Monthly Archives: October 2009

This is Why I Hate Pajamas Media

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Earlier today I got a story from Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs, who got it from Denis Keohane at American Thinker who was writing about something he saw on, you guessed it, Pajamas Media. Long time readers will notice that I have very rarely linked to the brainchild of noted liar Charles Johnson and Roger Simon and this incident reinforces my views. Pajamas Media remained on the sidelines while Charles Johnson single handedly smothered the online counter-jihad movement in its crib starting with his attacks on Gates of Vienna and most recently with his racism set up of Hot Air.

But even then I assumed the information provided by PJ blogger Michael Ledeen was accurate and had been verified which was simply laziness on my part. Partly this was due to my respect for Ledeen’s work with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, but that doesn’t excuse the mistake. I apologize to readers for posting erroneous information and my lapse in judgment for not being skeptical of PJ when it counted. I should have known better.

Victimless Crime File: Mortgage Fraud Ring Used Homes for Pot Growing Operation

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Legalization advocates claim that a legal pot market would be a magical thing. Criminal drug dealers would fade away in vampiric agony at the sight of this Libertarian sunrise which would usher in a new dawn of responsible drug use. But in California where there is a legal pot market (the “medical” marijuana industry) organized crime has been taking advantage the legal market and committing other crimes to do so. This is the latest example:

 Federal prosecutors announced 18 indictments Thursday in a pot cultivation and mortgage fraud scheme that purchased homes in Elk Grove and Sacramento and converted them into bustling “grow houses” for tens of thousands of marijuana plants.

Nine people are in custody. Authorities are searching for other indicted suspects who may have fled from the Bay Area to China.

The individuals were charged with orchestrating bogus real estate transactions to buy 51 houses in the Central Valley, then establish indoor pot-growing operations using sophisticated lighting and irrigation and stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of electricity.

“They came into our cookie-cutter residential neighborhoods and created cookie-cutter marijuana factories,” said Gordon Taylor, assistant special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Sacramento.

The indictments stemmed from the discovery of massive indoor growing operations in 2006 and 2007 in Elk Grove, Sacramento, Stockton, Lathrop, Tracy, Modesto and the Alameda County town of Mountain House.

Three people were indicted on charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, in connection with pot operations at 15 houses in Elk Grove and six in Sacramento.

One suspect in the local grows, Guo Ying “Ivan” Lu, 29, of Milpitas is in custody. Two others, Siming Zhu, 32, and Dennis Hou Huan Yang, 28, both of San Francisco, remain at large.

This crop of indictments follows 17 previous actions in the pot-growing case. Fifteen people pleaded guilty in those earlier indictments and two fled after authorities seized 24,200 marijuana plants from the indoor growing operations. The high-grade pot was worth $96 million and its potency “was the highest we’ve ever seen in this area,” Taylor said.

With the new sealed indictments, authorities said they climbed the ladder of an intricate organized crime operation based in San Francisco.

One of the newly indicted suspects being sought in the case, Dickson Wing Kei Hung, 35, is a real estate agent from San Francisco. He was indicted on charges of marijuana conspiracy and mail fraud for allegedly setting up phony mortgage loans to buy houses for the operations.

Sacramento U.S. Attorney Larry Brown said the scheme began to unravel in late 2006 when neighbors started noticing unkempt lawns and strange activity at houses where no one was living.

[…]

He said Hung and associates recruited “individuals with good credit ratings” to sign mortgage loan applications for homes they never intended to occupy. But he said the loan applications were augmented with bogus employment and exaggerated salary information.

He said some buyers “knew they were being used to grow marijuana. But others had no idea.” None of the people who posed as buyers have been charged to date, O’Briant said.

Many of the grow houses were rigged to steal electricity and at least 52 of the houses are already in foreclosure.What do you medical marijuana users say to that?

Via the Hot Air headlines, where the air is full of pot smoke

Victimless Crime File: Was Drug Use a Factor in the Haleigh Cummings Disappearance?

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It’s sure starting to look that way now, as Misty Croslin just made the news yet again, this time for getting robbed in a drug deal gone wrong. Via Shadowscope here’s Misty’s 911 call. Listen to the end; it’s pretty clear that she was waiting in the car while her friend bought drugs:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2skmuKEwVM[/youtube]

The St. Augustine Record reports the events this way:

The trouble-plagued teenager who was the last known person to see Haleigh Cummings alive was robbed and injured Monday night during a drug deal gone bad, according to the Palatka Police Department.

Misty Croslin, whose seven-month marriage to the missing girl’s father ended Thursday, was named as one of three young women who tried, and failed, to buy drugs at the Ragsdale Apartment Complex, police reported.

Croslin, 17, accompanied by Brandy Steedley, 18, and Melinda Santmyer, 22, went to the apartments on Moody Road in Palatka around 8:15 p.m. Monday, according to the report.

Two or three unidentified black males approached their car and reportedly grabbed Croslin and stole her purse.

She managed to get into the car, and Steedley drove away — leaving Santmyer behind to flee on foot, police said.

Investigating officers reportedly interviewed Santmyer at an apartment in the complex.

“She told officers that they came to the apartment complex attempting to buy drugs,” according to the police department report. “She stated that she got out of the car to look for an unidentified man they gave money to for drugs.

“As she was going back to the vehicle the unidentified suspects came up to them” and stole Croslin’s purse.

Croslin’s attorney, Robert Fields, with the Palatka firm of Dowda & Fields, said he believes his client’s cell phone also was taken.

Fields said he only talked briefly with Croslin on Tuesday afternoon, and she had little information to give him about the incident.

