The Skipper's

I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEFRUIT LINE

While the boys from Flushing are trying on the latest jock-strap  couture from the House of Manfred ("We'll never leave Oakland") the Beavers from Corvallis, rated 7th in the nation in baseball skills and 379th out of 381 in declared math majors, started off their over-expectant campaign with a savage win over the New Mexico Lobos -  the local paper described it as "an offensive eruption" which if I hadn't been reading an account of the game I would have sworn someone was referring to Governor Huckleberry Sanders' hygiene;

they hit 7 homers in a 15-6 win in Surprise, Arizona- the town that leaves everything to chance. 

With Opening Day 39 days from midnight we'd like to know whats holding up the Alonso signing - as of  late afternoon Sunday. 

Pete Alonso, Mets haven't had long-term contract talks yet with free agency looming https://nypost.com/2024/02/17/sports/pete-alonso-mets-havent-had-long-term-contract-talks-yet/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost_sitebuttons via @nypostsports 

It seems our Metsies have signed up the rather husky but oh so flexible (but not lithe?) Ji-man Choi, a left-hitting DH/First Baseman, whose career plan looks like he intends to play with every major league team and open a Korean BBQ in each city - not bad.

He became a DH after this. He's never fully recovered

The other possible DH is D.L. Stewart, a Buck Showalter discovery who I suspect was signed for his "bench-clearing" prowess. Baltimore gave him a cool $2Mil to sign then he promptly spent the next few years hitting .218 for the Aberdeen Ironbirds, the Delmarva Shorebirds and the Frederick Keys and the Bowie Baysox. The Orioles finally took a chance then on August 6, 2019, "while attempting to field a fly ball hit by Mike Ford of the New York Yankees,

D.L. (PROM PICTURE)

   Stewart dove too early and was struck on the side of the head by the ball, suffering a concussion and being replaced in the game by Jace Peterson." Since then he's barely stayed above the Mendoza line. Which now makes him one of us.

More thrills later, Joe

Sincerely In the Struggle for Truth and Justice

 May 24, 2021

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland 

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco 

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta 

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Garland, Deputy Attorney General Monaco, Associate Attorney General Gupta:

On behalf of the Pasquotank County Branch of the NAACP, the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Repairers of the Breach, faith leaders and concerned community members of Pasquotank County and North Carolina, including Rev. Dr. William Barber II, Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, and Mr. Keith Rivers, we write to you today to urgently request that you immediately commit the full powers of the U.S. Department of Justice to further justice, accountability, transparency, and lasting change for our community in the wake of the law enforcement killing of Andrew Brown, Jr.

On Wednesday, April 21, Andrew Brown, Jr., a 42-year-old Black man, father of seven and native of Elizabeth City, was killed by a fatal shot to the back of his head at the hands of Pasquotank County Sheriff deputies.(1) At the time of his death, Mr. Brown was unarmed, seated inside his vehicle backing out of his driveway, surrounded by more than a half-dozen heavily armed deputies, who had arrived at his home to serve search and arrest warrants. Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble acknowledged Brown was not armed with guns or other weapons.(2) According to official accounts, including a statement by the District Attorney, in the 44 second fatal encounter, 14 shots were fired.(3) Mr. Brown was hit by at least 5 bullets.(4) His family described the scene of Andrew Brown Jr.’s death as an execution.(5) We join the Brown family unreservedly in their grief and in mourning their loss.

On Tuesday May 18, local District Attorney Andrew Womble gave a national press conference to announce and justify his decision to pursue no criminal charges against any officer involved in Mr. Brown’s death. Under questioning from the media, he publicly defended the actions of the deputies as justified, disparaged Mr. Brown’s family’s attorneys, emphasized Mr. Brown’s past criminal history, and displayed select portions of the body camera footage of Mr. Brown’s death with no pre-notification to his family.(6) Tuesday’s announcement, and the local District Attorney’s description of his interpretation of the law of deadly force as applied to the circumstances here, leaves our community with urgent questions about the commitment to government protection of Black people’s civil rights, and our safety in our community.

Full and unredacted body camera footage has been withheld from the public and from the family’s view at the request of the District Attorney, a request upheld by local Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Foster, in a decision that spurred deep public distrust and doubt in the legitimacy of a fair investigation.(7) Our communities doubt was further compounded by District Attorney Womble’s decision to maintain his personal jurisdiction over the investigation and charging determinations in Mr. Brown’s death, rather than engage a special independent prosecutor to ensure impartiality in the case -- defying the course of action recommended by both the Governor(8) and Attorney General of North Carolina(9) and as requested by Mr. Brown’s family(10) , the community, faith and civil rights leaders in the state and nationally(11).

As our community reckons with increasing tensions and rising distrust in local county law enforcement and prosecutorial leadership –tensions deepened by the bias evidenced in the month since Mr. Brown’s death amid a national reckoning with racial injustice embedded in our criminal legal system— we, the undersigned civil rights, faith, and grassroots community leaders, respectfully request the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice take three immediate actions:

● Expedite and ensure the full independence of the Federal civil rights investigation into the death of Mr. Andrew Brown Jr.

