text:
NEW YORK, NY – In a black t-shirt, hair cropped short, with a wedding ring visible on his finger, Ted Bradford hunched over a microphone in a legislative hearing room in Nevada’s capital, Carson City.

In a public video of the meeting, Bradford can be seen speaking to the assembled senators representing the nearly 2.9 million Nevada residents. “I lived through the nightmare of wrongful conviction,” he says. “It was a horrible crime, a crime of rape and burglary.”

On the day of the meeting in June 2017, Bradford had come to Carson City to support a law that would require police agencies in the state to electronically record interrogations of suspects taken into custody. The proposed legislation would have mandated that police interrogations be recorded in their entirety, from the reading of Miranda rights to the end of the interview, depending on the severity of the crime.

“Here I was in this small room with two detectives being accused of this, and I knew I was innocent,” Bradford recounted for the assembled audience. “And I tried telling them, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Bradford believes the fact that his interrogation was not fully recorded may have cost him 14 years of his life – 10 years in prison and four more awaiting a retrial, which finally cleared his name. Only the last half hour of Bradford’s interrogation was recorded and shown in court.

Bradford was convicted, and then acquitted, of breaking into a woman’s house and raping her in Yakima, Washington, in 1995.

[]Ted Bradford testifies before the Nevada Senate Committee on Judiciary on June 2, 2017 [Screenshot from public video footage of the hearing, released by Nevada Legislature]

Both opponents and supporters of this type of legislation say they want to protect victims. For opponents of recordings, those are the victims of heinous crimes who deserve justice. Legislating this policy, they fear, could leave police hamstrung and allow a guilty attacker to walk free.

For supporters, those victims are the individuals found guilty of crimes they did not commit, and the future victims of the real perpetrators who are allowed to remain free while an innocent person sits in jail.

“They kept telling me ‘we know you’re a liar, you’ve got to tell us the truth’ […] This went on for over nine hours that I was there,” Bradford said. “Nothing to eat or drink, exhausted, they kept telling me over and over – you’re not getting out of this room until you tell us what happened […] So in my mind, I thought, the only way I’m getting out of here is if I make up this story, and tell them that I did it.”

_Read a related article on whether the US police needs policing_

The phenomenon of false confessions

Evidence of false confessions in the US has been around since the Salem witch trials, says Richard Leo, a professor of law and social psychology at the University of San Francisco.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Leo explains that the phenomenon has only been really accepted in both law enforcement and the public eye in the last 30 years, around the time when the technology of DNA testing became good enough to allow groups like the Innocence Project to prove wrongful convictions.

  ”[In

  ”Richard

you determine someone is guilty of the crime and the goal is not to get the truth, it’s to get them to confess to what you, the officer, believe is the truth, your theory of the truth.”]

Since 1989, 350wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated through DNA evidence. The Innocence Project says false confessions played a role in around a third of those cases. When including people who were cleared through other means, the National Registry of Exonerations has tracked 2,066 people who had been exonerated of convictions since 1989.

“There are hundreds of false of confessions out there [from DNA exonerations], and they have to be the tip of the iceberg, because it’s almost impossible to prove confessions false,” said Leo.

Leo explains that to understand false confessions in the US, one must understand the basis of interrogation training that has pervaded law enforcement for the last 70 years.

A confrontational style of interrogating, known originally as the Reid technique, is generally considered by experts in cases of coerced confessions to be responsible for “some, if not most, if not all” false confessions, Leo said.

While the method may go by different names with slight variances, the underlying style, what Leo calls a “guilt-presumptive accusatory method,” has remained prominent in modern American law enforcement.

“[In this technique] you determine someone is guilty of the crime and the goal is not to get the truth, it’s to get them to confess to what you, the officer, believe is the truth, your theory of the truth. So you pressure, persuade, and sometimes psychologically coerce them,” Leo said.

For their part, John E Reid and Associates, the company that developed the method, has rebutted Leo and other academic’s characterisation of their technique on their website.

Joseph Buckley, the president of the company, says their training specifically advises against coercive methods and is designed to get the truth from subjects, not just to get a confession.

[]Jeffrey Deskovic served 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit. [Frank Franklin II/The Associated Press]

“When you look at our core principles […] it talks about not making promises of leniency, not threatening any physical harm or inevitable consequences,” Buckley tells Al Jazeera. “When you engage in those behaviours […] those are the elements that contribute to false confessions.”

Victims of wrongful conviction

Jeffrey Deskovic believes there were three victims in his wrongful conviction in New York: 15-year-old Angela Correa, who was raped and murdered in 1989, Deskovic himself, who spent 16 years in prison after falsely confessing to the crimes, and Patricia Morrison, who was killed by Steven Cunningham in 1993, four years after Correa died.

Cunningham confessed in 2006 to killing Correa after DNA evidence linked him to the attack.

“I remember at the end I just collapsed on the floor in the fetal position and I was crying uncontrollably,” Deskovic, now 43, recalls the moments inside the interrogation room after he falsely confessed.

Deskovic, who was 16 years old at the time, told Al Jazeera he was threatened by investigators, fed non-public details of the crime, and finally promised he could go home if he just said what the detectives wanted to hear. That promise pushed Deskovic over the edge after the six-hour interrogation, which was unrecorded.

He believes that had the jury seen the full interrogation, they would have come to a different conclusion.

“I feel like in the grand scheme of things, this should all be viewed as a public safety issue,” said Deskovic, who now works as an advocate for the wrongfully convicted. “Every time the wrong person is sent away, the actual criminal remains free. Nobody wins when the wrong person is arrested and convicted. Well, there’s one winner, that’s the actual criminal, he or she won.”

_Read more on how recordings affect police actions in the US: The Philando Castile killing police video sparks outrage_

A policy with teeth

The practice of recording interrogations, when done correctly, creates an objective record of the exchange that protects both defendants and law enforcement from false claims, Leo said.

Because of this, law enforcement has mostly embraced the measure, especially as technology has advanced.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National Association of District Attorney’s have all published guidelines, referring to it as “best practice”.

“Major Cities Chiefs Association recommends all law enforcement agencies implement mandatory recording of custodial interrogations to increase the quality and accuracy of interrogation evidence,” Patricia Williams, of the Major Cities Chiefs Association mentioned in a statement to Al Jazeera. According to Williams, the organisation left it up to law enforcement in each state to decide if the policy should be legislated.

The crux of current debate is whether the practice should be mandated by law or left as a recommended policy for individual departments to adopt.

Advocates of laws on recorded interrogations argue that policies that are not codified in law have no teeth.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Michelle Feldman, a legislative strategist for the Innocence Project who advocated for the bill in Nevada explains that the right to a recorded interrogation is not protected by the US Constitution, so states without unified laws are still vulnerable to misconduct.

“If you have a policy, most officers are going to follow it. But wrongful convictions happen in the margins. You just have somebody who decides not to record, that could result in a wrongful conviction. You need a uniform practice and you need a consequence for failure not to record to motivate them to do it.”

Currently, 24 states have court statutes or laws requiring recording for some, if not all, major crimes. It is at the states’ discretion to agree on what types of crimes will warrant the recording of the interrogation. That number has increased dramatically from just two states requiring the measure 15 years ago.

_Read more on this topic with a related article on US police use of body cams_

‘To the letter’

Back in the Nevada hearing room, members of law enforcement took turns sitting where the exonerated Bradford had sat moments before.

To opponents of the legislation, the stakes are high. Codifying police policy into law, they argued, could jeopardise legitimate cases against rapists and killers, the types of cases for which the Nevada bill specifically required interrogations to be recorded. Minor mistakes could be construed as misconduct, they argued.

The legislation did not make evidence from unrecorded interrogations inadmissible, but stated that a judge had to give a jury “a cautionary instruction” if such evidence was presented in court. Law enforcement representatives worry that could turn a case.

“That was a concern,” Robert Roshak, who testified on behalf of the Nevada Sheriff’s and Chief’s Association, tells Al Jazeera. “If, in fact, everything wasn’t followed to the letter, you could lose [a case] on a technicality.”

“Nobody was arguing that it’s not the best practice to [record interrogations], especially in those kinds of crimes,” he says, “but [the legislation] left out any kind of officer discretion.”

Chuck Callaway, who spoke on behalf of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, told the legislators that exceptions written into the law – for example, regarding equipment malfunction – did not go far enough.

“[The] issue is law enforcement is not black and white, and there’s times when gray areas occur,” testified Calloway. “Having strict statutory guidelines that say you will do this even if there are some exceptions in this bill – exceptions can’t possibly cover every scenario that’s out there.”

The Nevada bill was overwhelmingly voted down in the state’s Senate two days later.

[]Floyd Bledsoe served 15 years in a Kansas prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murder, successfully advocated for legislation requiring the electronic recording of interrogations in the state [Photo courtesy of Floyd Bledsoe]

‘Something we can point to’

Floyd Bledsoe painted pictures of wildlife in a Kansas prison for 15 years. He hadn’t been in nature since his arrest and the art reminded him of being free. It also helped keep his mind off of missing his sons’ youth.

Bledsoe’s 14-year-old sister-in-law, Camille Arfmann, was raped and murdered in 2000. Both he and his brother, Tom, were taken into custody. Tom reportedly admitted to the crime more than once, but later changed his story to implicate Bledsoe. Tom was released. Bledsoe believes his brother’s admissions may have turned the jury, but those words were not recorded.

“I was married, I had two kids, I was trying to build a life for myself. I had 40 acres. While I might not have been rich, I was happy,” Bledsoe tells Al Jazeera. “Those people who chose not to record took that from me, they stole that.”

Bledsoe’s brother admitted to the killing again in 2015 in a suicide note and reportedly gave details of the murder that investigators said only the perpetrator could know, leading to Bledsoe’s exoneration.

The recent passage of laws in New York and Texas give supporters hope that it is just a matter of time before similar laws are passed in every state. In 2016, California also passed a law. These states are three of the four most populated in the US.

