WILL DEREK CHAUVIN WIN HIS APPEAL?

                 By BILL JUNEAU

                                 Despite the grimaces of the progressive and biased  media and the liberal left wing shadow of Joe Biden hanging over Washington, the door is still ajar on Derek Chauvin and the case against him.  Behind bars in a maximum level prison in Minnesota, the ex-policeman  contends that he is not guilty of the murder and manslaughter of George Floyd, and that the jury erred in its findings.  

                                          With new defense counsel William Mohrman at his side, Chauvin, 45, is drafting his appeal and asks that it be assessed fairly by judges not captured and influenced by those who strap Floyd's arrest to racial animus; and who may feel a need to find the defendant guilty lest a different determination would ignite a new surge of anarchy, violence and street unrest. 

                                          In the minds of many lawyers, evidence supporting a favorable decision for the veteran policeman or, at the minimum, for a new trial, is strong. Respected as a skilled appellate lawyer, Mohrman is a partner with the Minneapolis firm, Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson.

                                           Appeal briefs containing the complete trial transcript are being filed with the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and if unsuccessful, with the Minnesota Supreme court. If the state courts reject the appeal, it will very likely, because of many constitutional questions raised, go to the federal courts.  Ultimately, Chauvin's appeal may be decided and put to rest by the U. S. Supreme court and its nine justices. The appellate process is arduous and costly, and could take years. 

                                             Floyd, 46, was a heroin addict and a hardened  criminal with a long police record.  He had served five years in a prison for a home invasion at which time he jammed the barrel of his loaded pistol into the swollen  abdomen of a pregnant woman and demanded money--or else.  His many other arrests and convictions for the most part involved some form of thievery. 

                                            Was the Chauvin trial fair as is promised to all criminal defendants under the U.S. Constitution?  Consider that the Minneapolis courthouse where the trial was held was transformed into a fortress surrounded by coiled wire, and jurors and spectators entered via a single path leading to the front door.  The surrounding neighborhood rang with racial tension triggered by violence, looting and the arson of autos, stores and even a police station. The Floyd protests caused many millions of dollars in damage to residences, businesses and other structures.  

                                           A "George Floyd Square" with signs and tributes to the alleged police victim, was set up at an intersection down the street from the courthouse, and jurors and spectators, eyed it daily as they came and left the courthouse. 

                                             As jurors were being selected, the city of Minneapolis announced that it was awarding $27 million to the Floyd family as damages for the death.  As the trial moved forward,  U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters made a public declaration that if the defendant is not found guilty of murder there will be retaliation, and "we will get confrontational."  Did the jurors hear of that huge award, and the Maxine Waters threat, and the constant drum beat that all cops are racists and white supremacists  out to kill blacks?  Very likely, jurors became aware of the huge award, and what effect did that have on their decisions? 

                                              On at least three occasions, Chauvin's attorney at the trial, Eric Nelson, petitioned Judge Cahill to  approve a change in venue from Hennepin to another county or to declare a mistrial for a variety of reasons, but Cahill remained consistent in his refusals. 

                                              After jury deliberations and a finding of guilt, it was revealed that one of the jurors, Brandon Mitchell, a 31-year-old high school basketball coach, had participated in a "justice" for Floyd rally in August of 2020.  In photos, Mitchell was seen wearing a BLM (Black Lives Matter) hat, and a tee shirt inscribed with the words, "Get your knee off our necks." 

                                             During the voir dire of potential jurors, Mitchell answered "no" when asked if he had participated in protests on behalf of "justice" for George Floyd. Did Mitchell's dishonesty constitute jury misconduct?  Was he impartial? The jury was tainted, asserts Defendant Chauvin, and a fair trial in Minneapolis was impossible. 

                                            In the days prior to the trial, Harvard Law School Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz, an expert in criminal law, said that in his judgment,  there was no way that Officer Chauvin could ever receive a fair trial in Minneapolis where the adverse publicity was overwhelming. Was he right?

                                            Last June 25, following the conviction for unintended murder and manslaughter, Circuit Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Chauvin to 22.5 years in a penitentiary  Pursuant to state guidelines, a sentence of 12.5 years is the recommended penalty for those crimes.  Judge Cahill tacked on 10 additional years explaining that he determined that Chauvin had been "unnecessarily cruel" to Floyd.  Although the judge has discretion in sentencing, was the enhanced sentence an emotional response to the screams that white policemen are racist killers   

                                            Chauvin's lawyers have said that the trial was punctuated with so many errors  by Judge Cahill that the verdict cannot stand. Also key among them, was Cahill's refusal to allow defense attorneys to force testimony from uncooperative Morries Lester Hall, a friend and a  companion who was with Floyd on the evening of the arrest.  Reportedly, Hall's testimony under oath would reinforce the defense contention that the six-feet, five inch powerfully built Floyd was wildly out-of-control and that Chauvin acted professionally in controlling him.   