You may recall that Misty, who remains a person of interest in the disappearance of Haleigh Cummings, just had another run in with the law when she and former(?) EquuSearch volunteer Donna Brock were briefly detained in a road rage incident when Brock, who had befriended the teen, was accused by another driver of threatening her with a gun. Brock was informing on Misty the whole time.

Misty’s mother Lisa was a fugitive from justice who was arrested for check fraud, and as pictures of the woman attest to a chronic drug user. At 40 Lisa Croslin looks like a 70-year-old. Misty at one point took out a restraining order on her brother and in general Croslin has publicly showed the world the chaos that drug use causes.

It is likely that chaos was at the root of Haleigh Cummings’ disappearance. Misty Croslin basically claims she slept through someone abducting the child. Most people simply don’t believe her but frankly when you look at her behavior it’s very possible she slept through an abduction. Marijuana smokers have been known to sleep heavily. In one case that I blogged about a woman high on marijuana accidentally crushed her baby to death while sleeping with the infant. Oxycontin abusers often sleep heavily, and I’ve witnessed heroin users fall asleep mid sentence and have no idea what was going on around them.

Misty’s drug use also, as her most recent misadventure indicates, puts her into contact with dangerous people. If Haleigh was abducted it was likely by someone Misty knows, a dealer or user she let in her house and was there while she passed out.

Even while being suspected by police (and the world) of being involved in the disappearance of a child Misty Croslin cannot keep herself clean. Her addictions, whatever they are, are out of control and it would be prudent for police and investigators to focus their attention on the drug culture she was involved in if they want to find out what happened to Haleigh Cummings.

Felon on Parole Gunned Down Adopted Sister He Was Raping and He Might Get Away With It!

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The police are angry at the prosecutors’ decision, who to be fair have a hard case in front of them, but clearly Royce Mitchell should be standing trial for statutory rape, kidnapping and murder but the prosecutors are bowing to pressure put on them by the community. As an aside, read through the comments on any story about this case, then tell the commenters I said thanks for making us look good. They’ll know what it means.

from the Charlotte Observer:

Royce Mitchell was pressuring 15-year-old Tiffany Wright to end her late-term pregnancy – even taking her to an abortion clinic – according to new court documents that may shed light on why police say Mitchell should be prosecuted for statutory rape.

The documents, released Tuesday, say Mitchell took Tiffany – his adopted sister – to a Charlotte abortion clinic in July, but she was turned away because she was too far along at 21 weeks. So Mitchell planned a trip to an Atlanta clinic within days where Tiffany’s pregnancy could be terminated.

Tiffany was eight-months pregnant when she was gunned down on Sept. 14 as she waited for her school bus. Doctors delivered her baby girl, but the infant later died.

Police call Mitchell, 36, a “person of interest” in the homicide, but they haven’t charged him. Mitchell was jailed on charges of statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with a minor.

But those charges were dropped last week by prosecutors, after a DNA test showed Mitchell was not the father of the baby. Without Tiffany alive to testify about any sexual encounters, prosecutors said the case lacked enough evidence to prosecute.

The move angered police, who released a statement critical of the decision. The statement said police believe there is “probable cause” based on “evidence gathered” to prosecute Mitchell on the sex charges – even without DNA evidence to prove that they had sex at least once.

The new information today comes from two affidavits asking a judge for search warrants of Mitchell’s home and an apartment.

The affidavits say Tiffany’s foster parents reported that Mitchell picked Tiffany up on July 20 about 10:30 p.m. “to take her to visit a dying relative.” Tiffany later reported she was really being held against her will by Mitchell and an unknown female “as they attempted to convince Tiffany to engage in an abortion by non-medical personnel,” the affidavits say.

A tough sell in Charlotte given the support we Black folk like to throw around for any “brother” who deserves to be in jail, but that doesn’t mean prosecutors shouldn’t make the effort in honor of the victim. But the prosecution can’t be faulted for thinking that, given public support for this child raping animal, hitting him for parole violations while seeing if they can work up something else is the best strategy for a win.

It is disgusting that they maybe right, and high time Black folk start taking back their community from the dealers and pimps who have become elevated to hero status in the inner cities.

“Witches” Stripped, Beaten and Sexually Humiliated in Muslim Town in India

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The BBC studiously ignores the fact that this is a crime perpetrated (yet again) by the Religion of Peace whose adherents routinely burn and execute “witches” in any country they control including the supposedly civilized Saudi Arabia. Instead “Indians” in general are blamed for what is clearly some local imam Islaming his way out of a paternity suit or something:

Five women were paraded naked, beaten and forced to eat human excrement by villagers after being branded as witches in India’s Jharkhand state.

Local police said the victims were Muslim widows who had been labelled as witches by a local cleric.

The incident occurred on Sunday in a remote village in Deoghar district.

[…]

They have lodged a case against 11 villagers, including six women. Four people have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Armed police have since been deployed to the area.

“On Sunday morning the victims were taken to a playground where hundreds had assembled to watch the ghastly incident,” deputy inspector general of police Murari Lal Meena told the BBC.

“No one in the mob came forward to rescue the victims as they were being stripped and beaten up,” he said.

The victims are now under police protection.

Sounds like Islam to me, though to be fair the area of India where this has happened is also suffering a Naxalite/Maoist insurgency and we shouldn’t underestimate the influence of a bloodthirsty hate cult like Communism on these incidents.  But frankly this has a whiff of the Matthew Hopkins about it:

Hundreds of people, mostly women, have been killed in India because their neighbours thought they were witches.

Experts say superstitious beliefs are behind some of these attacks, but there are occasions when people – especially widows – are targeted for their land and property.

Since Islam is a religion designed around the tradition of booty taking I can’t say I’m surprised by this. I am still somewhat surprised by the deafening silence of the American neo-pagan movement, but not enough to actually make a big deal out of it given its leftward tilt.