son, who arranged for a gunman to kill Mr. Whitaker and the rest of his family  resulted that his son landed on death row in Texas.


Now Mr. Whitaker, the sole survivor of the attack, is desperately seeking clemency for his son, Thomas Whitaker before his execution that is scheduled for 22 February of next year.


"The petition is based on a legal overstep that shouldn't have happened," says Mr. Whitaker. "The district attorney chose to pursue the death penalty considering that every one of the victims of  the killings  such as  Whitaker, and the  relatives of his wife who was  begging the killer  not to kill her.


It is beyond me as to why he wants to spare his son the death penalty considering that it was his son who arranged for the killer  to kill  his own mother and the other victims.


President Trump has been a staunch supporter of capital punishment and has proposed several extreme uses of it, including for selling drugs and for all murders involving state and local police officers. It was not a surprise that he would seek to have executions carried out. I think the biggest surprise is that it took as long as it did.


Selling drugs on the street doesn’t deserve the death  penalty but illegal manufacturing and shipping illicit drugs to the United States certainly does deserve the death   penalty.


Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris described the death penalty as "immoral and deeply flawed", while Bernie Sanders said he would abolish it if he is elected.


Another candidate for the Democratic nomination, Pete Buttigieg, said "race and geography" were factors in determining who was sentenced to death. If that is so, then I am  also concerned.

They are Daniel Lewis Lee, a white supremacist who was convicted in Arkansas of murdering a family of three; Lezmond Mitchell, a Native American who was convicted in Arizona of murdering a grandmother and her granddaughter; Wesley Ira Purkey, who raped and murdered a teenage girl; Alfred Bourgeois, who sexually molested and killed his young daughter; and Dustin Lee Honken, who shot five people dead.

Can anyone in his or her mind justify saving these horrible killer’s lives? Please don’t give me that religious crap that it is up to God to punish them.  Where was God when the victim’s were being killed

Mr. Barr will allow the prison authorities to use the single drug Pentobarbital in place of a three-drug procedure previously used in federal executions. The drug is a potent sedative that slows down the body, including the nervous system, to the point of death.

Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts or state courts, at a regional level. Certain crimes that apply nationally, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level. If an offence is committed against a federal entity or at a federal building or other property, then it will be tried at federal level.

Four years later, a Supreme Court decision reinstated the death penalty to a number of states and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made the death penalty available again at a federal level.


According to data collected by the Death Penalty Information Center, 78 people were sentenced to death in federal cases between 1988 and 2018 but only three have since been executed, the last one in 2003.

 There are 62 inmates currently on federal death row.

They include Dylann Roof who murdered nine people in a Charleston church in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Four years later, a Supreme Court decision reinstated the death penalty to a number of states and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made the death penalty available again at a federal level.

According to data collected by the Death Penalty Information Center, 78 people were sentenced to death in federal cases between 1988 and 2018 but only three have since been executed, the last one in 2003.

There are 62 inmates currently on federal death row.
They include Dylann Roof who murdered nine people in a Charleston church in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The five executions to be scheduled would take place at the US Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana, and additional executions would take place at a later date, the justice department said.

For more than a decade and a half, the federal death penalty was mostly an afterthought. Although there was no formal moratorium on the procedure, as there was in some states where opposition to executions has been growing, a combination of administrative inertia, protracted appeals processes, practical obstacles and the relatively few number of federal death-row inmates combined to bring about  executions to a de-facto halt.

The Trump administration now wants to change that, even if a shortage of the drugs used in lethal injections remains a significant obstacle.

The president has expressed a harsh attitude toward convicted criminals in the past, claiming that they are treated too gently and given too many opportunities to appeal against their sentences.

While a majority of Americans say they still favour the death penalty in certain instances, opinion surveys indicate that the American public is turning against capital punishment, with a particular eye toward allegations that it is frequently unjustly imposed.

of course that suggests that while the Trump administration's announcement will draw some sharp criticism from activists, it is unlikely to cause significant political waves. The Americans will just have to wait  and see.  Of course the next election may bring about a different decision.