                                            On the evening of his arrest, Floyd was high on drugs.  His body was pumped full of a fatal amount of fentanyl and methamphetamine. He gulped some pills, muttered incoherently about wanting "mama" and that "I can't breathe."  He had a sick heart and his main arteries were severely blocked.  This according to some physicians and his lawyers, was the most likely cause of his death, and it was not the knee on his neck by the defendant police officer who was doing what police are taught to do during training when taking down unruly addicts and out-of-control suspects. 

                                           Contentions that he died as a result of the police detainment are opinions highlighted with emotional emphasis that Floyd was black and Chauvin was a white police officer  and that policemen are "systemically racist."  One physician testified that Floyd had ingested an amount of fentanyl which would be fatal to  virtually anyone. 

                                           In America, criminal defendants are accorded a presumption of innocence, and that presumption stays with the defendant during the trial by a judge or jury. President Biden said while the jury was deliberating that Chauvin was guilty and that the police departments are systemically racist, and police are killing black men all too often. With few exceptions, the media condemned Chauvin as a racist murderer long before the trial even began.  

                                          Chauvin's appeal is now in the hands of judges who have promised to be fair to their oath of office, and to make judgments based upon the law as applicable to the facts. There must be no pandering to the will of mobs which assert that Floyd was murdered by a "cruel" black-hating, white supremacist cop.  Chauvin was a policeman for 18 years and had a good record.  Examine the facts with an open mind, and recognize that the police officer is not a murderer, defense attorney Mohrman asserts.  

                                                  XXX

                                                     

                                   

TRUMP'S WALL AND BIDEN'S INTERFERENCE

 

                By BILL JUNEAU 

                                             When Donald Trump was a candidate for President in 2015 and 2016, he promised that America would build an impregnable wall along the southern border with Mexico.  Illegal immigration, he said, was out of hand, and gate crashing aliens  included hardened criminals, drug pushers and users.   

                                             Trump favored immigration into America, he said, but cautioned that it is imperative that immigrants must enter the USA legally and on merit.  A country without borders  isn't a country.

                                              President Trump was on the same page as former Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower who welcomed legal immigrants into the USA.  Roosevelt  called upon immigrants  to come into the USA in accord with the rules;  and once here, to assimilate, speak English and respect the American Flag. 

                                              Americans in great numbers applauded Trump's  promise of a wall in key sections along the 1,900 mile southern border with Mexico. Following his election and swearing in, the new President and his administration began working to fulfill the commitment. Despite strong opposition from liberal non-thinkers who resented Trump's election over the disingenuous Democratic candidate,  Hillary Clinton,  the wall  construction commenced and the President petitioned and shifted funds from one account to another, but eventually found the necessary money to meet the costs of construction of 500 miles of the wall in those areas where barriers were most necessary.  With the wall, and border patrol agents and oversight, immigration problems were, under President Trump, brought under control. 

                                              Trump had predicted many times, but never promised as has been alleged, that Mexico would pay for the wall, but that did not happen.  The administration, however,   readjusted tariffs on Mexican goods which actually brought many new millions of dollars into the Treasury.  Those funds, Trump said, helped defray the overall costs of the construction. 

                                                Eventually, the Trump administration completed some 450 miles of border wall, including some 50 in areas where there was no wall at all, and in other sections in which a strong new wall replaced an existing barrier which was "old and worthless." Contracts were signed and all materials were obtained for completion of a  final 100 miles of a wall along the Texas border.

                                                Then, in an election which will always contain the smell of illegality and chicanery,  former Vice President and long time U.S. Senator, Joe Biden, was elected President by a narrow margin.  Biden, whose bumbling way has become his hallmark, ordered on his first day in office the suspension of all construction, announcing that not "one foot of the wall" will be built with him in charge. 

                                               He also said that the USA is open to everyone, so "Come on in."  His invitation was heard around Mexico and Central America and the packed caravans and the fording of the Rio Grande got underway in earnest.  His word got around.