“It’s really something we can point to – these big states were able to do it, they have all kinds of jurisdictions – rural, urban – so there’s no reason why your state can’t do this too,” says the Innocence Project’s Feldman.

Bledsoe stood in front of the Kansas legislators three times in order to support a recording bill. Last year, the legislation failed following opposition from law enforcement who cited budget concerns. In May, a tweaked bill, which only required the audio recording of the entire interrogation, was signed into law.

“I want to stop those detectives who choose not to push that button,” says Bledsoe, who is expecting his first child since he was released. “They should not have that power. I understand mistakes happen, equipment fails, but don’t make that choice. That’s why I fought for this. That’s why I want people to understand this.”

question: What is Ted Bradford fighting for and why is he interested?

answer: Ted Bradford wants the law changed to force police agencies to electronically record interrogations of all suspects in custody. He believes that he spent 14 years in jail because his trial was not fully recorded. He was eventually cleared of the charge that he confessed to under duress.

question: What, according to Richard Leo, is the objective of the police when they interrogate someone who they believe is guilty of a crime and what is the result.

answer: According to Leo  "the goal is not to get the truth, it’s to get them to confess to what you, the officer, believe is the truth, your theory of the truth." The result is that thousands of people have been convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Since 1989, 2606 people have been exonerated of crimes they confessed to.

question: Why did Deskivic confess to a crime he didn't commit and why was he exonerated?

answer: Deskovic, who was 16 years old at the time, told Al Jazeera he was threatened by investigators, fed non-public details of the crime, and finally promised he could go home if he just said what the detectives wanted to hear. That promise pushed Deskovic over the edge after the six-hour interrogation, which was unrecorded. Cunningham confessed in 2006 to the killing after DNA evidence linked him to the attack.


split: test

text:
Years ago, I was a service truck technician in a large city in Texas, and I did mostly electronic in-home stuff- I always had a ladder rack, spools of wire, tool boxes- and I had a taste for unusual trucks as everyday drivers.

I had a baby blue 1964 chevy C-10 fleet side that was my everyday driver, and it was nearly 100% original, 3 on the tree, straight 6, etc. My boss and good friend had a lowered 1983 silverado short wheel base, with small block 400- cool truck, very fast. There were others, I knew a few hot-rodders- But by far the coolest truck any one of us had was our mutual friend and drinking buddy, let's just call him "crazy Joe".
 Crazy Joe was an infantry veteran of at least one war, and the best, most clever auto mechanic and machinist i have possibly ever known- and impossibly drunk almost all of the time. He had a crazy eye that would look off across the room, and as hard as you tried- it was impossible to not look across the room to see if he was looking at you or something else. But Joe was a good friend, I wish I knew where he was now.

Joe's truck was a 1960 chevy Apache, with a 1990's chevy step-side bed on the back, B&M ratchet shifter, positrack rear end, fuel cell, front end from i think a 78 or whatever the first year chevy parts would handle disc brakes and normal rotors, shift kit on a 3 speed auto, upgraded torque convertor, it was dualed-out, pretty much a custom hand wired dash, custom lights. On the dashboard was an array of lit, colored switches that controlled everything from the ignition and fuel pump to the stereo, amp, and lighting for the interior.

There were at least 11 switches on the dash, about 5 of which were necessary to start the truck. Forget stealing it, I would have to walk you through starting it. It had a giant monster tachometer on the side of the column and it still had the original steering wheel, which was of course huge. Joe welded a handmade brush guard that looked like it would roll through a brick wall and stood taller than the hood- which was already tall on a '60 apache, and he made 4 inch tubular steel bumpers- with LEAD melted and poured in them. Yes I am saying the bumpers were mostly filled with lead. To keep the thing on the ground. He melted fishing weights in his garage- I did say crazy, right?- And it had a pro-built racing engine under the hood.

Now Joe had a larger but fairly normal holley 4-barrel carb on it, but the engine was a special build, a canadian forged chevy 350 small block, with a 327 head on it- an old race motor build trick to get more compression. And I know, I was there when we pulled it, several times. It was ported, flowed, balanced, it had a cam, it was built like almost no one builds them. The story behind it was that the engine itself had originally been built by a race motor builder(and racer) of note, who died behind one just like it. And i have heard, worked on, and driven a few- never again like that one. The tach announced a 7,200 RPM red-line and Joe claimed it would go further. We guessed (conservatively) that it was throwing out a bit over 700 HP long before it hit 7 grand. It probably should have had a safety cage but it didn't. It easily did 14 second quarter mile runs, not even at full throttle. We were careful with it. With great power…

 It had absolutely no seat belts of any kind. Most of our trucks didn't. Trucks didn't have them until 1978, and we didn't add them. It was jet black and had no AC of any kind. None of us cared. It wasn't about that at all.

One day as fate would have it, my beloved blue '64 C-10 sheered her crankshaft, making it impossible to mount the harmonic balancer/ main pulley back on the engine without a major rebuild. And as we were looking deeper into it, we discovered that that was going to be the last time she broke down before a full restore- there were about 6 grand worth of other things to fix, like serious frame issues, brake lines, steering, rust - it was too much. I was in a hurry, devastated, and truckless. We had to let her go, and we had lots of work to do. She ultimately went back to the shitty car lot where I first saw her.

 Crazy Joe had gotten himself a newer Chevy, a 1500 extended cab- with air conditioning. It was quite a bit more practical- and he had gotten a different job and needed a newer company vehicle, yada, yada- and the apache ended up basically parked.
The engine still has basically no miles on it, and the thing has been hand tuned by a fucking mad scientist- and it's just sitting there.
Joe had apparently ended up owing my boss- I think… and somehow the apache was parked at my bosses house the next morning. And the engine itself- belonged TO my boss, who had agreed to drop it into the apache for the sake of tire smoke and good times after the previous normal 350 in the apache had gone south and Joe was unable to come up with the capitol to replace it outright. We all loved the truck- and crazy Joe. And he was the one who brought it back to life from it's stay in a garage under a tarp for many, many years.

And Gear heads are superstitious. This engine was literally a killer. We all knew it. It sat there a long time. Years.

 And I wanted it. And that week we got so busy- It just fell in my lap, we had work to do and we had to get there- and we were out of trucks. My boss threw me the keys. I was very good at my job and knew trucks, and how to take care of them- and that was that.

The beast.
That's what we called her. She weighed around 5,800 pounds. The truck ran like a top, never leaked a drop of oil- ever. Bump the key and running. You could light the tires at will, and they would just broil until you let it go. I never took it past about maybe 5900 RPMs. You could do over 60 in first gear. I drove her about 18 months. I got tickets you never even heard of, exhibition of acceleration, excessive tire noise. I didn't care.  I was constantly pulled over for no seat belts, and giving the officer the lecture on the laws at the time on the side of the road. Often, they never even wrote the ticket- they just wanted to see it. Some even asked me to pop the hood. I raced a police car once. Light to light. Guess who won. I was still VERY careful in the beast, I can not say that enough. Or I wouldn't have had it ten minutes.

The beast got 4 miles to the gallon, maybe. I could burn a tank in about 36 miles, if i wanted to. And there are advantages to having that much power in a large city- it would get out of it's own way and everything else's - almost instantly.

Many parts of it were original, and it was quirky- but reliable. The original stomp-switch for the high beams was still in the floorboard, and completely shorted out like they always are. And once, It blew the exhaust headers off the sides of the engine block. We put them back on. No biggie.

Probably the most fun I ever had in it was the night a buddy of mine asked me to "scare his girlfriend and her friend", in my truck. They had a short errand to run, like getting smokes or something, so we got in the beast and left. We had some normal conversation and were just chit chatting, and i drove right past the store, under the freeway, turned left and hit the access road and started to get on the freeway- As I am nonchalantly ratcheting the transmission into manual first gear i say "Smokes are a lot cheaper down the road". We get on the freeway, slowly. I'm in first, gently creeping past 40, 45… It's getting pretty loud. The last thing I heard was "this thing is really---"

I stand on the gas pedal, take first gear past 60 almost instantly, ratchet back on the shifter and wait til 70 on the huge half-moon speedometer on the dash… I let it go, the beast goes from 70 to just over 100 almost before i can settle the steering. (The steering at this point is incidentally, pretty much worthless) The needle is buried, i'm now watching the tach. Still standing on it. I take it straight past 5,500 RPM's, I ratchet back, pause to grip the wheel even harder, and drop it into third. The noise at this point is fucking staggering. I'm only looking FAR down the road ahead. No more gauges.

On the last shift into 3rd, It came nearly off the ground but shifted perfectly and lunged straight forward- thank you, posi-track. And at this point it's hard to imagine that it had more- but it did. Much more. Steadily climbing. Pinned in our seats, and everyone was actually still having a good time at this point.
 Somewhere around 4,000 RPM's and i have no idea what speed, we hit a small bump in the road- and at that instant, the beast lost all power, all the electrical systems died- the christmas tree on the dashboard went black, and for about 2 full seconds- the only sound was wind.

 About 140 MPH worth of wind.

 I lift the shifter out of drive and drop it in neutral, and start to calmly reset switches on the dash, and back off the power usage that was running at that moment, in an attempt to figure out what had just happened. And nearly at the same instant- the girls both screamed. Loud. Blowing my ears.

 I don't dare hit the brakes, and i'm bracing the wheel with my knees.

We have probably slowed to about 120 - 125, I have reset everything and it hits me to stomp the floor switch for the high beams a few times, in case it has shorted. Still screaming next to me. Maybe the third time i stomp it- the lights flicker and come back on. I quickly cut everything back on and start the engine, run up the revs a bit and drop it right back into 3rd. Then start letting it throttle down. I eased it back to a normal speed after a few seconds, and the screams trailed off.
 We had traveled quite far, and the ride back was probably 15 minutes in dead silence (and at normal speeds, well balanced engines are actually fairly quiet). Not a word was spoken, not again that night. But I was later told I may have gone too far. yeah... sorry about that...

Eventually, the beast changed hands back to my boss and beyond and the next time i saw her someone had not been careful, and she was fairly badly wrecked. It was really a damn shame. She could have been rebuilt, but crazy Joe was no longer around either. In my family there is one photo of the beast, and it belongs to someone I no longer speak to. It's ok though, I don't need it. I drove it, and for a short time, life was good.

Thanks for reading.

title: [NF] A very short story about fast trucks, tire smoke, and good friends. (take it easy on me, i'm not a writer, i'm a tech)

question: Summarize the description of Joe's truck.

answer: Joe's truck was a 1960 Chevy Apache full of customizations. There were at least 11 switches on the dash, about 5 of which were necessary to start the truck. It had a tall hood and bumpers filled with lead to keep the truck on the ground. Its pro-built racing engine was unique and its lack of seatbelts was standard for the time.

question: What does the text say about the last time the narrator saw the beast?

answer: The last time the narrator describes seeing the beast, it was wrecked. Whoever was the owner at the time had clearly not been careful driving it.

question: What does the text say about mental health?


text:
[]

Screen shot from White House video

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the _Mother Jones Daily_ newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

A day after President Donald Trump convened a remarkable meeting to discuss gun regulations with members of Congress at the White House, he gave the gathering a mixed scorecard. “Many ideas, some good & some not so good, emerged from our bipartisan meeting on school safety yesterday,” he tweeted. Then Trump repeated a lie that’s been pushed for years by the National Rifle Association and other staunch opponents of gun safety laws: “Gun free zones are proven targets of killers.”

  Many ideas, some good & some not so good, emerged from our bipartisan meeting on school safety yesterday at the White House. Background Checks a big part of conversation. Gun free zones are proven targets of killers. After many years, a Bill should emerge. Respect 2nd Amendment!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2018

The argument invariably has been trotted out by the NRA and its allies whenever high-profile mass shootings reignite the national gun debate. There is zero evidence to support it. As I explained in a 2013 article also published in _USA Today_, analysis from our groundbreaking mass shootings database shows what is known about how mass shooters choose where to attack:

  Among the 62 mass shootings over the last 30 years that we studied, not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns. To the contrary, in many of the cases there was clearly another motive for the choice of location. For example, 20 were workplace shootings, most of which involved perpetrators who felt wronged by employers and colleagues. Last September, when a troubled man working at a sign manufacturer in Minneapolis was told he would be let go, he pulled out a 9mm Glock and killed six people and injured another before putting a bullet in his own head. Similar tragedies unfolded at a beer distributor in Connecticut in 2010 and at a plastics factory in Kentucky in 2008.

  Or consider the 12 school shootings we documented, in which all but one of the killers had personal ties to the school they struck. FBI investigators learned from one witness, for example, that the mass shooter in Newtown had long been fixated on Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he’d once attended.

  Or take the man who opened fire in suburban Milwaukee last August: Are we to believe that a white supremacist targeted the Sikh temple there not because it was filled with members of a religious minority he despised, but because it was a place that allegedly banned firearms?

  Proponents of this argument also ignore that the majority of mass shootings are murder-suicides. Thirty-six of the killers we studied took their own lives at or near the crime scene, while seven others died in police shootouts they had no hope of surviving (a.k.a. “suicide by cop”). These were not people whose priority was identifying the safest place to attack.

Trump’s continued emphasis on the “gun free zones” myth (which he’s been parroting ever since the Florida high school massacre) followed another extraordinary day of politics concerning gun violence, including major corporations tightening their policies on selling assault rifles, and Trump shooting down his own vice president to argue for seizing guns without due process.

question: How many mass shootings have occurred over the past 30 years?

answer: The total is unknown (the study focuses on 62 mass shootings, but it does not state that the number is comprehensive).

question: What are the findings of the study published in USA today?

answer: Not a single case included evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns.

question: What is Trump's argument concerning "gun-free zones"?

answer: He believes that gun-free zones are proven targets for mass shooters.

question: What is President Donald Trump's stance on gun control?

answer: He wants to Respect the 2nd Amendment.

question: What did most of the 12 school shootings documented have in common?

answer: All but one of the shooters had personal ties to the school they targeted.

question: When was this article published?

answer: 2018 (exact date is unclear, but sometime around March 1)

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: This article concerns President Trump's comments following a meeting to discuss gun regulations. Trump erroneously claimed that gun-free zones are proven targets of mass shootings. A study conducted by the author of the article shows that not a single one out of 62 mass shooting cases over the past 30 years includes evidence that the kilelr chose their target because of its being a gun-free zone.


text:
“Where were you last night?” Max peered over my Economics textbook. He had a look of anticipation, as if he was waiting for some pain relieving gossip.

“I was home,” I responded innocently before he rolled his eyes at me. “Now, don’t bother me, I’m trying to focus.” Although normally I would use anything to distract me from school, I wasn’t about to involve Max in last night’s mess.

“Are you expecting me to believe you weren’t at Nina’s party?” He raised his eyebrows at me. I didn’t know what I was expecting. Frankly, no expectation in the world would have prepared me well enough. But I wanted to be there for Nina like she had for me. Perhaps I couldn’t fix her parent’s divorce, but I could at least attend her house party. Especially after her break up with Todd, the leather jacket douche that called her “babe” so much I would wonder if he knew her real name.

“I promise you’ll have a great time,” Nina had told me. And at first, I really did. There is something comforting about the stagnant smell of beer penetrating every fiber of clothing and hair follicle. Something nostalgic about repetitive rap songs preaching about the wonders of big asses.

Everything seemed normal at first. The music was pounding loudly and the dim lights carried shadows across the cramped living room. I could feel the air thickening.

Minutes before terror, I was standing unnoticed next to a group of girls I recognized.

“Someone told me her dad was abusive,” I heard one say with wide eyes.

“Yeah, apparently the neighbors called the cops on them,” another responded.

“Well, I wouldn’t point fingers just yet. Nina’s mom’s a bitch. Maybe she deserved it,” a brunette shrugged and took a sip of her drink right before our eyes met. Her face flared red as she realized her words had been overhead. I clenched my fists in rage.

“How about you all mind your own–”. My response was cut short by a piercing scream. I quickly stood up in alert. The room became still. The music stopped and those still standing looked at one another with puzzled looks. The source was nowhere to be seen. It came again, this time along with a cry. I recognized Nina immediately. I pushed my way across the living room and ran up the stairs before barging into Nina’s bedroom.

I noticed him first. His leather jacket shimmered in the moonlight as he stood tall and angry. A millisecond later, I spotted Nina on the floor. Hands covering her face in defense. The lack of light in the room didn’t stop the fierceness of her blood as it dripped down her temple and into her hair.

I stood still. My brain called in fear but my body made no response. Not even when Todd walked passed me, into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

Nina remained on the floor. She held herself and rocked back and forth, letting silent cries out into the thick air.

“Don’t tell anyone.” She whispered.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

“Hello?” Max snapped at me. “Are you going to tell me or not?” I stared at him blankly as the vivid flashbacks flew through my head. My heart stung in bitterness as I recognized that all I wanted to do was say it. To write it out in sharpie on all student lockers.

Nina’s bloody face burned in my head. “There’s nothing to tell.”

title: [RF] Last Night Leftovers

question: What is the conflict of the story?

answer: The conflict is that the narrator witnessed Nina getting assaulted at a party last night, and Max is questioning the narrator about where they were last night.

question: Who is Todd?

answer: Todd is Nina's assailant.

question: Where is the narrator from?


text:
_MY GIRL_ () is a 2005 South Korean television series starring Lee Da-hae, Lee Dong-wook, Lee Joon-gi and Park Si-yeon. A joint production of Kallista Co. Ltd. and DSP Entertainment (now DSP Media), it aired on SBS from December 14, 2005 to February 2, 2006 on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 21:55 for 16 episodes.[1][2] The romantic comedy series was a hit during its run—it placed number one in its timeslot and reached a peak viewership rating of 24.9%.[3] It also catapulted actors Lee Da-hae, Lee Dong-wook and Lee Joon-gi into Korean Wave stardom.

Synopsis

A native of Jeju Island, Joo Yoo-rin lives with her father, who is addicted to gambling. Because of her father's debts, Yoo-rin has become particularly skilled at lying and grifting. When her father escapes the island to hide from his debtors, Yoo-rin is determined to support herself and clear up the debts. One day, she meets Seol Gong-chan, the sole heir to the L'Avenue Hotel fortune.

To grant his grandfather's dying wish, Gong-chan employs Yoo-rin to act as his grandfather's long-lost granddaughter. Offering a monthly salary plus a bonus, he asks her to do what she does best—to put on an act. Not wishing to lie to a dying man, yet desperate for the money, Yoo-rin takes the offer and starts playing the long-lost granddaughter. Through a strange twist of fate, however, finding his granddaughter makes the grandfather so happy that he makes a complete recovery. Since they have claimed to be cousins, Gong-chan and Yoo-rin are forced to live together under one roof, and as time passes, the attraction between them grows. However, love is forbidden for these two, who must pass as cousins...

Cast

Main

-   Lee Da-hae as Joo Yoo-rin

    A tour guide in charge of running mini tours in Jeju Island. Her father is a gambling addict, but despite all the debts that he runs up, Yoo-rin always finds a way to help repay them. She leads a below-average life but is happy as long as she has her father with her. Because of her father's gambling ways, she has had to move from country to country whenever her father runs from one place to another to avoid their debtors. This has in turn brought her the ability to converse fluently in Chinese and Japanese, which are of great help as a tour guide whenever she has to entertain tourists from China and Japan.

-   Lee Dong-wook as Seol Gong-chan

    The only heir of the owner of L'Avenuel Hotel, which is one of the top hotels in Korea. His grandfather, Seol Woong, charges him with the duty of finding his granddaughter, who is Gong-chan's cousin.

-   Lee Joon-gi as Seo Jung-woo[4]

    The son of one of the major shareholders of L'Avenuel Hotel, and Gong-chan's best friend. Unlike Gong-chan who is responsible and hardworking, Jung-woo is a playboy who is known to have many girlfriends.

