An Extortion Lawsuit

Lawyer Anthony Russo of the Florida-based Russo Firm, says his client Cynthia Kelly and “not less than 100” and perhaps even “thousands” of others have suffered horrific emotional damage.

It seems that seasonal versions of Hershey’s Reese’s chocolate-covered peanut butter candies variously depicted pumpkin shapes with the candy’s peanut butter filling showing through eyes and a mouth carved into the chocolate or football shapes with laces similarly carved. On unpeeling the wrapper, though, shocker of shockers, the chocolate coverings were intact. The bodice-ripping. The emotional rending, the fall-to-the-floor sobbing paroxisms (I exaggerate, but not by much). Lawyer Russo is suing Hershey over the riptide of emotion the nefarious company has so callously caused.

However.

Omitted in this editorial is that the Reese’s packaging also depicts a bite already taken out of the candy, exposing the peanut butter filling inside the chocolate coating—and that that depiction has been there for years.

Did the “plaintiffs” not expect to unwrap this candy and see a bite actually already taken?

Not only should the plaintiffs be sharply sanctioned for this frivolous suit, the lawyer bringing it and the firm employing him (yes, it’s his firm, but still, the firm) should be especially sharply sanctioned for being a party to this frivolous suit. Lawyers, especially, should know better.

Hershey should refuse to settle and instead crushingly defeat the lawyer and plaintiffs in open court, taking no prisoners. Let it not be over quickly, the plaintiffs and lawyer will not enjoy it, and Hershey is not their patsy. $5 million or more that the plaintiffs want and of which Russo wants his cut? Sounds about right to me. That’s what the plaintiffs, the lawyer, and the law firm should be required to pay Hershey.

Pick One

Progressive-Democratic Party politicians insist that illegal aliens should be allowed to go anywhere they want as they wait—months to years—for their court dates.

But they want travel documents on those Americans who are transporting them by bus.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is demanding that nearly two dozen charter bus companies sending New York City-bound migrants to “transit” stops in the Garden State provide advance notice.

And this:

For each migrant bus, Murphy is asking the companies to disclose the number of single adults traveling alone; the number of passengers traveling as part of a family, including the number of families with children under 18; the number of children under 18; and the number of chaperones (other than family members) for otherwise unaccompanied minors.

Notice that. Murphy doesn’t care who these illegal aliens are so they can be tracked until the show up for their court date—or dishonestly don’t show up—he just wants to know how many they are. While demanding to know what bus companies are transporting them.

This is the Progressive-Democratic Party demonstrating its utter contempt for us ordinary Americans.

Wrist Slaps and Unequal Justice

Navy sailor Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao was caught passing classified information concerning an Okinawa radar system, along with plans for a large-scale maritime training exercise in the Pacific theatre, to a spy for the People’s Republic of China. [OPSEC note: the exercise plans would allow, among other things, the PRC to watch the radar system in action during the exercise.] Zhao has been sentenced to 27 months in prison. A whole 27 months. A wrist slap.

Meanwhile, the 6 January rioters—those who have actually had trials three years(!) after the event and whose trials have actually run to completion—have been sentenced to 3-6 years, and some have been sentenced to as many as 20 years.

Meanwhile meanwhile, insurrectionists rioters in Portland and Seattle have, in the main, gone wholly uncharged at all, with a few scapegoats getting a few months.

It’s long past time to clean out the DoJ, from top to bottom, including the FBI. In parallel with that, it’s long past time to clean up our sentencing laws and sentencing guidelines.

If a Navy traitor can get off with a wrist slap, so, too, should the rioters at Capital Hill. That precedent was set prior to Zhao’s case, with those “rioters” who seized Seattle territory, drove out the Seattle government, and held the territory for weeks getting off with wrist slaps or going scot-free, and with those “rioters” in Portland who attacked and tried, for weeks, to burn down a Federal building with Federal government security personnel inside also getting off with wrist slaps or going scot-free.

Alternatively, the Navy traitor should have gotten tens of years in jail, even a life sentence. The 6 January rioters—a truly mostly peaceful affair, just noisy and boisterous (the only true violence was a security officer shooting one of the rioters and a security officer getting bashed over the head by a rioter using a fire extinguisher)—should have gotten off with sentences for the trespass they were committing, and the occasional petty theft they were committing in their souvenir hunting. The insurrectionists in Seattle and Portland should have gotten intermediate sentences in the fives of years in jail range.

It’s long past time to clean out the DoJ, from top to bottom, including the FBI. In parallel with that, it’s long past time to clean up our sentencing laws and sentencing guidelines. Whether or not you, dear reader, agree with my sentencing suggestions for these particular cases, the rules need to be adjusted to produce truly similar sentences for substantially similar actions, and—especially—existing personnel completely replaced with those who actually will apply and enforce the rules.

AMLO’s Extortion Attempt

Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has made his demands clear concerning what he wants in return for helping the Biden administration do its job—which it doesn’t need help doing—regarding our border with Mexico. AMLO’s demands are naked extortion.

  • give $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries
  • grant work visas to 10 million Hispanics who have worked in the US for at least 10 years
  • end sanctions against Venezuela and halt the blockade of Cuba

No. Just close the border altogether. Let no illegal aliens in; forcing their remaining in Mexico. Also bar Mexican visitors and Mexican products.

This won’t happen, though, with Timid Joe Biden. And it’s shameful that the United States should be victimized by the extortion of a Third World nation run by drug cartels.

Of Course He Did

The Washington Policy Center says that Washington’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Jay Inslee has known all along that his carbon tax would significantly increase gas prices in the State.

In a Thursday morning blog post, WPC Environmental Director Todd Myers notes that reports from Inslee’s 2014 Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force, or CERT, showed a carbon tax could result in a significant hike in the price at the pump.
In fact, Inslee’s then-chief policy advisor Matt Steuerwalt, based on an analysis created for the task force, told the Senate Environment, Energy & Technology Committee that a carbon dioxide price of $52 per metric ton—almost identical to the state’s current carbon dioxide price—would increase prices by 44 cents per gallon.

Of course he’s known this all along. It’s why he pushed so hard for his carbon tax Climate Commitment Act. He’s trying to price hydrocarbon-based energy out of existence in his State.