Views from Point Breeze

We were barely able to get  through a week when the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was convicted of leaking secret grand jury information and lying about it.  Kathleen Kane had said that she was going to vigorously fight the supposedly frivolous charges against her.  After the prosecution presented their case, her defense team did not call a single witness.  She did not even take the stand in her own defense.  Jerry Sandusky, the convicted pedophile, who cost Penn State milllions of dollars for his nefarious actions, now wants to testify during his appeal.  Chaka Fattah did not testify on his own behalf before he was convicted on all charges against him.  Do you notice a pattern here? Seth Williams was the first African American to win the position of District Attorney of the city of Philadelphia.  It was a momentous occasion as he represented the hopes and dreams of individuals who felt that people of color did not ...

There was a major story that occurred in Philly on Friday.  The FBI raided the home and businesses of John Dougherty and Local 98.  Johnny Doc is a political powerhouse and kingmaker in Philly.  It was recounted that his annual salary is almost $265K.  He also runs the powerful AFL-CIO in the region.  Some of his successes include getting Kevin Dougherty elected to the State Supreme Court.  Bobby Henon is also the majority leader in City Council.  He still earns $70K for some type of services provided to the union.  Most officials in Local 98 also earn at least $145K.  Don't cry for Johnny Doc. One of the things that the feds are looking at is the large amount of political donations that come from Local 98.  Also, it was recounted that Johnny Doc has been in a couple of street scuffles lately.  This is the only thing that I can fault him for.  You don't become the Man in Philly politics to then get involved in a fistfight....

I thought that Season 3 of Power started off kind of slow.  I did not realize all of the plot lines that have affected the present story.  Last week I went on a Power marathon to catch up with the story and understand the current impact of the characters and their past.  There are two things that strike me as major paths.  First, James St. Patrick, aka Ghost, is a stone cold killer.  The suits and the desire to get out of the drug business are real.  When it comes down to it, he murdered all of the people in his syndicate except Ruiz and Kanan.  Second, Kanan is the scariest character that I have seen in a series in awhile.  He killed Q-Dubs without blinking.  He murdered his son when it became apparent that he wasn't a cold blooded killer. Shawn was the driver for Ghost.  He was a nice young man who had played basketball at St. John's before suffering a knee injury.  He wasn't built for the gangster life.  He fell for Tasha...

I am happy that the Republican National Convention came and went with minimal disruptions last week.  I guess the protesters were allowed to exercise their rights to exhibit their opposition to whatever issue they were concerned with.  I was worried about the open carry laws in Ohio and whether those carrying guns would be involved in any violence.  I had to watch because it was interesting to see how those politicos on the other side of the aisle view the future of our elected government.  It was a dark, dreary picture painted by Donald Trump.  Republicans must be empowered by the statement that we will be safer on day one in 2017 if he is elected. In spite of the sweltering heat that we will face in Philadelphia this week, Mother Nature let loose this morning with a storm that included steady rain and thunder and lightning.  I called myself taking a little bike ride to get some exercise.  By the time I got to Sansom Street, the rain was on and pop...

The Republican National Convention has been a must watch even for Democrats like myself.  The Convention opened on Monday night with a speech by Melania Trump.  Donald Trump could not avoid the spotlight and entered onto the stage to a song by Queen, We Are the Champions, to introduce his wife.  The London based group did not authorize the use of the song and it set the stage for the controversy surrounding the speech by the possible first lady.  How is it that excerpts of her speech sounded exactly like the speech that Michelle Obama gave when introducing her husband?  She quoted the current First Lady word for word in parts of her speech. The response for two days was not forthcoming and honest.  Ms. Trump said she wrote the speech with as little help as possible.  Two famed speechwriters, Matthew Scully and John McConnell, sent Mrs. Trump a draft of a speech and expected to work with her on this attempt to humanize the bombastic Trump.  It i...

I love summer for the beautiful moments that it has caused in my life.  I am a summer baby.  On July 23rd, God willing, I will celebrate another birthday.  I have learned repeatedly to appreciate every year and everyday that I have been afforded to live and breathe on this earth.  The tragedies that have been a part of the news cycle have been so steady as to make a person wonder as to the certainty of life.  An individual can become a statistic in the blink of an eye.  Hug your Family and tell them you love them today.  Seriously. Last night in Turkey, hundreds of people died in a suspected coup attempt by the military.  Turkey is a country of 74 million people though.  The hurt and pain are real and sustained for the relatives of those killed.  There was a bombing at the Ataturk Airport recently that killed 41 people and injured almost 240 people.  In Pakistan, at least 74 people were killed by a suicide bomber on Easter Sunday...

I was glued to CNN last night while watching a rambling speech by the presumptive Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump.  His speech was anything but political.  I would call it more of a blame game than anything.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have never seen a billionaire who was more angry about a supposedly rigged system than he is.  He is constantly pointing the finger at someone for his successes.  He is filthy rich according to his own admission but he won't release his own tax returns.  He recoiled at the criticism of his Tweet which featured the Star o f David on a disparagement of Hillary Clinton then pushed back by saying that he shouldn't have deleted the Tweet. There are political fact checkers for most speeches that are given by candidates for President.  I still wonder what researchers would check based on last night.  Mr. Trump talked about his hotel that he is building in DC and the fact that it is on time and u...