-   Park Si-yeon as Kim Se-hyun[5]

    Gong-chan's ex-girlfriend. A rising star in the tennis world, she returns to Korea hoping to reconcile with Gong-chan.

Supporting

-   Jo Kye-hyung as Ahn Jin-gyu
-   Hwang Bo-ra as Ahn Jin-shim
-   Byun Hee-bong as Seol Woong (Gong-chan's grandfather)
-   Ahn Suk-hwan as Jang Il-do
-   Choi Ran as Bae In-sun (Gong-chan's maiden aunt)
-   Lee Eon-jeong as Yoon Jin-kyung
-   Kim Yong-rim as Jang Hyung-ja (Jung-woo's mother)
-   Jung Han-heon as Joo Tae-hyung (Yoo-rin's father)
-   Oh Ji-young as Se-hyun's assistant/traveling companion
-   Han Chae-young as Choi Ha-na (the real granddaughter, cameo)[6]
-   Jae Hee as Lee Mong-ryong (Ha-na's husband, cameo)[7]

Ratings

  Date         Episode   Nationwide    Seoul
  ------------ --------- ------------- -------------
  2005-12-14   1         14.6% (8th)   18.8% (6th)
  2005-12-15   2         15.7% (8th)   17.0% (5th)
  2005-12-21   3         16.5% (5th)   17.5% (4th)
  2005-12-22   4         18.8% (4th)   19.9% (4th)
  2005-12-28   5+6       20.3% (3rd)   21.7% (3rd)
  2006-01-04   7         22.8% (2nd)   24.2% (2nd)
  2006-01-05   8         23.3% (2nd)   25.0% (2nd)
  2006-01-11   9         21.3% (3rd)   22.1% (2nd)
  2006-01-12   10        24.1% (2nd)   24.7% (2nd)
  2006-01-18   11        21.0% (5th)   22.1% (4th)
  2006-01-19   12        24.3% (2nd)   26.0% (2nd)
  2006-01-25   13        21.1% (3rd)   23.1% (3rd)
  2006-01-26   14        23.5% (3rd)   22.8% (3rd)
  2006-02-01   15        23.2% (3rd)   23.7% (3rd)
  2006-02-02   16        24.9% (3rd)   26.0% (3rd)
  Average      19.7%     20.7%

Awards

2005 SBS Drama Awards

-   Excellence Award, Actress in a Drama Special: Lee Da-hae

2006 SBS Drama Awards

-   Top 10 Stars: Lee Da-hae
-   New Star Award: Park Si-yeon

International broadcast

The series aired on GTV in Taiwan in June 2006, followed by a Hong Kong airing in July 2006,[8] and airings in Malaysia on 8TV and Animax Asia that same year.

It began airing in Japan on TV Tokyo on September 6, 2007,[9] and was re-aired on cable channel KNTV from April 9 to March 16, 2009.[10]

It aired in the Philippines on ABS-CBN from May 29 to August 18, 2006. It was re-aired from July 14 to August 15, 2014 on the network's “Kapamilya Gold”

In Sri Lanka, it aired on Swarnawahini under the title _Thatu Ahimi Samanali_.

In Thailand, it aired on Channel 7 under the tite _rạk h̄md cı yạy kal̀xn_.[11]

Remake

There have been 4 remakes of _My Girl_, produced in Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand.

The Indonesian remake _Benci Jadi Cinta_ starred Nia Ramadhani as Alya, Jonathan Frizzy as Reihan, Al Fathir Muchtar as Irfan, and Donita as Tasha. It aired on RCTI in 2006.

ABS-CBN aired the Philippine remake, also titled _My Girl_, from May 26 to September 5, 2008. It starred Kim Chiu as Jasmine Estocapio, Gerald Anderson as Julian Abueva, Enchong Dee as Nico Legaspi, and Niña Jose as Anika Ramirez.[12][13][14]

Taiwanese network JSTV aired a remake from October 19 to November 1, 2011. Retitled _Rainbow Sweetheart_, it starred Jimmy Lin as Shao Feng, Cherrie Ying as Peng Xiao Qian, Zou Ting Wei as Xu Kai, and Hou Shu as Luo Ying Ying.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6] Han Chae-young and Jae Hee were the lead actors of the director and writers' previous series _Delightful Girl Choon-Hyang_.

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

title: My Girl (2005 TV series)

question: Summarize the criteria by which a television show can be considered as successful by Korean standards.

answer: The article does not specifically answer the question. But since the series it discusses, My Girl, is described to be successful, then some of the achievements of the series may be used to answer the query. One of these achievements is placing as the number one in viewership for its timeslot. The viewership volume itself, at 24.9%, might also be a factor (the average is 19.7% for the whole series). The show also won three awards. Lastly, the show was also acquired by networks outside of Korea, which means it is recognized not only locally. In summary, if a show has a high viewership, outrank other shows in its timeslot, be recognized by local critics, and acquired internationally, then it would be considered a success by Korean standards.

question: What did the audiences appreciate the most about the series?

answer: It appears that of all the elements in the series, it is the lead actor and actress that the audiences liked the most -more than the plot, cinematography, script, or any other elements. This is because the awards that the show earned are not about the show itself, but are awards for the actors.


text:
It was a very warm day in August that year. Even the birds refused to fly and expend any energy in this heat. as usual I was sprawled in my office, occasionally peeking through my eyelids at the various bugs and flies hopping around my grass carpeted office.
Luther, my tall friend and neighbor, chose this moment to slide the top nailed plank on the western wall  and enter  my office. He ambled along on his extremely long legs and sidled next to me and plopped.
"Mrs. Kit, mother of Morris and Rosie did not make it home last night." He bellowed in my ear with his bass like voice. He added "That make it two feline families missing the neighborhood this week"
"Well, a good morning to you too." I replied.
"Yeah, yeah good morning, I'm upset that the neighborhood I chose to live in, for its diversification, is losing its, well, diversification."
Sighing, I replied, "Guess we have a new mystery on our hands and it's up to me to solve it. Go ahead put out you're feelers in all the usual places."
"I intend to."
"Luther, this time make it sure that you do so on the down low. The last time you were loud and scared away some of the smaller species."
"Yes definitely, I'm just going to leave messages, that too, only on the soft boards."
"Good, leave the hydrants, lampposts and trees alone. Remember only bushes and fence posts, we want the smaller species picking up the messages only."

Luther stood up and slowly walked over to the loose plank on the fence, turned around, and complained, "Man, with my long legs I got to bend low and leave messages."

"Make sure you drink a lot of water, it's hot and you have  lot of messages to leave, and Luther, quit complaining,  waiting here, for results, is just as difficult for me."

I slowly rose from my sprawl and walked towards the loose plank on the western fence and peeked out. Luther was moving down the alley, bending low, and peeing in the bushes every few feet, leaving silent messages for the smaller species in our turf.

The first to arrive was Chewy, the black Chihuahua. We greeted each other by sniffing and soft yelps. Chewy wanted to know what the commotion was about? He had sniffed the same message over and over again.

I replied, " I want to know if you have heard about the missing felines."

"Why should I know? Just cause I'm small and I do like to eat some of their food doesn't mean I'm an expert or had anything to do with them."

"No, no Chewy, don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming you for their disappearance, I just need information."

"Ok, ok sorry about that, I'm touchy and nervous as I'm small and always being picked on.  Maybe you should talk to Wiley, he's all over the neighborhood at all sorts of times."

"The Rottweiler? not a good idea,  he's very taciturn and rarely speaks, his size alone intimidates everyone."

"Ok then, I'll be on my way, until next time."

Chewy turned around and silently left. I sat down again and pondered if I should approach Wiley. After all he was huge and getting information from him was a real workout. I had nothing else to do and the whole day loomed ahead of me, I decided to be brave and approach the Rottweiler.

"I see things in the hood but I don't like to talk about it "  Wiley said even before I could ask him about the disappearance.

Wiley was huge, black all over except his paws and mouth, golden brown, and he bellowed more than spoke. He was quite intimidating. I swallowed my fear and realized that he had spoken first, something must be troubling him.  "Wiley, I just stopped by to chat with you,  but if you know a secret you know I know how to keep it. So, what is it that you've seen in the hood and don't want to talk about?"

Wiley kept staring at me  with his dead eye expression.  I kept quite and let the silence build around us, finally the silence got to Wiley and he blurted, "Maybe you should talk to Brad."

"Why?"

"Brad was upset about something last night."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Well, you know Brad is very vocal and paces all over the turf, last night he was sprawled flat in his house and didn't join me on our usual prowl."

"Thanks Wiley, I'll go and talk to the Labrador."

After our customary mutual sniffing we parted, I crossed over to Kibble Corner and made my way to Purina Place. From there I went east on Iams Blvd.  Constantly looking over my shoulder for any danger. My pal, Luther, was leaving messages on the soft boards of shrubs, bushes, plants and fences. I did not want the big dogs to know that I was looking for the missing felines, not yet, anyway. I wanted to look them in the eye and see their reaction when I brought the disappearance up.

From my experience, the big macho dogs found it beneath them to sniff the soft boards, for them trees, light posts and fat fence poles  were the boards they frequented.  Of course a water hydrant was the most common posts for all species. For that reason it had to be avoided at all costs. Once a message was peed on a hydrant, everyone and everyone's uncle was privy to it and that would make all wonder, 'Who let the dogs out'. That would never do in an investigation.

I made it to Alpo Avenue, Brad's neighborhood. Brad was planked half in and half out of his Igloo home.

"Brad, what's up?"

"Oh, it's you. How are you and what are you doing out and about in the daytime?"

We approached each other and after our customary sniffs, I replied, "I don't see you laying around often, is everything okay?"

"Just resting up, the nighttime tired me out."

"I heard that you witnessed something disturbing last night."

"Oh, you heard."

"Yes, tell me I'm investigating and need all the information you can give me. So, do you know anything?"

"Maybe, last night I was with Honey, she was very upset and wouldn't let me near her. That has upset me a great deal. Honey is always loving and vocal and shares everything with me.  But not last night, I was quietly pushed away and she refused to spend the night with me."

