August 19-20, 2017
Aug 19 07:50 Neighborhood sexual predator Aug 20 05:11 MLB umpires vs. the players Aug 20 11:00 Democrats' racist history
Prior Months: Jan Feb ~ May Jun Jul
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Neighborhood sexual predator
According to this St. Cloud Times article , a "Level 3 predatory offender will be returning to the St. Cloud community after serving his prison sentence, according to the St. Cloud Police Department. James Ross Forbes II, 30, of St. Cloud, engaged in sexual contact with a two-year-old girl he was babysitting, according to the St. Cloud Police Department. The contact included penetration. Forbes also had a history of sexual contact with a seven-year-old boy, according to police."
What type of sick bastard engages in "sexual contact with a two-year-old girl"? What type of society essentially looks the other way when that type of predator gets a slap on the wrist? According to the article, "The St. Cloud Police Department is holding a community notification meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 28 at the St. Cloud Police Department, Training Room C, 101-11th Avenue North. Representatives from the police department and the Minnesota Department of Corrections will be available to provide information on public safety." It's worse than that, though. The article says that "Forbes plans to move to the 100 block of East St. German Street on Aug. 21." This is what Forbes looks like:
I did a little digging into Minnesota's FAQ Page on sexual predators . Here's one of the FAQs:
Q: What is a risk level?
Here's Minnesota's reply:
Risk levels are assigned by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) not the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).
Risk Levels are assigned to registrants who are released from prison on or after January 1, 1997.
Risk level one indicates the least likelihood to re-offend. Risk level two indicates a moderate likelihood to re-offend. Risk level three indicates high likelihood to re-offend.
Information about Level 3 offenders is available on the DOC web site.
According to the article, Forbes "also had a history of sexual contact with a seven-year-old boy" prior to having "contact with a two-year-old girl he was babysitting."
According to this fact sheet on sex offender treatment in prison , "Seventeen percent of Minnesota inmates are incarcerated for a governing sex offense, and an additional 14 percent have a prior felony conviction for a sex offense1. More than 90 percent will be released back into the community. Long-term, intensive residential sex offender treatment is used to reduce their risk of reoffending."
Rather than having to waste time holding community notification meetings, I've got a simpler solution. Don't let Level II or Level III sex offenders out of prison. Any predator that's penetrated a 7-year-old buy and two-year-old girl" isn't capable of being rehabilitated. Further, any government that won't protect children from sexual predators has failed its primary responsibility of protecting its citizens. That government needs to be replaced by a government that puts its highest priority into protecting little children.
Finally, rewriting these sexual predator statutes is required. It should be written this fall and passed the first week of session next winter. No research is needed. Either politicians are serious or they're part of the problem.
UPDATE: This morning, I wrote about the Level-3 sex offender that's moving into an apartment on St. Cloud's east side. Just a few minutes ago, I tried visiting the article to see what the comments were to the article. The article had disappeared. I suspect that it was pulled quite a while ago because there weren't any comments. On a hot button topic like this, there'd normally be 25-50 comments.
The question now becomes about why the Times pulled the article from their website. Another question for the Times is why they ran the article on Saturday. Was it because they weren't informed by the police? I suspect that isn't why but that's speculation. Surely, the SCPD knew long before this that this predator was likely to land in St. Cloud. Why weren't St. Cloud residents notified before this morning?
Whatever the explanation, someone dropped the ball. That's anything except acceptable.
Posted Saturday, August 19, 2017 11:12 PM
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MLB umpires vs. the players
It isn't often that Drudge Report links to a sports article. Drudge linked to this article because there's a long-simmering feud that's threatening to boil over. It started when the Detroit Tigers' Ian Kinsler finally had had enough with the umpiring. Specifically, Kinsler criticized umpire Angel Hernandez , saying "It has to do with changing the game. He's changing the game. He needs to find another job, he really does."
According to the Detroit Free Press article, the animosity towards Hernandez is widespread. The article said "One American League executive who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about umpires performances said about Kinsler's comments, 'He said what 90% of every other player thinks.'" Later in the article, it said "In a 2010 players survey conducted by ESPN, 22% of those polled counted Hernandez as baseball's worst umpire ."
The umpires have a major problem on their hands. This weekend, Hernandez is part of the umpiring crew working the Minnesota Twins-Arizona Diamondbacks intra-league series. Earlier in the day, MLB announced that Kinsler would pay a fine but that he wouldn't be suspended. Prior to the game, umpires said that they'd wear a white wristband in a supposed show of unity with Hernandez. When the game began, only 2 umpires of the 4-man umpiring crew working the Twins-Diamondbacks game wore the white wristband.
The problem Major League Baseball has isn't just that Hernandez is a bad ump. It's that too many umpires think that the game revolves around them. Too many umpires have tried upstaging the players after making bad calls. MLB implemented instant replay reviews because umpires made the wrong call too often. In my opinion, there's a significant drop in the level of professionalism amongst umpires.
The late Steve Palermo, the gold standard for umpires, was disappointed with himself if he missed 5 balls-and-strikes call a month. Umpires like Hernandez frequently miss more than that per game. Let's look at some epic Hernandez fails, starting with this one:
Then there's this one:
This isn't a bad call on a baseball play. This is Hernandez throwing a fan out because he's thin-skinned:
At some point, MLB needs to address these umpires' lack of professionalism. Angel Hernandez is a symptom, not the disease.
Posted Sunday, August 20, 2017 5:11 AM
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Democrats' racist history
John Kass's latest article is part of today's must reading. The main topic discussed in the article is the subject of offensive statues. Specifically, Kass wrote about toppling offensive statues and monuments.
In part, Kass wrote "As an African-American, Sharpton believes that using federal tax dollars to subsidize the Jefferson Memorial is wrong. And even though the flames of Cultural Revolution are burning hot, you can understand this. History is important, but history can also be quite offensive. But there's one thing wrong with Sharpton. It's not that he goes too far. It's that he doesn't go far enough. Because if he and others of the Cultural Revolution were being intellectually honest, they'd demand that along with racist statues, something else would be toppled. The Democratic Party."
Kass then makes that case, saying "The Democratic Party historically is the party of slavery. The Democratic Party is the party of Jim Crow laws. The Democratic Party fought civil rights for a century." Then he sticks the knife in, then gives it a sharp twist:
The Democratic Party's military arm in the South was the KKK. The Democratic Party opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, making the former slaves citizens of the United States and giving them the vote.
Kass then adds "You can't say the Democratic Party wasn't the slavery party. It's historical fact." The truth is that Robert Byrd, the long-time Senate Majority Leader and former leader of the KKK, and Albert Gore, Sr., the father of Vice President Gore, both filibustered the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They weren't alone.
Kass isn't most upset with the toppling of statues. He's most worried about this:
My guess is that most Americans are afraid of social punishment. So, the offensive statues will go, and then perhaps offensive iconography, offensive images, offensive books.
One book comes to mind. Let me quote a passage from it.
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
George Orwell. "1984."
This nation's founding fathers didn't envision the U.S. as a thin-skinned nation. They envisioned the U.S. as a nation of overcomers. The Party of the Perpetually Offended, aka the Democratic Party, aren't overcomers. They're a bunch of whiners who'd rather play the victim card than become part of the nation of overcomers.
This is what the Democratic Party has devolved into:
Posted Sunday, August 20, 2017 11:00 AM
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