Monday 13 July 2020



CAN WE ESCAPE BEING  SHOT?


There isn’t a day that goes by when we don’t learn of a shooting taking place somewhere in Canada and elsewhere.  


When I and my wife and two daughters lived in Etobicoke which is an administrative district and one of six municipalities amalgamated into the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, it comprised of the city's north-west  end of Toronto. Etobicoke was first settled by white Europeans in the 1790s, then the municipality grew into city status in the 20th  century.


There were two reasons why we moved out of our townhouse in our townhouse complex. It was because black families moved into our townhouse complex. They were rude, they left garbage on our pathways and didn’t  seem to want to communicate with non [black families. The non-black families began moving out of the complex and I didn’t want my family to be the only non-black family left behind. 


Now let me be clear. I am not a white racist. I married a Japanese  woman and we associate with  many non-white families including black families.


However, I don’t tolerate rudeness or violence no matter what the race of anyone is.



The second reason why I wanted to move out of our home was because there was another area to the east of us where many black families lived which is about a quarter mile  away that was at an area where there were constant shootings going on. I feared that the shooters would eventually move into our complex.


Ironically, before we moved into Malton, a black  man was shot dead at one end of our  street we were moving into. Years later, another black l man was shot dead at the other end of our street.



Malton is yet another example of a suburban area caught in the crosshairs of violent crime in the area of lower-income neighborhoods surrounding Toronto's more prosperous core. Some blame geography, arguing that gangsters from Rexdale and Brampton use Malton as a meeting ground for drug deals. Others say there aren't enough social services to keep Malton’s  kids occupied while their parents work at two jobs.


I am concerned about shootings going on in Canada. Crime statistics give many residents and politicians concerns. This year, five of the Peel Region's  24 homicides occurred and in Malton, they   were many gang-related. According to Peel police statistics, violent crimes in 21st  Division, which includes Malton and south Brampton that has  increased steadily over the past three years, second only to Brampton's 22 Division. And while Peel saw an overall decrease in violent crime between 2006 and 2007, the decline was less than Toronto experienced.



Canada has strict laws governing ownership of guns and there are consequences when those laws are violated. As I see it, the penalties are not sufficient.  In my opinion, they should be as follows:


Possession of an un-licenced  gun:  one year in prison

If the gun is loaded:  two years in prison.

Carrying a loaded gun in public:  five years in prison.

Aiming a loaded gun at someone:  ten years in prison.


Shooting a gun at someone:   fifteen years in prison.


Wounding someone with the gun: twenty years in prison.


Killing anyone by shooting a person:  twenty-five years for each person killed.


Perhaps these laws that have teeth will make living in our communities safer.

Friday 10 July 2020


DISHONEST LEADERS OF VARIOUS NATIONS

If you click your mouse over the underlned words, you will get  more information.


         It is beyond me as to me why so many world leaders are so dishonest. Their salaries should be suffice for their income. Here are the names of some of these dishonest leaders.

        
         Putin

         This dishonest Russian  has used his last decade of absolute power and wholehearted corruption to stash away a vast personal fortune estimated at more than $70 billion. A fortune that simply does not jibe with the humble, man-of-the-people, portrait Putin paints of himself. Does he pay yay taxes on that money? Give me a break.

         vLadimir Putin is currently serving his second term as the President of Russia. His first Presidential term lasted from 2000 – 2008. Putin was also Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 – 2000 and again from 2008 – 2012. In last April's financial disclosure, Putin listed his "official" Presidential salary at $187,000 (5.8 million rubles.). And his salary has gone up more than 50% since last year. where did he get all that other money?
          

