Light . . .

. . . sentence?

(from https://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-heffernan-manafort-blameless-0313-20190313-inx5veg56nfo5k35cp6qyzf2c4-story.html)

". . . Who knows how someone like Ellis (Judge T.S. Ellis III, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia) decides someone like Manafort deserves such magnificent leniency? To start, there’s this: The two men have class, race, gender and, evidently, party in common. . . Ellis, who turns 80 in May, was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. In the same decade, Reagan also appointed Manafort, who had campaigned for him, to be associate director of the personnel office at the White House. . . It should go without saying that federal sentencing guidelines are no one’s partisan whim. They were established in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which passed with majority support in both houses. (The ‘80s were evidently a weird time when both parties cared about equality and justice.). . . Compare Ellis’ gratuitous hymn to Manafort’s angelic nature with the sentencing memo filed last month by Mueller’s team, which laid out how Manafort “repeatedly and brazenly violated the law” over the course of a decade. Even Manafort’s daughter described her father’s fortune as “blood money” and said he had no “moral or legal compass.” And even when Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Trump’s real estate crony, warmly recommended Manafort as campaign chair, he cited not the operator’s pure heart but his cold blood. He’s “lethal,” Barrack wrote. . .Evidently Manafort is lethal — to the moral reasoning of anyone who, like Ellis, might be blinded by gaudy-white-man social status. For five decades, Manafort has gotten a double-wide pass for his ego, his financial crimes and his whitewashing of regimes accused of human rights abuses. . ."

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com 


Other Ray Jozwiak Offerings

(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Get your copy of OHO's  Where Words Do Not Reach now!
Watch The Ocean City Ditty Video on YouTube
Also, be sure to visit: www.rayjozwiak.com and www.ohomusic.com

Tweet  

Follow me on Blogarama

Other Aspects . . .

(from https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/manafort-trial-judge-snapped-mueller-s-team-because-they-re-ncna900001)
". . . Judge Ellis (presiding in the Paul Manafort trial) is certainly demanding: He is, as I’ve heard him say, “a Caesar in [his] own Rome,” (even if, as he also likes to say, “it’s a pretty small Rome.”) He is also among the best the federal judiciary has to offer. Judge Ellis has impressive credentials, perhaps eclipsing even Mueller’s, having served as a Navy F4 Phantom pilot after graduating from Princeton and adding a degree from Oxford as a Knox Fellow to his resume after graduating from Harvard Law School. . . Over the last 30 years or so on the bench, he has shown the remarkable intellectual acumen necessary to competently preside over cases many lawyers and judges would rightly try hard to avoid. . .While he’s accused of being pro-defendant in this trial, and has certainly held the government to high standards over the course of his career, he’s also been roundly criticized for being very pro-government. . ."

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html  or at
http://www.ohomusic.com pianogonzology

Other Ray Jozwiak Offerings


(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)

Get your copy of OHO's  Where Words Do Not Reach now!
Watch The Ocean City Ditty Video on YouTube
Also, be sure to visit: www.rayjozwiak.com and www.ohomusic.com

Tweet  

Follow me on Blogarama

Very Good . . .

. . . deeds . . .

(http://fox6now.com/2014/07/26/one-man-sets-an-example-to-young-boys-in-milwaukee-mr-andre-has-taught-us-responsibility/)
At the corner of 9th and Ring in Milwaukee, there’s a man with the power to impact young lives forever. “He talked mostly about becoming a man,” says Freddie Outlaw. Andre Ellis has a garden, and every Saturday, he gathers black boys and puts them to work. “It keeps me out of trouble.  It makes me feel great.  Just being in a place to help people clean up the community,” says 14-year-old Freddie Outlaw. From 8:00 o’clock a.m. until noon, the kids pick up trash from their streets and plant vegetables in the garden. Ellis watches over them and keeps them in line. “Some of the things that Mr. Andre has taught us responsibility.  If we`re not here on time, we get sent home,” says 14-year-old Trevione Jones. For many kids, he’s the closest thing they have to a father. “When you have a group of 47 kids, and you say, how many of you don`t know your father and 38 of them raise your hands,” says Andre Ellis.

The kids do get compensated for their efforts, $20 dollars each. All of the money for the program is donated to Ellis, but it’s clear that the experience is priceless. “I was a troublemaker. I was fighting people on the block.  He kept me from going to jail and stuff,” says Jermaine Stevens. A group of boys, who now know what it takes to be a man.

Ellis’s program will wrap up in mid August, but he isn’t abandoning the kids once they head back to school. Phase two includes taking what’s learned in the classroom, and continuing that education after school, and on the weekends.

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet