Yes - I saw "The Highwaymen" - I usually watch Kevin Costner movies - I like him. Bonnie and Clyde were a pair of cold blooded ruthless psychopaths who deserved everything they got in my opinion. I know other posters have criticised Frank Hamer for what they say was his brutality and racist attitude but I read up on him (not much available) but from what I could gather he was not particularly racist - he helped as many black people as he hurt - it wasn't their colour he reacted to - it was their actions - but people scream racial profiling whenever black people are involved disregarding what they were guilty of. With regard to James Hanratty although they found the gun and the bullets in the hotel room they never connected that gun to Hanratty via fingerprints - he said he had never owned a gun although he had tried to acquire one after his release from prison. He lied because he was trying to fence some jewellery and he wouldn't give the name of the fence. Returning to Kevin Costner - have you seen "Criminal" - you will need to suspend your disbelief a bit - but I enjoyed it. I recently watched a documentary on an internet predator called "Dirty John" - it makes you wonder how a 50+ very successful and smart businesswoman could be taken in by a man who had no car no house no visible means of support who contributed nothing except his nether regions to their relationship. She actually married him thus putting at severe risk half of her wealth. What is it with these women - why are they so easily fooled? You may charm me as an attractive man - but you will never charm anything out of my bank account. It nearly cost her daughter her life - just because she wanted to be "in a relationship" (as they love putting on their face book profile)

I will look for Criminal. Currently Costner is in a series called "Yellowstone". He plays a rancher with a very large ranch in adjacent to the Yellowstone National Park. It is starting the second season, or series, now. Maybe it will be available over your way.
Dirty John. Sometimes I don't like watching those types of shows. I start to feel bad watching what happens to the victims. The viewer is passive, can't warn anyone, can't go after the bad guy. I would enjoy hunting down the bad guys, but sometimes I just can't watch the naive, innocent victims. He sounds like the absolute scum of the earth. How do you prey on a person's emotions like that? Not only does he rob her, he also scars her emotionally. She may think she was foolish to expect to find love now. She may decide to abandon any hope of personal happiness after being victimized like that.

I suppose those shows are good though because women watch them and learn how such scumbags operate, and perhaps they will notice some red flag and avoid becoming victimized by a guy like that.

Somewhere I bookmarked a biography of Frank Hamer which got very good reviews from some Texas lawman who knows a bit about Hamer. I recalled his name as one of the lawmen who tracked down and killed the Barrows, but never knew much more than that about him. If I can find that bookmark again now I think I will buy it and read up on him. Those stories are important. My friend who did special assignments in the military, and afterward I am sure he was an operative in some secret organization which works for the government, had amnesia after his accident in 1969 which put him in that wheelchair. But I know he remembered more than he ever admitted to me. He said he got some memories back, first in dreams, then when awake he would think and remember things. Most of his stories are lost to the afterlife; he wouldn't speak about something he wasn't supposed to speak about. He was just that way. The few things I knew about his previous life, and the remarkable things I observed about him, tell me he was quite a remarkable man, and he knew history which will never be taught in our books. Anyway, for those people whose work wasn't classified and whose stories can be told, I like to know about them.