         Sergei Kolesnikov said that  he worked for the Kremlin to collect money from the super-rich, which they believed was to be spent on healthcare, but which was ultimately used “to help build a $1 billion palace for Putin on the Black Sea coast,  The BBC said it had seen documents from one of the offshore companies that diverted millions of dollars to the palace, which was constructed during Putin’s first term as president.  Mr. Kolesnikov was also allegedly filmed discussing Mr. Putin’s secret fortune – investments of up to $440 million, Where did he get all that money? 


         Benjamin Netanyahu
        
This man is the Prime minister of Israel.  He  has become  the first serving Israeli prime minister  to face criminal charges as he went  on trial over corruption allegations on the  24th  of May, 2020. He lambasted Israel's justice system for bringing "fabricated and ludicrous" charges against him as he became the first serving Israeli prime minister to face criminal prosecution.
               

        
         Israel's attorney general recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and breach of trust on in a series of corruption scandals that have dogged his recent years in office and overshadowed his current re-election campaign.


         The scandals have engulfed Netanyahu's family and his inner circle, with at least three former close confidants turning state's evidence and testifying as a witness against him. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit says he has sufficient evidence to press charges against Netanyahu in three separate cases, pending a pre-indictment hearing where Netanyahu will be given the opportunity to defend himself. His political opponents, and indeed the entire country, have been eagerly awaiting the decision of Mandelblit — a Netanyahu appointee.


Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, have long been saddled with a penchant for expensive tastes and questionable use of public funds. Mrs. Netanyahu has been indicted for graft, fraud and breach of trust for allegedly overspending more than $100,000 in public funds on private meals at their official residence.

The most damaging case involves an influence-peddling scandal in which two of Netanyahu's closest aides are testifying against him on suspicion of promoting regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel's Bezeq telecom company. In return, Bezeq's popular news site, Walla, allegedly provided favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family. Nir Hefetz, a former Netanyahu family spokesman, and Shlomo Filber, the former director of the Communications Ministry under Netanyahu, cut deals with prosecutors after they were arrested along with Bezeq's controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch, his wife, son and other top Bezeq executives. Former journalists at the Walla news site have attested to being pressured to refrain from negative reporting of Netanyahu. Mandelblit said he recommends charging Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Police recommended indicting Netanyahu over accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. Police say that in return for lavish gifts that included jewelry, expensive cigars and champagne, Netanyahu had operated on Milchan's behalf on U.S. visa matters, tried to legislate a generous tax break for him and sought to promote his interests in the Israeli media market. Police have not commented on what Packer, who reportedly sought Israeli residency status for tax purposes, may have received, and Netanyahu has said everything he received were gifts from friends. Long-time aide Ari Harow who  is a state witness in this case. Mandelblit recommends charging Netanyahu with fraud and breach of trust.
Police have also recommended indicting Netanyahu for supposedly offering a newspaper publisher legislation that would weaken his paper's main rival in return for more favorable coverage. Netanyahu reportedly was recorded asking Arnon Mozes, the publisher of the Yediot Ahronot daily, for positive coverage in exchange for helping to weaken Israel Hayom, a free pro-Netanyahu newspaper that had cut into Yediot's business.

Israel Hayom is financed by Netanyahu's American billionaire friend Sheldon Adelson and largely serves as the prime minister's mouthpiece. Netanyahu has noted that a proposed law to weaken Israel Hayom never passed and that he had even dissolved his coalition and called a new election in 2015 because of his opposition to the proposal. Harow is a state witness in this case, too. Mandelblit recommends charging Netanyahu with fraud and breach of trust.

         Bair Bolsonaro 

This man is currently the president of Brazil. Sao Paulo (CNN) Brazil's highest court has authorized an investigation into allegations that President sought to interfere with police investigations. The decision ratchets up pressure on Bolsonaro, who is under fire over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and a looming economic crisis.