"Honey,  the Bison Frise? I didn't know you and her were an item."

"So now you know. It's not like I hide it, I'm very happy with her, it's just that if Honey is upset I get upset and last night I didn't sleep a wink. I'm tired now, go away, let me rest."

"Just tell me where I can find her?"

"Probably in her yard. She must be tired too."

"i'll head out there, thanks for your help."

After our usual sniffing and horsing  around, I crossed Iams Blvd.  and headed south to Eukaneba Street, Honey's place was in the middle of the block. Slipping into her yard I noticed Honey flat on her tummy with just one eye opened.

"Hi Honey, seems something is bothering you. Care to share?"

"I'm upset and don't know where to begin."

"Start from the beginning, that always helps."

"So last night, Brad was supposed to come over and he was late, anyway, I was anxiously waiting for him and peeking under the gate by the alley. The gap is very narrow , however I noticed a feline, guess it was Mrs. Kit, jump on the dumpster foraging for leftovers. Soon I heard heavy thumping from the end of the alley, approaching the dumpster.  All I could see was tan and white huge paws, powerful legs and a short tail leap right into the dumpster. Next, I heard mewling, yelping and growling and then just silence. Oh, I can't go on."

"Come on, Honey, you're doing so good, please continue."

"Give a minute. OK, I saw powerful legs and paws leap off of the dumpster trot away to the right and away from my sight. I waited, peeking but did not see or hear anything after that. I can only imagine the fate of Mrs. Kit."

"So, heavy and powerful, tan and white paws."

"Yes I think Mrs. Kit was lifted, now I must rest, please go."

I turned around and left by the alley. I looked over the dumpster that faced Honey's home. It looked like any dumpster, no signs that a struggle had occurred the night before.  I was shocked, never had I heard a feline being attacked in my neighborhood. Tan and white, heavy and powerful paws and legs, meant only one thing, someone not from our turf had entered and violated our code.

In my haste to investigate, I had neglected to do our customary sniff and lick with Honey, next time I saw her I'd make up for it. I walked the length of Eukaneba Street to Beneful Blvd., to gather my thoughts. I, now knew what had to be done. I had to leave my neighborhood, walk over to someone else's turf, look for tan and white paws and legs, confront the guilty party and demand some answers.

First I needed help, from my own turf, I needed someone also with heavy and powerful paws and legs. Bull, the Mastiff was huge had humongous paws and legs, not tan and white but black and tan. Bull was also my friend and had my back whenever I needed him.

The sun was still bright, I left a message for Bull, outside his home, by the trunk of his shade tree. Tonight Bull and I would trek outside our neighborhood. Later that night Bull and I walked down Purina Place to the end of our turf at Pedigree. From there  we were all alone in a new area, an area that was unfamiliar and very dark.  While walking on Friskies Street I noticed some tan and white paws sticking out from under a Jacaranda tree. Bull and I cautiously approached the legs.

It became quite apparent that there would be no sniff and greet with this massive canine. Tan and white stood up and growled, but upon seeing Bull and his massive form, the growls quickly died down and only curiosity was in his eyes.

"I'm Pitt, how dare you violate the canine treaty and enter my domain uninvited."

"We had a report that last night you violated the treaty and entered our turf and lifted or worse one of our citizens, a Mrs. Kit."

"So what, felines are dog food, fools, be gone before I attack you with my powerful jaws."

Bull stretched to his full height and said, "I pity you, Pitt,  If you try anything funny with my friend here, I'll stomp you like the fat rat you are."

"Ha, ha ha just try it. I'm short but I'm very very strong, I'm sure I'll be more than enough for the two of you."

"Ok, ok." I cut in. "I'm sure you're strong and you'll try to fight the two of us. But it doesn't have to get there. All we want is information and the whereabouts of the feline."

"Why should I just roll over and do that?" "What is it in for me?"

"What are you hoping for?" I replied.

"I've not made up my mind, I know I'm the strongest and I'm sure I'm the fastest too.  Since the two are not here to fight, maybe we can race?"

Bull stepped up close to Pitt and said, "We're not the fastest in our turf but we do have the fastest canine in our group that can run circles around you. If you're game you can race with him."

"And if I win?"

"Then you can name your prize."

"All right, when and where?"

"Tomorrow, at the Science Diet Park by the westside dog run. Meet us and our team member at dusk."

Again, no sniff and lick, Bull and I returned to our turf. Once there silent Bull left on his way to wherever Mastiffs retire.
I had my work cut out for me. I had to see Doc, my favorite Dachshund.  He was a winner in all the Wiener races.
Doc was happy to see me. We sniffed and licked and pranced around each other. Then I told him what I wanted. Together we scouted the S.D. Park from one end to the next.
On the left side of the park an old metal culvert ran about half ways and then went underground. Doc and I , both being of short stature entered this metal drain. It narrowed as it went underground from about 3 feet to maybe a foot, foot and a half. Then it abruptly rose up and out of the ground into an abandoned area.  An idea was forming in my head, as things stood now Doc may or may not be as fast as Pitt, I had not seen Pitt run. But Doc was definitely shorter than Pitt. I whispered my plan to Doc and asked him to come to the park at dusk.
That night as dusk settled in we all went to the park. Pitt was there already.  Seeing Doc Pitt said. "Ha, ha ha, is this the best you can do? When I win, I'm going to eat him up for my snack and then I'll demand my prize."

"We'll see who wins, let's set some ground rules. Doc runs along that metal pipe and you follow him till the end.  After that the two of you race back to here."

"I'll gobble him up way before then, say your final goodbye to him now. And lets get on with this."
Doc took off, his short legs were a blur, his legs were pumping away fast and furiously.  His tongue was hanging out and his tail was pointed straight back. Pitt followed, his powerful legs leaping high and eating up the park fast, flecks of saliva spraying from his huge jaws, his stubby tail rigid and pointed upwards. Doc's legs were a blur as he entered the broken metal pipe, Doc went under and only the rapid tapping was heard.
Pitt slowed down as he came toward the entrance of the broken pipe. Sniffed for danger, but the strong whiff from Doc and his trail enticed him to speed up and enter the metal culvert.
Bull and I lost sight of both Doc and Pitt. We walked over to the midway point of the buried pipe. We could hear tapping and scrapping from the ground.

I imagined Doc scampering into the narrower and narrower pipe and Pitt following him. The deeper they ran the narrower the pipe became. Soon I could see Doc running out from under the pipe and ground.  There was no sign of Pitt yet.  Next we heard howling from under the ground. Pitt was bellowing, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck, dig me out quickly."

"Bull and I'll dig you out, only if you concede the race and tell us what happened to Mrs.Kit."

"Alright, alright don't get your panties in a bunch. Just get me out of here."

Bull and I started digging to free Pitt, he kept up the howling and chattering, "Mrs. Kit is unharmed, in my yard. I only wanted a playmate."
Soon Pitt was free and walked over with us to his yard. Mrs.Kit, Morris and Rosie were there too. Then we made sure that the feline and her loved ones were free to come and go.

"Pitt why did you do this?" I asked him.

"Look at me, I've a big mouth, very prominent jaws, stubby body and huge legs,  who could come near me and be my playmate? I have to always take weaker and smaller species than me. I, too, want someone to play with. I never harm them, just play with them."

"If that's true than you can come into our turf. We all would love to have you with us and be our friend. I'm sure we can only benefit with you're big and powerful jaws."
 A few days later Pitt has settled in, the felines are back and all is well. There's just one more thing left for me to do.  I've to go and complete my sniff and lick with Honey.

title: [MS] Doggy Detective

question: What is the mystery that the narrator is investigating in this story and what was the outcome?

answer: Mrs. Kit, one of the local cats has gone missing. The narrator wants to find out what happened to her. He finds in the end that a bull terrier from a neighboring suburb has kidnapped her so that he has someone to play with.

question: How do the characters in this story relay messages to one another?

answer: The characters in the story are dogs of various kinds. They leave messages for one another by urinating on various objects. When they want to leave messages for small dogs only, they urinate low down on bushes and fence posts.

question: Why is Brad sleeping in the middle of the day?

answer: Brad is tired. He didn't sleep a wink. His girlfriend, Honey, was upset about something and pushed him away. She refused to sleep with him away. This upset him so much that he couldn't sleep.


text:
Beyond salacious curiosity, Stormy Daniels' tale tells us a lot about how Trump operates — and what he fears most

By  Heather Digby Parton

March 26, 2018 12:08PM (UTC)

STORMY DANIELS ON "60 MINUTES," MARCH 25, 2018. (CBS)

Any decent public relations professional would have done anything to avoid footage of President Donald Trump arriving back at the White House on Marine One and sullenly trudging across the lawn alone as reporters shouted questions at him about the highly anticipated "60 Minutes" interview with adult film actress Stormy Daniels. But that's what they got on Sunday night when the president returned to Washington, leaving the first lady behind in Florida.

One imagines that people around Trump desperately wanted Melania to play the dutiful wife, as so many political spouses have done before, and stand by his side as the whole world looks on with pity. Considering that this major television interview came on the heels of another one, with former Playboy model Karen McDougal -- who says she had a full-fledged love affair with Trump during the same period -- one cannot blame Melania if she told them all to go to hell.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that Trump had dinner on Saturday night with his attorney Michael Cohen and Melania was not in attendance. It's possible the dinner conversation was a bit stilted, considering that Trump's trusted henchman is at the center of this scandal. Indeed, his behavior is one of the issues that takes this out of the realm of creepy marital misbehavior into something else entirely.

What's unfolding isn't just a story about a rich man's extracurricular liaisons or his alleged episodes of illegal sexual misconduct. The first isn't really of much interest except to the extent that it exposes the flagrant hypocrisy of his supporters, who rent their garments over the personal immorality of presidents of the past and now profess to be uninterested in such private matters. The second is a disgrace that may yet have a reckoning if another accuser, Summer Zervos, gets her day in court.