● Open a “pattern-or-practice” civil rights investigation into the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Department.

● Open a “pattern-or-practice” civil rights investigation into the District Attorney’s Office in the First Judicial District of North Carolina

.

Mr. Brown’s murder exposed what the Elizabeth City community has lived with for decades: a longstanding history of racial discrimination by law enforcement and government officials that must be addressed by independent intervention. Upon information and belief, an investigation is both warranted and necessary into both these offices, where our community has raised significant concerns of persistent patterns of misconduct by each office, including in the context of Mr. Brown’s death at the hands of Pasquotank County Sheriffs. The Department of Justice’s action is necessary to address the crisis of trust and the legitimate calls for accountability and change boiling over in Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, and surrounding jurisdictions as well as to identify and help rectify systemic deficiencies which contribute to misconduct and enable it to persist.

Our community cannot rest without impartial justice, accountability, and transformative change. We stand ready to provide further information in support of this request and to facilitate the Department of Justice’s independent investigations in the ways most beneficial to your office, the movement for justice, and that will assist in ensuring transparency and accountability to the family of Andrew Brown, Jr. as well as the community of Elizabeth City and Pasquotank County.

Sincerely In the Struggle for Truth and Justice,

Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman Rev. Dr. William Joseph Barber II Mr. Keith Rivers

Pasquotank County

1 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/andrew-brown-jr-shot-five-times-once-back-head-according-n1265460 

2 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/north-carolina-prosecutor-says-deputies-were-justified-in-fatal-shooting-of-unarmed-andrew brown-jr-01621363467 

3 https://abc11.com/andrew-brown-body-cam-video-today/10621243/

4 https://abcnews.go.com/US/family-andrew-brown-reveal-results-independent-autopsy/story?id=77340467 

5 https://www.cbs17.com/news/my-dad-got-executed-andrew-browns-son-describes-bodycam-video-of-fatal-shooting/

6 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article251072394.html 7https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/04/28/judge-consider-release-andrew-brown-shooting-bodycam-video footage/4868725001/

8 https://twitter.com/NC_Governor/status/1387129382213496834?s=20

9 See https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article250984189.html; https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2021/04/27/cooper--naacp-call-for-special-prosecutor-in-andrew-brown-shooting. 10 https://carolinapublicpress.org/45713/calls-for-federal-action-in-andrew-brown-jr-case/ 11https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2021/04/27/cooper--naacp-call-for-special-prosecutor-in-andrew-brown-shooting

72,000,000

 

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a rapist or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a child sex-trafficker or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a racist con-man; a white supremacist who defends and encourages dangerous conspiracy theories of race-wars and economic carnage or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a monster who orders the separation of children from their parents at the gates of our republic in our names so they are lost to one another perhaps for ever or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a proven pathological liar or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a traitor who has betrayed his oath of office, compromised the national security of our country while he belittles and denigrates the very men and women who swore an oath themselves to protect and even die to maintain this fragile democracy or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a cowardly tax cheat who thought nothing of looting his phony non-profit scam of aiding children with cancer while a court ruled he had to return $25 million to the poor suckers who thought he would teach them the secrets of his success or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a fool who told us that perhaps if we absorbed or drank bleach we could kill the Coronavirus that's been rampaging through America ( and the world) for eight long months or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for a mass-murderer who -literally - knew(even he) that the coronavirus was lethal and airborne and was relentless and he did nothing to warn the country-"his" country- or organize a scientific and seriously

 cohesive response and instead has done everything to subvert and discredit such an effort and has facilitated himself the spread  of this scourge by politicizing and even willfully ignoring the danger and so up to this posting (11/16/20) about 250,000 of our fellow Americans have died because of it or

Seventy-two million (of us) voted for the continued dissolution of our democracy by allowing his enabling party back into power to threaten all our families and enrich only themselves and their unconscionable donors.

        

 AN ELECTION DAY PRIMER

John Lewis: Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.

By John Lewis     (From the NYTimes, July 30, 2020)

Opinion John Lewis

Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.

Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

John Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressman who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death.

LISA MONACO TESTIFIES ON RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN OUR ELECTIONS

 

Well, one of the things I was worried about —

                                                      and I wasn’t alone in this—

is kind of worst-case scenarios, 

                which would be things like the voter registration

                                                     databases.

 

So if you’re a state and local entity

                            and your voter registration database

 is housed in the secretary of state’s office 

                            and it is not encrypted and its not backed up,

 and it says Lisa Monaco lives at Smith Street

                       and I show up at my (polling place) and they say,

 “Well we don’t have Ms Monaco at Smith Street, 

we have her at Green Street,” 

                                   now there’s a difficulty in my voting.

 

And if that were to happen on a large scale, 

                    I was worried about confusion at

                                                                         polling places,

 lack of confidence in the voting system, 

 anger 

                                      at a large scale in some areas,

 confusion,

                 distrust. 

So there was a whole

               sliding 

                          scale 

                                  of 

                                     horribles 

just when you’re talking

                                about voter registration

                  

                                       databases. 

                 ---- statement by former Homeland Security adviser, Lisa Monaco to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election