I think there are a lot of stories that go untold from history - particularly those that might rebound on the descendants of those who committed outrages at the time. You wont see a lot about Leopold - King of the Belgians - who was responsible for the deaths and mutilation of 10 million Congolese Africans during the late 1800’s. Even children had their limbs cut off if they protested. Certain people keep telling me that history is past and gone and that I should forget about it - I disagree - if you forgive and forget history it has a way of repeating itself - as it did in 1939 after a mere 21 years. I don't forgive either Germany or Japan - in my view only the victims have the right to forgive and they aren't here any more. If Germany and Japan can't win military wars they will do their utmost to win trade wars - it is in their nature to dominate. With regard to the police fitting people up - there was a case in 1999 - a mother - a grandmother - and two little girls were bludgeoned to death in a place not far from where I live - an attempt was made to set the house on fire but pretty much failed. The mother was a bisexual who was having an affair with a police woman - the policewoman had a husband - also a policeman - who had a twin brother - also a policeman. After two years the police arrested a man - David Morris - because a gold chain similar to one he owned was found at the address. He denied it was his at first - a lie that cost him dear - because he was scared of what the police would assume. Then he admitted it was his but said it had broken and he had given it to Mandy (the mother) because he wanted to have a relationship with her. That is all they had on him - no forensics whatsoever. A relative of his said that Morris had asked him to get another chain and had rubbed it with cement to make it look like his old one - that was enough for the police. The only forensic traces were found on Mandy's thigh and belonged to her policewoman lover. This lover tried to jump out of a window - which resulted in her being committed to a mental hospital where she did not have to answer any questions as she well knew would happen. Her husband left the country the next day with their two children - he said he had no idea his wife was a lesbian - a statement late found to be completely untrue. They even arrested these three police officers but eventually released them. David Morris is serving his eighteenth year in prison and still refuses to admit to the crime he says he did not commit. It is particularly poignant for me because I was out travelling with a friend and we had to stop the car because of a funeral procession - I had no idea who it was until I saw the four coffins - two of which were small white ones - it broke my heart - how could anyone kill two little girls like that? Somebody they would recognise of course. The savagery of the killings indicated absolute rage and premeditation because the bed-ridden old lady was killed first and then the killer waited for Mandy and the children to return to the house. There was a strange watch placed on the old lady's stomach which was never explained or investigated as far as I can ascertain. Another triumph for the fit up team of South Wales Constabulary as far as I am concerned.

Power corrupts. Any society which loses its morality is more susceptible to that corruption. A moral people may unknowingly elect corrupt individuals, but they still exert a check on their behavior. If the people have standards, the politicians are afraid of the outrage of the people if they stray too far and get caught.
When the police become corrupt, when officers lost their morality, terrible evil occurs, as in the case you described. It sounds to me as if one of those police officers lost control and then they covered for him or her. The police can be that way. They are a brotherhood and they hate any officer who doesn't cover for the others.

I know that my friend was investigating drug dealers during the 1960s. The Soviets were involved in pushing the drug culture in America, and the West in general, part of their demoralization program. My friend eventually remembered that he had discovered the guy above him was dirty and was making money from drugs. He turned him in to the guy above him, but he was dirty too. That is why he had his accident. There is so much money in illegal drugs.

I am glad that your friend survived - in my view fighting a drug war is doomed to defeat - too many people seek them out - I think it would be better to legalise them and sell them to those who want them - it would make any government a fortune in taxes like the sale of cigarettes do. A packet of twenty cigarettes over here costs appx $12. the tax on which is about 80%. I seem to remember a situation regarding the Atlanta Police Force where every officer was involved in enabling the transport of drugs - even using police cars to escort drug runners drop offs. It was a very long time ago - and I can't recall the exact details of the case or what happened to said officers when the situation was discovered. I think it was Atlanta - I am not entirely sure. I remember being horrified at the total corruption of an entire police force - no wonder there is so much racial profiling.

I didn't hear about Atlanta. I do recall a situation in Miami though. They wanted to make the police force 'less white' or more integrated so they began hiring Cubans, but failed to properly vet them. This was back in the mid 1980s. There were about 7 who were caught dealing cocaine. They would bust dealers, take their coke, and sell it themselves. The 'Miami River Cops' was the name in the news. I think that it happened again in the 2000s.

update: I just found an article about 16 Atlanta postal workers taking bribes to deliver packages of cocaine along with the mail.

They were definitely police officers and it was Atlanta - if you do a search of Atlanta police corruption it is not just one case and it is not only historic - it is ongoing. I thought our police were bad enough but they are angels compared to this lot.

I just googled and found a few articles about corruption in the Atlanta police department. I don't know much about Atlanta other than the traffic is terrible there. I have driven through it a couple of times, and unless I am going to pass through it at about 3am, I will seek another route. It is that bad.

If I had to bet, I would bet that the government there is dominated by leftists, as in Miami. I would bet they adopted the same type of hiring practices Miami did, with little to no vetting, and that this has gone on for decades. The bad apples have been promoted. When things go wrong, as they obviously have, the government there will "investigate" and determine that the solution is more "diversity", the magic fix. But the problem is corruption.