But beyond the cultural and social aspects of this scandal and what it says about the privileges of rich, white men and the exploitation of women, there is another serious issue of national civic importance. This is a story about a rich (and now extremely powerful) man who is so worried about being exposed or blackmailed that he has everyone who works for him sign nondisclosure agreements. Now it appears that he set up an elaborate system for paying hush money to keep people quiet. If Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels are telling the truth this system may include coercion, conspiracy and threats of violence.

In the "60 Minutes" interview Daniels basically told the same story about the Trump encounter that she told In Touch magazine in 2011. (The magazine was threatened with a lawsuit by Michael Cohen and held the story until last month.) What we hadn't heard before was that a few weeks after Daniels originally gave the interview, this happened:

  I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. Taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, getting all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." And then he was gone.

Daniels said she was "rattled" and indicated that encounter was in her mind later when she was offered large sums to tell the story during the 2016 election campaign. So when her attorney, Keith Davidson, came to her with the far less generous $130,000 offer from Michael Cohen, she took it, believing that the smart move was to get some money without having to fear for her safety. For similar reasons she agreed to sign additional denials about the affair after Trump became president. But in January, after the Wall Street Journal reported the story anyway, she hired a very clever lawyer to contest the nondisclosure agreement.

Those alleged threats would sound much more far-fetched if it weren't for the fact that Cohen himself is known to threaten people with language out of a grade-B gangster movie, and if Trump's former bodyguard Keith Schiller wasn't on film manhandling reporters at Trump's instruction (among other things.)  According to BuzzFeed, in 2009 an attorney representing some of the people who stood to lose fortunes in Trump's umpteenth casino bankruptcy reported a threatening phone call to the FBI in which the person said, "My name is Carmine. I don’t know why you’re fucking with Mr. Trump but if you keep fucking with Mr. Trump, we know where you live and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids." They traced the call to a pay phone in New York, across the street from where Trump was appearing on David Letterman at the same time.

Let's just say that Trump cannot claim that people around him would never stoop to thuggish behavior.

Karen McDougal's interview illustrates another dimension to this story. She is suing American Media Inc. (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story but did not publish it. She claims that her attorney Keith Davidson (who was also Daniels' former attorney) worked secretly with Michael Cohen and AMI as “part of a broad effort to silence and intimidate” her, and that this was a mutual effort to "catch and kill" stories that could damage Donald Trump.

This quote from David Pecker, the owner of AMI, from a New Yorker article by Jeffrey Toobin says it all:

  “Once she’s part of the company, then on the outside she can’t be bashing Trump and American Media.”

  I pointed out that bashing Trump was not the same as bashing American Media.

  “To me it is,” Pecker replied. “The guy’s a personal friend of mine.”

(This article by Scott Pilutik in Slate runs down the possible legal problems with this sort of "collusion," and they are substantial.)

As mentioned above, Davidson also represented Stormy Daniels, encouraging her to sign the nondisclosure agreement and accept the hush money. There are a number of parallels between the lawsuits filed by the two women, which raises the question of how many other people Trump may have paid off through this Cohen-Davidson back channel. How many have signed non-disclosure agreements under duress?

This isn't just idle tabloid curiosity. Donald Trump could not pass a background check to work as a security guard at the Mall of America, much less the White House. It is clear that he has paid hush money to people and worked in concert with friends to keep them quiet. All of this can only lend more credibility to the suspicion that he might be subject to blackmail by other people, beyond the women with whom he's had sex. Who knows? It might even be a foreign government or two.

Heather Digby Parton

Heather Digby Parton, also known as "Digby," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.

MORE FROM HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

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question: Why was the first lady not with the president when he returned home?

answer: The first lady stayed behind in Florida. The writer implies that the president was left to face the press on his own because there is now proof that he has had more than one affair. Melania Trump is fed up.

question: What accusations are leveled against Donald Trump in this article?

answer: He set up an elaborate system for paying hush money to keep people quiet. It appears he also arranged for Daniels to be threatened. A man told her to leave Trump alone and made a reference to her not being around for much longer. Daniels had been offered large sums of money for the story. When Michael Cohen offered $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement she took the money and signed.


text:
FRANKLIN COUNTY is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2010 census, the population was 3,225.[1] Its county seat is Franklin.[2] The county was formed in 1867 and organized in 1871.[3][4] It was named for Benjamin Franklin.[5]

In the Nebraska license plate system, Franklin County is represented by the prefix 50 (it had the 50th-largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).

Geography

Franklin County lies on the south line of Nebraska. Its south boundary line abuts the north boundary line of the state of Kansas. The Republican River flows eastward through the southern part of Franklin County.[6]

According to the US Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.03%) is water.[7]

Major highways

-   [] U.S. Highway 136
-   [] Nebraska Highway 4
-   [] Nebraska Highway 10
-   [] Nebraska Highway 44

Adjacent counties

-   Kearney County - north
-   Webster County - east
-   Smith County, Kansas - southeast
-   Phillips County, Kansas - southwest
-   Harlan County - west
-   Phelps County - northwest

Demographics

As of the 2000 United States Census,[8] there were 3,574 people, 1,485 households, and 1,021 families in the county. The population density was 6 people per square mile (2/km²). There were 1,746 housing units at an average density of 3 per square mile (1/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 99.24% White, 0.28% Native American, 0.06% Asian, 0.08% from other races, and 0.34% from two or more races. 0.64% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 63.5% were of German, 6.8% American, 6.6% English and 5.7% Irish ancestry.

There were 1,485 households, out of which 28.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.40% were married couples living together, 6.00% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.20% were non-families. 29.20% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 2.87.

The county population contained 24.50% under the age of 18, 4.50% from 18 to 24, 23.60% from 25 to 44, 23.50% from 45 to 64, and 23.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there were 92.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.00 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $29,304, and the median income for a family was $34,958. Males had a median income of $26,192 versus $18,214 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,390. About 9.70% of families and 13.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.20% of those under age 18 and 9.40% of those age 65 or over.

Communities

-   Bloomington
-   Campbell
-   Franklin (county seat)
-   Hildreth
-   Macon[9]
-   Naponee
-   Riverton
-   Upland

Politics

Franklin County voters have been reliably Republican for decades. In no national election since 1964 has the county selected the Democratic Party candidate (as of 2016).

  Year                               Republican                                  Democratic                                  Third Parties
  ---------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
  style=“text-align:center;” |2016   style=“text-align:center;” |80.5% _1,347_   style=“text-align:center;” |14.9% _250_     4.5% _76_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2012   style=“text-align:center;” |72.4% _1,112_   style=“text-align:center;” |25.0% _384_     2.6% _40_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2008   style=“text-align:center;” |69.5% _1,079_   style=“text-align:center;” |28.5% _442_     2.0% _31_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2004   style=“text-align:center;” |74.5% _1,277_   style=“text-align:center;” |24.0% _412_     1.5% _25_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2000   style=“text-align:center;” |71.7% _1,196_   style=“text-align:center;” |25.2% _420_     3.1% _52_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1996   style=“text-align:center;” |59.0% _1,013_   style=“text-align:center;” |28.2% _483_     12.8% _220_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1992   style=“text-align:center;” |48.9% _969_     style=“text-align:center;” |24.1% _477_     27.1% _537_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1988   style=“text-align:center;” |62.1% _1,294_   style=“text-align:center;” |36.8% _768_     1.1% _23_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1984   style=“text-align:center;” |75.1% _1,597_   style=“text-align:center;” |24.5% _522_     0.4% _8_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1980   style=“text-align:center;” |74.0% _1,675_   style=“text-align:center;” |19.5% _441_     6.6% _149_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1976   style=“text-align:center;” |54.1% _1,170_   style=“text-align:center;” |43.5% _941_     2.4% _52_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1972   style=“text-align:center;” |71.6% _1,510_   style=“text-align:center;” |28.4% _599_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1968   style=“text-align:center;” |65.0% _1,447_   style=“text-align:center;” |28.1% _626_     6.8% _152_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1964   style=“text-align:center;” |46.8% _1,241_   style=“text-align:center;” |53.2% _1,409_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1960   style=“text-align:center;” |64.2% _1,798_   style=“text-align:center;” |35.8% _1,003_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1956   style=“text-align:center;” |68.8% _1,955_   style=“text-align:center;” |31.2% _888_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1952   style=“text-align:center;” |75.9% _2,438_   style=“text-align:center;” |24.1% _775_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1948   style=“text-align:center;” |53.7% _1,555_   style=“text-align:center;” |46.3% _1,340_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1944   style=“text-align:center;” |68.3% _2,085_   style=“text-align:center;” |31.7% _969_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1940   style=“text-align:center;” |63.1% _2,354_   style=“text-align:center;” |36.9% _1,378_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1936   style=“text-align:center;” |40.5% _1,685_   style=“text-align:center;” |56.4% _2,350_   3.1% _130_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1932   style=“text-align:center;” |34.3% _1,404_   style=“text-align:center;” |64.4% _2,633_   1.3% _54_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1928   style=“text-align:center;” |63.4% _2,533_   style=“text-align:center;” |36.1% _1,443_   0.4% _17_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1924   style=“text-align:center;” |51.3% _1,920_   style=“text-align:center;” |35.5% _1,331_   13.2% _494_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1920   style=“text-align:center;” |67.4% _2,294_   style=“text-align:center;” |30.3% _1,030_   2.3% _79_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1916   style=“text-align:center;” |43.2% _1,081_   style=“text-align:center;” |53.8% _1,345_   3.0% _74_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1912   style=“text-align:center;” |14.2% _332_     style=“text-align:center;” |48.9% _1,148_   36.9% _867_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1908   style=“text-align:center;” |43.7% _1,083_   style=“text-align:center;” |52.4% _1,298_   3.8% _95_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1904   style=“text-align:center;” |58.6% _1,269_   style=“text-align:center;” |21.7% _471_     19.7% _427_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1900   style=“text-align:center;” |45.5% _984_     style=“text-align:center;” |51.9% _1,122_   2.7% _58_

  : PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS[10]

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[9] [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Macon,+NE+68939/@40.2050122,-98.9613361,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x87992505069f2115:0xe80bfc54d7a7dfba!2sKearney+County,+NE!3b1!8m2!3d40.5328331!4d-98.9245343!3m4!1s0x8798dbd8ce43b90d:0xa4bd28ae6b0c9500!8m2!3d40.2050337!4d-98.95257 _Macon NE_ Google Maps (accessed 20 January 2019)]

[10] Election Results

title: Franklin County, Nebraska

question: What does the text say about the people living in Franklin county?

answer: The text mentions the demographics of the county, which contains a bit more than 3000 people. The people are overwhelmingly white, with non-whites being less than 1% of the population. About two-thirds of the population is of German descent. Almost 60% of households in Franklin county are married, and the average household has 2.34 people. A quarter of the population is below 18 years of age while the median age is 43. The average per capita income in the county is $15,390 with about 13% of the population living below the poverty line. The populace is also mostly Republican.

question: What does the text say about Washington county?


text:
Producer/directors David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker--"ZAZ” to their closest friends--wrote the hit film “Airplane!”