                                   Observers say that Biden's executive order terminating the construction was heavy with revenge for the outgoing President who had disparaged Biden as an incompetent fool, a clown and a "whack job with a low IQ."  Biden's  hypocrisy and ill will for Trump was apparent in that in 2006 as a Delaware senator, Biden had favored construction of barriers to prevent illegal border penetration. 

                                              The shotgun termination of the construction work violated contracts which had been signed and which provided for damages in event of a breach. Former Border Patrol Chief, Rodney Scott, who had served under Trump and then for five months under Biden, confirmed that under Biden’s thoughtless  leadership, U.S. taxpayers are now paying some $5 millions dollars each day “to not” build the border wall. "Money is just trickling away  to contractors entitled to damages," he explained in an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News television . 

                                              Currently, said Scott,  all that is left are “stacks and stacks of border wall panels,” “hundreds of miles of fiber optic cabling,” and “hundreds of cameras that are just sitting there."  Biden stopped construction with just 100 miles of wall remaining to be built in hot spot locations alongside Texas. His contribution was wide-open borders.

                                               The massive waste of taxpayers' money by Biden and his behind-the-curtain advisers who pull his strings and write his statements, is petty, wasteful, and outrageous, critics have charged.  Even Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has indicated that he favors completing the Trump wall so as to "plug gaps."  

                                           With the suspension of all wall construction,  and with the approval of Biden and his security chiefs, more than a million illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America have come into America since Biden became president.Countless thousands have been released into the states.   In cases where border control agents have arrested intruders for breaking the law, reputedly, some 32,000 in the past 60 days have been  "paroled" and allowed to seek and find shelters on American soil, promising to "return" for a hearing.  

                                          Pregnant women, and women who say they are pregnant, are waved in as if by a traffic cop directing motorists. Reportedly they are allowed to board buses and planes for movement to other destinations. Babies born on American soil automatically become citizens and are rewarded with the largess and benefits given to all citizens and to their parents and relatives--no questions asked. 

                                          Deadly fentanyl and other drugs  are being pushed into the country by cartels as immigrants slip through the dust and the heavy foliage, or walk and paddle their way over the Rio Grande river on to U.S. soil.  Thousands of the interlopers are being put up in military barracks and in hotels where they receive meals and other accommodations paid for by Uncle Sam.  Supervision and oversight of the immigration movements are almost nil.  Tests for Covid-19 are simply ignored.  The border is a lawless mess, and everyone knows it. 

                                                 Why does President Biden allow this border anarchy to go on?   Why does he oppose a wall and a system in which immigrants must enter the USA legally?  Other countries have walls and laws which prevent open borders. Even  the Vatican in Rome is protected by a wall. Could it be the Wall is too strongly associated with the terrible Donald Trump, and therefore its memory must be obliterated--even if it did the job for which it was intended and did it well?                                                                                                   President Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill, reside in the security of the White House.  They own and frequently visit their multimillion dollar Delaware homes in Greenville and Rehoboth Beach. Everywhere the Biden family goes,  there are Secret Service officers watching out for lawless intruders. No Open Door Policy for Slow Joe and Dr. Jill.    

                                                 By and large, Americans live in homes with secured doors kept shut.  Visitors knock and are welcomed in.  Intruders who break down the door to enter are arrested and prosecuted. 

                                             XXX

BIDEN'S SPENDING EXTRAVAGANZA

 

                     BY BILL JUNEAU

                                             Like millions of Americans, I am puzzled, even baffled, over the Biden plan to spend $3.5 trillion dollars (some say the amount is closer to $6 trillion) on repairing the infrastructure, which in the words of the President, will cost nothing.                            

                                            It is all figured out.  "Hey, man," says the President, anyone who opposes it is standing in the way of real progress... so get aboard and "build back better."  No one making less than $400,000 a year will pay a dime's more in taxes,  Biden guarantees. 

                                            I acknowledge that I am no economist, and big money talk is way over my head.  But when Slow Joe Biden makes pronouncements about trillions in free cash,  people start  wondering-- aware of his gaffes and prevaricating nature.  Remember the maxim, "when it sounds too good to be true--it isn't."

                                             It is true that too many big corporations pay no income taxes by way of legal manipulations; borrowing and financing. Biden says that that will be fixed, and, also, billionaires will find themselves in a bracket paying a higher percentage than those Americans with very limited incomes. All well and good. 

                                            The bill which may one day become law takes up about 2,500 typewritten pages with 13 titles, and stacked upwards, is impressive.  The stack might even be taller than Dr. Jill, standing on her own literature books. Has anyone read it? Certainly not Slow Joe.Biden.  