It is a sickening situation. There is probably some racism among some police departments, but there is much more race baiting, i.e. false charges of racism. So many times it happens like this: radicals in the high crime minority neighborhoods claim the police are "profiling" them because of their race, and that police presence is akin to an occupying force. That whole argument is specious of course. But for political reasons sometimes the police departments are forced to curtail their patrols and investigations in those neighborhoods. When that happens, invariably the crime rates go up. And when the gang activity increases to the point that it impacts on the lives of the residents there, the same radicals are on television news spots claiming the the police have abandoned them, don't care about their neighborhoods, because of their race! For the honest cops it is a thankless job.

If I were a police officer, there is NO WAY I would work in a big city like Miami or Atlanta. The politics, the corruption, all of it would make the job so difficult that I just could not do it. The corrupt officers would probably kill me, or set me up by planting evidence on me or something like that if I reported their corruption and they found out. And you never know who is corrupt, as my friend found out. Nope, I could never work in one of those places.

I don't think I could work in law enforcement at all - unless I was a sheriff in a small rural township maybe - a sort of American Jimmy Perez !! It seems to me that it is only a matter of time before people start walking out of those places like they are doing in Honduras. Let the gangs rule and kill each other off. I couldn't live in London or any big city in Britain because they are being overtaken by immigrants and the police force has been so decimated that there is very little rule of law in them. We are told to ignore the plain naked truth that when a disaster occurs and looters run riot the vast majority of them are not white - you can watch them on news reports - but mention it if you dare - and you will end up being prosecuted. The world is going to hell in a handbasket and it seems an unstoppable process. God help our grandchildren is all I can say.

Yes, I have noticed that the censorship laws in Britain are far worse than in America. Here you may face social punishments, and you may lose your job in some cases, but you have not committed a crime if you point out what the crime stats are for racial categories, or if you talk about the dangers of unchecked, unvetted, immigration, and so on. In Britain and other European countries it is absurd. The government and the news media even lies about it. I read several years ago that in Sweden when an African Muslim, or any Muslim immigrant I suppose, raped a woman they would never describe him as an African or a Muslim, but they called him "Chinese" instead. And everyone knew what that meant, but they were not allowed to broadcast the actual description of the assailant. They did the same thing with their crime statistics when they were caught and arrested. They just lied. They intentionally refused to admit the problem or tell the truth. Worse, if someone did actually tell the truth, there was apparently some sort of punishment for doing so.

The idea that "we must not say it was an African or a Muslim, because then people might fear Africans or Muslims, and they may feel offended" is so stupid that I can hardly begin to express how stupid it is.

They ought to be offended that one of their members raped a woman. Instead they are offended if someone tells the truth. Of course, in Islamic doctrine it is permissible for Muslim men to rape non-Muslim women. People may get angry if you point that out, but that's their problem. It is the truth.

Chinese? The Chinese ought to be offended. They have the right idea in China. In order to combat the radical Islamification of China, the government has declared that Islam is a mental disorder and they involuntarily commit them to concentration camps. Frankly, that is language they understand. If you show that you have NO tolerance for their dogma (which says they can kill you, rape you, etc. if you refuse to become a Muslim, and that they must take over every country in the world and put them under Islamic governments), only then will they shut up, back down, or go somewhere else.

Winston Churchill reputedly said ""Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world."

When the young USA had trouble with Muslim pirates off the coast of Tunisia Thomas Jefferson investigated and said: “We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon a Nation who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our Friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. THE AMBASSADOR ANSWERED US THAT IT WAS FOUNDED ON THE LAWS OF THEIR PROPHET, THAT IT WAS WRITTEN IN THEIR KORAN, THAT ALL NATIONS WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED THEIR AUTHORITY WERE SINNERS, THAT IT WAS THEIR RIGHT AND DUTY TO MAKE WAR UPON THEM WHEREVER THEY COULD BE FOUND, AND TO MAKE SLAVES OF ALL THEY COULD TAKE AS PRISONERS, AND THAT EVERY MUSSELMAN (MUSLIM) WHO SHOULD BE SLAIN IN BATTLE WAS SURE TO GO TO PARADISE"

Islam is incompatible with a free society, with western government.