They created the TV series and cult video favorite “Police Squad!”

They made the summer box-office disappointment of 1984: “Top Secret!” Now comes “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!”

What--beyond a passion for bad puns and exclamation marks--is the formula behind this threesome’s success??!! (Except for “Top Secret!,” which didn’t do so well.)

It was time to investigate--even if it meant exchanging free “Naked Gun” publicity for some insights into their creative secrets.

Abrahams and the Zucker brothers work out of a sixth-floor office in West Los Angeles, behind a door marked “Millard E. Flausner, D.D.S.” How-to dental flossing charts fill the walls of the waiting room. A visitor can even study--in detail--the progression of periodontal disease, from gingivitis to advanced decay.

“I’m surprised they didn’t make me wear a hygienist’s uniform today,” says receptionist Leslie Maier. “They often do.

“I don’t mind. Really.”

Down the hall, to the right of Maier’s desk, is the conference room where it all happens. To the left, is the ‘50s-style kitchenette, complete with basketball hoop, string and the telephone prop from “Top Secret!” (which didn’t do very well at the box office).

In the conference room, there’s a bulletin board plastered with 5-by-7 index cards which hold their top secret plot lines and gags. In the corner sits a TV and VCR; the ZAZ team spends a lot of time in front of the tube, mining old movies and TV shows for material.

David, the elder Zucker brother and the solo director of “Naked Gun,” is at the head of a large oval conference table. On his left is his brother Jerry, who has the look of someone who cut short a promising career as a stand-up comic. On his right is Abrahams, the eldest of the three and a friend of the Zuckers since childhood. All three have just returned from touring college campuses to promote their new film.

Jerry tackles the first question: How did ZAZ settle on the title, “The Naked Gun”?

Jerry: I got asked that a lot of college campuses. I would just apologize profusely.

David: “Police Squad” was the original title. But Paramount was leery about having it confused with the “Police Academy” series. They didn’t want to confuse anyone who wanted to see Steve Guttenberg for a sixth time. So they gave us a list of 20 other titles. We picked “Naked Gun” because it promised so much more than it could ever possibly deliver.

Jerry: We wanted to call it “Ronald Zhivago,” but we didn’t want it to get confused with “Doctor Zhivago.” Then there was “BAM BAM BAM!”. But David tested it out the way he does with all titles: He went to cocktail parties and said, “Oh yes, I just directed ‘BAM BAM BAM!’ ” It just didn’t cut it.

The decision to cast Leslie Nielsen as the star, Lt. Frank Drebin, was an obvious one: Nielson had created the role of Drebin in the TV series “Police Squad!” Likewise, the casting of Charlotte Zucker as Ricardo Montalban’s secretary was understandable: She is the Zucker brothers’ mother.

But how did they finally settle on Priscilla Presley as Nielsen’s co-star?

Jerry: “We didn’t want anyone that had done comedy before . . . We screened some episodes of “Dallas” and she seemed just perfect for it. Then we met her and realized she was also a really sweet person.”

Jim: “And she was great--except for the day that Elvis showed up on the set.”

Some of the material in “Naked Gun” is original. But mostly the ZAZ trio stole--from old movies, TV series, even their own show, “Police Squad!” Among the films they admitted pilfering from were “Dirty Harry,” “Telefon,” “Farewell, My Lovely,” “Day of the Jackal"--"and some movies that are coming out next year,” adds Jerry.

For example, in “Farewell, My Lovely,” Charlotte Rampling glides sexily down the stairs under the unwavering stare of Robert Mitchum. Presley does the same scene, but trips.

“Day of the Jackal” gave them the idea for a plot line in which the Queen of England is the target of an assassin.

Jim: In that film there is an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle, so we thought it would be a fun thing to have.

David: The queen is someone people know and care about.

Jim: And Charles de Gaulle is already dead.

Jerry: We didn’t want to be redundant.

Nearly a dozen world leaders appear in “Naked Gun.” Was ZAZ trying for some sort of broad sociopolitical statement?

Jim: I think what we were after was: “Just Say No.”

Older by a couple years than either Zucker, Abrahams already had a successful career as a private investigator in Milwaukee before he gave up his company car--a green Ford Galaxy--to follow the Zucker brothers to L.A. The Zuckers still have a photo of Abrahams sitting, dejected, on a Pico Boulevard curb in front of the condemned building--once a drug rehabilitation center--they had leased for their “Kentucky Fried Theater” show.

They had struck out for L.A. confident that they could transplant the popularity of their comedy theater. Launched with three other friends in the back of a Madison, Wis., bookstore, the “Kentucky Fried Theater” comedy troupe was performing in front of sold-out audiences within weeks.

The threesome had gotten to know one another growing up in Milwaukee, where their families were intertwined both socially and professionally.

Jerry: Our fathers were business partners. Our sisters were roommates in college. And our mothers danced at the same topless club.

Jim: The Boom-Boom Room.

David: On Wall Street in Milwaukee.

They obtained independent financial backing for their first film, “Kentucky Fried Movie” in 1977, with John Landis directing. The ZAZ team continues to work with colleagues from their “Kentucky Fried” days: Pat Proft, who appeared on stage with them in L.A., helped write the screenplay for “Naked Gun,” and Robert K. Weiss, who produced “Kentucky Fried Movie,” also receives a producer credit on “Naked Gun.”

Until recently--with David Zucker directing “Naked Gun” and Abrahams making his solo directorial debut in Disney’s “Big Business"--ZAZ had written and directed as a team. That arrangement might be confusing for actors and film crews, but it appears to have created few tensions within the team itself.

Jerry: Although there was that argument--in “Airplane!"--over the blouse. I thought it should be white with checks. Jim thought it should be green and white. And David _insisted_ on blue taffeta.

Jim: We do have our own separate lives outside of work, you know. David has a small religious school.

David: Jim has his kite collection.

Jerry: And I collect sweaters.

The ZAZ team obtained a studio contract from Paramount to make “Airplane!” a spoof on the disaster movies of the 1970s, and the film was a surprise box-office hit when it was released in 1980. Two years later, they developed “Police Squad!” for TV, but only six episodes were made. In the summer of 1984, Paramount released their film “Top Secret!” (which grossed a respectable, but disappointing, $20 million at the box office).

ZAZ also directed one of the early box-office hits for the new management team at Disney, “Ruthless People” starring Bette Midler and Danny De Vito. But credit for writing the screenplay goes to Dale Launer.

David: Now that was a different experience for us since it was written by someone else. But we did add certain items to the plot, like the videotape subplot with the chief of police.

Jim: And the part where Judge (Reinhold) works in the stereo store.

Jerry: And that he was married to Helen (Slater).

David: And the part where Bette (Midler) gets kidnaped.

Jerry: We’re pulling your leg.

Funny guys.

question: Which of their works performed more poorly than the rest?

answer: "Top Secret!"

question: How did the trio come up with their ideas?

answer: They ripped off other films and works.


text:
JOHN CARROLL MILLER JR. (December 25, 1912 - July 29, 2000) was a decorated officer in the United States Marine Corps with the rank of Brigadier general. A veteran of the Pacific War, he was wounded twice and received decorations for valor on Saipan and Okinawa. He remained in the Marines and retired as Brigadier general and Commanding general, Landing Force Training Command, Atlantic.[1]

Early career

John C. Miller Jr. was born on Christmas Day 1912 at Lake Andes, South Dakota, then son of John C. Miller and Hazel Peck. He graduated from high school there in summer 1931 and entered the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota. While at the University, Miller was a member of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps.[2]

He graduated with Bachelor's degree in June 1935 and was commissioned second lieutenant of Infantry in the Army Reserves. Miller resigned his reserve commission in order to accept appointment as second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on September 10, 1935. He was subsequently ordered to the Basic School at Philadelphia Navy Yard for basic officer and was a member of the largest Basic School class to that date.[3][4]

This class provided two future Marine Corps Commandants (Leonard F. Chapman Jr. and Robert E. Cushman Jr.), five lieutenant generals (Lewis J. Fields, Frederick E. Leek, Herman Nickerson Jr., William J. Van Ryzin, Richard G. Weede), five major generals (William R. Collins, William T. Fairbourn, Bruno Hochmuth, Raymond L. Murray, Carey A. Randall) and six brigadier generals (William W. Buchanan, Odell M. Conoley, Frederick P. Henderson, Roy L. Kline, Miller Jr. and Thomas F. Riley).[5][6]

Miller completed the school in May 1936 and was attached to the Marine Detachment aboard the battleship USS _New Mexico_. He participated in the patrol cruises to Hawaii until August 1937, when he was ordered to China for duty with 6th Marine Regiment stationed as the part of Brigadier general John C. Beaumont's 2nd Marine Brigade at Shanghai International Settlement. He served in Shanghai during the outbreak of hostilities between China and Japan and returned with his regiment to the United States in April 1938.[7]

He was then stationed at Marine Barracks, San Diego and received promotion to first lieutenant in October 1938. Miller was transferred to the Marine Barracks at Mare Island Navy Yard in May 1939 and assumed command of local barracks Marine Detachment in October that year. While in this capacity, he also saw temporary additional duty at the receiving ship, San Francisco, California in connection with Western Division Rifle and Pistol Matches.[8]

World War II

With the increasing danger of Japanese expansion in Pacific during 1939, chairman of Navy's Special Board, Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn, recommended the activation of Marine defense battalions. These special marine units were designated the defense force of the Pacific naval bases and should be placed on Midway Atoll, Wake Island, Johnston Atoll and Palmyra Atoll.[9]

In August 1940, Miller joined the 1st Defense Battalion under lieutenant colonel Bertram A. Bone in San Diego and embarked for Pearl Harbor in February 1941, where he was promoted to Captain in November that year. Single detachments of the battalion were emplaced on Midway, Wake, Johnston and Palmyra Atolls.[10]

During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Miller participated in the defense of the harbor and later commanded 5"/51 caliber gun detachment at Palmyra Atoll. While there, he was promoted to Major in May 1942.