                                             As it was a few years back, in the days of Obama, no one had actually read the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) prior to its adoption into law.  Someone behind the curtain did  the typing and composing and digesting and Democratic stalwarts spouted its greatness. Reading of the bill came after its passage, and that's when the problems began. 

                                              It isn't Biden himself who is drafting and perusing the huge bill.  For Biden, he gets an executive summary,  crib notes and a teleprompter to send out the message.   

                                             To Biden observers,  including honest Democrats as well as Republicans, the frail-looking 78-year-old President is clearly missing a beat and dementia has its hooks into him.  One former White House physician, Congressman Ronny Jackson of Texas, has said that Biden who he has observed closely through the years is "cognitively impaired" and simply "does not know what he is doing." Can Biden's hypocritical assertions be believed?  He has spoken in his dramatic horse-whisper about his "extraordinary successes" in Afghanistan and at the borders, and we know how that is playing out.  

                                              And as Congressmen and Senators now debate the spending "orgy," questions of needing to increase the national debt limit are also on the table. The threat is that failure to increase it by another six or seven trillion dollars will trigger catastrophic effects, such as the suspension of social security payments and  payment of military salaries; and defaulting on government bonds and notes.  

                                              Currently, America's debt limit is at $28 trillion dollars and Congress has until October 18 to increase it, or the problems will commence, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the first woman to hold that lofty position in a president's cabinet.  Political haggling over the debt limit is not new, and goes on from year to year. Most likely,  the debt ceiling will be adjusted before the walls cave in.   

                                              The Biden behemoth bill is said to call for earmarking $80 billion dollars for the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) to allow for its expansion and the hiring of many thousands of new agents who will be authorized under the legislation to monitor the day-to day-money handling by Americans with at least $600 in the bank, through regular inspections of their accounts.  Tax cheats must look out, says Biden, whose son, Hunter, may need special protection from his dad.  

                                               The proposed 3.5 trillion dollar  spending legislation would be the largest of any in U.S. history.  The money will be taken by the government by way of taxing billionaires who have not been paying "their fair share," and from the vaults of corporations who in many cases today do not pay any taxes, Biden has said.  According to the latest data,  billionaires and the top one per cent of earners in America pay 40 per cent of federal taxes and must pay more in the Biden socialistic utopia.   

                                             The President takes his cue from Sen. Bernie Sanders who has been seeking to make America into a socialist country akin to Norway, Sweden and Russia ever since he was a mayor in Burlington, Vermont in the 1980s;  and subsequently after he became a congressman and then a U.S. Senator.  He has always described himself as a Democratic Socialist. He is registered as an Independent, but allies himself with Democrats, and shuns all Republicans. He especially detests conservatives, who are angrily charging that Biden with Bernie at his beck and call,  is tossing billions around like a farmer feeding his chickens.   

                                               Trying to grasp and comprehend a spending bill of $3.5 trillion dollars is mind boggling, as is the nation's debt ceiling, which today is $28 trillion dollars.  That $28 trillion,  experts say, is greater than the combined economies of Japan, China, India and Germany.  It equates to $218,000 per household in America, and to $85,000 on the back of each man, woman and child. And it will be going up.  

                                              Speaking of one trillion,  that is a number followed by 12 zeroes (1,000,000,000,000).  For another perspective, consider that the length of one trillion dollar bills laid end to end will measures 96,906,656 miles and this would exceed the distance from the earth to the sun.  If you live to be 80 years old, your heart will beat about 3 billion times;  and it would take 31,688 years for one trillion heartbeats to tick away. 

                                               In the words of Ronald Reagan:  "If you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only 4 inches high, you would be a millionaire.  A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills 67 miles high." 

                                               In 250 years, there has never been such an enormous spending bill as Biden is proposing. It is a mad-liberal's dream-- free everything with the rich paying all costs.  Congressman, Dr. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, has said that Biden does not know what he is doing and is dangerous.  Is he right? Worth thinking about.  

                                               

                                                   xxx

                                               

MILITARY BRASS POINTS FINGER AT BIDEN FOR AFGHANISTAN MESS.

 

                                BY BILL JUNEAU

                           America's top military brass had plenty of explaining to do when it came to the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan which left the blood-thirsty Taliban regime once again in control of that mountainous, central Asian country. 