Some of his cabinet ministers are likely to resign after being placed under investigation in a massive corruption probe


Donald Trump

It shouldn’t be a surprise to any9ne that this political freak is dishonest The  Washington Post’s fact-checking operation has now counted 10,000 “false or misleading claims” by Donald Trump during his presidency. It’s hard to convey how big a deal this is. To begin with, te allegation is real.  Anyone can go through the Post’s data and find plenty to argue with  maybe one statement isn’t really false, another was just an exaggeration and some other one was nit-picky. But even if the fact-checkers are wrong an implausible three out of four times, that’s still 2,500 false or misleading claims by the president in two-plus years.

But is he dishonest? Ask the students who paid fees  to his  so-called University. Trump University (also known as the Trump Wealth Institute and Trump Entrepreneur Initiative LLC) was an American company that ran a real estate training program from 2005 until 2010. It was owned and operated by The Trump Organization. A separate organization, Trump Institute, was licensed by Trump University but not owned by The Trump Organization. After multiple lawsuits, it is now defunct. It was founded by Donald Trump and his associates, Michael Sexton and Jonathan Spitalny, in 2004. The company offered courses in real estate, asset management, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation. The courses were a sham.


Donald Trump and his administration did not create the worst biological threat that the world has experienced in more than 100 years, but the American president’s incompetenceignorance, and dishonesty in handling this crisis has been stunning. One hundred and twenty-seven thousand Americans are dead already, and that number will continue to rise.
        
         On Decmber. 18th, 2019, Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on two charges based on attempting to have Ukraine interfere with the U.S. presidential elections. The first charge—or article of impeachment—was abuse of power and the second was obstruction of Congress. Ah, the good old days of common presidential corruption. The Senate didn’t follow suit.
        
         Here were six pr0ven “Articles of Incompetence, Ignorance, and Dishonesty” that in many ways dwarf the corruption that led to Trump’s original impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives.

                                                                                                                     
         Trump’s lawyers and his Justice Department contended that the president didn’t have to comply with the subpoenas and could block his financial advisers from complying to the subpoenas because the requests were overly intrusive and undermined to the sweep immunity from criminal investigations any president should enjoy while in office.  The Supreme Court ruled otherwise.


        
         The Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is conducting a probe into the Trump Organization’s efforts to mask hush money paid to two women who said they had sexual encounters with Trump. The D.A. wants to explore whether, as part of those maneuvers, Trump’s team falsified business records. Trump’s lawyers argued that prosecutors like Vance should have to meet a heightened standard when seeking any president’s personal papers. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, disagreed,

        
         President Trump reminds me of the story of the king who wore no clothes but believed that he  was fully dressed.

        
         Justin Trudeau


         This man is currently the Prime Minister of Canada.  He is one of the two sons of the late Pierre Trudeau who was a former prime minister in the latter part of the 1970s and the earlier part of the   1980s.

        
Trudeau is already facing serious ethics problems by blurring the line between the public interest and his personal profit. Apparently he doesn’t even care what the voters think about his misdeeds.


Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being investigated for the third time by the ethics commissioner.



Mario Dion, the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, confirmed recently confirmed that  he has accepted a complaint by Tory MP Michael Barrett and will look into concerns alleging Trudeau broke the Conflict of Interest Act when the government awarded WE Charity a sole-sourced contract that did not follow the normal contracting process. The Commissioner has launched his investigation into Justin Trudeau's involvement in awarding the 900million dollar contract to charity with close ties to his family and the his  Liberal Party.


In a ruling posted on the website of the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson said that her investigation into two complaints about the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau breaking  multiple federal ethics rules when he accepted a ride on the Aga Khan’s private helicopter and stayed on his private island over the holidays in 2016, The ethics commissioner has ruled.trip to the found that Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act when he and his family accepted the trip. But she also dismissed several of the specific violations brought within those complaints. Essentially, the ruling boils down to two core issues: whether Trudeau’s acceptance of the trip put him in a conflict of interest because the Aga Khan has ongoing business ties with the government, and also whether he broke the rules around when cabinet officials and members of the House of Commons can accept rides on private transportation.
        
        
         This article deals with some of the current leaders of nations who are dishonest. The next article will be about the dishonesty of past despots  of nations.