Miller was ordered to Johnston Atoll in February 1943 and joined newly established 16th Defense Battalion under lieutenant colonel Richard P. Ross. He assumed duty as Executive officer of the battalion and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in July that year. He was ordered to San Diego, California one month later and assumed duty as Area Ordnance Officer, Fleet Marine Force, San Diego area under Major general Clayton B. Vogel.[11]

He was responsible for the supplying of units in San Diego with weapons and ammunition, including their procurement and maintenance until February 1944, when he was ordered back to Hawaii for duty as Commanding officer, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines attached to 2nd Marine Division under Major general Thomas E. Watson.[12][13] [Miller as Executive officer, 16th Defense Battalion at his desk somewhere in Pacific.] After a period of heavy fighting on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943, the 8th Marine Regiment under lieutenant colonel John H. Griebel needed rest and refit. Miller spent four months with the intensive training in mountainous area between the great volcanoes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and finally embarked with his battalion for Saipan in late May 1944.[14][15]

Miller took part in the main landing on June 15, 1944 and was badly wounded by mortar fragments during the approach to the beach. He remained in command of his battalion and directed operation of his battalion until he was wounded again and ordered to the rear by his superior officer. For his leadership on Saipan, Miller was decorated with Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" and two Purple Hearts for wounds.[16][17][18]

He was hospitalized at Naval Hospital, San Diego until January 1945, when he was declared fit for duty and embarked again for Pacific area. Miller joined 5th Marine Regiment under his old superior officer, now Colonel John H. Griebel, who got new command following promotion. He served as Regimental operations officer during the period of intensive training at Pavuvu Island, Russell Islands, where 5th Marine Regiment was stationed for rest and refit after heavy fighting on Peleliu during September-October 1944. The situation similar with that one with 8th Marines on Hawaii back in early 1944.[19]

Shortly thereafter, Miller was attached as observer to the Army's 7th Infantry Division under Major general Archibald V. Arnold and participated in the combats in the Philippines and Okinawa, While on Okinawa, he rejoined 5th Marine Regiment on April 4, 1945, when commanding officer of 3rd Battalion, Major John H. Gustafson, was wounded in action and Colonel Griebel needed replacement.[20][21]

Miller assumed temporary command of the battalion and participated in the heavy combats in the Awacha pocket, a Japanese stronghold built into a maze of clifflike ridges and tangled gorges. After a repeated Marine attacks with the support of Air, Artillery, tank and naval gunfire support, the Japanese resistance was crushed on May 15, 1945. For his service on Okinawa, Miller received his second Bronze Star Medal. He was subsequently relieved and returned to the United States.[22]

Postwar service

After a two-month leave, Miller was ordered to the Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, where he entered the Command and Staff Course, which he completed in February 1946. He then assumed duty as an Instructor in the Senior Course at the Amphibious Warfare School and remained in that assignment until June 1948.[23]

Miller was subsequently ordered to Camp Pendleton, California, where he joined the staff of 1st Marine Division under Major general WHO and served for two years as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations and Training. He was ordered to the Panama Canal Zone in July 1950 and served as Executive Officer of the Marine Barracks, 15th Naval District under Rear admiral Albert M. Bledsoe until February 1951.[24]

Upon his return stateside, Miller was promoted to Colonel and attached to the Troop Training Unit, Amphibious Training Command, Pacific Fleet at Coronado, California. He served consecutively as Director of Training under Brigadier generals John T. Selden, William W. Davies and Chesty Puller and also saw temporary duty in Japan in 1952 as Chief of Troop Training Team, Amphibious Force, Far East during the Korean War.[25]

In July 1953, Miller was sent back to Camp Pendleton for duty as Chief of Staff, 3rd Marine Division under Major general Robert H. Pepper and embarked for Japan the following month as Chief of Staff of the 3rd Marine Division Advance Echelon. He was appointed Commanding officer of 3rd Marine Division's 4th Marine Regiment stationed at Camp Nara, Honshu in October 1953. His regiment served as a garrison force in Japan and its assigned mission was that of sharing in the defense responsibilities for southern Honshu and of being ready for rapid transfer to potential hot spots in the Far East. Miller was appointed Divisional Assistant Chief of Staff for Logistics in April 1954.[26][27]

During August that year, General Pepper was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed Commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific with headquarters on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Miller followed him as his Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations and Training and served in this capacity also under Pepper's successor, lieutenant general William O. Brice. Miller was transferred to the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia in July 1956 and assumed duty as a member of the Advanced Research Group, tasked with the development of recommendations on how the Marine air-ground task force should evolve structurally to meet the challenges of atomic warfare and new technologies such as helicopters and jet aircraft.[28][29][30]

In July 1957, Miller was ordered to London, England and assumed duty as Force Marine Officer on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean under Admiral James L. Holloway Jr. He served in this capacity during the Lebanon Crisis, a threat of a civil war between Maronite Christians and Muslims and also held additional duty as Senior Marine Officer on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Specified Command, Middle East.[31]

He returned to Quantico in July 1959 and assumed duty as Deputy Director, Marine Corps Educational Center within the Marine Corps Schools, Quantico under lieutenant general Merrill B. Twining. Miller was appointed Director of the Center in November that year and promoted to the rank of Brigadier general on January 1, 1960. His main responsibility was the Education of Marine Corps officers at each stage of officer's career. The Marine Corps Educational Center consisted of four resident schools and one correspondce or extension school. These are known as the Basic School focused on basic training for newly commissioned officers; Junior School for second and first lieutenants; Senior School for Captain and above; Communication Officers School trained selected junior officers in the operational aspects of communications; and Extension School prepared and administered correspondence courses that parallel resident instruction.[32][33]

In September 1961, he was appointed Director of the Marine Corps Landing Force Development Center at Quantico, which was focused on the development and testing of new tactics, equipment and techniques. Miller held that command until June 1962, when he was ordered to Norfolk Navy Yard for duty as Commanding general, Landing Force Training Unit, Atlantic.[34]

While in this capacity, Miller's command trained over 46,000 officers and men of the U.S. Military services and over 1,000 members of the armed forces of friendly foreign nations were trained in the various aspects of landing force operations related to amphibious assault. He also held additional duty as Commander, Amphibious Training Command, Atlantic Fleet and served as the director of control group during for exercise Steel Pike I, then-the largest peacetime amphibious exercise ever conducted with more than 55,000 U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel, 1,800 Spanish Marines, and 141 ships participating.[35]

Miller served Norfolk until April 1, 1965, when he retired from active duty after 30 years of commissioned service. For his service as Commanding general, Landing Force Training Unit, Atlantic, he was decorated with Legion of Merit.[36]

Retirement

Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, Miller settled on Oahu, Hawaii and remained there until summer of 2000, when he was ordered to the Naval Hospital, San Diego, California for treatment. He died there on July 29, 2000, aged 87, and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. Miller was married to Margaret Pohlman and had two daughters Susan Hawkins and Jane Moritz.[37][38]

Decorations

Here is the ribbon bar of Brigadier General Miller:[39]

  -- -- --
  -- -- --

  1st Row                             Legion of Merit
  --------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------
  2nd Row          Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” and one " Gold Star
  3rd Row                           China Service Medal
  4th Row    Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three 3/16 inch service stars
  5th Row                          Korean Service Medal

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[39]

title: John C. Miller Jr.

question: What rank did John Carroll Miller Jr. hold?

answer: He held the rank of Brigadier general.

question: Was Miller a part of defending the Pearl Harbour attack?

answer: Yes, Miller was promoted to Captain in November.

question: When did Miller retire?

answer: Miller retired in 1965 after serving for thirty years.

question: What did Miller do post his retirement?

answer: Post his retirement, Miller settled in Oahu, Hawaii.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer:
John Carroll Miller Jr. was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps with the rank of Brigadier general. Post his graduation in 1935, he was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry in the Army Reserves. He resigned from there and accepted the appointment as second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

Miller had also joined the 1st Defense Battalion and embarked for Pearl Harbor, where he was promoted to Captain. He was badly wounded by mortar fragments during the main landing in June 1944.

He retired in 1965 after serving the Marine Corps for 30 years and settled in Oahu, Hawaii.


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NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS CELL is a branch under the Cabinet Division of Bangladesh tasked with reviewing the activities and problems relating to internal state security.[1][2] It operates under the support of the National Committee on Security Affairs (NCSA). Asaduzzaman Mia is the first and incumbent chief executive officer (CEO) of the cell. He was made CEO ON 14 September 2019.[3]

[1]

[2]

[3]

title: National Security Affairs Cell

question: What is the National Security Affairs Cell?

answer: a branch under the Cabinet Division of Bangladesh tasked with reviewing activities and problems relating to internal state security.

question: What body supports the National Affairs Cell?

answer: the National Committee on Security Affairs

question: Who is the CEO of the National Affairs Cell?

answer: Asaduzzaman Mia

question: When did Asaduzzaman Mia become CEO of the National Affairs Cell?

answer: 14 September 2019

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The National Affairs Cell is a branch under the Cabinet Division of Bangladesh tasked with reviewing activities and problems relating to internal state security.