                           For two days of televised hearings, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;  Secretary-of-Defense and retired Army General, Lloyd Austin and Central Command's General Kenneth McKenzie were blistered with questions from U.S. Congressmen and Senators sitting as the House and Senate Armed Forces Committees.  Overall, the three generals side-stepped responsibility, and generally laid the blame for the Afghan mess on President Biden. In addition, Milley was excoriated as a political enthusiast of the progressive Nancy Pelosi crowd.

                            A good many members on the committees holding  oversight hearings, called for resignations from Milley and Austin for allowing the debacle. They both indicated that that was not going to happen since  they serve at "the pleasure of the President." 

                            Gen. Milley, 63, a four-star general whose uniform  was laden with impressive service awards, did his best to portray himself  as a non-political military leader, but it was a tough sell, and my guess is that based upon his demeanor and his comments to author Bob Woodward in his new book, "Peril," he didn't make his case.

                                        Milley had been quoted in Woodward's latest political "tell all" as having told Speaker Pelosi that "I agree with you on everything."  It was a telephone conversation which the two had following the mob violence on last Jan. 6 in the Capitol. 

                                         In the transcripted conversation with the general,  Ms. Pelosi, who telephoned Milley,  said "this is bad, but who knows what he (Trump) might do? He's crazy. You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time."she ranted. "So don’t say you don’t know what his state of mind is.” 

                                         Madam Speaker,” General Milley replied,  “I agree with you on everything.” Asked about this, Milley said that it had been mischaracterized.  House Committee Chairman Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington, interrupted and hastened to defend Gen. Milley.  Words can be misinterpreted, he observed.  ".....we look at words and need not take them as accurate," he said.  "Be aware that this was a partisan attack."

                                          "If we didn't have a President (Biden) who is addled, you would be fired," asserted Matt Gaetz, a Florida representative.  "You, Gen. Milley, should resign," said Missouri's Republican Senator Josh Hawley who added that he felt that Secretary Austin should also resign as he set the withdrawal pace which resulted in the deaths of 13 servicemen from a suicide bomb, and the stranding inside that troubled country of hundreds, maybe thousands of Americans who have been left behind and were now existing under the whims and the unpredictable thumb of Taliban terrorists.

                                       Congressman Ronny Jackson of Texas, a retired navy admiral and a physician who served as a White House doctor in the Biden and Trump administrations, tore into Milley and said he should resign for his inability to do his job and protect the country. Instead of tending to military problems, "you were voicing your thoughts on critical race theory and understanding white rage, and how offended you are to have been labeled as 'woke,' " shouted Jackson. 

                                         Many of the committee members denounced Gen. Milley for telephone conversations he had with his Red Chinese counterpart,  General Li Zuocheng  in which he told that adversary that America had no intentions of attacking and starting a war with China---and that he (Gen. Milley) would call him if such plans were ever on the table. The exchange had been reported in the Woodward book. 

                                        Some representatives said that the conversations were grounds for Milley's immediate dismissal--and possibly his prosecution for sedition. Milley said that the conversation was being grossly misinterpreted and that he was "a-political" and would never be disloyal to the USA or to any President who is the commander-in-chief and has complete authority over all military forces.  

                                    Absent all  planning and coordination, the United States pulled out of Afghanistan and failed to bring home all Americans and supporting Afghans. In 11 days, the Taliban reclaimed control of the country, and confiscated for their own use, an estimated $83 billion worth of USA property.  Milley, Austin and Mackenzie all agreed and were on the same page that the 20-year-war and the reemerging of the Taliban constituted a "strategic failure," on the part of the USA.

                                  Milley, Austin and Mackenzie were unified in explaining that they had recommended maintaining a force of 2,500 or somewhat more in Afghanistan following the drawdown  so as to prevent a shotgun Taliban takeover. 

                                  It was their boss, President Biden,  who overruled them and ignored their recommendations. The President is the commander in chief and his orders, whatever they are, will be implemented, they agreed. 

                                  In a publicized interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC television last August, President Biden was asked if anyone had recommended to him that 2,500 boots on the ground be kept in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of all Americans, and their supporters; and American soldiers and marines. "No.  No one said that to me that I can recall." In other comments, Biden has    characterized the drawdown as an "extraordinary success" adding that he has no regrets.

                                   U.S. Senator John Barrrasso of Wyoming has said Biden's remarks qualify as the "lies of the 21st century, and that anyone believing him is delusional." 

                                  Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, an Air Force veteran,  summed up the Afghanistan debacle and the sorry performance of the brass:  "The whole thing makes me mad as hell." 

                                                     xxx