When the US fought against Muslims in the Phillipines 1899-1902 there are unconfirmed reports of practices by some military commanders which, if they were used today, would make the liberals' heads explode.
When they captured combatants not in uniform they of course hung them. But because that was no real deterrent, it is said that some commander(s) began to bury the corpses in graves with the remains of slaughtered hogs. Islamic dogma says they are unclean and that contact with pig's blood may prevent them reaching their heaven, something like that. Anyway, they really don't want to contact pig's blood. When word of that spread, it decreased their enthusiasm to make attacks on the US forces.

Some say "but that will enrage them and make them attack us". Perhaps, but that is akin to saying "don't fight back or they might get mad". They are already enraged and already attacking us. The answer is not to try to fight in a nice manner, it is to hit them back with overwhelming brutality, to hurt them so much that they calculate it is a bad idea to attack us. They say "it is unfair to bury us with pig's blood!"

Our response should be "then don't ever attack us again, or you will be swimming in pig shit, blood, entrails, etc. "

If only.

I just watched "Righteous Kill" again, with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Everyone in the film turned in great performances. It is a cop show with a veteran cop team who are both a bit burned out and fed up with the way criminals too often slip through the system and escape justice. That is all I will say about it.

What are you watching currently?

I watched "Righteous Kill" and apart from it being a little bit guessable I mostly enjoyed it. I think it seemed to be a project whereby they could feature two great actors together. It is always a puzzle between whom I prefer - I keep on coming down on Robert de Niro's side most of the time - I think Al Pacino can overact a bit on times but I still like him - he was good in "Sea of Love". For De Niro my favourite film is "Ronin". Currently I am still watching "Glitch" - I have been watching a series called "Wild Bill" over here - I don't know why because it is really annoying me. Rob Lowe plays a disgraced American cop who is shuttled off to England to be a Chief Constable in Lincolnshire. You may not realise this but in Britain a Chief Constable is the total head of the station including uniform and C.I.D. The writers don't seem to have any clue about how life in a police station works - a lowly female Detective Constable treats him as her equal - uniformed P.C.s speak to him like dirt - such subordination would result in instant dismissals. As usual the female DC is a one woman crime solving machine. I am so contemptuous of it I think I watch it just to see how far they will go with their stupidity - I must be a tv masochist.!! Another film of Kevin Costners that somehow slipped through my net was "Mr Brooks" I quite enjoyed that - it was not what I would term a typical role for him but he did it well.

The Chief Constable would be similar to our Chief of Police in city forces, and to our Sheriff in county forces, I suppose.
Have not seen Wild Bill, but I know the type of show you mean. The insubordination and disrespect displayed is, I suspect, meant to appeal to the rebellious youth audience, and possibly to cultivate that attitude as well.
Yes, these shows fail to reflect reality at all with regard to chain of command and proper conduct of law enforcement officers. They instead want to promote the brash, feminist officer who is seemingly on a campaign to push feminist agenda issues, and to do so with an insolent, sarcastic, cocky attitude. And her superiors are shamed by her truth, sheepishly slinking away when she exposes them for their male privilege. Or they show a brash male officer who cusses his superior officers, but is tolerated because he has such a great solve rate. That is how the writers want the world to work, anyway.

I wonder if young people who grew up on a diet of this social justice nonsense have trouble when they hit the job market. There are no 'safe spaces' at the police department. They don't have certain designated 'free speech zones' where people have to go before saying something un-PC.

Pacino can sort of 'over-act' at times. De Niro is certainly good, and yes I liked Ronin a lot also.
"The Mission" was another good film. De Niro played some kind of 18th century slave hunter who winds up joining the Jesuits. I don't like De Niro's politics, but he is a good actor. Pacino is also great. Scent of a Woman was very good. And I have seen him in films whose names escape me but in which he delivered great performances, and some of them were low key characters.