Laura McNish And Marshall County Courthouse No Shows

Hey Laura, when you have a defendant who has been summoned to court and is a no-show, you will generally not find him hanging about in the hallway of the courthouse. And the young man you wanted to detain was not the defendant, either. You owe him an apology for your dumbass mistake, and you owe his mother an apology for your filthy language. Once upon a time, obscene words and an unkempt appearance on the part of an officer of the court were both considered contempt of court. It appears that in Marshall County, Kansas, the prosecutor is permitted the liberty of using foul language in the courtroom.  A bit similar to your son and his ongoing liberty to vandalize and destroy the property of others with no consequences, while those who are not so well connected do not enjoy the same rights to commit crimes, isn't it? You and your family have set a terrible example for the young people in Marshall County, Kansas, Laura. Your decorum and lack of manners is unbecoming to an officer of the court. If you insist upon dressing like a slob and using filthy language in court, the least you could do is impose the same laws on your children that govern the rest of the state.

Donald Trump And The Symbionese Liberation Army

It has been a couple of weeks since the Trump Administration floated the idea of handing out boxes of food to SNAP recipients, rather than food stamps or plastic debit cards, so the story has made its way out of the news cycles. Donald Trump thought that a "Blue Apron" style of delivering food to poor children (most food stamps beneficiaries are children) would be a groovy way to re-vamp that aspect of welfare. Humiliating parents and children who are not as fortunate as Trump and Family is, these days, what being a Republican is all about.

Something that is not addressed by this "food delivery" idea is food allergies. All it takes is one mistake; one accidental or deliberate delivery of peanut butter or tuna to someone with a peanut butter or seafood allergy to kill that person. No kidding. Also not addressed are restricted diets: not everyone can safely eat the same stuff. A person with diabetes is often prescribed a restricted diet. A person with celiac disease experiences autoimmune reactions if he eats anything containing wheat products. A generic box of food cannot address this, but a person who knows what foods are medically safe for his own family can. It appears that the Trump administration just wants to put all poverty stricken families into one category, and any recipient of assistance who does not fit the category is simply out of luck.

Another group demanded, in 1974, that Hearst Publications try the same thing. This group was a terrorist group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Patty Hearst, the daughter of one of the heirs to Hearst Publications, was kidnapped by the group in February of 1974. A demand made by the group, as a condition of Patty's release, was for the Hearst family to distribute $70.00 worth of food, in boxes, to every needy person in California. The approximate equivalent, as of 2018, is about $420.00 per person or family. Hearst went ahead and started distributing food at one location, hoping to get his daughter back. What ensued was chaos, not unlike Donald Trump and his charitable act of throwing paper towels at people in Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria. Such actions facilitate the risks of hurting people, and there is no guarantee that everyone who needs food or paper towels will even benefit. Since we all know that this type of charity did not work well for a group of domestic terrorists, why would the president thing it is a good idea?

School Shootings And Northeast Kansas

Marshall County, Kentucky; January 24......16 children shot by someone outside the school, 2 of them were killed. Here's a letter written by a child who witnesses the shooting and buried a friend, as a result.

Broward County Florida, February 14.....17 children killed by a former student, who had been expelled because he enjoyed taking guns to school.

Marshall County Kansas, Frankfort, March thru May of 2014......an eighteen year old high school senior who was out of jail on bond and on probation for a previous crime took a gun to school with him. While he was expelled, he was allowed back into the building seven weeks later for commencement, in violations of the Gun Free School Zones Act, which mandates that such a student be barred from entering the building for an entire year. Dean Dalinghaus, the principal, has a habit of rudely accusing anyone who does not want guns inside of Frankfort School of wanting the school to be like "an inner city school"! He then proceeds to all of the other parents and children with derisive comments about the parent who wishes to ban guns from the school. As it happens, Dalinghaus neglected to make the proper reports about the incident in 2014 to the FBI, and had not even told the Kansas Department of Education that an arrest had been made at Frankfort High School involving a student and a gun. That's how well some schools enforce the law.

Imbolc Dreams

Candlemas, or Imbolc, is here, once again. It is time to respectfully burn all of last year's magic and plan new magic. The Earth begins to awaken.

The Cop Who Pulled The Trigger

As discussed previously on this site, a young man by the name of Andrew Finch was shot, for no reason, by a police officer in Wichita, Kansas, on December 28 of last year. As it happened, the police had been responding to false information from a gamer in California, and had not made any attempt to discover the actual circumstances, that night. Tyler Bariss, the prank caller, has been arrested and extradited to Kansas and awaits further court dates in the Sedgwick County jail. For a long while, the only piece of the puzzle that was missing, aside from the reason for all of this police brutality in the first place, was the name of the murderer. It appears that we now have it.

It was reported by the San Jose Mercury that the pig who shot Mr. Finch was hired in 2010, and has appeared in several episodes of COPS. That, in your faithful blogger's research, narrowed the list down to two possible candidates. Further information, courtesy of The Daily Haze, has narrowed the list down to one possible person: an immature, unthinking thirty-three year old moron by the name of Justin Rapp.

Justin Rapp was hired in March of 2010, was present at the scene when Andrew Finch was fatally shot, and is now on paid leave. Chief Gordon Ramsey, of the Wichita Police Department, has tried very hard to hide Rapp's identity. In fact, he appears to think that if a cop murders someone in cold blood, the family of the victim should just accept it, and move on. Gordon Ramsey does not think that any murder victim of a police officer deserves justice, but he and all Kansas police departments have no problem with the concept or the reality of smearing the reputations of other defendants in criminal cases, prior to trial.

The family of Andrew Finch is now filing suit against the Wichita Police Department.

Abbie Hoffman Moment

Click Your Heels Three Times, Tyler Barriss!

Welcome to Kansas, Tyler Barriss! You now get to wake up in the land of tornados, flying monkeys, and the yellow brick road! You never thought it would happen, did you? Even if your mommy comes up with the money to pay your $500,000 bail and flies to Kansas to bail you out of jail in Sedgwick County, you'll just go to jail in Canada, where you called in a false police report on someone else you didn't like.

Today, inclement weather notwithstanding, Tyler Barriss, the California man who got angry with Andrew Finch, of Wichita, Kansas, and made a false report that sent a SWAT team to Finch's home; where a trigger happy cop shot and killed Finch; was picked up in Los Angeles and flown to Kansas. He is now in the Sedgwick County Detention Center, all 125 pounds of him, on charges of involuntary manslaughter, giving false alarm, and falsely reporting a felony.

While it is wonderful to see accountability in Barriss's case, the police officer who actually committed the murder of Andrew Finch still deserves to be held accountable, as well. We need this officer's name.